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Poor video playback via broadcast output
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And legacy never had playback problems? Holy bejeezus it was the king of f-in up output through every card imaginable.
I do wish X had a playback offset. That’s how you had to get the canvas in perfect sync. Drives me nuts that X is out of sync on the computer screen by about 2 frames.
If video output was a hack, the gamma would be off and you wouldn’t have interlacing.
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[Bret Williams] “And legacy never had playback problems? Holy bejeezus it was the king of f-in up output through every card imaginable. “
Don’t ever speak ill of FCP Legend.
It was perfect.
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Still use an AJA IO on legacy at one place. What’s up with AJA not displaying things like stills out to the client monitor in 7? And matrox on legend was a piece of work. I’m happiest with the simplicity of BMD and X. Been doing great on my iMac.
Oliver, are you perhaps sending audio out the internal speaker jack and video out the Bmd? I’ve done that on matrox and bmd in the past and I get crackly audio or crackly starts. The kind of stuff 7 got all the time. Who else constantly added a 1 frame audio dissolve because of audio pops?
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[Bret Williams] “Oliver, are you perhaps sending audio out the internal speaker jack and video out the Bmd?”
Nope. Everything out through the Decklink card.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Jeremy Garchow] “It’s frustrating, there’s no question. I’ve been looking around outside of fcpx and there’s no clear answers anywhere I look. Every pro NLE option is really good at some things, not so good at others.”
Agreed. The sad part is that this project was a good one for X, which is why I used it. The keyword structure helped organize clips and the magnetic timeline made it easy to rearrange the shot/line order within each spot as the client decided on the structure. These were more unscripted than scripted.
But general UI performance is atrocious. The longer you work, the worse it gets. Closing and relaunching the app helps for a while, but after a couple of hours, each keystroke or UI interaction has latency before anything happens. So the bad outweighs the good. I think skimming is partly to blame. You can’t properly run X without using skimming (and it’s a killer feature!), but this causes the toggle of what’s active to freeze up often as you go between event clips and multiple open timelines.
I agree on PPro and cards, although 1/2 res in PPro is the same as “better performance” on X. Overall, I find that PPro is best with RT playback when third party effects are added and Media Composer is best in just sheer manipulation of media and responsiveness with files.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “But general UI performance is atrocious. The longer you work, the worse it gets. Closing and relaunching the app helps for a while, but after a couple of hours, each keystroke or UI interaction has latency before anything happens. So the bad outweighs the good. I think skimming is partly to blame. You can’t properly run X without using skimming (and it’s a killer feature!), but this causes the toggle of what’s active to freeze up often as you go between event clips and multiple open timelines.”
I agree it could be better. FCPX is constantly caching a lot of information. Having the biggest fastest computer and hard drives is going to help FCPX, which, as an aside, is why I think a MacPro will be coming.
Atrocious was compound clips pre 10.0.6. I find the interface to be much more responsive today, although I son’t use many 3rd party plugs. My 3rd party plug is usually after effects. I am also an alien.
[Oliver Peters] “Overall, I find that PPro is best with RT playback when third party effects are added and Media Composer is best in just sheer manipulation of media and responsiveness with files.”
Of course as it this is literally the difference in the foundations of these two applications.
Pr relies on a very fast acceleration engine and free for all media management, Avid has always relied on a tightly controlled media format and structure and gains acceleration through that structure.
They both have their strengths and weaknesses.
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I’m now in the final stages of this same production. I find that FCP X actually throws picture sync out by 1 frame. I put a TC filter and exported the FCP X project with a burn-in for reference in conforming color graded and mixed files. The FCPXML for the project went into FCP 7 via Xto7. This is for OMF for the ProTools guy and EDL for the colorist. When I compare sync of the picture, audio and the exported clip’s TC, I have to offset the file by 1 frame (picture only) to get it in sync. This is based on the visual burn-in from FCP X. I only had synced clips in the project. No detached audio. I’ve always had the sneaking suspicion that X is very rubbery with sync. I deal mainly with 24fps content and sometimes it’s hard to tell what is dead-on in sync. This now seems to confirm my suspicions. Another nail for me, I suppose.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Good luck out there.
It’s bumpy.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Good luck out there.
It’s bumpy.”Hmmm… So let’s sum up the experience.
The interface has latency when you try to do things quickly.
Playback quality is erratic and unpredictable.
Audio picks up artifacts.
Export may be out of sync.
Rendering/exporting with a number of third party filters causes corrupt frames.
The longer you work on the app, the slower it becomes requiring occasional relaunches.
Frequent “mini beach balls”.
Skimming frequently freezes momentarily as the app gets confused about which mode it’s in.Seems like it’s pretty bumpy here, too. 😉
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “The interface has latency when you try to do things quickly.
Playback quality is erratic and unpredictable.
Audio picks up artifacts.
Export may be out of sync.
Rendering/exporting with a number of third party filters causes corrupt frames.
The longer you work on the app, the slower it becomes requiring occasional relaunches.
Frequent “mini beach balls”.
Skimming frequently freezes momentarily as the app gets confused about which mode it’s in.
“The only ones of these I can corroborate are the interface latency and mini beach balls. Here’s some other fun ones to add to your list.
-Sometimes playing back from the beginning of a sequence you’ll hear audio but only see black instead of video
-recording audio for scratch VO, there’s a 50/50 chance it’ll autoselect and go into the wrong event causing headaches later
-sometimes it crashes
-sometimes exports take an insanely long time
-When I’m in an event playing back media inside a clip, I ALWAYS hit the home key thinking I’ll go to the beginning like when I’m in a project, but instead I go to the first clip in an event (I know, my fault, but it’s inconsistent behavior)
-you get a timeline set up with clip height and everything just the way you like it. CLose the app, open it again, and it’s all back to the default (lack of stickiness)
-you make a new project or compound clip, there’s no default sequence setting so you better double check that it’s what you want it to be. 30% chance it won’t be what you want.
-when you preview media in the media browser, if you are working with lowered audio in a comp or project, the media browser audio is locked at full volume, resulting in a marty mcfly guitar test experienceI think you should choose another NLE. Seems like you’ve given X your best and are not happy. Perhaps your experience with Premiere or Avid will be better, or at least if you have problems they’ll be problems you’re more comfortable with.
John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.
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