Erik Lindahl
Forum Replies Created
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Just to add to the “open feel” of a platform. A bare-bone MacOSX installation vs a bare-bone Windows installation the Mac wins hands down. You can’t even open a PDF in Windows with out downloading something. Being used to working in MacOS I just presume one can open anything from jpeg, png, tiff, targa, psd, pdf and so forth. This is NOT the case from my experience with Windows and esp. clients using Windows.
The above has nothing to do with Vegas vs FCP but it has to do with the “open feel” of a platform and imo MacOS is way better there.
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Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Post Production Services
http://www.freecloud.se -
I’m not sure what experience you’ve had but I’ve never encountered a scenario where I couldn’t edit the source material a client gave me. Be it DV, DVCPRO, DVCRPOHD, HDV, AVCINTRA, IMX, XDCAM, DigiBeta, HDCAM or HDCAM SR.
So the answer is, “you can’t unless you want to render all your footage to an uncompressed MOV file.”
I don’t know where you get this from.. Scrubbing through my codec-list:
– ProRes
– DV
– DVCPRO
– HDV
– MPEG IMX
– XDCAM (EX / HD / HD422)
– REDCODE
– Uncompressed (8- / 10-bit)Past half year I’ve work with everything from RED to 5D to AVCINTRA footage so I’m not sure where you get “you need to deliver uncompressed QuickTime”. That’s bull.
You also got it wrong that there isn’t a ProRes codec for Windows. As it is becoming a more wide-spread recording format editing systems like AVID can use these natively on MacOS and Windows.
…the Mac is a closed proprietary platform that doesn’t play well with others and FCP is impossible to get footage into unless you own a Mac so that you can capture and wrapper and whatever a Mac must do in order to work with native video from a camera.
You got it backwards again. Even if it was the way you described things above, which it isn’t, but imagine it was the issue is Final Cut Pro and NOT the Mac. Look at Premier Pro – works EXACTLY the same on Windows and MacOS and they also went the “use native format road” (given they lack a ProRes-like road). Look at AVID – works EXACTLY the same on Windows and MacOS. If anything Vega’s is a closed for not being on MacOS and only on Windows.
It’s next to impossible for PC shoots to collaborate with FCP editors
No it’s not but yes it’s hard to work with different editors in general. Adobe is “briding the gap” a bit by trying to “play nice” with both AVID and FCP but it’s not optimal to have editors spread out across different editing systems on any platform if you ask me. This isn’t an FCP-issue per say.
If you have a recommendation for me to give the next PC shooter on how they can get their footage to an FCP editor, please tell me the workflow. I’d love to hear it, and pass it on to others.
I know to little about how Vega’s works but I’d presume handing over the source media + an EDL or XML of the final edit would import fine in FCP. I know some versions of for example AVID does very odd things with their media when working with RED which brakes compatibility with other editing systems more or less. It could be I’ve just worked with “idiot” editors but yeah, it hasn’t been smooth (the AVID regenerated new timecode for all the clips, thank you very much :-))
Not if your a shooter that doesn’t own a Mac. 😉 By contrast Vegas Pro can accept more formats and IMHO is a better recommendation if you need to be format agnostic.
Like Vega that only can be run on Windows, Final Cut Pro can only be run on MacOS. If you own a Mac you have the option of both systems. If you own a generic PC, you don’t. If this is something you value – buy a Mac. If you want to use FCP, buy a Mac. If MacOS is your preferred platform, buy a Mac. If you’re happy with Windows and Vegas – don’t look at the Apple’s in the food court.
A question for reflection:
– How well does it work to stay “native format” all the way through a post workflow that will involve editing, grading, composting / effects and later online / final edit? You can’t possibly say everything can be done in Vegas can you? What grading software would you use? How does it handle native HDV or AVCINTRA media?For my perspective, again, looking at my day to day work I use Final Cut Pro and QuickTime as a central “hub”. When grading I jump into Color or Resolve, not which are even available on Windows but I guess you have other options. When the grade is set I’d jump into After Effects and Mocha for effects / retouch if needed (most projects end up needing some fixing). After that everything is finalized again in FCP.
The problem here is not one of the mention softwares would work EFFICIENTLY with native media. After Effects I think is the only one that would accept it but why on earth would I want to work with an extreamly taxing codec like HDV or AVCINTRA here? That’s just madness and will make each generation loss ten-fold to working with ProRes or similar codec.
This is a good reason both AVID and Apple went down this road, this is also a good reason why companies like Adobe and Sony are going the “native format” approach. But just cause FCP doesn’t do all “native formats” doesn’t mean it can’t read the given format. And in a complex post workflow you probably are far better off NOT working in the native format anyway.
I would say if anyone comes to us and says “I’ve edited a project in some editing applciation and I want you to grade it” I’d try to figure out what app they’ve used and so forth. But at the end of the day the easiest, 100% safe way to transfer a project from system A to system B is to lock in down into a QuickTime and making it uncompressed you retain 100% of the quality that system was working with the media in. So I understand WHY this is a common workflow, but I can guarantee you’ll have just as much issues moving a project to Premier or Media Composer (possibly Premier is easier as they’ve adopted a very open-ness to FCP / XML and AVID / AAF).
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Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Post Production Services
http://www.freecloud.se -
I don’t know where it got started… but it is proliferated by post houses all across America that will only accept Apple ProRes422 or Uncompressed. So while your statement may be technically true… you can’t tell from all the FCP post houses out there. They only accept 2 formats! (and we called a boat load of them and it the same story over, and over, and over again)
…and there is a good reason for this. Quality-controll. We only accept Uncompressed (8- or 10-bit), Animation or ProRes as master-files aside from tapes (Digibeta or HDCAM SR normally). Yes, can take image sequences also but that’s un-favourable as a “master format” as FCP nor QuickTime can’t read image-sequences very smoothly (and for storage it’s not very practical). If we say we accept “any digital format” who know’s what we’ll get. And even with our set standards we ger odd-ball files anyway. You can run into a lot of issues with mixed formats and post-houses want to avoid this.
With the above said, sure, sometimes clients come in with footage from a 5D, HDV och DVCPRO HD-camera. We don’t reject them because of that. It’s however important to see this is a recording format – not a master / deliver format (normally). Most of these other formats FCP supports fine. You run into issues when clients send you a 320×240 MPEG1 file and wonder “why can’t we re-edit this and send it to the TV-station?”.
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Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Post Production Services
http://www.freecloud.se -
FCP can handle just about all the industry standard codecs including ProRES, DVCPROHD, DnxHD, Cineform, uncompressed and many more. Don’t know where the one or two codecs thing got started but just not true.
Correct. The only thing FCP doesn’t like is using some formats native container. That is for example .MXF och .MTS where Apple will re-wrap these into QuickTime files. I would almost go as far as saying Final Cut Pro has some of the best format support in the industry.
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Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Post Production Services
http://www.freecloud.se -
There are pro’s and con’s with every system or application you get. As mentioned, an “open” timeline and an “open” system is great but it also requires you to somewhat know what you’re doing. One can’t just disregard different standards and codecs just cause your application handles them all.
A classic for me is that the last 10 projects where we’ve needed to buy stock-footage it’s always been 24P or 30i – two NTSC formats. In Sweden we 99% of the time want PAL 25p or 25i, researchers just don’t get that and it can cause massive head-aches in the editing process. Would I be better off with using FCP, AVID or Vega’s here? Maybe AVID or Vega’s can do some “magic” internally in the app and convert 24P to 25P or 30i to 25p, I can’t really say how good it would look and personally I always do those kind of conversions per clip in what ever app does it the best in the arsenal of apps we’ve got in the studio (Episode, After Effects, Shake, Final Cut Pro, Compressor – the list goes on).
FCP is quite an “open” system and it’s got a ton of extra’s that’s come from the community. However, FCP is also growing more into a “spider in the web” of post production. Just look at the past years “Final Cut Pro User Group Super Meets” – these have changed their name to simply “Super Meets” as people and technology evolve and we don’t just use one app or one editing package to get things done always. I spend as much time in Color and After Effects as I do in FCP – but FCP is my choice of editor.
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Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Post Production Services
http://www.freecloud.se -
Erik thanks a lot. So the only reason I would wanna use Windows on a Mac is if I like the Mac hardware, right?
Well you could buy a Mac and use Windows cause you like the hardware but the main reason is that you don’t lock your self to MacOSX when buying a Mac. You CAN run Windows as well. You can have both MacOSX and Windows on the same system with out any problems. For maximum performance you re-boot your system into Windows when using Windows and then re-boot into MacOSX when using MacOSX. Takes less than a minute to do.
And — in terms of losing quality — does the image get re-compressed 10 times if I try 10 different frame rate speeds before I decide on one?
Normally no, but if you for example:
Edit > Grade in an external program > Do effects in an external program > Re-connect to your original edit and add titles you’d end up with 3 generation losses (i.e. 3 re-encodes). It all depends on your work-flow. Just sitting in one editing app should never introduce more than 1 generation loss.
Are you saying that ANY change causes a re-compression, whether adding a title, changing the title, changing it back, etc?
Basically, if you have a clip and you add a color correction, then a title and then you render you end up with your original clip and a rendered version of the same clip. If you go back and remove the color correction and change the title your editor, be it FCP or Vegas, will render a new clip from the original. You won’t lose quality for each change you make.
If you however do as I described above you can run into issues. The same goes if you edit something, add FX / titles, lay out to tape or file then later re-import it, do some changes and again layout to tape or file – here you’ll most likely have one generation loss “per round trip” so to speak.
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Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Post Production Services
http://www.freecloud.se -
What i mean with running Windows 100% native is that a Apple “Macintosh” is a 100% Intel-compatible machine. Through BootCamp you can launch Windows like any “Windows compatible” (i.e. Dell / HP). It’s not an emulation-mode or anything like that. What you also can do is run a “virtual machine” inside MacOSX if you want, given this isn’t optimal for high-end apps in the long run as you will have a performance hit and some limitation.
In terms of losing quality when adding titles or color correcting is the fact that any editing system HAS TO re-compress the image when you do any modification to an image. What I mean is, as you will in 90% of the time do this you want to edit in a high quality codec intended for editing. So, working in something like ProRes will result in less degradation of image quality than staying with h264 / AVC / MPEG2 / DV / HDV in your edit. In a lot of cases you won’t just work in one application either so in a “normal” post-workflow you want to move to a solid editing codec anyway. In FCP you’re somewhat forced to do this, as stated, for better and worse.
IPS-monitors are special type of TFT monitors that in general offer better spec’s that other TFT-panels. IPS is a technical term for the actual panel inside of the monitor. Apple uses these exclusively in their hardware, other manufactures like DELL offer certain series of monitors that have this also.Â
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I’ve used a lot of ProRes footage at 1280×800 resolution (i.e. 16×10) which works fine to work in FCP with. I would imagine AE and FCP would handle 1280×1080 fine. A few things to keep in mind / test:
– Possible gamma and / or rendering issues
– Possible work-flow speed-upsI had all my footage in 1280×800 ProRes 422 HQ where I edited in a 1280×720 timeline for RT-playback and when finished, put everything in a 1280×800 sequence and removed all scaling / position attributes. Worked fine, but at times I could get issues with gamma difference between clips. My solution was to “re-encode each frame” on export.
Specifically when using AE as well there are some bugs with ProRes. Check Adobe’s site for solutions / work-arounds.
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Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Post Production Services
http://www.freecloud.se -
I just skimmed through this thread and my objections have probably been answereded but..
In fact, Vegas can produce higher quality files because Vegas will accept the native format from your camera and in some cases (like MPEG2) if you don’t change anything, it will output the exact same video frame pixels-for-pixel with NO LOSS in quality while FCP can’t even work with your native camera files, it will re-render them just to edit them and re-render them again to the output format. Every render has the potential of loosing quality so you tell me which is higher quality… no rendering with Vegas (or one render for non-MPEG2), or two renders with FCP?
This is highly incorrect. It’s true that FCP will re-wrap most camera native codecs to QuickTime files, but that doesn’t mean it has to re-encode the codec. Get your facts straight. Re-wrapping and re-encoding are two very different things (and in a lot of cases the later is preferred anyhow). The hole “working native” debacle is interesting. I do see the point in it and I’ve seen a lot of demos from Adobe showcasing CS5 and well from what I’ve seen, h264 editing is just not solid there unless you have CUDA hardware. Fine, you want to do a very very simple in / out edit, it works, cool tech-demo. But in reality, the lag, the loss of detail during playback and so forth when working with these files are just more head-ache than you actually need. Rendering will also be slower on any system (except perhaps a CUDA-accelerated one) as rendering to a h264-codec will take far longer time than a modern editing codec like ProRes. But yes, sure, it’s nice to have that option.
As for FCP output looking cleaner… that’s just nonsense. What does “look cleaner” mean? You can get any “look” you want with any editing application. Most applications use the same plug-ins so I don’t know what “look cleaner” even means.
I agree that a statement like this is a bit stupid, but two applications WILL rendering things differently and one might appear “cleaner”. I’m pretty sure of that. Different applications will also handle things like RGB to YUV conversion differently as well as pixel down-sampling (4:4:4 to 4:2:2 for example). Claiming “in my experience, FCP produces a clearer results than Vegas” is just as right or wrong as me claiming “Episode Encoder produces cleaner 4:4:4 to 4:2:2 conversions than FCP” (which imo it does).
…I am constantly shocked at how little Mac editors actually know about the inner workings of video and codecs which is probably why they have no technical answers to backup their senseless claims…
I’m a bit shocked you make such a definite claim. One could perhaps say “in general editors have little in-sight to how codecs and formats work” rather than FCP-editors. But given the vast size of FCP-users out there, yes, you’re likely to find more non-technical users. But this is just like saying “a lot of writers have little in-sight how Word or other formats work”. You often have different people for different jobs and yes, I’d love to see a higher level of technical understanding in my field, but I’d say you’ll find just as many “idiots” using FCP, AVID or Vegas.
To back up my “claim” above about Episode “beating” FCP in a the area of pixel down-sampling. Yes, it probably has some kind of chroma filtering going on in the background making it appear cleaner for the eye where in fact I think FCP might be more “clean” in terms of not messing around with the pixles (Apple has always avoided chroma softening in their codecs for better an worse).
And speaking of codecs and loss of quality you normally want to go to a higher codec as anything you do that affects your footage (color correction / titles / transitions) will introduce a generation loss. I’d be quite shocked to see an edit NOT being affected like this in one way or another, hence we go to ProRes or a similar format. Does Vegas have anything similar to this out of the box? He’s FCP (or AVID) has a huge “up” compared to a lot of other systems as they’ve got a fully developed editing codec.
So yeah.. I’m going to grab my morning cup of coffee now.
TO THE POSTER: What ever system you choose I’ll likely be a happy camper. A huge “what system you choose” however is the fact that FCP only runs on MacOSX, hence you’ll have to work in that OS. I find it a far more appealing working-environment than Windows and if you buy a Mac you can still run Windwos on the same system 100% natively. I think this is an important thing to consider if you have to use tools outside of the editor of your choice.
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Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Post Production Services
http://www.freecloud.se -
Motion and After Effects are to a degree two different animals just like After Effects and Nuke are vastly different. Yes, you can do a lot of the same things in all three apps but in the end – choose the tool that fits the job. If I where to choose “one tool to rule them all” AE beats Motion hands down as I can do everything in there even if more simple operations might take a little more time and I don’t have the initial “wow” effect.
If you go and get complex, from my experience, Motion just chokes and dies and isn’t an option. Motion was last time I drilled it extremely slow at final rendering as it’s dependent on CPU and GPU for the output, where After Effects will (normally) use more CPU’s in your systems for render. Some heavier effects are also starting to be accelerated by CUDA which is interesting. But the realtime environment Motion is built on is impressive at times – esp. for more simple motion graphics work. Sadly the application hasn’t impressed me when it comes to final output and 100% detailed control. As far as I know it also lacks expression / scripting which can be a pain.
But yes, I do miss the initial realtime and some of the UI-features (grouping of layers is a major lack in AE where we’re forced to pre-comp).
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Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Post Production Services
http://www.freecloud.se