Remaining enhancements

[Michael Gissing]

XtoPro makes an AAF I think. For sound post people AAFs require paying AVID a license fee.

An alternative which is possible right now is xto7 which lets you bring the project into FCP7 and then export an OMF from their. If an when any editor brings me a FCPX job, I will explore that route.

[Oliver Peters]

I’m not sure it’s a given that OMF requires a licensing fee and if it does, whether that’s a significant fee. Besides, Apple already provides OMF via Logic. Avid and Apple also have a current (new) relationship, because Avid licenses the ProRes codec from Apple. If Apple were to do anything, they should probably go with AAF since that’s the current standard with ongoing development.

The downside of third parties is that Apple takes no ownership of the features. We’ve already seen how this has burn the AD ProExport plug-in and others. Third party developers are often quicker to respond to issues, but they also have a smaller development team and a smaller beta tester pool (although I don’t think Apple does enough beta testing of these products compared to other manufacturers.)

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Michael Gissing] “XtoPro makes an AAF I think. For sound post people AAFs require paying AVID a license fee.”

XtoPro is not available until the end of February – it will not support levels, pans or transitions at that date. Who knows how well or not it may perform? I’m not betting the house on it just yet …

[Michael Gissing] “An alternative which is possible right now is xto7 which lets you bring the project into FCP7 and then export an OMF from their. If an when any editor brings me a FCPX job, I will explore that route.”

This route is not a remotely plausible option at present, as I have discovered today:

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/344/7938

Way too many very serious issues that mean it’s completely unusable, unless all you want to carry over is audio that was originally tied to video (and wasn’t even detached).

We need a solution from Apple, one that we can beat them over the head about when it doesn’t work. For some reason, I feel bad about beating tiny third party companies over the head when their products don’t work …

Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com

[Oliver Peters]

[Michael Gissing] “For sound post people AAFs require paying AVID a license fee. “

I don’t believe that’s true. AAF and MXF are administered by the AAF Association. The license fees go to them, not Avid. Quantel, Autodesk, Avid, Adobe, Panasonic and others (probably also Apple) are part of this association. A significant part of the AAF spec stemmed out of OMF (originally an Avid development) which was integrated into AAF. Avid basically donated the IP to the AAF Assoc to get the ball rolling for AAF.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Michael Gissing] “To be fair Simon, Jeremy Garchow and quite a few others have said OMF export needs to be a priority and is holding back them being able to use FCPX on much of their paid work.”

This is 100% true for me, but I think I hold a fairly unique view in the role of third party interchange and workflow support.

In a nutshell, I welcome it, even though there’s risk involved. I’ll explain.

I’ve used third party workflow tools for years in fcp legacy.

-Mxf4mac/p2 flow being a huge one (turns fcp into an MXF powerhouse, ala premiere)

-Automatic duck pro import AE being another

-Spherico film tools

-VideoToolShed

-Digital Rebellion

-XDCam Transfer

-canon EOS E1

-Glue Tools more recently

-RedCineX, and a few XML tools that complimented it before RCX matured.

And now 7toX will probably become important with a little more X maturity.

I don’t mind third party solutions. Things don’t always work, or something changes, or my workflow/footage needs a bit of customization. It is right here that having a small, responsive third party company to deal with shines, and shines brightly. Third party has always been a major strong suit with fcp, but maybe people don’t see that as a strong attribute. I don’t mind it, as I’m very used to it.

Also, it is from these developers and workflow forumulists that holes and bugs within the underlying language of fcp get discovered and therefore squashed. Fcp7 would not be the strong app without the help of the above mentioned companies/people, along with the many others that aren’t mentioned. One will never see this in a press release, some of the fixes might get mentioned in release notes (but not really), and I don’t mind paying these small companies for their hard work in making something better behind the scenes. Some of them have direct acess to Apple ProApps. It is the way Apple has worked for a very long time, and for better or for worse, it had developed fcs3 in to what it was untill it’s EOL. My view is that third parties made fcp better even if some people don’t realize it.

Now, the flip side of that is there are other NLE developers that take these certain responsibilities in house, and that’s fine too. If something is broken, it might take longer to fix, the communication might not be as direct, but once it is fixed, it is in the program probably for good, or at least as long as it’s relevant. It is beta tested, it is rolled out, it is taken care of with resources and know how.

I’ve had issues in the past with workflow/third party developers and have received multiple debug builds within hours. It’s hard to get that kind of service from a bigger company, but it also means there’s more risk in things not working quite right in the future. Automatic Duck is the case study for that, and MXF4mac isn’t looking very good at the moment since Quickitme is ever so slowly being phased out. I don’t know what will come of that. Anyone that develops a QT component is scratching their heads at this point. Fcpx itself seems to be in between QuickTime and av foundation, just have a look at the new beta drivers that capture companies are in the process of releasing. They aren’t qt based.

I look at my past NLEs, namely Avid in the mid 90s, and Media100 for the rest of the decade until the early millennium. All of that media and work and interchange is gone. Those projects we’re either upgraded back then or are sitting on a iomega jaz drive never to be returned. I don’t miss them, and my work life has been just fine.

There is no question, this absolutely exhausting mess of a release is something that many people who work like this don’t appreciate, and from my view, that is completely understandable. There are developers that have been left to figure out what’s next.

At the same time, I had suspected that Apple was still interested in a few pro users, and with every release of fcpx, it becomes more apparent. Yes, it’s going to take some time before its truly mature, and yes, it’s going to be a bumpy road if you decide that Legacy doesn’t serve your needs for the immediate future, for whatever reason. For me, it has happened before (although willingly) and it will probably happen again. We have a small shop, we are fairly nimble, we are lucky that we can adapt fairly quickly to changing tides. Others aren’t in this situation, bigger facilities and freelance session/project editors to name a few. Apple has certainly burned many bridges here.

I do believe that third party developers, if they remain interested, will make X in to a stronger application once again. It is also important for us users to send meaningful feedback to Apple, and send it often.

Jeremy

[Michael Gissing]

Thanks for the clarification Oliver. Either way I get OMF in and out with Fairlight for nothing and AAF requires a $500 license. As there is nothing I want that AAF does over OMF I see no reason to pay.

The other advantage of OMF is that it is static. I disagree with Jeremy about third party apps and converters having lived through the horror that was the early days of OMF. Once it became legacy it became robust.

[Oliver Peters]

[Michael Gissing] “The other advantage of OMF is that it is static. I disagree with Jeremy about third party apps and converters having lived through the horror that was the early days of OMF. Once it became legacy it became robust.”

Oh, I completely agree! The same reason EDLs are still quite valuable. A known, broad standard that can still be tweaks as needed.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Michael Gissing] “The other advantage of OMF is that it is static. I disagree with Jeremy about third party apps and converters having lived through the horror that was the early days of OMF. Once it became legacy it became robust.”

I hear you, and it will remain robust, unless you hit the 2gig limit.

What changed is how you need to extract that information from a timeline, which will require the knowledge of the underpinning of any host application. It is developers, and not necessarily Apple, that will shed light on what needs to be down in order to make Axel, or fcpxml more robust, in my opinion.

[Michael Gissing]

The 2 gig limit is only an issue if an OMF uses embedded media. FCP chose this methodology but it is quite possible to have a tiny OMF composition file and a separate folder with media file, none of which is likely to exceed 2 gig.

[John Heagy]

I’m with Jeremy on this. I much prefer dealing with small companies over Apple, the same way I prefer talking to a person over a brick wall.

One other feature I didn’t mention is reference movie export from FCPX. Though that would first need to be possible in AV Foundation which it isn’t currently.

I’d love to see QT open sourced by Apple.