Why is FCP so wimpy?

[Nigel Beaumont]

I guess that’s why there are a few different types of NLE on the market – we all prioritise differently. I moved to FCP in January after three years with avid and I can’t say I’ve any desire to go back. Not because avid is poor, but because FCP fits my way of working better. There’s some niggles, but mostly I enjoy it more than Avid. If M100 works for you, stick with it!

“Ofcourse it’ll be finished in time for tx”

[Kevin Monahan]

Are you working in Unlimited RT? Almost no rendering then until final output.

Kevin Monahan
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro

[Jeremy Garchow]

M100 has always been great at this. Always. It had rt titles (not motion alpha channels) preG3. It was also tuned for the animation codec later on for motion alphas. It was also able to do this with a very compressed RGB codec. With the advent of FCP 7 and ProRes 4444 FCP finally has real time alpha channel support. What codec are you working in? What format and frame rate. M100 is great at a lot of things, you have highlighted them nicely, FCP also has it’s strengths. Audio mixing capabilities in M100 blows FCP our of the water. I agree. I really wish Apple would ditch the studio and roll Motion and STP right into FCP. After switching from M100 years ago (before m100 could handle HD) I find the FCP interface to be much flexible despite the rendering.

[Walter Biscardi]

[olof ekbergh] “Basically I believe M100 is about 3-5 times as fast to work in, at least the way I work. “

Are you still using the proprietary hardware boards from M100 or software only? This was the big key with M100, the HDR fx board that you tied together with the M100 board to give you tons of realtime.

As Jeremy noted, ProRes 4444 offers real-time alpha support, which I used to get with FCP and the old Pinnacle CineWave board. The CineWave acted very much like the HDR fx board in that I got realtime chroma key, realtime alpha and all sorts of realtime effects like slo mo / speed ramping straight to tape. This was 5 years ago with FCP. No clue what Apple has done but all hardware based accelerators are gone and nobody would pay for them anyway. At least not enough people to make it worth the while. Look at all the people who want an Uncompressed HD RAID for almost no money on this forum.

So you have to adjust your workflow to match FCP. Aside from those RT features you mention from M100, I really don’t miss it. I worked 6 years on M100 before switching over to FCP in 2001. Can’t think of anything that would get me to switch back though, but M100 was / is a great product.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
Credits include multiple Emmy, Telly, Aurora and Peabody Awards.
Owner, Biscardi Creative Media featuring HD Post
Biscardi Creative Media

Creative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital.

Read my Blog!

Twitter!

[Olof Ekbergh]

As I mentioned above, I am using M100 latest Suite with AJA HDe and Matrox MX02, on the same systems. One is an 09 MP 8core 12GB ram RAID 5 Promise box (600+MB/sec). The other is an 08 4 core MP with similar RAID. Another Suite is the old M100 with HDR FX. I also have a couple 09 MBP’s with M100 and FCP, that can use the MX02.

So everything is the same for FCP and M100 on the newer systems. And M100 just blows FCP out of the water. All the SW is latest only one of the MBP’s is on Snow Leopard, the rest are on 10.5.8. I use an EX3 a lot and that does not really work with SL yet.

I usually use ProRes422 HQ on HD 1080p 60 or 23.976. SD is usually edited HD then played out on AJA or MX02 to Beta SP deck.

The only real advantage I see with FCP are the tabbed windows. If M100 had that there would be no comparison.

Bear in mind this is just my opinion and a lot has to do with the way I like to work. I like monitoring everything on an external Pro monitor all the time in full HD and I run external scopes full time as well, the AJA and Matrox do this very well.

In M100 there is almost never a need to render, but in FCP I spend more than half my time waiting for renders or jumping into STP and back, M100 has fantastic audio built right in including separate buses tracks can be assigned to with any compressor/limiter or whatever applied to it.

Olof Ekbergh

[Walter Biscardi]

[olof ekbergh] ”
In M100 there is almost never a need to render, but in FCP I spend more than half my time waiting for renders or jumping into STP and back, M100 has fantastic audio built right in including separate buses tracks can be assigned to with any compressor/limiter or whatever applied to it. “

Then I guess the obvious question is why are you using FCP? Sounds like you should just stick with M100. FCP is definitely not for everybody and its workflow is not for everybody.

We hardly ever have a need to render with our systems until final output as we use Unlimited RT and 500 to 750MB/s hard drive arrays which negate the need for rendering as we go. I’ll take the cost savings of FCP and deal with the renders as the low cost of FCP allows me to upgrade the hardware all around it. But if you need realtime, lay to tape realtime, then stick with M100 as that sounds like the better solution for your workflow.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
Credits include multiple Emmy, Telly, Aurora and Peabody Awards.
Owner, Biscardi Creative Media featuring HD Post
Biscardi Creative Media

Creative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital.

Read my Blog!

Twitter!

[Ben Holmes]

Hi Olof

I’ve no experience with M100 – it sounds like it does some things better than FCP.

However, with the correct RT settings in FCP, you will get real time dissolves, CC and some effects – or playback with slightly reduced resolution if it’s a mix of too many effects. I find many users do not set RT up correctly – but it should be noted that often using an external video device effects the RT performance (ask anyone editing RED timelines with BM hardware).

I have to agree, however, that we seem to have been waiting far too long for better performance – how many pro users would pay for hardware acceleration in FCP? Working in HD in time-sensitive environments, I know I would. If there is a market for the Kona 3, there is a market for something that works to improve a situation I frankly thought Apple would have solved in software/multicore hardware by now. I would pay for that – and so would many others.

Edit Out Ltd
—————————-
FCP Editor/Trainer/System Consultant
EVS/VT Supervisor for live broadcast
RED camera transfer/post
Independent Director/Producer

https://www.blackmagic-design.com/casestudies/detail.asp?case=therydercup

[Gabriel Regalbuto]

Its been many years since Apple has been shipping computers with 4+ processors. Alas FCP never tickles more than two….

FCS2 CS4
MacPro 8x
5drive eSATA stripe

[Walter Biscardi]

[Ben Holmes] ” how many pro users would pay for hardware acceleration in FCP? Working in HD in time-sensitive environments, I know I would. “

Not enough apparently or Apple has done something to discourage this. That’s why the CineWave died a few years back.

Here’s my article from 2004. Notice all the realtime capabilities of this card.

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/biscardi_walter/state_of_CineWave_2004.php

Here’s a page from Pinnacle’s site listing all the RT capabilities.

https://www.pinnaclesys.com/docloader.asp?templ=10&Product_ID=108&doclink=/dotMedia/cinewave/English(US)/doc/Cinewave_FamilyOverview.html#anchor2

Again, this is 2004 and all of these RT Effects were Edit to Tape Real Time Effects that did NOT require any rendering. Period. Yes, that include Chroma Key, Luma Key and color correction. I did a project back in 2004 right after this came out that was a 15 minute Chroma Key cutting on a G4. Realtime, Edit to Tape, No Render.

In 2004.

Needless to say, I was very disappointed to see it go away (thanks to Avid) and still disappointed that nobody has been able to replicate the same feature set….. from 2004. But then people on this forum want everything for free or for $100 so there’s not much of a market for the card which I believe was around $5,000 once you bought the card and the RT License. The $3,000 Kona 3 card and even the $1,500 Kona LHi is too much for most folks on this forum so I can’t see that a $5,000 card would survive today’s market.

I mean we want a $1,200 software to do everything in realtime today like the more expensive NLE’s can do, right?

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
Credits include multiple Emmy, Telly, Aurora and Peabody Awards.
Owner, Biscardi Creative Media featuring HD Post
Biscardi Creative Media

Creative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital.

Read my Blog!

Twitter!

Tweets by walterbiscardi

[Joe Paolo]

I had to learn Media 100 for an on going gig about a year ago. I am working on old G4 laptops at offline resolutions so some of my issues may be hardware related.

I find I’m 2-3 times faster in FCP. I find may of the usual things I use, like match framing, to be non-exsistant in M100. When I mark an in and out on a clip I can only see that range until I push another button to reveal the entire clip. The dated “A/B” roll metaphor on the main video layer is cumbersome. The audio waveforms are nearly unless and really slow the box down. An insert can take 4-8 seconds to update the time line on longer programs. (These last issues may be the crappy lappy) Also, no sync indication. No repositioning or cropping. The new version finally got “JKL” navigation and the ability to scroll in reverse. If you make a slomo or any other processed effect M100 losses all reference to the original media. This issue alone has caused all sorts of problems.

M100 forces the render on import. All media must conform to the project settings. Thus everything eats up processing time even if it is not used. I like FCP’s more open approach of allowing most media types and then only after I decide to use it do i eat up the time.

When we output for appoval the timelime must render for a long time before it can start to make the file almost doubling the time it take to make a quick appoval file.

Also, in our market FCP workflows are used by every major facility. The managing editor for this project has built a M100 island and found a few vendors to support him. Therefore our talent pool is limited.

FCP is not perfect but as an editing tool I prefer it to Media 100.

joe
editmojo.com