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what is editing speed ?
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[Simon Ubsdell] “But they are quite flaky still, in my experience. Sadly. You don’t always get what you ordered.”
It’s modern dining. The food comes out on small plates when it’s ready, and not before or after.
There is no doubt tabbed Projects would be fantastic in FCPX. I would love them, but it doesn’t mean that I can’t view other Projects quickly and easily in FCPX. That’s all.
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[Oliver Peters] “Except that X randomly decides to drop timelines from the project browser/history or occasionally runs out of memory or something (?) and is unable to maintain more than a few in that queue.”
They do flush if you have a bunch open, then browse back to the middle, and then open a new Project. But if you open all of the Projects at the beginning of the edit sesssion, they stay. It’s odd behavior, and not prefect, but since I still use string outs in FCPX, I know how it works. If you do want to open a new Project, you have to browse to the end, and then open it.
[Oliver Peters] “in FCP7 you can edit from one sequence as a source into another using edit “with sequence content”. This won’t create nests. You can also break off the sequence tab into its own window and work between two timeline windows.”
WHAT!?!? YOU’RE KIDDING!!!!
No, Im kidding. Of course I knew this. I used multiple timelines in FCP7 just like anyone else, because the program doesn’t offer much else in UI design to get access to footage quickly and easily.
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[Simon Ubsdell] “most efficient way to use pancaked timelines though is copy and paste. Which is why pancaking is an even greater advantage over tabbing.”
I’ve decided drag and drop from the pancake vs copy makes no odds – half the time I’ll even go to the source monitor?
That goes the whole pre-editing in string outs. I find the biggest thing maybe, in short form, is having a sense of the pace of the piece, so that the stuff you cut into the string out to drop in is already at something like the same clip length gallop as the destination – that you have it your head and you pre-triage so the shot decision isn’t a mile off requirements. I’ll usually repeat the proposed track or a temp under the stringout at some point just to noodle with or get a sense of the footage reaction to pace. – *Edit* that doesn’t go to sync, it’s another ball of wax – I like a radio edit base me – but shortform has a ton of footage / gfx derived narrative.
the idea that performing a very different action in the browser where you make massive amounts of favourites and keywording that might be of any length – again horses for courses – but it feels cart before horse in terms of effort.
Arguing that a lot of this stuff can happen in a hermetically sealed keywording / favourites / rejects scenario in the browser makes next to no sense to me. Surely the whole game is apprehending the footage against what it could be in the context of the final piece quite quickly – in short form. String outs are designed to do that – the footage is exposed to juxtaposition and timing issues. While a shot is cool, it is tragically at least two seconds too long. You need to know that as quickly as possible. You’re not going to get that gurning with keywords in the browser for hours. It’s wasted time. *edit* but i’d revise that all again – often times in extremity everyone goes back to every clip marker and bin like a madman – in that context I’d wish PPro hoverscrub worked anywhere close to X scrubbing. It is easily the biggest Apple software chops statement. I’ll present a PPro bin with two inch thumbnails and basically die with the scrubbing lag. X stands alone in that respect. It is surreal how well they made that work.
Again – I’m only making this argument in terms of fairly dynamic short form. I’m sure X has many sweet spots. Also X was used for the titles for Focus – which was a serious demonstration of the new Chrome 3D bevelled title tool. I thought that was quite seriously impressive.
https://ogallchoir.prosite.com/
producer/editor.grading/motion graphics -
[Steve Connor] “importing 4K XAVC material into FCPX can be VERY slow. It’s worth it however as 4K XAVC in FCPX is much more responsive than in PPro”
When I import UHD 4K XAVC-S from my Sony A7RII, it is definitely not slow. The difference may be importing from the camera card (which does not allow “leave files in place”) vs from a local hard drive copy of those files (which does allow it).
With the camera files on my Pegasus R4 RAID, I just did a test import of 172GB of material. I could drag and drop sequential batches of files to the event, one after the other, as rapidly as I could move the mouse. The delay from dropping each batch on the event until the thumbnails appeared in the Event Browser ready to edit was 1-2 seconds. For a couple of minutes it continues a background task for “generating audio waveforms”, but this doesn’t interfere with editing.
I did the same test on the same machine (a top-spec 2015 iMac 27) using Premiere CC, and it also was pretty fast on the import but each batch caused a several-second “importing…” dialog, during which the UI was locked and you couldn’t do anything else. This has little practical impact — it’s just a few seconds, but from import action to first available edit, FCPX is a bit faster — at least on this material, machine and operating system.
However as you observed, after import on 4K XAVC material, FCPX is much faster and more responsive. Even if you exclude the skimmer performance in the Event Browser as a special case, it’s far more responsive to JKL commands in the timeline. Also the viewer update rate during FF or REV is probably 10x faster. Activity Monitor and iStat Menus shows the CPU levels are much higher in Premiere than FCPX when doing similar operations. So the code path is just not as efficient in this case.
How much difference does this make in producing the final product, IOW “what is editing speed?”. The human editor’s proficiency with the chosen tool probably makes a lot more difference. Specific features of the suite can make a big difference if needed for the workflow. E.g, I’ve seen editors spend 30 min playing around with the FCPX audio EQ and filters when Premiere’s Audition spectral editor could have fixed it much faster.
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[Steve Connor] “I watched your MacBreak Episode, I think using JKL slows you down a little, I use the skimmer for range marking and I think it’s faster.”
+1 the skimmer is one of the main things that makes cutting in X fast. I hardly ever use JKL anymore.
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[Neil Goodman] “Just wanted to point out Keywording and rating has been around in Avid for 20 years. Just not called Keywording.
“To be fair, the level of detail that you could search at in X was not available 20 years ago.
That Find Tool in MC got really refined in v6 that came out after X
When I chose X in 11, it was the only program that I knew of that could recall clips with this level of detail.
Other programs copied this and now they can do it also, but that wasn’t the case early on.
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[Walter Soyka] ” The emotional penalty for friction in a creative application is certainly high”
But isn’t this exactly what Apple tried to remedy? Their constant actions – including visually auto linking elements – is more or less themselves made handmaiden for editing. They kind of are the second editor on the timeline. I always thought that was a bridge too far.
On the notion of flow – having that much of a ghost in the machine operating and reacting to your decisions – I’m not sure how that’s good at all in that regard. If you are regularly mitigating and re-arranging connection points set by apple software in order to make your next edit decision, what exactly are you doing? Playing bad computer chess?
https://ogallchoir.prosite.com/
producer/editor.grading/motion graphics -
Time to take this particular argument offline?
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I think I won’t take Steve up on his suggestion to take this outside and settle it with duelling pistols, not least since I suspect you are a much better shot than I would be.
Instead I will apologise for being arrogant, overbearing and considerably more forthright (always a serviceable euphemism for rude) than was perhaps appropriate.
There is one more thing I did want to add to the discussion though. You kindly mention my recently started Fusion tutorials, but in addition to these I have also for the last few years been running an extended series of free tutorials for Apple Motion, some of which Tim has been kind enough to host right here on the COW.
My small band of loyal subscribers has been generous enough to call them the best tutorials for Motion available anywhere, and although they are probably being much too generous, I think what they are responding to is the fact that although I provide the means for really getting to know the toolset in depth, I stress that that’s just the starting point on the journey. By all means learn what Apple meant for you to do with the application, and then … you can begin to start actually using it, as against merely operating it.
It’s in thinking beyond the limitations of the toolset, and indeed in many cases fighting against those limitations and devising improved methods of working, that you will start to get the really great results. So my advice, in this, one of my limited spheres of competence, is to learn everything you can – and then question everything about what you’ve learnt, every step of the way, on every single job. There is always a better way, a different way, a way that’s more appropriate to what you are trying to achieve. Apple don’t know what you are trying to do, only you know that. Be bold, be creative, think outside the limitations of the application. Don’t be a slave to it.
All the best,
S.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com
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