[Geert Van den berg]

I think we’re saying the same thing. It’s possible but unlikely. Name one Apple Pro App which allows collaboration. But I have to admit I did not read about the capabilities of Core Data yet.

I did read some interesting things in the Apple developer Core Data technology overview:

Merge policies.
Core Data provides built in version tracking and optimistic locking to support automatic multi-writer conflict resolution.

What Core Data Is Not
Core Data is not a relational database or a relational database management system (RDBMS).
Core Data provides an infrastructure for change management and for saving objects to and retrieving them from storage. It can use SQLite as one of its persistent store types. It is not, though, in and of itself a database. (To emphasize this point: you could for example use just an in-memory store in your application. You could use Core Data for change tracking and management, but never actually save any data in a file.)

FAQ.
How do I use my existing SQLite database with Core Data?

You don’t. Although Core Data supports SQLite as one of its persistent store types, the database format is private. You cannot create a SQLite database using native SQLite API and use it directly with Core Data (nor should you manipulate an existing Core Data SQLite store using native SQLite API). If you have an existing SQLite database, you need to import it into a Core Data store (see “Efficiently Importing Data”).

What I think we’ll get though is Eventsharing comparable to sharing an iTunes library. Read-Only.

But of course there are no boundaries for Apple to implement another hook in the app or change databases. If Apple creates something which works for Final Cut Pro X they’ll be able to use the same technology or app for Aperture and Logic as well, maybe it is in the pipeline… I have gotten a bit more optimistic again.

[Geert Van den berg]

Yes but a project and an event are stored as an SQlite database which is open to only one writing user.

Doesn’t mean it’s impossible to create an application and a workflow around this limitation, databases are nearly always interchangeable. Had they build it using a server based database then real multiuser access would have been possible and it would open up other workflows that are currently not possible.

Adobe Anywhere allows working on the same timeline, but it’s not really end user friendly to install and it’s not realtime, you need to commit your edits to the server and then some sort of collission detection is done and it requires some heavy server hardware, however I would think that it is possible to create a workspace comparable to Google doc’s where you can see who is logged in and see the tweaks that are made by someone else nearly live. (for example a red box on clips which are selected by another user)

Maybe Apple will come with a final cut server product again, they have a server product for OS X too. But the main thing is that the databases need to be stored on a server which all clients can access for this to work.

Mounting and unmounting SAN locations can’t be the end of this. It’s old fashioned.

[Geert Van den berg]

I thought from the start that the new FCP base was ideal for projectsharing or multiuser editting, but I don’t think this is going to happen because the application is built around SQlite databases, these are not meant for multi-user editting, it locks out other users during writes. It seems Apple is fond of using SQlite though, it’s used in almost all the apple apps.

[Geert Van den berg]

I have 10.0.6 installed on Snow Leopard.

After reading here that Lion was required I expected I couldn’t install it, I can’t install the latest version of Aperture and Numbers and Pages, but to my surprise Final Cut did install, just check your appstore app to see if it’s listed.

[Geert Van den berg]

Blast, I think you are right Mathieu!

I also tested this but was then more concerned with image quality than speed. If I put in a longer sequence it’s indeed much slower than FCP7.

It’s odd though, I did many recompress passes, everytime put the export in a new project and exported again and didn’t notice any degradation when putting the export on top of the original with a difference filter. (CS 5.5 was really terrible with this!).

If you’d recompress ten times you’d expect some difference to show up and I didn’t see any when going out of Final Cut directly. I did see degration when rendering 10 times via Compressor.

That’s why I thought there must be some sort of smart rendering.

(feedback sent to Apple!!!)

[Geert Van den berg]

[Jeremy Garchow] “I have never seen the “use the codec most used in your project” option that was mentioned, no.”

It didn’t mean that literally.

What I noticed is that the media export from the share menu usually only mentions ProRes but if you have an IMX or XDCAM codec in your sequence, and at my company we use those the most for broadcast deliverables, those codecs appear in that menu as well, so FCPX is aware of them. If you want to render to those codecs from a sequence that has only ProRes you’d have to use the Compressor options.

(We don’t actually use FCPX yet, still need to demo CS6 better, but I am charmed by the quality and ease of use with the roles tags because we do a lot of multilanguage stuff).

[Geert Van den berg]

But that’s my point. Besides using a different framework which has better realtime playback performance, as far as rendering is concerned there is no difference between FCP7 and FCPX.

In FCP7 you choose a sequence preset with a certain codec, which you can alter to some extent while already working in the sequence. If your sequence is in ProResHQ and you drop this type of content in the timeline and make only cuts it will just copy over these segments to the QuickTime file on export, however any adjustments or filters will be rendered.

In FCPX you don’t have to specify a codec for your sequence. But if you make cuts only and use export media from the share menu with ‘the codec that you have used the most within the project’ (actually it is not current settings, this will create a ProRes file)  it will also just copy over the editted segments to the QuickTime file if your media has the same codec as the chosen codec. When filters are used it has to render but FCP 7 had to do that as well, then it’s not 1:1 anymore and then smart rendering doesn’t apply.

What’s the difference? IMHO there is none. Try it, test it and report back.

[Geert Van den berg]

[Jeremy Garchow] “FCPX now works like Adobe Pr. Everything is recompressed on output.”

That’s what I thought, but it’s not true. FCPX still has smart rendering. It’s one of the reasons I am still considering FCPX, but Premiere seems to do it with MXF files now too.

If you for example drop an IMX50 file as a first clip in the timeline and then export with ‘use current settings’ if your intended output is supposed to be IMX50, it will not recompress. Only drawback is if you use export using Compressor settings or via Compressor, then it will recompress.

I tested this by dropping the newly rendered output in another new project and did this a couple of times. Layering them on top of each other with a difference filter, showed them to be identical to the first file. Tried the same thing with Premiere 5.5 and was turned off of it immediately… but CS6 is a step in the right direction.

[Geert Van den berg]

There’s already several tools that can do this. It won’t be a 1:1 conversion, but that neither would be if you import a FCP XML v5 into another NLE.

[Geert Van den berg]

I think that the next version of Logic Pro will also have FCPXML import.

From there it will be easy to make an OMF export or even better AAF. And in between you’d even be able to re-arrange some of the audio to better organize it.

Pricewise Logic Pro isn’t more expensive than Automatic Duck and will be more usefull even if you won’t mix with it.