Bill Davis
Forum Replies Created
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Basically, rendering is giving the computer time to mathematically compute the results of all the instructions you’ve given it (by design or unknowingly!)
Various operations like import media transcoding and processing all the transparency layers in an image or footage stack require a LOT of high speed calculation operations.
Rendering is the machine processing that type stuff and repacking complex instructions with simpler and cleaner ones that your machine can process efficiently.
My 2 bit definition anyway.
I’m sure the actual engineers who might be here will weigh in if I’m too far off target here.
(BTW, good on you for asking the question!
“No questions = no learning.” would be a really good sig line.Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.Hey wait! That’s Richard Herd asking? Why do I feel like I’ve just been punk’d?
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I welcome the entire thing.
More clarity will help everyone.A LOT of people who are in a position to know seem to feel that some of the original RED patents were too broad and are restricting the industry’s ability to move forward.
Others feel Apple is now somewhat hoist on it’s own “keep your less advanced tech off our shiny platform” petard. (cough, cough, Flash, etc. )
I suspect the truth, as usual, is someplace in the middle.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
Just a general observation.
These days, I try to examine the steps in my most regular workflows as often as I can to ask if the way I’ve been doing them for a long time is STILL the best way to keep doing them.
It usually happens when I watch someone else accomplish the same processes better and faster.
I’ve been caught WAY too many times realizing that not only was there a much more efficient and faster way of doing something, but (annoyingly) I could have been doing that new way for an embarrassingly long time if I’d just been wise enough to look for the improvement.
FWIW.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
Hardly ever now.
I’ve had background rendering turned off on FCP -X for the last 6 years or so and just let it happen during my Share cycle if it’s needed at all.
Most of my output is direct to Frame.io or Vimeo Pro, so those will handle the versioning transcodes.
Maybe 30% of my work is now in 4K or above and sometimes I set my my Mac to do a large file Upload which involves rendering, but typically I just take a break and get coffee until it finishes.
I’m sure it would be a different story if I was typically doing lots of complex composites or lots of layers, but that’s an exception, not a rule for me.
So really, I haven’t even thought much about rendering for a few years now.Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Oliver Peters] “You are in a pretty weak position trying to argue that X is either faster or better, simply because of the hoops you have to jump through to meet the requirement. And even then you haven’t fully satisfied the needs. The bottom line is that in such a situation, the client doesn’t hire you, they hire someone who is comfortable with the Adobe suite of tools.
– Oliver
“I simply see this in the following terms.
If a mechanic shop is currently using ALL hand tools – and another shop has made the switch to compressor driven tools – the second shop WILL be more efficient.
Furthermore, the MORE power assisted tools the second shop uses, the overall more efficient they will become.
And if they put in a central compressor system and teach all the shop employees to learn, understand and leverage the maximum number of power assisted tools – that shop will be significantly more efficient than any shop that tries to keep doing things the old way – SIMPLY because that’s the way they and their mechanics have always done things.That’s exactly how I see the transition from track-based timelines to magnetic editing.
Sure the old shop has added some power assisted tools to their approach. But I still find it’s just not the same as moving the wholistic system forward into a new era.
I know people get angry when I say things like this and feel what I’m ACTUALLY saying is that *they* are old-fashioned or foolish for not using the tools that *I* think they should. But that’s actually backwards. I don’t CARE what tools anyone else uses. It’s NONE OF MY BUSINESS. All I’m doing is articulating how the change of toolset and editing orientation has effected MY productivity over time.
X was transformational for me in that it freed both my time AND my thinking in countless ways – leading to me being a significantly happier editor. And that’s all that matters to me.
As to the other critique above about how X is a poor fit for the type of “shop where their work utterly depends on being “compatible” with the clients decisions about which NLE to use — yeah, they are UTTERLY correct.
If that’s your goal – to occupy a seat in a shop like that – thats likely your best path. I’ve worked for a few large enterprises of that type over my career where the inefficiency of their process has been staggering to behold, but to each their own.
But I stand by my positions. If you wish to exhibit a large operation seat editor orientation – then by all means learn the apps that will get you into those seats.
I’m lucky. I can make a fine living without anyone telling me what tools to use to do my work. I KNOW that makes me lucky.
And I appreciate that.
That’s all.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Oliver Peters] “Huh? Isn’t that contrary to your argument that X is faster? If you are charging more to use another NLE and you are supposedly faster on X, then you are really giving the client the middle finger and pricing yourself out of the market. This strategy effectively tells the client that you have no interest in cutting with anything other than X, even though that might not be in the best interest of the client or the project.
“Nope.
I’m doing EXACTLY what is appropriate. If a client elects to force me to use a tool that makes my work harder and less efficient, then they have to pay MORE than if they let me use a tool that enables me to be more efficient.
Why? Because efficiency is a thing that benefits EVERYONE. Client and editor alike.
And in any case, I have LONG been staunchly against trading money for time in general.
If you sell your TIME two things are inevitable. The first thing is that your inventory will shrink every second you are alive — even when you are asleep at night. And secondly,, you will make less if you are good and fast, then you will if you are lousy and slow. That has never made ANY sense to me.
Time billing is a construct of accounting and generally benefits the HIRING party by connecting pay to a metric they can used for cost control.
I elect, instead, to charge for EXPERTISE – Never time. It shifts things away from a focus on the process – to a focus on results. It’s preciesly why one artist gets far more money for arranging the EXACT same paint on canvas as another.
You are paying for their expertise in obtaining results, not their time.
If your project quotes reflect your expertise, then the time it takes to complete a project shouldn’t really matter providing you meet the agreed deadlines. It’s how creative output has ALWAYS functioned, really. A great song that takes an hour to write, has no less market value than an equally popular one that took a month to write. So why charge more for one than the other? Makes no sense.
That X is faster (which I completely believe) simply allows me to shift my attention more and more away from the mechanics of assembly – and more and more into the ACTUAL editing – which is really using expertise to curate what to eliminate, what to prioritize, and how to arrange my chosen elements in order to help it to communicate successfully to it’s audience.
It’s not giving the client “the finger” at all.
It’s saying “let me do the real job you are hiring me to do – to create something worthy for you – with tools that I have mastered because I have found they will best help me get you a superior results, faster.”
That I may be able to get us there faster is a shining benefit for you! So if I keep MORE money for working LESS time but STILL delivering faster – then we BOTH get motivation to keep this process going.
Thats kinda how I see it.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
If I was still in a situation where I had to cut with what anyone else told me to cut with – I might seriously consider a new rate sheet structured like this.
Project type A – (start and complete in X) Base Quote.
Project type C – (start in any other NLE, and delivered for me to finish) Base Quote + 50%
Project type D – start in other NLE, have me organize and edit, then requiring assets to be turnedover for use in any
other NLE) Base Quote +100%Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Oliver Peters] “But typically Apple doesn’t like to be part of something that’s not dominated by Apple.”
Its really just the use of the term “dominated.” Which everyone understands is pretty perjorative.
The wider point, however, is definitely accurate.
We have to look no farther than the unpleasant and financially costly experience Apple just went through here in San Diego with Intel in court over the licensing of 5G modem technologies.
In the short run, Qualcomm apparently prevailed — setting with Apple licensing Qualcomm’s existing 5G Modems for the next gen or two of iPhones.
But then a week later Apple buys Intels wireless modem teams and IP – and the industry has to accept that clearly part of Apple’s strategy continues to be to OWN what makes iPhones, iPhones.
I suppose you could call that a desire to “dominate” – but you could also just call it a sensible vertical integration strategy, the type of which companies at this level pursue all the time.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
Sorry about that.
My interview was shot about 8am Sunday Morning the last day of the Creative Summitt and frankly I’m surprised I was coherent enough to have said anything useful at all.
Also totally shocked that Wes Plate had shot video of the crowd rush into the Apple FCP X reveal Supermeet, and caught me on camera admitting the hordes.
I think I got the gatekeeper gig only because after 25 years of VO announcing, I could stand at the ropes and yell loudly enough stuff like “they say just 5 more minutes!” With the needed punch to keep the crowds at bay.
Fun times.Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
And if you want more than just a new version of the old tools – Luminar is doing a LOT of work in incorporating AI into their photo processing suite.
I’ve been extremely surprised that a tool this “automated” is yielding quick eye-popping results for me that my clients seem to really love.
It’s a tiny bit like a nodal system ala Resolves color correction – with the user able to stack filter presets onto images and then dial them globally up or back to taste – OR dive into the presets stacks to increase or decrease individual aspects of them. But overall the result is fast and often PLENTY to turn a meh photo into something very visually pleasing with a fraction of the time and effort something like Photoshop or even Lightroom would take.
For true Photoshop or lightroom masters who just want a similar set of concepts, it’s likely NOT going to be your cup of tea. But like the FCP X transition from Legacy – it’s attempting to re-think photo processing by looking at what most often needs to be done – rather than re-creating the workflow people have traditionally used to do those things.
FWIW.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.