[Joe Marler]

[Scratch Sperber] “We’ll be importing AVCHD footage (1920×1080, 59.94P) from 30 different Canon XA30’s daily. [Tested with .mp4 — lower bitrate, and FCP was much slower at importing directly from SD card, so we are staying with AVCHD.] “

The XA30 can shoot 1080p/59.94 at 35 mbps to H264 .MP4. This is a higher bitrate than AVCHD, plus MP4 allows importing with “leave files in place” which is faster. This assumes the files are copied to disk first. I haven’t tested importing straight from the SD card, since we always do a verified, duplicated copy to disk.

AVCHD will work OK provided you don’t copy the files outside the folder tree then try to import using “leave files in place”. The only issues are the import copies the content to the library which precludes maintaining a “lean library” for interchange with other editors, plus the import is slower than using MP4 “in place” from disk.

[Joe Marler]

[Scratch Sperber] “We have the Canon XA30s set to shoot HD 1920×1080, 59.94P, at 28 Mbps…Still exploring best practice for workflow, but definitely not leaving files in place. FCP seems to be playing nicely when copying them over….”

We formerly used several of those cameras. It will also record 1080p/59.94 MP4 at 35 Mbps, which is what I recommend. This enables import with “leave files in place”, which is faster and takes less disk space than library-internal AVCHD — assuming you are importing from a disk copy of the files not the camera card. Also the MP4 files are more manageable in Finder than the AVCHD bundle.

Of course if you already have libraries with imported material, mixing “in place” content could be confusing from a management standpoint. However the internal content can be consolidated outside the library using FCPX. For new libraries you could import with “in place” for MP4s.

There is no one right way to handle this, but I deal with lots of documentary content so use “in place” wherever possible. The main issue is don’t import “in place” using AVCHD files copied outside the tree, which you fortunately are not doing.

[Joe Marler]

[Scratch Sperber] “Do you get decent, smooth, variable speed skimming on clips in the browser with the Magic Trackpad 2? (Our footage is AVCHD at 28 Mbps, on fairly beefy Mac Pros so performance shouldn’t be an issue.) “

Yes, this isn’t limited by the trackpad but the codec and computer. On H.264 1080p it’s lightning fast on almost any hardware since 2012. If it’s H.264 4k, it can be a bit sluggish even on a top-spec 2015 iMac 27. The solution in that case is use proxy or get a faster computer.

AVCHD uses H.264 so it’s dependent on resolution and hardware — except AVCHD has the additional complication of inducing possible performance problems if it was imported with “leave files in place”. Doing that requires copying the video files out of the folder tree, which should never be done for AVCHD. If you only have the video files it’s often best to rewrap these before import using EditReady: https://www.divergentmedia.com/editready

[Joe Marler]

[Simon Ubsdell] “in my world the standard of finishing expected by our clients keeps going up year on year.”

I don’t see that, at least in TV news. Note the major color problems on this CNN piece from 00:38 to 01:17 and 03:50 to 04:00. This wasn’t a failure to use Quantel Pablo Rio, or a failure to use Resolve, or a failure to use a white balance plugin — it was a failure to do *anything*: https://money.cnn.com/2015/10/16/technology/sniper-power-grid/index.html

[Joe Marler]

[Steve Connor] “Web TV is….still in ADDITION to traditional Broadcast and Film and it shows no sign of making any significant inroads in this area…For me the biggest disruptors in the industry are Netflix and Amazon and they have VERY high production quality in their output, which I’m assuming, is still made with “traditional” finishing.”

I don’t quite understand this. Netflix and Amazon ARE web-based TV, IOW, “new media”. Netflix is spending $6 billion per year just on new content, and in 2016 got 54 Emmy nominations. Amazon’s biggest series is Grand Tour (a new media production), reportedly budgeted at $5.8 million per episode. To me, that is “Web TV” making significant inroads.

The Star Trek fan film Prelude to Axanar has extremely high production values, yet is a pure new media product. It was probably finished traditionally but is definitely not a traditional commercial production: https://www.axanarproductions.com/

By “Web TV” if you mean only non-traditionally finished products, normally that’s not done for higher-budget productions. However the movie “Saved By Grace” was finished entirely in FCPX: https://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/articles/1830-hollywood-veteran-lance-bachelder-explains-why-he-has-chosen-to-use-final-cut-pro-x-on-his-latest-feature-film-saved-by-grace

I’m not sure it’s possible to isolate revenue from all streaming web content that is not traditionally finished, so I don’t know if there are numbers to definitively assess that as not making any significant inroads. However Youtube alone is estimated to have $27 billion in revenue by 2020, and the demographic chart on this page is interesting: https://www.tubefilter.com/2016/04/15/youtube-estimated-revenues-27-billion-2020/

By contrast Hollywood’s *global* box office revenue in 2016 was about $38 billion.

[Joe Marler]

[Scratch Sperber] “In filmstrip view in the browser, long clips in the browser wrap around to the next line. When my mouse hits the end of line 1, I have to move it down to the beginning of line to continue skimming the clip. “

Starting with FCPX 10.3.x, there is a “continuous playback” option that continues across clip boundaries. Using this and JKL you don’t need to worry about end of lines. For initial evaluation you can often use a thumbnail-per-clip. View>Browser>Continuous Playback.

If you want touch-based skimming, that works right now with the trackpad. The Magic Trackpad 2 is pretty good, so that’s one option.

If you want touch-based skimming on the Magic Mouse, that might be possible using Better Touch Tools, but I haven’t examined this:

https://www.boastr.net/

[Joe Marler]

I just remembered you are doing multicam, so that might require proxy, even for 1080p. However it’s possible if the files are imported properly you might have enough performance without proxy — you’ll have to test that.

Using proxy will probably protect you from the AVCHD I/O performance problem, but if you ever forget this and switch back to optimized/original, it could manifest. E.g, if you have a large library and don’t generate proxy for everything, then switch out of proxy mode to see the non-proxy content.

[Joe Marler]

[Brian Thomas] ” I do indeed copy the structures to one of my fast G-Drive Thunderbolt disks and, as mentioned, I create Proxy files during the import. I edit these proxies on my top-of-the-range (as it was in Mid 2015) machines with 16GB RAM and I’ve never noticed any performance issues with as many as seven camcorders plus two external sound recorders.”

The performance issue happens if importing AVCHD content with “leave files in place”, and without using proxy.

If you copy the entire card structure to your G-Drive, you cannot do an “in place” import. You’d have to then copy only the AVCHD video files out of the folder tree, and import from that location to enable “leave files in place”. That is what causes the performance problem — if you don’t use proxy AND import “in place”. FCPX apparently tries to dynamically re-wrap each file upon each reference, causing a large number of small I/Os when browsing the Event Browser in filmstrip mode. This is crucial because even a small % of non-proxy “in place” AVCHD files within a database can poison overall I/O performance.

This can be seen using the command-line Dtrace utilities bitesize.d, iosnoop and iopending. When scrolling down the Event Browser in thumbnail mode, the I/O histogram from bitesize.d and file access data from iosnoop shows an excessive number of small I/Os. Removing and re-wrapping those MTS files with EditReady eliminates this. It seems that using proxy may also avoid this, but this essentially requires proxy files for all imported media, otherwise you can’t easily browse library content. This behavior is AVCHD-only, I have not seen it on XAVC.

Likewise importing the AVCHD content without using “leave files in place” will automatically re-wrap the files, which also avoids the problem whether you use proxy or not.

On a 2015 MBP (I have one) FCPX is fast enough to edit 1080p AVCHD content without using proxy — provided that content was either imported from the original folder tree without “leave files in place” or was externally re-wrapped with EditReady then imported with “leave files in place”. IMO the fastest method of handling this content is re-wrap with Edit Ready then import with “leave files in place”, although the other method will also work.

Note the Dtrace utilities cannot be used starting with El Capitan unless System Integrity Protection is first disabled: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/208762/now-that-el-capitan-is-rootless-is-there-any-way-to-get-dtrace-working

[Joe Marler]

[Brian Thomas] ” AVCHD…I import into FCPX creating Proxy media at the same time and I ‘Leave files in place’.”

The fact you can do “leave files in place” indicates you copied the files out of the folder tree and imported from there. Never do this with AVCHD, as it can create performance problems. FCPX does not handle this situation well, and unfortunately it is undocumented. Other tree-type media such as XAVC do not have this problem.

With AVCHD it is best to externally rewrap that using EditReady, then you can import with “leave files in place”. If you use this method it will save a lot of problems, plus import will be much faster: https://www.divergentmedia.com/editready

[Joe Marler]

[Jason Morales] ” Canon 5DM3 that I shoot in 1920×1080, 24P, All-I. .. My FCP X settings are to “Create Optimized Media”. Then after the edit, to export I share for Apple devices 1080p. The footage looks OK but never as crisp and HD looking as others who shoot on 5D3 in FCPX. Someone told me to instead of using the share for Apple 1080p setting, export to Master File Default. The video codec for this export is H.264. That doesn’t make it much better… The 5D3 footage in the Finder window looks gross (C100 is better but still lacking). If I open the file directly from import in the Finder window, it’s not sharp at all. “

I’ve shot and edited lots of 5D3 content in FCPX, although I normally use the IPB codec not All-I. I’ve never seen this behavior. That said, by default 5D3 video is a little soft by design, to avoid aliasing. Sharpening it a bit in post usually recovers that.

If the 5D3 content looks bad in Finder, ie Quicktime Player or Quick Look, that is interesting. What if you play it using VLC which contains its own internal codecs?

You could try exporting a small clip as ProRes, which would eliminate any possible issues with H264 compression during export. However it sounds like the footage already has those characteristics before you even load it into FCPX?

Make sure your 5D3 is set up properly for video recording. Vincent Laforet (and others) recommend turning sharpness down, but check all the other parameters as well. https://blog.vincentlaforet.com/2012/03/12/setting-up-your-canon-5d-mkii-and-mkiii/

Also shoot some test footage using the IPB codec and compare this to the same scene shot with ALL-I. Make sure this isn’t being caused by the All-I codec or how macOS/FCPX is handling that codec. It probably wouldn’t hurt to verify you have the lastest Apple Pro Video formats installed: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1898?locale=en_US

As a general procedure, you normally don’t need to transcode 1080p H264 content to optimized media for either quality or performance reasons. On a decent contemporary machine, FCPX is plenty fast enough to edit the native content. If you copy the content to your local hard drive you can also import that with “leave files in place” which is faster than copying to the library.

It might help if you state Type of Mac, macOS version, video card, FCPX version.