Andrew Richards
Forum Replies Created
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Mustn’t… feed… troll….
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[Franz Bieberkopf] “What others seem to be suggesting, without really outlining their meaning, is the the underlying changes (AV Foundation) offer the possibility of new paradigms or that the new paradigm exists in the way media and data is handled and might one day surface as something new in FCPX. (Is this really new, or just a better database?)”
I’m not at all sure if there is any specific OS X API that is responsible for the Magnetic Timeline. We know the project and event databases are managed via CoreData, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the Magnetic Timeline and its new model of connected clips with their explicit ties to each other is made possible by the use of that API.
AVFoundation allows developers to leverage lower level OS X frameworks like CoreAudio, CoreVideo, CoreMedia, CoreAnimation, and so on in a less granular way. It is just less work for the programmer to get the same sophisticated results. Using these APIs is how FCPX is able to be 64 bit, edit with H.264 and other complex asymmetrical interframe codecs, and do all the background rendering via Grand Central Dispatch. When you code for OS X’s tuned APIs, you get all those low level goodies with a lot less work than doing it by hand.
[Franz Bieberkopf] “The possibility alluded to [by] Andrew Richards that FCPX may allow different views of the same timeline seems interesting (and perhaps fundamentally new). That is something I’d like to know more about – is that the paradigm shift?”
What is fundamentally new about the Magnetic Timeline is the arrangement of the timeline by tethering media to other media, rather than laying media out in a particular order within the structure of a timeline. The pie-in-the-sky idea I laid out for revisualizing the timeline is only practical when the elements in the timeline have explicit relationships independent of their spatial relationships in the UI. Otherwise, how could the whole timeline redraw itself to illustrate something different about the edit? I’d be shocked if Apple ever implemented such a feature, but I think it would be pretty killer if they did.
I think the visual metaphor of the traditional timeline and the Magnetic Timeline are similar enough that lots of people are applying their understanding of traditional timelines, with fixed track relationships in the vertical space, and drawing incorrect conclusions about the Magnetic Timeline’s behavior.
Another thing I think is informing opinions, or at least it informed mine the first time I played with the MT, is that all the timeline management muscle memory from the last decade of legacy FCP is frustratingly useless. In other words, knowing what you want to do but not how to do it, and knowing you’d have it done it by now on the old timeline! I felt much the same way the first time I tried Avid after initially learning FCP 1.25 as a student.
But I also recognize that many of my timeline manipulation habits and techniques of the past were really just working around the weaknesses of the old timeline.
Best,
Andy -
[Chris Kenny] “Also, Lion may break some drivers because they’re 32-bit. A 64-bit kernel requires 64-bit drivers.”
Snow Leopard didn’t default to the 64 bit kernel except on certain machines. Will Lion be different? And wouldn’t the only dependency then be for 64 bit kernel extensions (kexts)?
Best,
Andy -
[Dan Hayes] “Does it always render to plain “ProRes 422″?”
As I understand it, yes.
Best,
Andy -
Good point. My FCP-centric experience is showing. JPEG2000 is a great codec for long term storage and compatibility.
Best,
Andy -
[Eduardo Serrano] “But even adding to your answer, not being able to define the form of ProRes you are working with in FCPX is one more major design flaw in the current state of FCPX.”
Completely agree.
[Eduardo Serrano] “My question is more about the role of ProRes in the industry. It’s about the demise of FCP as an NLE at the moment. We are on the verge of becoming file-based in the delivery process to the final clients (meaning tv networks and studios), not only because of the advent of this codec and the market, but because of the shortage of HDCAM SR tapes due to Japan’s earthquake.”
This is a larger problem than just ProRes. ProRes and DNxHD are both proprietary codecs, so they are not ideal for file-based mastering from a compatibility and risk perspective. The overarching problem is that there aren’t any equivalent open standard codecs. All the open standards are compromised in terms of quality or in terms of their structure (interframe compression being the big gotcha).
Maybe proprietary codecs like Pro Res or DNxHD are going to become like PDF is for documents, where they aren’t a true open standard but they are so ubiquitous and easily licensed it hardly matters. The jury is certainly still out on that one.
In practical terms, if your delivery specs call for ProRes, your decision is easy. If you are looking for a codec for your own archives, that carries some risk that whatever you choose will fall out of favor one way or another. No way around that. The safe thing to do there is to archive camera and/or NLE native codecs to maintain the highest possible quality that you can today, and along side that store a high bitrate full raster, full frame rate MPEG-2 or H.264 safety proxy that is more likely to be readable in a future that may have discarded whatever proprietary codecs may have been used for the original media.
Best,
Andy -
[Paul Dickin] “But I think it is an underlying reason for FCP X’s Project = Timeline (singular) structure, which is more of a sticking point to me than the magneticness of the timeline display.”
Why though? Why couldn’t they have just as easily gone with their old structure of sequences in a project? The whole organizational structure of Events and one-timeline-per-Project is independent of the underlying APIs being called to stitch the video data together (which is all AVFoundation does).
I think the new Events & Projects structure is absolutely a nod in the direction of the iMovie crowd looking to move up (the former Final Cut Express crowd), it creates a conduit to FCPX up from iMovie with 1:1 organizational methods. Apple seems to have merged FCE and FCP into FCPX, and the feature set in the current release is heavily skewed to the FCE end of the spectrum.
Best,
Andy -
[James Daugherty] “Only 1600+ units sold. They should have sold over 20K by now.”
1,600 reviews on the App Store does not equate to units sold. There are no published sales figures that I know of.
Best,
Andy -
ProRes is FCPX’s preferred codec. It is what everything renders as and is the “optimized” and proxy media as well. FCPX doesn’t let you define HQ, LT, or 4444 for it’s optimized media, but it will work with those variants happily.
Best,
Andy -
[Paul Dickin] “In the new scheme of things the GUI could be released from such inflexibilities. In what way the interface should best be developed is what needs our attention 🙂
In my view staying the same as it has been is a retrograde option.”Don’t get me wrong, I’m not arguing against the Magnetic Timeline or suggesting it isn’t an effective visualization of an edit. I’m just pointing out AVFoundation isn’t the reason for the Magnetic Timeline. If Apple were so inclined, they could add “views” to the Magnetic Timeline that would morph the presentation into different patterns. For instance, I submitted a Feedback asking for one where the audio, once it can be tagged with metadata for output, is collapsed a la Compound Clips into however many discreet channels are defined for the sequence- all with one click. This would aid in QC, master mixing, and so on.
[Paul Dickin] “Playing at a constant frame rate is only mandated by the broadcasting chain, and the inflexibility of tape technology. Doesn’t mean that a modern-looking NLE should be limited so as not to be flexible enough to deal with future distribution technologies.”
I’d argue time-based media needs a set cadence, but that is another discussion. Even FCPX requires you to pick a FPS setting for any given timeline. What you’re describing is actually much more like the old QuickTime’s event-based media framework, where any set cadence is essentially a workaround. This is why the old FCP in its early versions had so many sync drift issues.
Best,
Andy