[Jack Zahran]

3D Type wasn’t the only additional feature. You seem to be hun g up on it, what about others?

[Jack Zahran]

I’m not a professional editor by far, I mostly support some post production clients on Avid MC and FCP 7 and X.

But, if you look at how editors would organize their tracks on legacy systems, you’ll see that FCP X use of Roles and Auditions should help you to manage your effects and alternative clips efficiently and consistently. The magnetic timeline is more about avoiding unnecessary steps, where the program maintains the proper relationships between clips, so you don’t have to and you can just keep editing. It basically is computerizing what was previously a lot of manual work and memorizaition on the timeline. So if you use it effectively and take advantage of the metadata capabilities you should find it a more modern editor. But, it took Apple a few revisions to complete the essential features that most editors were looking for. I now feel comfortable recommending it as a full replacement for FCP 7 or MC.

Add Motion into the workflow, and there are some really amazing things you can do as was demonstrated recently in these forums. Recommend you view the thread on doing your own manual keying using Motion. Really got me excited and demonstrated how powerful the products can be when you leverage their newer features.

[Jack Zahran]

The FirePro designation has always been a discussion. Typically FirePros are behind the top gaming gpu from the same vendor, in the way Xeon’s are last years model but revisioned and hardened for Servers. When I was supporting Autocad for Windows, this workstation designation was always an issue on the PC side.

But when you have a deadline and its 2 in the morning, it’s a little more assuring to know that the GPU your using has been certified as a workstation card, with whatever tests it needed to pass to get that designation. For the most part, I’ve always understood that one differentiating aspect is that the firmware nor the drivers are allowed to take “shortcuts” or “cheats” to improve performance, IEEE specs and rules on math precision, etc.

So this argument that the GPU is no different than a gaming GPU is really pedestrian. Really surprised by the Arstechnica review. I think they are just trying to be controversial and attention mongering. The MacPro is quite a development and the current pinnacle of innovation in the workstation world. Its a great target for critics who want to be read.

Reading it, on the one had they seem to imply the GPUs are not a big deal after all, with some marketing spin. Then when switching to the CPU, they claim it’s the weakest link and the Mac Pro is really about the performance of the GPU. The reality is that this is a workstation, and as a workstation, you’re getting some of the best combinations of CPU and GPU even compared to systems that are more expensive.

And as far as programming to leverage both GPU’s and the CPUs simultaneously, OS X’s Cocoa frameworks already have that covered. If the developers has been leveraging apples math and other frameworks, a lot of this performance comes for free. With Grand Central Dispatch and OpenCL, not only is the GPU an OpenCL target but so are all the virtual CPU cores. Many modern Cocoa Apps get the boost for free. But, if the developer takes a few extra streps, than the boost is quite significant, take a look at Pixelmator…

[Jack Zahran]

The site owner is a Premiere CC user. Makes sense that he helps other Premiere users and those are what the stats reflect. I would have to say that is all they reflect, as he admits not being to sure what segment Avid MC is used for…

[Jack Zahran]

[Franz Bieberkopf] “I just paid $6,500 for the same render speeds I had three years ago. That’s not revolutionary from any angle.”

This comment seems to make the point that he wants the Mac Pro to be a Batch machine. Sorry for the 70s mainframe throwback. There are better ways to spend $6,500 for example, a Mini render farm… Keep the interactive devices for realtime interaction.

[Jack Zahran]

So what you are looking for is a check box to repeat screen edge pixels, so the mask will be be outside the screen edge and not blur the side(s) your masking when the respective side(s) mask intersects with any screen edge?

AE has the repeat edge pixels checkbox. You’re looking for something similar?

[Jack Zahran]

Thanks for that AMA example, it’s definitely affected some of my post clients and Avid hasn’t fixed it since 5.5.3.

What’s interesting to me is that Apple has been moving FCPX forward relatively rapidly. Also, the number of third party software and hardware vendors that are flourishing around FCPX. If it was not being used by people willing to vote with their purse, I don’t see how or why so many third parties are benefitting from its active community?

There also appears to be a larger community online supporting FCPX than Avid and Premiere. Another puzzle to me on why so many think FCPX is not having a good uptake, besides the fact that it continues to be the top grossing App on the Mac App Store amongst all Apps sold there.

Not saying that FCPX replaces MC7 in the Movie industry, but I suspect that more and more indie films will be cut with FCPX, followed by big budget movies. The transition should reflect Apple’s own upgrade schedule. Premiere has the issue of being part of a subscription model and Avid is going through a bit of uncertainty as far as its long term viability. So, I think the future of which NLE becomes dominant is still uncertain. However, Apple has gone in a fresher direction and they have committed to keep progressing and addressing user concerns.

[Jack Zahran]

In the Apps/Utility folder, start the program called Console. Select the Clear the Display button. Then start FCP X 10.1. Each time a beach ball starts, go back to Console and select the “Insert Marker” button.

Save a copy of the Console message list using the “File-Save a Copy as…” option.

Feel free to post the console log. I’d be happy to analyze it for you.

[Jack Zahran]

I did it on top of 10.6.8, straight upgrade. The Maverick installer pointed out some Apps that would not work after the upgrade and asked if I wanted to continue. And then after the update, I checked the App folder for any additional Apps that the system superimposed a “?” over indicating it would not work.

It has the effect of cleaning out a lot of gruff. Which is nice. I usually then go into Activity viewer and turn on the “Kind” attribute in the process list, sorting by it. Go through all the remaining 32 bit apps and see if there are 64 bit upgrades to them or better alternatives. Again, mostly dropbox is the last remaining 32 bit app in most systems I deal with. I think if Apple introduced a hierarchal iCloud add on to the Finder, I would drop dropbox…

[Jack Zahran]

This weekend I upgraded a clients C2D based iMac to Mavericks (10.9.1) from Snow Leopard (10.6.8). Really smooth upgrade process, just make sure you install the Mavericks migration update for Snow Leopard by checking for the latest upgrades.

The system runs noticeably faster and of course the Kernel goes from 32bit to 64bit. With only Dropbox still stuck in the 32bit world. They’re a stubborn bunch…