Recapture Nightmare. Is 5.02 still beta?

[Rich Rubasch]

But it is not about drive space! It is about an offline/online workflow to allow more layers of realtime for the offline, especially layers with alpha. With DV I can get 3 or more layers realtime with effects depending on what I am doing. That is why I would offline anyway. Then, once the edit is finished, I can THEN choose to upload in the format I wish…SD 10 bit, HDV native, HD full etc. That is what Avid also anticipated…you always got more realtime on an Avid system with a single field low rez codec.

So it isn’t always about disk space, but even as computers get faster, we will always, as editors, want the most realtime layers for the first cut. Even better if we can pile on effects including complex mattes etc in the low rez stage and then prep it for a full rez upload with the format of our choosing.

(Many of you already know this, so bear with me.) We say offline because in the old days the major decks and hardware, like ADO’s, Kaleidoscopes, Switchers, Character Generators, 1″, Beta and Digi-Beta machines were used only in the online stage. They were online bays. The offline was usually 3/4″. It was essential then, as it is now, that every single decision made in the offline was exact to the frame when it came into the expensive online bay.

So Apple somehow has a very real problem with managing those decisions made in an “offline” stage…IMO, the most critical stage. The last thing an editor wants is to have to compare the offline with the onine sequence only to find huge disparaties between the two. and then make that editor redo all those edits.

On a computer.

In 2005!!!

With software created by the same company that made, not only the computer, but the OS AND the media delivery format, namely Quicktime!

It is quite surprising, therefore, that we are all pretty miffed by the fact that we have version 5.0.2 and this same problem has been around since version 1. With virtually no response from Apple. That is what leads me to believe it is the fault of Quicktime and how it and the OS handle the file info, and not a simple software fix.

Adobe would not have let it go on this long. Perhaps that is yet another reason they moved away from the Mac Platform. Not because of FCP, but because of Quicktime. They saw the limitation, didn’t want to go the Avid way and create their own media management implementation, and walked away.

Hey Apple…don’t make us all walk away.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Dave Jenkins]

[Rich Rubasch] “We say offline because in the old days the major decks and hardware, like ADO’s, Kaleidoscopes, Switchers, Character Generators, 1″, Beta and Digi-Beta machines were used only in the online stage. They were online bays. The offline was usually 3/4″. It was essential then, as it is now, that every single decision made in the offline was exact to the frame when it came into the expensive online bay.”

And these

[David Battistella]

Rich,

I am with you all the way on this one. FCP is a DV editor. It is perfect for DV it works it’s very best in DV mode. and 80% of the installed user base does not have a capture card. SO offline, online is not a major concern at apple. by ignoring these issues they only upset one fifth of the Apple cart. Wop de do. I agree that if you are going to assign the name “PRO” to your application then you should make attempts to implement what Pro’s need.

They put a huge focus on mulitcam in this last release. Wop de do. There were very few multicam avid back in the day. I know that mulitcam is a huge request for users (mostly because of how reality tv is going probably) but I ahve to say that after waiting a full year for FCP 5.0 with no major updates or fixes, it fell short. AND they managed to break what was temporarily fixed in media manager (maybe QT 7 had something to do with this)

I would say that media managment needs to be taken to the next level with FCP and while we are at it can they fix the crashing problem with large project sizes. I can remember having huge projects and up to 100000 MOB files on quadra 900’s with very ffew app crashes.

My two number ones would be media management and app stability. I’d love to see a more back to basics approach with the next release. Don’t give me more software, give me solid software. I do love this application and I want to see it get better (better hanling of tc etc)

Maybe we should start a feature request page or encourage people to send FCP feedback with MM and stability requests.

Let’s GO!!!!!

David

[Andy Mees]

During the launch of FCP 5 there was a lot of interest amongst the pro end of the user base, specifically asking whether anything had been done with the Media Manager. Initially there were rumors that nothing had been touched in the MM code, then a few reports that some things had indeed been fixed …. and eventually, I think we all realised that indeed the former was true.

I recall reading or listening to an interview with one of the FCP product mangers on the topic, and they said that wanted feedback from the user base on specifically what we wanted MM to do ….

[Misha Aranyshev]

All Avid greybeards will correct me if I’m wrong but I think QuickTime was not yet around when Avid was designing an NLE. That’s why they had to create OMF. QuickTime is not the source of MM problems. Media Management is simply broken by design in FCP. The app’s database engine is weak and slow and should’ve been replaced as soon as Apple realized FCP sells well. Version 1.2.5 that is.

[Andy Mees]

quicktime peceeded Avid by a long way

Avid joined in around Quicktime3.0 i think

[Andy Mees]

doh! my beard just isn’t greuy enough ….got my years wrong Avid was of course 1988 … Quicktime started 1991

my humble appolgies … slinks off into a corner

[Andy Mees]

as an offering of contrition …. i just found this link to a downloadable episode of the tv show ‘The Computer Chronicles’ from 1990, which has a feature on the first Avid Media Composer system

https://www.archive.org/details/desktopvideo

cheers
Andy

[Rich Rubasch]

Good point. That’s is another good reason Avid has been able to create a versatile media managment tool across platforms and software versions, and make it more and more robust over the years. One thing I was thinking about is that Avid does not care what you name a clip, or other data you attach to it, like comments etc. Apple uses the clip name in the finder, and that very relationship can get you into trouble. If you have two shots called “sunset” for two different projects it is certainly possible to link to a clip froma different project. In Avid that is much less likely.

But the issue with slo mo, still frames and reversed clips is too big to ignore. Apple might have to come up with a way to label those clips with all the metadata from where it came from…EXACTLY…so it can redig them at a later date…EXACTLY.

Avid does this with one hand tied behind its back.

I really like that whole “software is doing the work for me” concept of professional post production.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Aaron Neitz]

Media Manager in FCP 5.0.2 is BROKEN. It only seems to work if you have NO speed ups and often no filters enabled. It doesn’t “delete unused media” , it gets timecodes wrong, and I’ve seen garbled up reel names as well.

It partially worked in 4.5, but it is USELESS in FCP 5.

I’m with you – Media Managment in FCP is precarious junk.