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Taking FCPX out for a new test drive
I work almost exclusively in Premiere so I don’t stay current with what’s happening with FCPX and I rarely take it for a spin.
However, I recently was asked to do a project on FCPX and so I had a new opportunity to give it a try.
I have to say that the FCPX engine is powerful. It’s hyper intuitive and efficient. That’s something I love about it. It almost knew what I wanted to do with my timeline before I did it. Also within the timeline, the workflow of editing is very nice and very quick. It’s easy to manipulate video and audio and the lack of tracks is always liberating in comparison to the traditional approach.
But the down side of FCPX continues to be a deal breaker for me. I have two OWC Thunderbay raids that are pc formatted because I primarily edit on a pc so the raids are connected to my mac through ethernet. Can I use these raids with FCPX? Nope. At least not easily. I looked through this forum and I know there’s some workaround apps to assist with getting shares to work but it’s not easy.
Exporting out a timeline while simple on the face of it, isn’t simple. I’ve yet to get FCPX to successfully export a master file. It goes through all of the motions just fine but the finished pro-res is unopenable in any and all apps. Again I researched this issue and there’s a wide variety of reasons why this might not be working correctly. I can export a H264 to vimeo but I can’t make any real export adjustments other than frame size.
If all of my problems are a result of my lack of FCPX knowledge then perhaps this critique isn’t quite fair. However, I’ve scoured the features of FCPX enough to know that there remains a list of things that are virtually a no brainer in Premiere and previously the old FCP, but in FCPX require either helper apps or workarounds to accomplish. That continuing lack of basic professional features remains so frustrating that it cancels out the positives.
Adobe Premiere 2017.1.1
Windows 10 Pro
Samsung SSD 850 EVO system
Samsung SSD 850 EVO Adobe cache
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
OWC Thunderbay 12t x 2 in Raid10 configuration (thru Storage Spaces and Disk Management) -
24 Replies
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[greg janza] “I have two OWC Thunderbay raids that are pc formatted because I primarily edit on a pc so the raids are connected to my mac through ethernet. Can I use these raids with FCPX? Nope. At least not easily.”
How are your raids formatted? Are you using ExFAT? If so, then they can be used with a MacOS as long as you format with the cluster size below 1024. I’ve read up on that recently for a friend who received RED footage on PC formatted drives. But this is an OS compatibility issue, and not one related to FCPX (unless you’re referring to something else). I don’t think it’s fair to blame FCPX for not being able to use your OWC raids if you’ve formatted them for PC. I mean, if I handed you a drive formatted for the Mac, would you blame your PC premiere for not being able to work with the drive?
[greg janza] “I’ve yet to get FCPX to successfully export a master file. It goes through all of the motions just fine but the finished pro-res is unopenable in any and all apps.”
This is not normal. I can and have exported master files all the time on FCPX. It’s bloody easy. Even easier than Premiere I’d say. Without knowing what you’re going through, I can’t tell if the problem is operator error or something wrong with your install of FCP/other computer problem. But there’s definitely nothing wrong with exporting master files for me anyway.
[greg janza] “However, I’ve scoured the features of FCPX enough to know that there remains a list of things that are virtually a no brainer in Premiere and previously the old FCP, but in FCPX require either helper apps or workarounds to accomplish.”
Such as? Keep in mind, that you pay $400 one time for FCPX, and you pay $50-60 for Premiere every month, so not having things like OMF export built in isn’t a huge deal for me, since I can just make another one time purchase for the plug-in app that gives me that functionality. Apple chose to focus solely on the editing with FCPX and since the INs and OUTs of cooperative work would change constantly, leave that compatibility up to third party makers. It’s a decision you can agree or disagree with, but I actually like the fact that it’s built the way it is and I don’t have to pay for features I never use. What features are no-brainers in Premiere and not so in FCPX. I’m honestly curious because I use both and I struggle to think of much that Premiere does intuitively better than FCPX.
Andy
https://plus.google.com/u/0/107277729326633563425/videos
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[Andy Neil] ” I don’t think it’s fair to blame FCPX for not being able to use your OWC raids”
The point of bringing that into the critique is simply comparing the FCPX experience to Premiere. My raids work just fine on my pc and mac with premiere. They are ntfs and I wouldn’t imagine that it would be an issue at all in FCPX but it is.
[Andy Neil] “Apple chose to focus solely on the editing with FCPX”
yes, and it’s the strongest aspect of the program. But editing the material is only half of the journey.
[Andy Neil] “What features are no-brainers in Premiere”
exporting a H264 with detailed compression settings like bitrate limiting. And i know i can push it to compressor but then another app purchase needs to be made. Kind of a slippery slope if you want to think of FCPX as a bargain app.
Adobe Premiere 2017.1.1
Windows 10 Pro
Samsung SSD 850 EVO system
Samsung SSD 850 EVO Adobe cache
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
OWC Thunderbay 12t x 2 in Raid10 configuration (thru Storage Spaces and Disk Management) -
[greg janza] “but then another app purchase needs to be made. Kind of a slippery slope if you want to think of FCPX as a bargain app.
“Because Compressor is sooooo expensive 🙂
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[Steve Connor] “Because Compressor is sooooo expensive :)”
funny. the cost is obviously nominal.
Happily I’ve found the bug of exporting a master file. If I select a range of the entire timeline it’ll export out but if I just select share as master file without selecting a range first then it won’t work. odd.
Adobe Premiere 2017.1.1
Windows 10 Pro
Samsung SSD 850 EVO system
Samsung SSD 850 EVO Adobe cache
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
OWC Thunderbay 12t x 2 in Raid10 configuration (thru Storage Spaces and Disk Management) -
[greg janza] “They are ntfs and I wouldn’t imagine that it would be an issue at all in FCPX but it is.
“I don’t have any NTFS drives to test this, but if true, that’s a semi-legitimate complaint. But still it’s more or less the price of doing work on both PC and Mac systems. It’s a pain, I know, but at least Mac can view files on NTFS and ExFAT and FAT32 drives. PCs can’t read any OS formatted drives and never have been able to. In my mind, it’s the PC that’s the real problem here.
[greg janza] “exporting a H264 with detailed compression settings like bitrate limiting. And i know i can push it to compressor but then another app purchase needs to be made. Kind of a slippery slope if you want to think of FCPX as a bargain app.
“There is no slippery slope here. There are two additional apps that are HIGHLY recommended if you’re using FCPX professionally: Motion and Compressor. They’re $50 each which brings your total FCPX suite to $500. From there, you only need to purchase additional apps for specific workflow needs. Personally, the most helpful is the X2Pro for getting audio to pro tools. But now I question how necessary that is with the newest version of Resolve, and it’s audio editing capabilities (which can read FCPXML).
Are there any other “no brainer” things that premiere does better? I’m just trying to see if there’s an aspect of FCPX you’re not aware of because you’re more versed in Premiere. You mentioned a list of things.
Andy
https://plus.google.com/u/0/107277729326633563425/videos
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[Andy Neil] “at least Mac can view files on NTFS and ExFAT and FAT32 drives. PCs can’t read any OS formatted drives and never have been able to. “
PC’s are surprisingly versatile these days and that’s partly why I migrated from mac to pc. I have no issues reading any kind of drive on the PC side. I also don’t think of it as a PC failing since I’ve had no issues with Premiere on either the mac side or pc side reading from raids or external drives.
[Andy Neil] “Are there any other “no brainer” things that premiere does better?”
Let me work in fcpx a bit more so that I don’t sound uninformed. Perhaps the list is shorter than I think.
Adobe Premiere 2017.1.1
Windows 10 Pro
Samsung SSD 850 EVO system
Samsung SSD 850 EVO Adobe cache
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
OWC Thunderbay 12t x 2 in Raid10 configuration (thru Storage Spaces and Disk Management) -
[greg janza] “I have no issues reading any kind of drive on the PC side”
Wait a second. Windows can read Mac OS formatted drives now? Then that’s your solution. Format your RAID for the Mac and then you can use it on both systems with no issues.
[greg janza] “Let me work in fcpx a bit more so that I don’t sound uninformed. Perhaps the list is shorter than I think.
“I thinking you may be right. I work with both. There little that Premiere can do better and more intuitively than FCPX (keyframing comes to mind), but I don’t find either deficient in capabilities. Also, there are several things that FCPX does much better than Premiere. Bottom line, they’re both fully capable in a professional work environment. I’m a pro and I have both. I usually work on FCPX at home because I like editing on it far more than any other NLE.
Andy
https://plus.google.com/u/0/107277729326633563425/videos
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[Andy Neil] “I don’t have any NTFS drives to test this, but if true, that’s a semi-legitimate complaint. But still it’s more or less the price of doing work on both PC and Mac systems. It’s a pain, I know, but at least Mac can view files on NTFS and ExFAT and FAT32 drives. PCs can’t read any OS formatted drives and never have been able to. In my mind, it’s the PC that’s the real problem here.”
Hi guys, I can report that an NTFS-formatted RAID should work, because that’s what we use. Our shared storage runs Windows Server 2012, and shares the RAID through 10GbE fiber using the SMB protocol. The only limitation is that you have to run the libraries LOCALLY, which I suspect could be your problem. So to sum up: you have to run your libraries (for a Premiere user, this is like your project file) locally, either directly off the internal drive, or a drive that’s a directly connected external drive. All media and cache can be on your shared RAID, externally managed. Don’t store any media in the library, that’s the key.
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I don’t have to select a range to export a master file as long as the Timeline is the active section. You can set up custom encodes as presets in compressor and than you can make them available in FCP X. One benefit of sending to compressor is it won’t stop encoding as you continue to edit in FCP X. When using Media Encoder with your queued media it will stop while you play your sequence in PP.
With third party apps, they can be updated sooner instead of waiting for Apple or others to do it. It might not even be a priority.
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[Andy Neil] “Format your RAID for the Mac and then you can use it on both systems with no issues.”
not an option since the raid is formatted for pc so that I can use it with thunderbolt on pc.
Howard, I’ll try your suggestion and see if the raid is happier with FCPX.
Adobe Premiere 2017.1.1
Windows 10 Pro
Samsung SSD 850 EVO system
Samsung SSD 850 EVO Adobe cache
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
OWC Thunderbay 12t x 2 in Raid10 configuration (thru Storage Spaces and Disk Management)
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