New FCPX user, what’s all the hate about?

[Bill Davis]

[Sebastian Alvarez] “So why can’t it take much simpler wrappers like mpg, m2ts, which require far less CPU cycles to decode?”

I don’t know the specific answers Sebastian, but whenever it comes to codecs, you are in IP land.

Apple, right or wrong, seems to feel that they want to keep their software as free from relaying on “not in house” codecs to the extent possible. Obviously they are a part of the MPEG and h-264 style consortiums – therefor are IP clear for all that stuff. WMV has the same history on the PC side, as does Flash. License it formally or go fish. That’s what IP is all about.

It’s a bit of a drag, but staying out of the codec business too far afield from their own IP – Quicktime previously and AV Foundation stuff now – leaves a lot of room for the VLCs and Handbrakes of the world to keep healthy.

Which I like.

YMMV

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Andrew Kimery]

[Sebastian Alvarez] “Gone are the days of transcoding to an I frame only codec to be able to edit, today’s computers, Macs or PCs, are fast enough to ingest most of the footage as it comes out of the camera and start editing,…”

Transcoding isn’t always required (or even possible depending on the workflow) but there is always a trade off between staying on a more compressed, inter-frame camera codec vs an intra-frame codec. Given Apple’s focus on user experience I’m not surprised that they would rather guarantee a performance floor with a relatively limited set of codecs as opposed to supporting a much wider variety and having some codecs perform well and others perform like dogs.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Andrew Kimery] ”
Transcoding isn’t always required (or even possible depending on the workflow) but there is always a trade off between staying on a more compressed, inter-frame camera codec vs an intra-frame codec. Given Apple’s focus on user experience I’m not surprised that they would rather guarantee a performance floor with a relatively limited set of codecs as opposed to supporting a much wider variety and having some codecs perform well and others perform like dogs.”

Let’s not forget that Apple, for the first time in history, has embraced near native MXF workflows in import and export.

Op1a MXF is nearly native to the OS. Not quite, but almost.

[Gabe Strong]

Shawn,

Yeah, that is a totally fair point. If you are a PC user, it doesn’t matter how good FCP X and Motion are,
cause they are not on your platform of choice. So there is that.

As for rolling shutter repair + stabilization, I don’t know who had it first, but again, I know
that part of FCP X’s ‘Stabilize’ (with optical flow) includes a ‘Rolling shutter repair’ function, so
again, I don’t see a huge advantage for Adobe here (at least not anymore).

And once again, FCP X (from it’s inception) has had 64 bit architecture and GPU acceleration of some effects and operations
as well. FCP X also uses what it calls ‘Grand Central Dispatch’ to enable ‘multithreading’ or use of all available cores.
Sounds pretty similar to MPE to me. Again, I’m not on a PC, but on my Mac Pro, the speed is very similar, with probably
a slight edge to FCP X (which is to be expected as it is doubtless designed to take advantage of the Mac computers).
This is not even taking into account the new technology ‘Metal’ that Apple just announced (which will also end up speeding
up Adobe CC apps!) Regardless, maybe I’m wrong, but I just don’t see any great, groundbreaking
features that Premiere has that FCP X doesn’t have (except for tracks….sigh).

I am absolutely certain, that there are CC users with success stories about how CC has helped them.
And I am sure I could use it for my business and make money with it. I just make MORE money using
Apple’s alternate tools…because well they are cheaper and I am not continually paying every month.
Again, it just ‘seems’ to me that Adobe is more for bigger agencies. And to be totally honest, maybe
part of the reason I think this, is because of all the programs you get in the CC. Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver,
Really? Do you small one person shop guys really have the time to learn how to use all 50000 programs in CC? 🙂
It kind of suggests ‘multimedia firm’ to me. Which is where it would be a good deal….you have one part of
your firm who does commercial photography, another who does video, another who designs websites,
a print design section and so on. Total multimedia solutions for any problem a client comes to you with.
Total advertising and marketing solutions, do their newspaper and magazine ads, make their website,
do their web video, make their TV spots, do their corporate stills and so on. Kind of like an ad agency.

It just seems to me that it would be awfully hard for a one person shop to actually know how to use all
the programs in CC. Maybe I’m just thickheaded.

Gabe Strong
G-Force Productions
http://www.gforcevideo.com

[Walter Soyka]

Just a little bit of color commentary, no argument:

[Gabe Strong] “This is not even taking into account the new technology ‘Metal’ that Apple just announced (which will also end up speeding up Adobe CC apps!)”

Remember that Metal is an API, similar to bits of OpenGL and CUDA/OpenCL. It doesn’t make everything faster automatically; you must specifically write/re-write your application with Metal to see a performance gain. Metal is also not unique; there are similar lower-level APIs on the PC platform going back to 2013.

I see a lot of hype around Metal right now, similar to the early hype around Thunderbolt. Metal and Thunderbolt are both very cool technologies, and I don’t mean to detract from their significance at all, but I think a little more context around the technologies and information about what they do and do not do is important.

[Gabe Strong] “Regardless, maybe I’m wrong, but I just don’t see any great, groundbreaking features that Premiere has that FCP X doesn’t have (except for tracks….sigh).”

Shawn listed a lot of Premiere’s “firsts.” These include things that are de rigueur now, like GPU acceleration, 64-bit memory addressing and multithreading. These were all shipping in Premiere for over a year before FCPX’s release.

(Sorry, Pinnacle/Avid Liquid, your efforts on the GPU front have been consigned to the dustbin of NLE history.)

But that was then, and this is now. I think that all the major NLEs are pretty well-matched right now on basic capability. The differences come down to workflow (not a small thing at all), minor features, price and preference.

[Gabe Strong] “It just seems to me that it would be awfully hard for one person shop to actually know how to use all the programs in CC. Maybe I’m just thickheaded.”

Not at all. We certainly don’t use all the Adobe apps. But a lot of editors in our market know at least a little bit of Photoshop, Illustrator and After Effects in addition to several NLEs.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Ronny Courtens]

Sebastian,

Regarding the .mpeg files: we always get these when we ask for archive footage from our national broadcaster. Of course .mpeg is just a wrapper that can hold many different variations of MPEG. But in our case simply changing the extension to .mod allows us to import the files in FCP X without any issues. Just an idea , it also might work for you. (.tod might also work.)

– Ronny

[Tony West]

[Gabe Strong] ” I have absolutely no compelling reason to spend more on
Adobe’s CC than I get with Apple’s tools. “

I don’t either.

I think CC has some great tools, but I feel like I do also.

I cut in X, and I part a little here with you Gabe, I like that timeline and don’t miss tracks at all.

I use Motion for all my MO GFX, I can pretty much do anything I can think up in that program.
(we talked about this before on the forum. People who are diehard AE users might want to go CC. I’m not one of those)

I use RX 4 to clean up any really bad audio problems (that program is amazing)

I do all my grading right inside X. I shoot most of the stuff I cut myself and I get what I want in the field in the first place so all I’m doing is tweaking. I don’t blowout the background and have to fix it.

People ripped those looks early on saying you didn’t have much room to adjust them. Not true. You can layer as many corrections on top of those looks as you want. Looks are just a way to give you a short cut to a certain look faster than you would if you were starting from scratch. Apple is not making anybody use those looks. If you want to build your own look go right ahead. I prefer for things to look natural myself. I don’t like to be distracted by an odd un-natural look. Kind of like I don’t want to notice the umpire in the game either.

I have a paid for version of Photoshop.

Stabilization is a nice tool, but as far as I’m concerned, you should either be on a tripod or with a Stedi-cam or Stedi knockoff in the first place. A professional shouldn’t hand you a bunch of shaky footage.
If you are doing a run and gun doc you should have a shoulder mount camera or a rig.

I’m pretty much good to go to do anything I need to do with these paid for tools.

[Steve Connor]

[Tony West] “I’m pretty much good to go to do anything I need to do with these paid for tools.”

I think a lot of people feel the same, I could do without the Adobe tools if I had to, but for me the monthly cost is inconsequential and I like to have the tools in my toolbox!

[Andrew Kimery]

[Tony West] ” I don’t blowout the background and have to fix it.”

[Tony West] “Stabilization is a nice tool, but as far as I’m concerned, you should either be on a tripod or with a Stedi-cam or Stedi knockoff in the first place.”

Jeez Tony, your missing out on half the fun of editing if you aren’t swearing at the footage and wondering if the ‘camera guy’ was really just a Jack Russell Terrier with a GoPro strapped to his head. 😉

[Andrew Kimery]

[Gabe Strong] “And to be totally honest, maybe
part of the reason I think this, is because of all the programs you get in the CC. Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver,”

I think the reason Adobe moved to a ‘one size fits all’ approach with CC (as opposed to the different packages with CS) is just due to simplicity, not because they think every subscriber needs to use all the apps. Even with the old Production Premium package I’d only use half the apps that came with it, but I would opt for the whole package because it was cheaper than getting just the apps I wanted individually. Same thing with CC. If I only wanted PPro and AE I could just rent those for a total of $40/mo, but for only $10 more I get everything. Realistically I’d need more than just PPro and AE anyway so paying individually for what I needed would be much more expensive than paying for everything and having access to apps I’ll never use.

I think individual workflow determines which software is a better fit, not a general statement of ‘this one is for little guys and this one is for huge companies’.