[Erik Lindahl]

Yes, A/V output in FCPX using a video interface is sort of broken.

[Erik Lindahl]

I’d love to see more powerful color tools in FCPX. The engine driving the system is certainly powerful enough.

The things lacking from the top of my head would be:

– Curves (RGBL, Hue vs Hue, Hue vs Sat, Hue vs Lum, Lum vs Sat, Sat vs Sat)
– Matte Keyer per color operation
– Intelligent Tracking per shape matte (not backed in data as Adobe does it)
– Stills reference gallery (i.e. see previous / next shot or the ability to store stills – even FCP7 could do that)

You sort of already have a lift / gamma / gain system in place, just visually different. That said they probably should have a lift / gamma / gain mode as well as their boards. Perhaps call this the advanced color panel or something. A bonus would be panel support or at least an API for panels.

Finess tools like sharpness, midtone detail, noise reduction etc are also part of grading / finishing.

Now if we’ll see this… I won’t hold my breath. I’d be happy with decent A/V playback first which would be required for a solid grade solution.

[Erik Lindahl]

When AI solves color correction and even more so grading I think editors will be just as redundant.

[Erik Lindahl]

Out of curiosity, what do you use it for?

[Erik Lindahl]

With the disclaimer I haven’t really been able to use FCPX due to its shortcomings – shockingly poor A/V output support amongst other things. I do like the look of that application when I do use it every fortnight. Often it feels more thought out and well designed from the look of things. It’s however very inflexible, especially for dual or thripple screen users.

[Erik Lindahl]

I will give Premiere the edge on flexibility regarding its GUI, sadly it’s quite buggy and the flixbility often does render it quite ugly.

[Erik Lindahl]

2017 5K iMac vs 15″ MacBook Pro Video Editing – FCX Premiere & Resolve 14
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=posSfMXCfFQ&feature=youtu.be

The MBP 2017 does lag behind or very far behind an iMac 2017.

It again depends on what you do and if you’ll notice it. As soon as processing of media or effects is involved, a MBP will be slower or much slower. If you’re primarily editing / transferring media it should be pretty much on-par.

Applications like Resolve or plugins like Neat Video might “break” on lesser hardware like a MBP – especially doing higher resolution work. Also if working with RAW, especially RED, you’ll start to AE the CPU of the iMac being a bottleneck as well.

Some contents or functionalities here are not available due to your cookie preferences!

This happens because the functionality/content marked as “Google Youtube” uses cookies that you choosed to keep disabled. In order to view this content or use this functionality, please enable cookies: click here to open your cookie preferences.

[Erik Lindahl]

I could add for pure editing tasks a MBP would be fine. But in this scenario I’d rather go with an iMac. Faster, better screen and probably quieter.

[Erik Lindahl]

I’d say it depends on what you do.

For my workflow doing primarily TVC finishing a MacBook Pro would be a disaster, a nMP or Cheesegrader works much better. Then again I barely touch FCPX and primarily work in After Effects / Premiere / Resolve. For the latter, a MacBook Pro barely cuts it – heck my nMP 8-core / D700 often barely cuts it.

So a laptop wouldn’t be a replacement. The current top-end iMacs come close as a viable solution, the coming iMac Pro might be a terrific option.

[Erik Lindahl]

1. Sort out AV-output. It’s useless in it’s current state and renders the app useless for us in many regards.

2. Sort out external file support including. Media Managment has been a pain in the neck when dealing with VFX-work reliant on external apps, batch export is a major lack luster and more. If an external app alters a file FCPX start crying like crazy.

3. Editing / media control. Yes I know FCPX is doing its own thing but they should try to adapt things for other systems so it’s not like taking vacation on Mars. It’s really hard to get and overview of things like media time code. It’s virtually impossible to work with video tracks. Lanes for audio sorted a lot of things there – give video something similar.

4. More native formats support. We view a lot of masters going to broadcast on reference monitors which means playback of MPEG2 (.m2v and .ts) are a must for example.

My point of view is more using FCPX as an online / finishing system. In it’s current state that hard or impossible – given – there are a lot of impressive things there. The video engine is crazy good (except AV-output) and a lot of “how things work” are simpler / smarter made.