[David Eaks]

[Tim Wilson] “I’m curious. Is anybody looking at this and saying, “Wow, what a great update,” or “This has exactly the features I was waiting for,” or, “This update makes me feel better about myself” — anything like that?”

Yes, ME!

Well. Libraries… don’t really care. It’s better for many people and I’m glad. I’ll just alter my workflow as needed and probably improve it some how. I haven’t completely grasped it all yet but I wasn’t hurting with separate Events/Projects.

What I’m most excited about is the under the hood performance increase. Being that I don’t own a thunderbolt equipped Mac yet (2008 2.8 eight core Mac Pro and 2010 2.66 dual core MBP), FCPX doesn’t perform as well as I know it could. My main concerns being realtime effects playback and waiting for thumbnails and waveforms to build.

With the combination of the 10.1 update and moving to Mavericks, I’ve noticed a significant improvement in performance on the MBP (Mavericks hasn’t made it onto the Mac Pro yet). Waveforms and thumbnails build a bit faster and I can get a little more real time playback with effects in better performance mode. Alex4Ds BruceX benchmark showed improvement as well. All things that make my daily life better.

Here is an example of the increased performance on my MBP. With the OS and Apps installed on an evenly-split partitioned SSD, the Media files and Event/Library on a 2TB LaCie D2 Quadra connected with FW800 (because Mavericks won’t recognize the eSATA express card). New Timeline with a one hour 1920×1080 Prores clip. Better Performance selected-

FCPX 10.0.9 on Mountain Lion cannot playback without dropping frames with only the Add Noise and 50s TV effects applied (add noise and color correction will play).

FCPX 10.1 on Mavericks can playback without dropping frames with the Add Noise, 50s TV, Aged Film and a color correction with every parameter adjusted at least a little (a second color correction will drop frames after a few seconds). Significant for a Software update to be sure.

I just now did those tests back to back, then repeated each trying to get more effects to play.

BruceX-
FCPX 10.0.9—– 436
FCPX 10.1——- 368

I’ve also gone as far as to time how long each version takes to build Thumbnails and Waveforms. Starting with an open timeline, hit shift-z to fit, quit FCPX. Then trash the appropriate render files folders and reopen FCPX. As soon as the timeline pops up I start the timer-

10.1—— thumbnails build in 4 seconds—- Waveforms build in 1 min 41 sec
10.0.9— thumbnails build in 12 seconds— Waveforms build in 2 min 19 sec

then zooming in the timeline, the thumbnails need to update for each zoom level, 10.1 is snappier.

So, there’s all that. Then there is all the actual features to be happy with.

remove through edit
used clip ranges/show unused only
Project Snapshots
AUTOSAVE VAULT!
share notifications (I’ve been happily using the “FCPX Messages” script app for a while)
Separate audio from Multicam clip
copy/paste multiple keyframes
custom project resolutions
retime/replace improvements
Stabilization/optical flow improvements
audio handles
J/L cut improvements
completely hide browser
FCPX doesn’t hold any and every mounted drive hostage
etc.

And lets not forget that we will be getting another update in 2-3 months.

I’m sure not complaining.

[David Eaks]

[Craig Alan] “The one thing I can’t so far get used to is clips jumping from being attached under the primary to being attached over the timeline.”

In what case does that happen?

[David Eaks]

I understood what you meant by “challenge” and didn’t take it offensively. I literally couldn’t find the previous thread or my reply to you. Something funny is going on with the COW. Does everyone else have two posts with broken links from the COW news droid stuck at the top of new posts?

[David Powell] ” I wonder if it has to do with the fact that I’m copying from the plural eyes project.”

Maybe if you first paste the clips from the plural eyes project to a regular timeline, they will Copy/paste into the angle editor.

I also did a second sync test, this time with a third set of clips, which were the Ki Pro recordings of a live mix between those two cameras, also start and stopped independently. Imported and named the camera “Ki Pro” and the angle “3”, then created another multicam clip with all three angles. It finished in 6 minutes. Because of the slight delay from the boom mics to the camera mics, the picture was a frame or two off in one clip or another. If I was actually going to use this multicam clip it wouldn’t take long to nudge the clips into place relative to the audio that will be used in the timeline. It would probably be even easier if I turned off the line feed on cam 1, so it would sync perfectly with cam 2 (both same distance from talent), leaving only the Ki Pro out by a frame.

I actually did a screen recording of these tests. I sped it up and blurred the content but it shows exactly what I did. Of course, again, the audio is clean and controlled (except for the ranch dogs, loud bugs in the trees, and location visitors coming and going. All causing many retakes) which isn’t really a fair comparison.

*Edit
…and here is the screen capture-

https://youtu.be/3q-ItHe1t8k

[David Eaks]

Download here- https://support.apple.com/kb/ht3678

QT 7 was an optional install on the OS X Snow leopard disc. Installing FCP 7 automagically unlocked the Pro part of QT 7. If you don’t have FCP 7, you can purchase a pro license. Apparently at one time or another, you bought both. Unnecessary, but is coming in handy now.

[David Eaks]

David Powell- “after being challenged by David Eaks and Bill Davis on both issues”.

Could you remind me which thread that was? Searching my previous posts, I can’t seem to find it.

I really think that the audio is what’s giving X a hard time syncing you’re clips but when you say FCPX doesn’t even get it right with simple two camera, good audio, long clips, there’s got to be something up. I have no experience with Plural Eyes but the fact that it syncs so quickly with the bad audio you describe is impressive. If only the rest of the workflow was working correctly! Does plural eyes only use audio to sync?

In the situation you describe, you’re really making it tough on yourself. Relying on audio from cameras that are roaming around between different rooms to sync the clips. This must have been discussed already but why aren’t you syncing the cameras timecode at the start of the shoot? Sorry I don’t remember all the details from the discussion thus far.

I just did a test. Clips from two cameras recording over a period of about 7hrs with 20-30 clips per camera, a few minutes per clip. Both Sony NX5s, start and stopped recording independently. Cam 1 audio is both the on-camera shotgun and a line feed from an audio board with boom mics. Cam 2 is shotgun only. 2 person interviews, both cameras close to the talent. Here is what I did.

-New event and project

-Import all of cam 1, select all these clips, enter camera name “cam1” and angle name “1” in the inspector

-Repeat for cam 2

-immediately select all of the clips (while they are still importing, just to make things difficult for X, I guess) and choose create new multicam clip. Choose to use audio for sync and arrange angles by angle name (which probably doesn’t make a difference)

-wait 10 minutes for sync to finish

-open multicam clip in angle editor and check sync, it all looks good.

Maybe the sync wasn’t incredibly fast, but simple as can be. This is my usual method and it almost always works flawlessly. Most of the time it’s just two cameras with two 1hr clips each, for these I like the method Michael mentioned. I’ll make a multicam clip with only one clip, then add the rest in the ballpark and sync to monitor angle. I think it’s faster than FCPX doing it. In a case where one camera is significantly closer to the action, the delay will leave the image a couple frames off. It’s easy enough to nudge all the clips from one angle into place at once. I always manually check sync no matter the method used. Since using FCPX multicam, I’ve been completely care free with no time code and start/stop recording at will, confident that FCPX will handle it (being conscious of my audio for syncing later). When I’ve demonstrated it to editor colleagues who do not use FCPX, they are thoroughly impressed with the resulting angle editor layout. But my cameras are not roaming around in separate rooms. For that I’d sync free run timecode for sure.

I think I already mentioned this in the other thread (the thread I couldn’t find), but when I’ve had difficulty with syncing due to poor audio, I’ll temporarily enhance the audio with loudness and background noise removal and/or manual adjustments. Even if it sounds terrible to the ear, and even “ruining” the better audio to match the other camera. FCPX is able to pick out matching sounds and sync the clips. I haven’t had to do that more than a couple times but it has proven effective. If plural eyes only uses audio to sync, I’m fairly confident this will work for you in FCPX.

[David Eaks]

I skipped trashing the files and did a clean install. Compressor opens up normally. No surprise there.

Now to test my workflow and hopefully get my main system updated. BruceX benchmark saw about 20% improvement from mtn Lion and FCPX 10.0.9 to Mavericks and FCPX 10.1 on this MBP (exporting Prores not h.264). Impressive.

[David Eaks]

I’m able to paste multiple clips into the angle editor, copied right from the event browser or the timeline, even using gap clips in the primary to space out clips (randomly spaced as a test) and they paste into the angle editor as expected (no gap clip but clips spaced accordingly). Just make sure to set the monitoring angle to the angle you want to paste into.

Hope it works for you.

[David Eaks]

Is App Nap on?

[David Eaks]

I’ve run some tests on my two Macs for anyone who’s interested. FCPX 10.1 and Mavericks together offer a significant reduction in export times when compared to older software on the same hardware. I like it!

————–

Mid 2010 MBP 6,1 2.66GHz dual core i7, 8GB. All are exported to Prores except where noted, in order to get comparable results since FCPX 10.1 can’t export BruceX to H.264.

Mountain Lion 10.8.4 and FCPX 10.0.9—– 436
(Export to H.264 on this system- 437)
Mavericks 10.9.1 and FCPX 10.0.9——— 426
Mavericks 10.9.1 and FCPX 10.1———– 368 (Importing the XML popped up a warning message stating that working with 4K or above is not recommended on this system. It only popped up in FCPX 10.1)

————–

2008 Mac Pro 3,1 2.8GHz eight core, 16Gb, Radeon 5770. Export to h.264

Mountain Lion 10.8.4 and FCPX 10.0.9—— 132
Mountain Lion 10.8.4 and FCPX 10.0.9—— 132 (after working on the system all day, 7.39GB Page outs. 3.31GB Swap)

Mavericks 10.9.1 and FCPX 10.1———– Coming Soon

[David Eaks]

I think Scott has it right.

I believe that when Phil mentioned there will be a new version of FCPX at the end of the Mac Pro Sneak Peek, he described it as “to take advantage of the new Mac Pro and Dual GPUs” or something to that effect. Not the new version of FCPX “will be full of new features and fulfill just about every item on everyone’s wish list”.

So, IIRC, It was not introduced as a major feature update. Rather a performance update. Apple trickles out new stuff, just a little bit at a time. We should be getting used to it by now.

I’m happy.