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Why do users say FCP X is fast? Some new numbers.
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It still is an issue if you are working with high resolution raw footage, even with a high spec Mac pro. Unfortunately, premiere cc is hands down miles faster at doing this when you drop your working resolution to 1/4. The timeline doesn’t slow down, you don’t occasionally lose waveforms on your clips and you don’t get the beach ball every time you need to keyframe something. For one massive project we are working in fcpx with this kind of footage and it works, just with these performance glitches. It’s come a very, very long way but for speed of interface it still has ground to make.
Co-owner at Pollen Studio
http://www.pollenstudio.co.uk -
Tom, the only thing that is absolutely clear from my experience lately is a major reinforcement of the idea that the foundational programming of FCP X is the type of code that was written for where the hardware capabilities of modern computers were going – not where they had been. Even the “new” MacPro is (in computer terms) aging tech hardware now. And the latest MacBook Pro performance I’m seeing is MILES ahead of what I was experiencing prior to my recent upgrade. This theme echoed the stories from last year about how iMacs from some months after the new MacPros intro were giving them a run for their money in editing speed. This all causes me to wonder two things. What will future CPU and GPU advances enable? And what the landscape will look like for X editing when Apple inevitably updates the Cylinder? Just food for thought.
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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I get that bill, and the increase in performance for 1080p projects on MacBook Pro and iMac is v exciting. It would be really great if there was some indication that a new Mac Pro is due to be released and take advantage of this new coding though, as many production houses like ours are hanging on to see if another is coming to help speed up workflow of high res, raw projects. The only thing I know from current experience is that editing r3d based projects in 4, 5 and 6K is sluggish on fcpx and fast on premiere cc. I wish it wasn’t so because the more I use fcpx, the more I love it.
Co-owner at Pollen Studio
http://www.pollenstudio.co.uk -
[Tom Sefton] “The only thing I know from current experience is that editing r3d based projects in 4, 5 and 6K is sluggish on fcpx and fast on premiere cc.”
That’s not your case, Tom! Excuse my ramblings and thanks for the honest report, but I was wondering and hoping if someone could expand on this; Why is there this persistent future promise regarding apple/final cut? I heard the other day people saying that FCPX is the only nle truly future proof? These people claim FCPX is fresh new code and the most prepared for raw files and upcoming codecs. This sounds old news actually, who can remember the ‘phenomena’ rumour in which apple would bring a ‘kill them all’ application? What really happened at the end? A few lines of code from Shake are now used in FCPX and Motion. That’s the sound of reality sinking in.
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[Christian Schumacher] “These people claim FCPX is fresh new code and the most prepared for raw files and upcoming codecs. “
I question that, too. At this stage, FCPX code is at least 1-2 years older than the public product release. Therefore 5-6 years of code development at this point.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Not sure I can see the foundation for your reasoning, Christian. The experience of using X has been one of continuous utility and speed improvement since the day it was released. (BTW, That can be said of Premiere Pro as well – but only on the software side since they do not manufacture hardware)
The way I’m editing in X today is MUCH faster and more fluid than it was even two years ago.
And that is clearly (IMO) the result of a company that is in control of both hardware and software development in concert.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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So how does the Platform code compare? OSX introduced a LOT of new code related directly to what we do. AV Foundation, Core Video, Core Audio, Core Grahics etc, etc. X is clearly built on that. When did the competition clear out the cobwebs in the legacy code base to do the same? Honest question, I’m not as hardware development savvy as many here.
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] “When did the competition clear out the cobwebs in the legacy code base to do the same? Honest question, I’m not as hardware development savvy as many here.”
I have no idea, other than to say it’s been an ongoing process that’s still occurring. Both Avid and Adobe in particular write code based on something common that can then be ported to Mac or Windows. Presumably BMD does the same with Resolve. In the case of Avid and Adobe, these are modular applications, so things are being updated all the time, rather than a wholesale gutting of the application and then starting over.
The point though, is that FCP X coding was started 6 year ago (maybe longer). Internally Apple is very secretive, so there’s no real guarantee that FCP X was actually written with new hardware or OS in mind. AV Foundation was already in existence due to iOS. So in any case, it’s hard to say whether the ProApps engineers really had any great advance knowledge of what Apple was doing in other parts. ‘Building for a modern framework’ was likely just as much guesswork on their part as it has been for anyone else. The roadmap isn’t Apple’s as much as it is that of Intel, AMD, and Nvidia. Here Apple is in the same boat as the others.
The big difference with X is that Apple could streamline the code by simply not including a lot of things based on legacy workflows. Some of this was obvious and necessary, but some was a design choice that many pro users wish they hadn’t opted for.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Bill Davis] “Tom, the only thing that is absolutely clear from my experience lately is a major reinforcement of the idea that the foundational programming of FCP X is the type of code that was written for where the hardware capabilities of modern computers were going – not where they had been.”
What laptop did you have before? I’m curious to understand better what your comparison is.
I don’t think that “where the hardware capabilities of modern computers were going” has changed much in the last few years: it’s been 64-bit + multi-core CPU + GPGPU + SSD for some time.
The next big shift is coming shortly, with newer approaches to GPU programming like DX12, Vulkan and Metal coming to market, but even then, that’s more of a development change than a hardware one.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Bill Davis] “So how does the Platform code compare?”
I think this is the most significant difference between Apple and their competition. Not that Apple integrates their own hardware — recall that Adobe was qualifying only specific GPUs just a couple years ago — but that Apple controls both the OS and the application, and doesn’t care in the least about portability (in the software platform sense of the word).
You can look at FCPX as a really glorious demo for Mac developers. Huge amounts of its core functionality is handled by OS APIs, from media handling to image processing to data storage. If you care about cross-platform development, you cannot rely exclusively on this functionality.
[Bill Davis] “OSX introduced a LOT of new code related directly to what we do. AV Foundation, Core Video, Core Audio, Core Grahics etc, etc. X is clearly built on that. When did the competition clear out the cobwebs in the legacy code base to do the same? Honest question, I’m not as hardware development savvy as many here.”
Premiere Pro CS5, going all 64-bit and introducing the set of technologies collectively called the Mercury Playback Engine, is probably what you’re asking about here on the Adobe side. To suggest that only Apple understands where computer hardware is going and writes their software accordingly seems strange when most of the hardware-related performance “innovations” in FCPX were already shipping in Pr for a year when X launched.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn]
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