Jason Porthouse
Forum Replies Created
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I see what you did there… 😉
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Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes. -
One of the things I’ve noticed in using Avid on a job recently is just how much time and head space is taken up doing all the little things that X does for you – patching audio, selecting clips (i.e not being able to skim) and the like – it really is much slower for my style of editing.
Then I use X and rail against the niggles that mar an otherwise brilliant editing package – the way the screen layout changes with opening and closing scopes etc. I get why, it’s just frustrating as it seems to work agains muscle memory in the way a fixed UI doesn’t. Ditto with Apples interesting take on centering when zooming in and out (and the scale of the zoom which is way too severe IMHO) – all little things which should be resolved but seem to be forgotten or unimportant. But those are minor things really – the pea under the mattress. I do find more and more that Avid feels like a cumbersome old thing compared with X. I’m cutting a doc next month where X would be perfect – but theres no chance the client will go for using it, they’re too wedded to Avid. Such is the freelance life.
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Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes. -
Some great suggestions here. I’d chime in with a ‘+1’ for better match framing. It’s a function I use constantly on Avid, and it’s one of the most useful for my day-to-day edit tasks. Being able to find clips and their surrounding brethren is a lifesaver, and X’s clunky version of it leaves me frustrated every time I use it.
I’d be happy with the match frame selecting the clip in keyword collection it was taken from (maybe with a choice if it occurs twice, or a second keystroke to scroll through options) and placing it dead centre of the browser.
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Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes. -
Well, I’ve done just that but on a Mac Pro 1,1. Really.
After using SFOTT to create a Mavericks install, and putting that on a Crucial SSD, it’s transformed the machine. OK so it’s no speed demon, but X runs very well considering. 24 gigs of RAM help – it originally had 8 and that was pretty painful for X (though fine for 7 and Media Composer). Storage is 3 striped 2tb drives giving about 560MB/sec (good backup mandatory). Oh and the GPU is a 5770 of some dubious provenance.
Caveat here – I’m not doing masses of graphics work, mainly documentary stuff. It does bog down a little with lots of CC and multiple titles but I just go and have a coffee…
I’m never going to attempt 4k on it (proxy excepted) and know it’s days are numbered, at least as my main edit machine – but I’m currently cutting 2 eps of a BBC factual show on it in full res using Avid and it’s absolutely fine. If your workflow is mainly HD then I’d stick with it, and see what the revised NMP is like.
The fact that this is on a machine from 2006/7 does my head in. But I’m not going to argue. Total cost for upgrades was about £400 btw, as opposed to at least £4k for the NMP. That’s a lot of billable hours 😉
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Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes. -
I find metadata more of an organic process in X, so I’ll start with the obvious (shot type, location, interview etc) and favourites, then as the edit progresses start to expand as I need it. This is a process that could be done in just about any NLE but there are less ‘fudges’ in X, and the end result is much cleaner I find. I also find that the people I’m working with (directors and/or edit producers) have a far better handle on the media as it’s presented in a far more accessible way. I’ve been cutting a short recently and the director (who’d only ever used 7) was blown away by the filmstrip view of the media. It’s been interesting for me to get this reaction from them – it wasn’t something that immediately struck me as important when X arrived, just different. It seems that the UI is far more understandable for non-editors and that, combined with the tagging/metadata abilities certainly seems to go down well with them, and makes my task far easier as I’m able to concentrate more on the images.
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Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes. -
In my experience I’d say 80% + of all post houses in London are Avid based. Many of them have FCP7 as well, being as Avid is now less hardware dependant. Few have X.
I’d start the other way round as many have suggested. Firstly – what’s your final deliverable and distribution for this? If it’s for broadcast you’ll need to do final post at a facility, or with a very well equipped freelancer. If not you can widen your net a little, and may well find a small boutique house or freelancer who has the ability to finish to a high degree on equipment they own.
You’ll not go far wrong if you go down the Avid route – that will at least ensure compatibility for most post houses and dubbing suites. X or Premiere should be OK too, with a few more hoops to jump through if you’re going down the ProTools route for audio, or grading in a separate suite.
If none of this applies, and your finishing for web distribution or DVD, any of the major NLEs should enable you to do what you need to do. The most important thing is to figure out a workflow that won’t back you into a corner, and that requires talking it over with prospective editors or the tech people at your chosen facility to ensure a smooth ride.
If you’re looking to hire an editor to work creatively on the narrative (and by that I mean more input than onlining or grading a picture lock) then again, having someone who you creatively bounce off will be important – NLE choice is far down the list, as long as it’s one of the ‘big three’.
Hope that helps you.
J
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Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes. -
Would be neat if you could use a secon retina iMac as a slave monitor whilst levering the second GPU and processor for rendering…
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Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes. -
It’s an interesting observation – when working at a certain large British, err broadcasting corporation I was amazed to see two fill kitted FCP7 suites lying dormant in their suites, with post for the series being done in a facilities house. When asked why, I was told by the producer how crappy FCP was and how it couldn’t keep sync etc. I politely explained that this was total BS as I’d done X hours of broadcast material on FCP. Turns out it was the old school Avid editors not understanding the differences, and simply trashing the systems instead of adapting. Result – maybe £100k of taxpayers money lying unused, and a big fat wedge going to a post house somewhere in Soho. Oh, and a bunch of editors kept happy and in employment on antiquated Avids.
Same thing is happening with X at the moment – but slowly people are starting to listen. I’ve no idea if it will ever go mainstream in London – but the mocking voices are abating at least.
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Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes. -
As to the why’s – well I believe it’s ease of use for non-editors. Far more news content now is by self shooting PDs (I can’t use the word Preditor, brings me out in hives) and from what I’ve gathered from talking to people X is far, far more intuitive for cutting selects and even stories. Far less to screw up on in terms of sync on clips etc. and a far easier time in terms of cutting native material from DSLRs (used increasingly in news now) with differing codecs, maybe with some footage from phones or the like thrown in for good measure.
Personally I hope it propagates through to other areas too. I still enjoy cutting on it more than anything else…
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Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes. -
Interesting ramifications for the surveillance state there – high speed high-res cameras able to convert any object into a microphone… *gets tinfoil hat*
Seriously bloody clever though.
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Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.