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Who would like a unified interface for FCS?
As several rumors have said, Apple might be working on a unified interface to combine its studio apps into one single application. Personally I believe this could lead to great improvements for workflow, if they can create a application that is stable, and compatible with other editors and high-end finishing apps.
I often find myself trying to do everything in Final Cut Pro; including basic motion graphics, sound editing to colorgrading – but there are a lot of short-comings, so I eventually find myself round-tripping between the apps, using a lot of time and creating a lot of confusing project files. To be honest I do not use Motion, Soundtrack Pro, and Color for my high-end work; here I rely on specialized applications like After Effects, Nuke, and Protools, to get the job done.
For one thing, I don’t think that Apple wants to end up with a bunch of high-end applications in the Studio bundle. They tried that with Shake and Color, and the approach does not go in harmony with being a peoples product company. But I do believe that they want to bring professional video tools to the masses that go en par with their Mac Pro computers, and show the world that they are a media company.
Personally I would be satisfied if they could create an extended version of Final Cut Pro, that apart from fully embracing tape-less workflows, gives us fast and good basic compositing tools, more audio tracks with exact waveform editing and good plugin effects, and better color-grading tools – of course all in realtime or enhanced RT processing. In my opinion they can throw away Motions “3D compositing”, Soundtrack Pros audio file editing, and Colors alienated interface – and concentrate on creating a product that saves us time, and integrates with professional industry standards.
For those that do not want the cluttering of combining the apps, they could create an enhanced version of Final Cut Express, that gives you professional editing at a basic level.
– No Parking Production –
2 x Finalcut Studio3, 2 x MacPro, 2 x ioHD, Server w. X-Raid
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46 Replies
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I would not want a unified interface. I prefer the apps to be kept as individual apps rather than one big bloated app.
Like Adobe CS5 which features Adobe Premiere, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Soundbooth, Adobe Encore and more. Can you imagine the complete mess you would have if you took all of those and mashed them into one app?
You would end up with a completely bloated app that featured everything in one but could not do everything well. And I can’t imagine how long it would take to open the app, how much RAM you would require to run it at a decent speed, and how it would ultimately slow down your computer to run a “super app.”
[Morten Ranmar] “In my opinion they can throw away Motions “3D compositing”, Soundtrack Pros audio file editing, and Colors alienated interface – and concentrate on creating a product that saves us time, and integrates with professional industry standards.”
Motion 3D compositing is very slick and one of the things it does pretty well.
Soundtrack Pro is used in our facility quite a bit, would hate to see that go.
Have you actually learned Color? Quite a simple interface to use and quite honestly, some of that interface would be good to bring into FCP.
Final Cut Pro doesn’t integrate into Professional Industry Standards? Since when? That’s quite the statement for a product that has delivered hundreds of network broadcast HD programs from our shop alone and we’re just a small production company. I would say Final Cut Pro is quite the Professional Standard these days.
It’s not perfect, but I would definitely not call it wanting of professional standards by any means, nor would I ever advocate a “super bloated app” in exchange of a suite of apps that work well together.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” Winner, Best Documentary, LA Reel Film Festival.
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Walter Biscardi wrote: Have you actually learned Color? Quite a simple interface to use and quite honestly, some of that interface would be good to bring into FCP.
Yes I have used Color occasionally and it does offer great tools, but without any realtime. So the problem is you have to render before you see if a grading works or not. Sure the interface does have its benefits – but try to launch it on a MBP, and you will not be able to use it. Also there is too much mouse clicking involved if you want to create a custom mask. And it renders so sloooowwwwwwww….
Walter Biscardi wrote: Final Cut Pro doesn’t integrate into Professional Industry Standards? Since when? That’s quite the statement for a product that has delivered hundreds of network broadcast HD programs from our shop alone and we’re just a small production company. I would say Final Cut Pro is quite the Professional Standard these days.
What i meant was that if you look at the complete FCS package, these apps do not integrate perfectly with industry standards: Bad Photoshop file support, no image-sequence import, bad AAF and OMF integration, missing export of MPEG2 formats, YUV vs. RGB round-tripping problems, proprietary plug-in format – just to mention some…
– No Parking Production –
2 x Finalcut Studio3, 2 x MacPro, 2 x ioHD, Server w. X-Raid
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[Morten Ranmar] “Yes I have used Color occasionally and it does offer great tools, but without any realtime. So the problem is you have to render before you see if a grading works or not.”
No, that’s incorrect. With a properly configured system you get realtime playback to an external monitor. It’s not full frame rate playback, but you can play back the scene in full quality to an external monitor. Color would be useless if you couldn’t.
I typically get 11 to 20 frames per second playback to the external monitor and that easily tells me if a grade is working or not. This with an ATI 4870 Graphics card and an AJA Kona 3 card.
You can also configure Color to get more or less frames per second during grading depending on what you’re doing.
[Morten Ranmar] “Sure the interface does have its benefits – but try to launch it on a MBP, and you will not be able to use it.”
I have, but only for training. A friend of mine who is a Colorist uses a MacBook Pro on the road with Color and is also running Resolve on it right now.
I would not recommend Color for laptops, but people in the Color forum post about using it on MBP’s all the time so a lot of folks are using it successfully on laptops.
[Morten Ranmar] “Also there is too much mouse clicking involved if you want to create a custom mask. And it renders so sloooowwwwwwww….”
The complexity of drawing a mask is directly proportional to the complexity of the item you are trying to mask. Of course there is a lot of mouse clicking when you’re drawing a shape.
Do what we do, we use a tablet for everything. Greatly speeds up your workflow over a mouse for all applications you use on a Mac. You can draw and alter mask shapes with ease in FCP, Color, AE, Photoshop, Illustrator, Motion, etc…..
As for renders, that’s all relational to your computer (if you’re on the MacBook Pro you’re out of luck there) and your graphics card and most importantly, what you have done in your grade.
If it renders too slow for you, then go with a plug-in for FCP like Magic Bullet Looks or Colorista. These will render faster or slower depending on what you’re doing with the clip and how many instances of the filter you have to apply. Don’t forget to add the Broadcast Safe and Levels filters though which will also add render time.
[Morten Ranmar] ”
What i meant was that if you look at the complete FCS package, these apps do not integrate perfectly with industry standards: Bad Photoshop file support, no image-sequence import, bad AAF and OMF integration, missing export of MPEG2 formats, YUV vs. RGB round-tripping problems, proprietary plug-in format – just to mention some…”Bad Photoshop support? Been using Photoshop with FCP since 2001. Photoshop projects import into FCP as a layered sequence so you can manipulate each layer independently. That’s pretty good support in my book.
OMF export is fully supported. Automatic Duck and BorisFX add AAF export and they work very well. Not everyone needs these features and we didn’t even start using AAF until a few years ago.
Missing export of MPEG-2? That’s what Compressor is for. It’s in the FCS package. Set up the flavor of MPEG-2 you require and go.
[Morten Ranmar] “YUV vs. RGB round-tripping problems, proprietary plug-in format – just to mention some…”
YUV vs. RGB is one thing that I agree with you, but of course workarounds have been documented on this forum for year. And quite frankly I’m not sure if there ever will be a solution from Apple on this one.
Proprietary plug-ins, you mean like After Effects and Avid? FCP is supposed to be different? I think if you look at all the plug-ins available, FCP probably has more third party plug-ins than any other app out there. AE and Motion might have more, but it’s probably close.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” Winner, Best Documentary, LA Reel Film Festival.
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And you think these things would be improved with a single, integrated application? I don’t think so. I would think quite the opposite is more likely to happen. It’s interesting that almost everything you mention is not related to FCS but to its inteoperability with third party applications, how this would change with a single, unified FCS application I have no idea.
All the best,
Tom
Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop” -
If Apple didn’t have to focus on trying to keep 4-5 applications in the suite updated, and instead focused on creating one single app that does not try to do everything, but offers state of the art editing, with basic motion graphics and titling (better and more integrated that today), enhanced sound track editing, and more tools for color correction and grading – and then offered the right tools for integration with other developers apps right in the box – I think it would become a better product.
More important I truly believe that the other approach – buying up 3rd party apps, and trying to integarte them in non-effective round-tripping routines, will cause Apple to loose ground on the market, and ultimately become the death of FCS.
Just MHO
– No Parking Production –
2 x Finalcut Studio3, 2 x MacPro, 2 x ioHD, Server w. X-Raid
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Sure an “All in one” application would have many advantages. But I think this Is not just about defining an interface; is about defining our profession. An “expert” on such a application should be an skilled video editor, audio technician and graphic designer.
As a video editor my tool is Final Cut. I have nothing to do with Motion or Soundtrack.
I would like to integrate Color as a plugin to work in the time-line.
I would also eliminate Compressor, as an stand alone application and I would implement a proper export option in FC/QT, instead of the crappy “QT conversion” (the only magic of Compressor, apart of the high quality filters, is that offers a bunch of presets to people unable to build their own one).
So for my self, improving Final Cut and the round-tripping would be the way to go.
Rafael
PS: I work with Color in a MBP (external monitoring) and works great. Renders fairly fast, as Walter points, compared with many FC plugins. -
Completely disagree. You would have one bloated inferior application rather than specialist applications. Many production company have specialists who work as colorists, motion graphics artists, sound mixers. Why should they all be working in the same application with a clutter of features and tools that mean nothing to them.
All the best,
Tom
Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop” -
I agree with Walter, Tom and Rafael …
[Walter Biscardi] “You would end up with a completely bloated app that featured everything in one but could not do everything well.”
[Tom Wolsky] “…things would be improved with a single, integrated application? I don’t think so. I would think quite the opposite is more likely to happen.”
It might even be appropriate to change Walter’s “everything” to “anything”. And, what about the 75% of the time inside of FCP you’re not working on authoring a DVD? Or, what about the people who choose to use other tools like After Effects instead of Motion? Why bog us down with a bunch of stuff we don’t need and that would inevitably get in the way whether in terms of interface or resources?
[Rafael Amador] “integrate Color as a plugin to work in the time-line.”
Seems to make sense since, for most, coloring isn’t a task that’s separate from editing the way motion graphics and DVD authoring are.[Rafael Amador] “eliminate Compressor, as an stand alone application and I would implement a proper export option in FC/QT, instead of the crappy “QT conversion” (the only magic of Compressor, apart of the high quality filters, is that offers a bunch of presets to people unable to build their own one).
Couldn’t agree more that having to go to a separate app to output your work is silly … me thinks the last part of Rafael’s comment refers to one of the many places Apple has tried to be all things to all people … are we talking about “pro apps” or not?
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I’d like to see more crossover of the apps, not a unified bloated fcp. I,d like to see FCP get a lot of the tech of motion. For example the grouping and keyframing tech. Just replace things that both do, with the superior interface and methodology. For cameras and 3D you,d still go to motion. Ditto with audio function and soundtrack. DVDSP just needs an overhaul.
Bret Williams
Web Design . Motion Graphics . Video Editing
http://www.bretwilliams.com -
I think a unified application is a bad idea. This would be like ditching the big roll around toolbox in favor of a Leatherman tool or Swiss Army Knife. Being all things to all people is always a compromise, and I don’t really want to work with compromise tools, and can’t really see how this would improve the workflow in a positive way.
If I’m doing Mograph work, I really don’t want or need extensive sound and CC tools, or if I’m mixing I don’t want the overhead, or clutter of editing, CC and DVD authoring tools also being open.
In the ‘real world’ most of these departments and operations would be physically located in separate rooms, for good reason. The FCP suite of aps should mimic the real world, and not merge them into one big noisy inefficient ‘room’.
Scott Sheriff
Director
SST Digital Media
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com
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