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Learning to love FCP X
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[Jeremy Garchow] “but if I can’t get a singnal to our rather modern client plasma display, then they don’t want us.”
But is the problem FCP-X (or legacy for that matter) or the fact that nearly every “plasma display” I’ve ever encountered has colorometry that might as well have been set by a 60’s hippy high on LSD?
Don’t tell me you’ve never walked into a sports bar with five different “high end” plasma screens, only to notice that each of them displays the same broadcast signal (presumptively from the same distribution amp) WAY differently.
That’s the real world we’re trying to live in. One that also, I might add, increasingly specifies – that broadcast files be delivered as “first to last frame of video – no bars – no tone.”
Look I was trained in the era where blue gun and color bar adjustment was step one before you ever trusted any picture anywhere.
I’m just saying that world is going away. I don’t like it any more than anyone else. But it’s reality.
And sorry, but I can see where the wind is blowing. If color processing doesn’t become more “automatic” and less a function of something you export to “monitor X” to judge, the system is going to fail. Because fewer and fewer people in the jobs up and down the real world of end to end broadcast can tell you the difference between PLUGE and plum pudding.
More bad change? Yes. More lowering of standards? Also yes. But it’s the market talking – right or wrong.
I’m migrating three of my clients libraries to Vimeo Pro right now. These are companies who’ve been doing traditional broadcast commercial work for years. What happens when they get more hits on their web channel than they do on the local NBC affiliate? They’re smart enough to understand that in a world moving to PULL from PUSH – they have to change. So do we all.
That work requires internal standards that are as much WEB consistent as they are broadcast safe. And X has the basic tools build in to accommodate that. The harsh truth is that if enough people truly need the kind of export monitoring that you (and many other pros here do – than someone will fill that need. Possibly Apple, but equally possibly someone else like BlackMagic or InVidia, or maybe the folks at B&H for all I know (someone who’s making enough money at least to keep their doors open and look for new opportunities – its sure not likely to be Kodak or HP!)
That’s the reality I see out there, like it or not. I don’t know if you have kids at home, but measure the amount of time they spend on-line verses watching broadcast TV or going to the movies.
That’s the really scary shift.
FWIW.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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[David Roth Weiss] “Correct color is easy, it’s insuring that fields in interlaced video are interpreted properly that absolutely requires proper output to a video monitor or TV.”
David,
Repeat after me. Fields are critical if an only if broadcast is your holy grail. But it is increasingly NOT. Have someone pull you the latest Nelsons. The TV audience is continually shrinking. It peaked toward the end of the last century and has been in steady decline ever since.
Nobody cares about you “fields” on the internet. And that’s where the eyeballs are migrating.
As I noted in a post above, as a parent of a 19 year old, I’ve got a house full of teens hanging out here most of the time. They probably watch 1-2 hours of TV for every 8 hours they’re on-line. If you think that’s going to reverse itself. Fine. Keep your broadcast centric view.
I can’t.
I’m trying to see where things are going. Even in my own life.
Believe it or not, I’m likely to watched more episodic TV via iTunes subscriptions while I’m working out on my treadmill than I watch in real-time anymore. Yes, there’s a cost penalty – but it’s one I happily pay since I get to avoid the constant shilling for crap I don’t really need via commercials, and the story arcs are more engaging when you don’t have to leave the show flow for 4 to 8 minutes 4-6 times an hour.
TV will be ONE player for a long time – but one among many. And if I, or Apple, let that be the sole determining factor – opportunities will be massively missed, IMO.
FWIW.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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[Walter Soyka] “Accuracy means you know what your colors actually are, and that comes from a good, well-profiled monitor.”
Well, to be more accurate, Walter, it “used to come exclusively from a good, well-profiled monitor.”
I’m not convinced that is going to be the case for all the much longer. They’ve already proved they can build traditional VS and WFM scopes into software. I’d welcome some new tool that lets us dispense with the pixels on an external display and just gives us something that intelligently displays whites, blacks, skin tones color distribution,s and heck, why not throw focus maps and audio levels in as well — and makes it all simpler to understand than the vectorscopes built for a bygone era.
You know, now that I think of it, my Marshall field monitors have edge detection for focus, and color exposure mapping algorithms that are killer useful in field production settings once you learn how to use them correctly — essentially making up for inconsistent pixel displays in their relatively inexpensive LCD screens.
It takes a simpler, more modern approach to the traditional process of picture judgement – and works great.
It would ROCK if the FCP engineers could come up with something similar for signal judging.
One thing I DO know is that I’ve already had about 3 pieces of very expensive Tektronics gear hauled off to the dump in the past 12 years of my career – and I’m decidedly NOT anxious to go through anything similar to that ever again!
FWIW.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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[Bill Davis] “David,
Repeat after me. Fields are critical if an only if broadcast is your holy grail. But it is increasingly NOT.”
Sorry Bill, but your position on this matter indicates that you have a fundamental lack of understanding of what professional finishing editors do for a living. And, you don’t seem to know that finishing editors are in fact, more often than not, legally responsible for delivering a proper master that will pass quality control (QC) standards.
My job and my responsibility as a finishing editor, even if the primary goal at this time is only a video for Web distribution, requires that I also deliver a finished full-resolution master of known quality to my clients, in every case. There are no exceptions.
Delivering a completed master, with proper specs (including proper field order), is the only way to insure that a client can repurpose their video for any and all future needs, for years to come, and in perpetuity. And, the only way to achieve that end is to know that what I’m delivering will pass QC. The job requires proper monitoring of the video signal, and that simply cannot be accomplished in FCPX, at least not now.
What I’m telling you about this and have been telling you about this all along is both fact and science; it’s not my opinion, and it’s not open to debate, it’s just reality. So, you can argue all you want, you can make all the silly analogies you want, and you can write all the specious rhetoric you want, but this is one discussion you cannot win.
Do you get it?
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comDon’t miss my new Creative Cow Podcast: Bringing “The Whale” to the Big Screen:
https://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/Podcast-Series-2-MikeParfitandSuzanneChisholm/1POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.
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“[Walter Soyka] “Accuracy means you know what your colors actually are, and that comes from a good, well-profiled monitor.”
[Bill Davis]“Well, to be more accurate, Walter, it “used to come exclusively from a good, well-profiled monitor.” “
Bill, your statement is factually incorrect.
Please note I didn’t say “broadcast monitor.” ColorSync, like all color management systems, requires a known, profiled display in order to accurate show color. If you haven’t profiled your computer monitor, you aren’t letting the color management system do its job, and you aren’t seeing accurate color.
Measurement systems like Marshall’s false color filter for judging exposure are indeed very useful. Working with color is part science, but also part art. Measurement tools are critical for the objective part of the job, but accurately seeing the final image is critical for the subjective part, and you need to profile your monitor to see accurate color.
Simple as that.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Don Scioli] “S@#$t”
stunt?
stint?
smelt?
sport?
split?
spurt?
stout?
skirt?
scent?
shaft? (maybe)
shift?
sheet?Of course!
Sheet!
You spent the entire afternoon with that piece of sheet.
Glad I finally got this. It was driving me crazy. Really tripped me up with a 5 letter word. I couldn’t get the 4 letter version out of my head.
Although, I think it’s okay to say sheet. Isn’t it?
Perhaps I’ve played too much Sporcle.
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[Bill Davis] “Don’t tell me you’ve never walked into a sports bar with five different “high end” plasma screens, only to notice that each of them displays the same broadcast signal (presumptively from the same distribution amp) WAY differently. “
Absolutely. And it’s usually a composite signal sent to an HD monitor and the picture is highly compromised.
As much as it would be fun, we don’t work in sports bar. We have an HDSDI signal that gets routed to an HDMI converter. The plasma screen looks awesome. It does not accept display port. It’s really that simple. If Apple thinks that we need displayport everywhere (which I don’t think they do) they are wrong. We need HDSDI or HDMI at the very least. I have no doubt that FCPX will allow professional monitoring with the next release.
I am not talking about accuracy here, I am talking about video signal distribution which is totally different and simply can’t be done with today’s displayport tech. Apple is smart and they know this.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Yes, we will. I will say that with a release of current Kona drivers, in the very bottom of the release notes, they say that all Kona cards are now “Thunderbolt aware”. So, there’s some real context.”
What exactly do you think that means? Not challenging, just asking. Do you think it means they will recognize a TB RAID… that it was designed to be in a card cage? I’m talking to a lot of people and nobody knows what they means. Maybe you do?
[Jeremy Garchow] You mean like 400 or 800 mbsit/sec firewire? You do understand the Thunderbolt is a PCIe protocol, correct? This isn’t firewire anymore, it is spec’d @ 10Gb/sec.
Of course I do. Do we need to be insulting?
[Jeremy Garchow] I cannot take my K3 on set, but I can my ioHD or Express. Have you worked with an ioExpress that runs on PCIe? Do you find it “bottlenecks”? Contextually, I would be able to being a K3 on set and run it from a MacBook Pro in a thunderbolt cage. I have no idea if this is going to work or not, but again, I have higher hopes than “Apple is going to force us to buy a thunderbolt display”. If that’s the case, they really don’t want us. That’s fine, I’ll move on.
Sure you could, and yes I have. I understand your point, and I agree with you on what your preference is and how important this is to Apple… you… me and others.
[Jeremy Garchow] To me, broadcast out is baseband video, not a Thunderbolt display. So far, Apple has set told us what’s coming with FCPX, and delivered on those prmoises. They wouldn’t say broadcast out if they meant a thunderbolt display setup to “broadcast colors”. I know that Apple has created a huge swath of uncertainty, but they haven’t lied quite yet.
You nailed it Jeremy on the baseband video comment. Hopefully the fact that we agree won’t be too disappointing for you. With regard to Apple, I’m keeping an open mind. “Early 2012” is a big opportunity for Apple. If the Multicam is killer and they actually provide baseband video to existing pro hardware, they will have a much larger fan base for FCPX.
[Jeremy Garchow] Have you taken a good look at the ioXT specs? It bests a Kona 3 in certain respects (but certainly not the Kona 3G). It does a lot of things in a very small package.
Yes, it’s an interesting product, but I still prefer the K3. Believe me, I’m not unfamiliar with the advantages of something more portable and versatile.
[Jeremy Garchow] That’s Gigabits. Firewire was megabits. Even if it’s 6 Gigabits, that’s a huge wad of data. It could certainly handle compressed 444 video and above.
Jeez, there you go again. I’ll wait and see if it handles 444… I’m too experienced to believe that specs and real world performance are the same thing. Remember, according to specs, the Bumble Bee lacks sufficient wing span to support flight.
[[Jeremy Garchow] OK, then we can all agree to wait and see what Apple means instead of saying we are all going to die?”
Who said that? My post started with “Nobody knows…”. Besides, you make it sound like we have a choice in terms of waiting. FWIW, I am waiting… I haven’t switched to Premiere or MC6. At the same time, I’m not drinking the Kool-Aid either…
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.com
http://www.insightproductions.com“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” – Winston Churchill
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[Mitch Ives] “that it was designed to be in a card cage? I’m talking to a lot of people and nobody knows what they means. Maybe you do?”
Yeah, it’s vague. I think it’s that the cards will be recognized over thunderbolt, which seems to mean that a Kona card will be able to work in some sort of thunderbolt setup. Since we all know that a kona card can’t fit in an iMac or a MBP, and MacPros already support Kona’s, what’s left to surmise? That Kona cards will somehow have to live outside the confines of a computer and connected via thunderbolt. Right?
There’s no reason a Kona card needs to recognize a TB raid as far as I know.
[Mitch Ives] “Of course I do. Do we need to be insulting?”
Didn’t mean to insult. Just saying there’s a huge difference between firewire and thunderbolt. Huge. The ioXT supports dual link 1080p60 video, the ioHD simply cannot push that data through fast enough. The ioXT is quite literally a 4x PCIe device and I just wanted to point that out. Thunderbolt is also by it’s very nature designed to be extended outside of the computer (there’s controller chips involved with thunderbolt) while PCIe was not necessarily desgined for this cause. This means that a thunderbolt cage should (in theory) work a bit better.
[Mitch Ives] “Hopefully the fact that we agree won’t be too disappointing for you.”
This made me laugh. Thank you. There’s a lot of speculation out there, and a lot of fear, and FUD and rightfully so. When I see something that doesn’t add up, I post. Apple simply saying that displayport is going to be good enough doesn’t add up and I’ll tell you my opinion why. Sorry if it comes across as gruff, but I like to connect the dots. There’s enough to be uncertain about, right?
[Mitch Ives] “Jeez, there you go again. I’ll wait and see if it handles 444… I’m too experienced to believe that specs and real world performance are the same thing. Remember, according to specs, the Bumble Bee lacks sufficient wing span to support flight.”
If it couldn’t do it, AJA would be very honest about it. They aren’t going to say that the ioXT can handle 444 when it won’t. What would the advantage be for them in that regard to blatantly lie about the products they sell?
[Mitch Ives] “Who said that? My post started with “Nobody knows…”. Besides, you make it sound like we have a choice in terms of waiting. FWIW, I am waiting… I haven’t switched to Premiere or MC6. At the same time, I’m not drinking the Kool-Aid either…”
We don’t have a choice to wait? I’m waiting. I’ve been waiting for something new for a long time. I am still using FCS3 every day.
You are right, nobody knows, but there’s certain things that can be inferred. Displayport as a video distribution device is not one of them in a professional video application.
Jeremy
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[Jeremy Garchow] “I think people would start to take X more seriously if it had broadcast out, yes. To me, broadcast out is baseband video, not a Thunderbolt display. So far, Apple has set told us what’s coming with FCPX, and delivered on those prmoises. They wouldn’t say broadcast out if they meant a thunderbolt display setup to “broadcast colors”. I know that Apple has created a huge swath of uncertainty, but they haven’t lied quite yet.”
Hi
Has there been a more recent definition as to what’s coming than this?
“The professional [editor] is critical to Apple, and it’s a customer we don’t want to lose,” said Richard Townhill, Apple’s director of pro video product marketing, in a conversation with Macworld…. called the June 10.0 release “the first foundation stone in a building that’s going to be assembled over the next ten years,” with Tuesday’s updates providing the next brick…And, in an unorthodox move for Apple, he revealed a glimpse of future features to come: Townhill noted that while there are still things professionals desire that have yet to make it into FCPX—like multicam editing and support for broadcast video monitoring—Apple is “fully committed” to delivering these in an update in 2012.
That’s why I query whether he meant ‘baseband video out’.
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