Bill Davis
Forum Replies Created
-
[Bob Zelin] “Are you implying that if you don’t do this in FCP X, it’s impossible to do this job, because FCP X is the only software program that works for a “complex” workflow like this”
Nope.
I’m saying somebody wants an editor who can do THIS level of work in THIS program – because the employer has a team that’s apparently really happy with their workflow and doesn’t want to mess their shop flow up with someone who doesn’t understand the tool they use.
If you kept EVERYTHING in this ad exactly the same – but asked for AVID workflow stuff instead – – you guys would just be nodding and moving on.
But it’s X so I guess it needs to be challenged as an outrageous ask?
Kinda the definition of Bias, when you think about it.
The interesting thing about the ad to me – was how specifically they tuned the job requirements descriptions to eliminate all but the editors who would honestly know enough about the app to be ready to go on day one. No part timers or dillitants need apply. Know your stuff or don’t bother.
THAT is the message that most came across to me.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
Meh.
Scenario: Among our editors: Jane likes things one way because of how she thinks. Robert likes things organized quite differently because of how he thinks.
They’re both great editors – but each resonates with a different process.
The producer (if they’re smart) goes with one or the other depending on how well they fit the projects goals and objectives – just like you pick any artist or designer based on their style.
The AE needs to set up things differently for each. THAT is where judgement beats machine learning – at least for the coming generation or two.
On the long run, bets are off. But I feel pretty safe for the foreseeable future. And I think AES should too.
Just focus on building your judgement chops – not so much the process ones.
FWIW.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Oliver Peters] “With all due respect Bill, there is no such thing as a “new HDR ProRes RAW” workflow.”
Well, if you define “workflow” as the steps you take to create content – then what Apple showed at NAB pretty much DEFINES the term. ProRes RAW didn’t exist before that. Jeromy Young SHOWED the workflow for using it to create content. I’d call that “new HDR ProResRAW workflow” exactly as I used the phrase.
[Oliver Peters] “There is nothing inherent about ProResRAW specific to HDR, other than that it preserves a larger dynamic range.
“Uh, isn’t that kinda the “definition” of HDR?
[Oliver Peters] “The workflow is pretty well established, but the standards are still in flux.”
Isn’t that kind of a HUGE oxymoron? Can it be “established” yet also lack agreed to standards? It’s like saying we know what a “pie” is – but since there’s no recipe on the table to discuss – there’s really no consistent way to create pies for the market. Everyone has to make up their own.
Apple has at least now published a set of bespoke standards for what they see as “pie.” You decide the ingredients for the pies you want to produce, but at least you can now get started knowing that there’s at least one agreed to standard for the shape, size, crust thickness, and weight. That alone allows you to design the packaging, figure out how many fit in a case, tell the market what to expect as to needed shelf space, and start to figure out pricing.
They’ve created a consistent system for handling one type of HDR footage from camera to screen. When BlackMagic or Adobe or Google publishes their similar arrangement of format, hardware, software, monitoring and delivery modalities – we can talk about them, I guess. But right now, the HDR world appears to be woefully unfocused and unclear. (For many good reasons)
This should help.
The Apple solution might not be the best, nor the ideal, nor might it address the needs of ALL classes of users perfectly – but at least it HAS moved from the theoretical to the practical realm.
I look forward to other companies following a similar path over time.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
It’s totally OK.
We all get passionate about this stuff and sometimes that leads to these types of things (which I’m absolutely as guilty of as the next guy.)
Moving on.
Don’t know if I’ll see you at the Off the Tracks thing in LA next week, but hope so.
Take care.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
James,
Not sure if you’re interested in just “General HDR” or the new HDR ProRes RAW workflow that Apple just launched at NAB 2018.
But, I attended most of the NAB sessions on the new ProResRAW HDR grading implementations that resulted from the partnership from Atomos and Apple.
Basically, Atomos were the co-development partners with Apple on the new ProRes RAW HDR implementation.
To my understanding, nobody else has both the software and hardware necessary for this “turnkey” practical implementation just yet.
Atomos CEO Jeromy Young was extremely careful to indicate that their “exclusive” on this stuff is for a limited time only – and that he expects that the FCP X grading pipeline technology currently thus restricted – will “go wide” at some point in the not too distant future.
So, if you want to truly be an “early adopter” – you apparently need the following: (A) one of the cameras that will deliver ProRes RAW to an (B) HDR capable Atomos capture device – and then to (C) FCP X running on a Mac to enable the workflow. Monitoring, as you are finding out – is another critical piece of the puzzle. Monitors (D) that are capable of reliably displaying beyond the current luminance dynamic range in NITS are still pretty expensive and relatively rare.
If you don’t have ALL of those (A-D) stages, you’re basically not going to play in ProRes RAW for the moment.
If you just want to do some type of general “HDR” workflow NOT based on ProResRAW, there may be more generic tools available but I don’t know anyone currently having success with that, and this is apparently the first practical HDR workflow likely to reach the market as an easy to adopt “turnkey” system.
That’s what I basically the message I heard in the dozen sessions I attended at NAB.
Hope that helps. Good luck in your search.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Oliver Peters] “[Bill Davis] “Smart compression fights against the idea that everything will keep getting so much bigger that EVERY machine must be a flame thrower in order for a shop to do the work.”
Well, no. Smarter compression inherently requires newer, better hardware, which gets us back to the issue of ease of upgradeability. It doesn’t mean you need a new machine that’s at the maximum horsepower. But it does mean you need a new machine if you can’t upgrade.
I do realize that upgrades in hardware don’t always give you the results you strive for, but it certainly is a factor. At least for RAM, drives, and GPUs. Then there’s also the problem of the all-in-one design…
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com”
That’s certainly ONE way to look at it.
Another is that across ALL the laptops I’ve ever owned – I’ve paid LESS in adjusted US dollars than I paid in the 1990s for ONE maxed out MacPro IIfx tower system. ($17,500)
The scale of “costs” has changed mightily over the past two decades.
I’ve said it before, I’ve had craft services bills for shoots that ran more than any maxed out MAC or PC costs today. Nothing wrong with saving a buck, certainly. But this is just a very different era.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Shane Ross] “Bill…my point is that just because something works FOR YOU, doesn’t mean that it works for EVERYONE.”
I think if you look back and actually read what I posted – you’ll find I said nothing like that. In fact, I acknowledged multiple times that others have different needs.
You apparently get angry everytime I post anything.
Sorry, but that’s not my problem. It’s yours.
[Shane Ross] “But YOU need to realize that there are OTHER PEOPLE out there too…people with different needs, different deliverables, different ways of doing things”
Again, acknowledged in my post. Read the actual words I write, not how they make you feel – and this might go easier.
[Shane Ross] “So YOU chiming in how everything Apple does is great and perfect and doesn’t need to change at all because YOU are happy and satisfied is pretty short sighted, and the center of my beef with you.”
That’s utter BS. Look back at my posts. I try never to tell anyone else anything about what Apple should or shouldn’t do for them. If you’re taking things that way – maybe read again for comprehension.
I write what Apple’s solution actually do for me.That doing so drives you crazy and makes you project your feelings on my posts has nothing to do with anything but your emotional state. It would be nicer if you could get that under control.
[Shane Ross] “But it’s that view, and your cult-like devotion to Apple that caused me to lose all respect for your opinion and POV. “
I’m not here to gain your “respect” Shane. It’s irrelevant to me. (Just as I would suspect mine is largely irrelevant to you.) My “cult like devotion” (lovely perforative personal attack phrase there) is based on one things and one thing only. The fact that Apple hardware and FCP X are getting my work done faster, easier and more efficiently than any other system I’ve ever used. That’s all I know. It’s all I post about. I don’t tell you how it should work for you. Only how it does work for me.
Stop being so constantly triggered by my every post – Stop thinking it’s about me dissing you. And you might find that all I’m doing is the same thing you are. Describing my experiences and letting the readers here judge whether they’re useful or not.
Seriously, this is NOT about your feelings – or mine. It’s about debate to help others decide whether there are tools out there that might be useful to them.
Period.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
But whether it’s LOG C or ProRez RAW – my point is the same.
Smart compression fights against the idea that everything will keep getting so much bigger that EVERY machine must be a flame thrower in order for a shop to do the work.
If networks keep getting faster — and proxy workflows continue to rule the day — then it’s easily conceivable that the editor will be able to work on something less powerful while STILL being able to make all the editorial and many of the creative judgements they need. Then they just send the metadata describing the edit to ONE (or a couple) of “print to video” workstation for QC.
Suddenly, you don’t need 10 monster workstations, but theoretically a couple – with the editorial stations feeding them. And those editorial stations can just as conceivably be laptops or more modest machines.
It’s just changing the perception from the old days – when if EVERY machine you worked on wasn’t as large or as capable as it could possibly be – it wasn’t an equally valuable player, to the video equivalent of no longer needing a printer at each computer – but merely one network attached printer to serve a host of editors.
Seems to make sense. Time will tell.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Oliver Peters] “[Bill Davis] “Whether Uncompressed HD or DV, H-264 or 265, MXF or ProRez RAW, the nature of the signals themselves are trending to do more with less.”
Huh? What does that mean?
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com”
H-264 to H-265 allows more perceived quality in a similar size data stream, and ProRez RAW allows expanded dynamic range in a signal nearly the same size as stream with standard dynamic range.
Those are both examples of the editor getting MORE capability – while the signals passing through our boxes generally stay within a pretty narrow range – and that means you don’t necessarily need to chase more computing capability to work effectively.
So the chase for bigger and bigger, faster and faster computers can, perhaps, slow somewhat in response.
That was my point, basically.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Shane Ross] “But then yes, there are those that need more…more than Apple is currently offering. And the more that they DID offer up to 2012, then decided that no, we DIDN’T need any of that and what we wanted instead is a small tube on our desk, with a dozen wires streaming from it to 2-3 external boxes that are either stand alone, or offer a place to put the thing we need. yeah, FAR MORE elegant than a tower with multiple things enclosed inside it. They also decided that we didn’t need to upgrade anything ourselves…like newer or better GPU, or more RAM, or more internal hard drives. Sure, YOU don’t need that, but that doesn’t mean NO ONE needs that.”
Listen, I totally get that perspective. I lived inside it for decades. Push the hardware as much as I could afford so I could get the performance I felt I needed.
But that was the 90’s and part of the 00’s
In this decade, what I’ve discovered is that the stock hardware of today WAY outperforms the hardware of that era. More importantly, as our needs grow, the smart people at ALL these digital media companies are changing the very nature of what video streams ARE. Whether Uncompressed HD or DV, H-264 or 265, MXF or ProRez RAW, the nature of the signals themselves are trending to do more with less. So why do I need to simultaneously chase bigger and bigger hardware when my signals are getting more and more efficient?
I understand that some clients will DEMAND that everything be as big and fat and perfect as possible. Some of them will even be correct and know what they need. (Others, as we all know, will just blindly ask for MAX everything just to hide their lack of actual understanding – and so it goes!)
We all have to skate across this thinnish ice and do what’s best to get our jobs done.
Same as ever.
Have a great weekend.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.