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The Question – An Update On My Choices In NLEs
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[Charlie Austin] “But a match frame replace function really is something that FCP X needs desperately. It has nothing to do with “a new editing environment” at all. It’s a feature that is missing.”
Well, I thought I was being clear in supporting that.
My point was NOT that the three functions I called out are unnecessary or even not extremely valuable to the constituency that relies on for efficient editing. And I said that up front.
I’ve just argued time and time again, that there are LOTS of constituencies for LOTS of different types of features in any NLE.
I too gave up lots of things I had come to “rely on” for editing when I switched to X. Some have come back. (Multicam) and some have not. Some (were given then taken away by X itself! (I loved the original Project Library layout format, for instance, and still miss it!)
But I”ve never lost sight of the fact that *I* am a subset of the FCP X target audience. And so is everyone else here. It’s not that they’re ignoring me. Or you. Or the class of “professional editors.” It’s that they were totally up front about the goal here. Re-think things. And based on the development, they’re still doing precisely that.
Some people like Michael A feel totally stymied by X because it doesn’t have what they feel they need to edit effectively.
I still maintain that they may be missing the forest because they’re standing with their nose pressed up against ONE tree – but I could certainly be wrong.
It does seem odd however, that so many other pro editors in all sorts of facets of the overall editing community worldwide – including more and more at the very top end of the pro spectrum – and many here specifically, like you Charlie – are managing to successfully edit with X with the same “missing” pieces that are stopping others cold.
Curiously how many pro editors can see the same set of features, some finds them interesting and are willing to work around the limitations in order to enjoy the benefits – the other swon’t consider it until it checks ALL the boxes on their list.
Such is life, I guess.
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.
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[Franz Bieberkopf] “Also, it is not what I was talking about. I thought it was clear, but my interest is in how it can handle many many sequences.
Franz.”
OK, then refine “sequences? for me if you will.
Are we talking about what in the past Legacy systems called “timelines.”
I ask because in X’s referential system – you can have 30 distinct Projects (Timelines or actually Storylines in X parlance) that refer only to a small pool of resources and in that case, the number of them really will have little or no impact on system performance.
Or are you talking about what X designates Events – or maybe Libraries?
Each of these organizational abstracts reacts differently to overloading. And because of that, there are differing solutions that depend on the size and structure of the media you’re managing – and how the shop chooses to manage it.
Peter Wiggins has a piece on FCP.co about how they managed the footage library for ITV4s coverage of the Tour de France, and it appears that they were doing real-time access to a pretty massive amount of historical footage from TdF’s back to the 1980s and accessing it all via a pretty robust FCP X system.
The conclusion appears to be that it worked just fine.
I also suspect that NEXT YEAR, they’re going to be REALLY happy, since they can start up with the current Libraries already formed, and just incrementally add new stuff to the big existing library bringing all the assets they created this year into the mix as needed.
FWIW.
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.
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[Bill Davis] “the number of them really will have little or no impact on system performance.”
Bill,
… so 10,000 sequences, for example. No problem?
Franz.
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[tony west] “Yeah, this is the part that matter to me”
Tony,
Yes. This was my point.
There is a difference between talking about features that matter to you and claiming that 32 bit software is more costly to producers.
The first is useful to discuss the benefits or drawbacks of various NLEs. The second is obfuscation, and in the case of FCP 7 stills functions, wrong.
Franz.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Not, but you can export ProRes and transcode to something other “standard” for delivery. Why haven’t the SMPTE approved formats been adopted industry wide? “
They’re not SMPTE, nor should they have to be SMPTE specifically — but we do use proper standards like MPEG-2 and H.264 industry-wide, arguably more broadly than ProRes.
We also take openness for granted in our image and sound file formats.
[Jeremy Garchow] “If Telestream can license it, why can’t anyone else? If 5 years isn’t enough time to make a standard, who is going to spend all the development time and money to come up with yet another standard, just so that it sits there, used by few.”
Telestream’s license was very narrow. Although Engine runs on desktop Windows, ProRes encode was specifically only allowed on Engine running on Windows Server 2008.
If you look in adjacent spaces in DCC, you’ll see competitors coming together in the last few years to build standards like ACES, Alembic and OpenEXR. We are trending as an industry toward openness right now, with Apple as a very notable exception.
Apple has participated in standardization before: the MPEG-4 container standard IS QuickTime.
Keeping in mind that Apple also controls a huge distribution channel, the potential for the abuse of ProRes’s dominance is huge.
[Jeremy Garchow] “I’m also with Charlie that AV Foundation will probably take 3rd party codecs one day. For now, it’s a security and bandwidth issue, or you have to know Apple to get on the approved vendor list. FCPX uses third party codecs natively and even considers them “optimized”. It can’t be that far away for the OS.”
I sincerely hope it does, but if this were the plan, there may never have been a need for QT Movie Modernizer.
I don’t see how a plugin to decode an image buffer is a security issue. Did you view QuickTime components as a threat?
Doesn’t the idea that a developer might have to be some “approved list” to develop a codec give you a little pause?
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
Can FCP7 handle 10000 sequences?
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Can FCP7 handle 10000 sequences?”
Jeremy,
I haven’t seen anyone claim that it can. I certainly don’t make any such claim (though I’ve never tried).
Bill, on the other hand, claims theres no limit in FCP X.
[Bill Davis] “… the number of them really will have little or no impact on system performance.”
Franz.
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[Walter Soyka] “They’re not SMPTE, nor should they have to be SMPTE specifically — but we do use proper standards like MPEG-2 and H.264 industry-wide, arguably more broadly than ProRes.”
I am now getting confused as to an “open” standard.
This conversation started with CineForm becoming SMPTE ratified. Is this what you consider open? Or a standard? Or an open standard?
The problem with open standards, is that you need someone to implement them in whatever it is you need to do, like, make a plugin to export to AS-11, or wrap your finished movie in MXF with a codec, or transcode then rewrap, and usually you have to either pay someone to do it, or pay some sort of fee like a subscription to CC or a purchase of a piece of software, in order to make these things happen. Sometimes, companies are generous (like Sony) and make plugins that are available to you for free, so that you will buy their hardware that supports the required delivery format. But then, you also have to rely on Sony to update everything when the OS/NLE/ gets an update.
[Walter Soyka] “Telestream’s license was very narrow. Although Engine runs on desktop Windows, ProRes encode was specifically only allowed on Engine running on Windows Server 2008.
If you look in adjacent spaces in DCC, you’ll see competitors coming together in the last few years to build standards like ACES, Alembic and OpenEXR. We are trending as an industry toward openness right now, with Apple as a very notable exception.
Apple has participated in standardization before: the MPEG-4 container standard IS QuickTime.
Keeping in mind that Apple also controls a huge distribution channel, the potential for the abuse of ProRes’s dominance is huge.”
The openness you mention is usually reserved for the very high end of workflow. In those situations, there are usually teams of people that are part developer and artist, that can use those open standards and develop internal tools to leverage the capabilities. Me, as a layman, it truly means nothing. I don’t have the time, gumption, or capability to try and make my own tools based on an “open” standard. A lot of deliveries that I make to media companies don’t want something that is that complicated, either. They need to accept formats that most people can deliver, and they need a format that can played almost anywhere.
Anyone could have stepped up and made this work, and given away lots of development for free in the name of openness, but I just don’t know who that would be?
[Walter Soyka] “I sincerely hope it does, but if this were the plan, there may never have been a need for QT Movie Modernizer.
I don’t see how a plugin to decode an image buffer is a security issue. Did you view QuickTime components as a threat?
Doesn’t the idea that a developer might have to be some “approved list” to develop a codec give you a little pause?”
It doesn’t really matter of I view QT components as a threat, it’s up to Apple. Apple, I think, does a lot for security. One of the reasons of getting rid of reference movies was supposedly, to close a security risk. Is that an exaggeration of the truth? It could be, I don’t know, and probably will never really know.
And the “approved list” doesn’t surprise me at all for Apple. They approve everything. For example, Sony and Panasonic formats are “native” to FCP7 and X, in that the codec is the same codec shot in cameras. With an import plug-in, I can use camera native files in an MXF wrapper. I choose to pay for these service as it helps my work.
Adobe handles all of this internally with their own media library. I am sure that they go back and forth with camera companies in order to gain support. You can’t simply start using a brand new format in any Adobe product without that capability being built in to the software, and with CC, you will have to constantly pay for that service. Since this is the case, we all need to pause, and Apple is not the only weapon wielding dominatrix, right?
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[Franz Bieberkopf] “Jeremy,
I haven’t seen anyone claim that it can. I certainly don’t make any such claim (though I’ve never tried).”
I haven’t either. My guess is that it would be very slow. Any NLE will be very slow with 10000 sequences, wouldn’t you think?
The Tour de France article is pretty good proof that X can handle lots and lots of media.
I, personally, have only gone up to just under 100 Projects in a single Library in X, and I didn’t notice any system hang ups.
As with other NLEs, the library takes a little longer to open, but that’s about it. 10.1.3 has been a great update for me, and the beachballs have flown out to sea.
BTW – We are finally migrating the rest of the office to X. It’s going to be a slow process, but it’s happening! 🙂 With the new library/cache structure, I feel comfortable letting everyone else knock it around without a lot of hand holding.
Jeremy
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Any NLE will be very slow with 10000 sequences, wouldn’t you think?”
Jeremy,
Yes. At some point. That’s why I’m surprised by the claim that FCP X doesn’t have these limitations. You seem defensive that I would question it, but seem to agree it’s a questionable claim.
[Jeremy Garchow] “The Tour de France article is pretty good proof that X can handle lots and lots of media”
Media and sequences are different things. Sequences seem to be more taxing on any given NLE. I suspect it’s ultimately harder to quantify, which is why it’s good to get reports from the field.
Defensiveness about your chosen NLE aside, I’m just asking for experiences with large numbers of sequences.
Whenever I ask about this I typically get answers about vast amounts of media (in which I’m also interested) and little about sequences.
(Example)
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/335/71327[Jeremy Garchow] “I, personally, have only gone up to just under 100 Projects in a single Library in X, and I didn’t notice any system hang ups. … the library takes a little longer to open, but that’s about it.”
A number! An experience! Thanks. This is helpful.
It’s also lower than the typical number of sequences I have in any given project, but it’s a data point.
Franz.
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