[Mathieu Ghekiere]

There’s nothing in that list that attracts me, to be honest.
I know their previous update had a lot of new big features but this one seems to be a lot about stuff that isn’t really mainstream yet (HDR).

I do wish compressor would get h.265 in the future, but I don’t think it’s very urgent feature.

The only thing I miss when reading that press release is how Apple doesn’t communicate like that, with a roadmap of upcoming features.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Hi Eric,

there is a thread made for that, a couple of threads below this one 😉

To add to this thread. I’m not a big Premiere user (I used to be, but it’s 10 years ago), and there isn’t that much that I would really want from it in FCPX. 2 things that cross my mind:

– The audio-clean up that is available in Audition, would be great to have in FCPX. We used to have Soundtrack Pro, but it’s gone, and the ability to make a noise print and then process it isn’t possible with the current Background Noise canceling function in FCPX. And Logic doesn’t really have those options too, from what I’ve been informing. So yeah. That.

– That morph cut seems handy (I haven’t tried it to see if it works as well as the demos). I know there is a work-around to kind of achieve the same thing in FCPX with Optical Flow, but to have that function would be handy.

There is probably more if I knew Premiere better, but I’m too happy with FCPX (and the whole trackless editing paradigm + the organisational features in FCPX) to check Premiere again. And I like to own my software.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Hi Scott,

[Scot Walker] “I’m not saying I know best, I’m only sharing my workflow that works well for me. I’m totally open to learn different ways that might be better, though, so I appreciate your input.

To share, I just use the Consolidate command. For example, sending to color for a narrative film, I export the XML and then use the Consolidate command to an external drive and send it off. Works perfectly. If my media was external instead of managed, I’d export the XML and then copy the project folder to an external drive. Pretty much the same.

I’m not in a studio with multiple people on a network. I’m in a home studio. So I haven’t had to deal with sharing over a local network and I understand that SAN is very expensive. Apparently, you can share a Library on your network with NFS: https://www.doubleprecision.be/blog/2014/5/9/how-to-share-final-cut-pro-x-li...”

I didn’t think you were telling people you know better. I’m enjoying the input, and I’m sure you do too.

The consolidate command is very handy, and it kinds of makes sure that there is a way out if you choose external or managed media and want to choose the other option. Still, then you get folders with how FCPX calls your events and dates. If that’s how you organise, that’s fine, but if you do it in the Finder, you have more options about how to organize it to your suiting.

About the Library and NFS stuff: it’s a good option, but if I’m not mistaken (I know Filip from Double Precision a bit, we live in the same city :-)) it isn’t perfectly stable as of yet and there were some issues here and then. I could be wrong.
I hope you also check out the pdf about sharing workflows, it has a lot of interesting information.

[Scot Walker] “I’ve never seen it rename the clips. My clips always come in with the filename and stay that way. Accessing the clip in the Finder is just right-clicking and selecting “Reveal In Finder”. Library folder hierarchy is pretty clear. There is a folder for each event, a folder for each project, an original media folder, etc.”

It does that if you work with managed media, and clips have the same name. Which is kind of logical, considering under the hood it puts it in one big folder, so if you have 2 clips with the same name, FCPX has to differentiate them on a Finder level.

[Scot Walker] “FCP X has a “Modify RED RAW Settings” button under Info when you select a clip with color space, gamma, iso, kelvin, etc. inside FCP X. I cut a short narrative shot on a RED Epic in 5K wide 3:1 compression and used managed media and it worked really well. If you want to access those clips for external applications, you just right-click on it in FCP X and select Reveal In Finder whether FCP X is managing it or not.”

Yes and no. FCPX has some options, but not all of the options that you find in REDCINE. It’s easier to go to a Finder folder, select the R3D’s and do some changes in REDCINE, then it is to first go into FCPX, click on Reveal in Finder, and then go and select those clips (one by one, depending on how you organised it) and then go and change those in REDCINE. And that’s the good thing about working with external RED RAW media and the RMD file. You change the file, and those changes travel together with that file, and multiple programs can easily access the SAME media, with the same changes to the RAW media.

[Scot Walker] “It’s the same amount of space if it’s managed or external.”
Of course, taking it as a whole. But the project file itself, the FCPX bundle. It’s easier to ‘throw’ it around when it’s a couple of megabytes, to send it to someone, etc. … instead of it being gigabytes big. Of course there is the Consolidate command as a kind of resque option, but I once you start working in a studio with multiple people, people offloading in a certain way in the finder, wanting to access that stuff from a normal server, and not digg into an FCPX bundle, the whole working with external media is more flexible.
That being said, I’m glad the whole ‘copy to Library’ option exists in FCPX and I’m sure it’s an easy media management tool for a lot of people.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Scott,

you are working with managed media (when you let FCPX copy it to the library).
Yes, it’s all in one library, but…

– it’s more difficult sharing projects between people who have the same set of media. All sharing is more difficult, except the fact of just handing someone over that big Library file. (It’s also more difficult to work with non-XSAN shared storage because if you need to copy the FCPX Library to your local drive, it will be gigabytes instead of megabytes).

– you cannot organise it on a Finder level the way you want. It becomes hidden in a FCPX package, sometimes with a name FCPX gives it.For instance, if you work with old XDCAM discs, they would often name the clips C001. If you organise it your way, you can have that all in seperate folders (DAY 01 – Clip C001, DAY 02 – Clip C002). If you have FCPX manage it, it’s in one giant folder hidden in the package, with just C001 (1), C001 (2) … If you have 10 like that, it gets very difficult to manage if something goes wrong.

– when working with RED RAW media, it’s easier to afterwards change RAW settings to your footage, and have it update in FCPX. That’s the whole point of the .RMD setting you can save with R3D media.

I think it’s good that FCPX provides both options, but I do think that not working with managed media is the best option in the most cases, because it’s the most flexible. There is a good PDF floating around somewhere about shared workflows on FCPX, and it also tells it’s best management NOT to copy into the Event. (EDIT: https://www.10dot1.co.uk/content/FCPXInASharedEnvironment_FINAL.pdf)
It’s not a bad workflow if you are very bad at organising your stuff (like some cameramen who are not used to organising their stuff and constantly used to have Media Offline messages in FCP7 – not talking about you necessarily) or if you are a complete one-man band. Even then, I would think an FCPX projects of gigabytes and gigabytes can be very unwieldy, and if it gets corrupted, it’s a more difficult problem potentially, with all your media inside.

About FCPX saving automatically in the User-Movies folder: it does that at least when starting up for the first time with an Untitled project.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

I never was a fan of changing the names, because I thought everyone knowed by know what was what.

That being said, when I read your proposals I’m actually for, because your names don’t go far from the original names. In the sense that they are still very clear for the people who are used to them already, and they are a bit more clear to people who are new.

I’m in favor.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Hmmmm… Interesting tidbits.

As an FCP7 user in the past and FCPX user, it worries me a little bit when he says (emphasis mine):
“The centre of the target, which I still think is very similar today, is software for the aspirational part of the market. People who want to do something good, most of them not making their living doing video – they would like to some day. They are interested in video and they spend a lot of their spare time doing it. That’s the centre of the target.”

It seems like Apple has done more to target the high end lately with FCPX (MFX for instance). But I found it a bit worrying (although not completely a surprise)
On the other hand, if you look at what Apple just did with the new Logic Pro X update a couple of days ago, where they bought a company of Alchemy, and not only put it in the product, but enchanced it a lot, and did a huge feature update again, it makes me worry less about Apple Pro Apps.

His plan for the launch of FCPX sounds a lot more reasonable then how Apple did it. FCP7 would have been on the market for another year, and if you bought a copy of X, you would have gotten 7 for free. And it seems like the whole FAQ’s they released after the launch were his idea, propelled by Steve Jobs wanting to ‘fix’ what happened.

I hope Apple learned from that experience. It seems they have, if I look at they way they at least announced stopping the development of Aperture, with promissing at least one more compatiblity update for Yosemite. And by the time the next version of Photos will be there with 3rd party support, maybe with some 3rd party filters/functions/extensions, it will be more of a worthy follow up for Aperture (I don’t use it, so I’m guessing).
I have a bit more trust in Tim Cook in that regards then Steve Jobs. It seems communication in general has been more forthcoming under Tim Cook.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Chris,

I’ve never had a problem with that. In fact, just to try it out for you, I just did a test, putting a Ripple Callout filter on an empty layer, with background (its a Title-effect) and if I export a PNG it’s transparant (except for the title effect of course).

I’ve been working with FCPX for a while now (about 3 years) and I’ve never seen that problem…

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

I’ve had a bit of a similar experience.
When it was released I was like: huh? I don’t need this!

I still think a lot of other stuff on my wish-list for FCPX is more important, but I’ve had some nice unexpected uses with it already.
I don’t know if I would call it a platform (I would reserve that term more for the Mac-platform, or the FCPX-ecosystem), but you can’t deny that Apple seemed to have built in a 3D ENGINE inside of FCPX that has great performance and more then just one template-kind of feature.

I would *really* hope that Apple allows it also in the next version to have a simple way of putting logos (PNG’s with transparancy) in it. There’s a workaround now, so it is technically possible, but it’s very clunky. (making a font out of symbols). It’s what I miss most about the 3D feature at this point, because a lot of title graphics require a logo to go with it.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Hi Christian,

well, FCPX has a ‘better performance’ and ‘better quality’ button. It seems simple, and in my opinion, just simple enough. In one it will try to optimalize to give you a smooth playback, but at reduced resolution, whatever it has to go to, to give you that. And the other is full quality.

I *really* like the simplicity of the one-button switch for proxy workflow. I don’t disagree with everything you say in the sense that I think Apple could give some more options (although I don’t miss it with the playback control, and I even prefer the current solution).
I would like it that you could choose which kind of Prores you want to use for optimizing. Now it’s Prores 422, or when working with RED RAW, Prores 444.
I also would like some easier control over where to put Proxies and that the Proxy Mode would also make clips with alpha channel into a kind of proxy 4444.
And it would be nice that clips that you didn’t convert to Prores Proxy just have a yellow warning signal when you are in Proxy mode, but would still play in the timeline. Now you just can’t see them. Pitty.
But I think Apple will give more options. It has already when talking about placement of Proxies, the Library Structure, etc. …
But I also think, just like with a lot of their software, they try to think about what is necessary and what is too much. Of course that could be different for everyone, but I think FCPX’s simplicity works in it’s advantage a lot of the times. Like with the Better Performance or Better Quality choice. Simple. Clear.

And I really think some of the examples are weird. The post you reply to is complaining about how you don’t have storage to make Apple Prores Proxy. But this is a CHOICE. You can also Optimize. You can also stay Raw. You could also use Resolve to make light weight H.264’s and link back to the R3D’s in Resolve. (I wouldn’t recommend it, but you can do it). How is this much different then Premiere or Avid?
Personally, I’ve even been able to play 4K R3D on a Macbook air with a USB 3 drive, so I really don’t think performance is bad, but I also haven’t worked with 20hours a week R3D 4K or higher resolution material, with the work-load of a feature. But from what I read on REDUSER, I’m not sure if Premiere is all that much better in performance with R3D RAW then FCPX. I read a lot of the oppossite, to be honest. I don’t have my own experience, I haven’t touched Premiere in a couple of years.

And complaining about editing 6K material being sluggish without making Proxies… Even in Hollywood (Gone Girl) they were using 2K Prores to edit with.
6K is still very new, very high demanding (4K is very demanding for computers, 6K is a LOT more data even, in most cases). I don’t know if this is completely fair, or an FCPX problem. Or an issue where FCPX is very sluggish and Avid and Premiere is supersmooth. Again, I have my own experience in FCPX, but also read a lot on Reduser. Since when is 6K native editing something normal and is it a big software fault if it doesn’t happen supersmooth? Eh? I think you would have trouble doing it in any NLE.

I do agree that FCPX used to get a bit sluggish in the user interface. Newer hardware and the latest updates (10.2) have done a lot to remedy that, however.

I don’t know if the ‘my way of the highway’ thing is so specific to FCPX, or more because people aren’t used to how FCPX does some stuff and a lot of the track-based NLE’s work pretty much the same way in a lot of ways. I could also complain that Avid and Premiere and FCP7 FORCE me to use bins instead of keyword collections. But in FCPX I actually have MORE choice. I would work with Keyword collections like folders. I could drop folders from Finder in it, and it will take the name of the folder as a keyword collection (it has some caveats though). But I have EXTRA options. Of making smart collections (which Premiere had in it’s latest update to, I believe?). I can have overlapping parts with clips having multiple keywords? Which most people see as a MORE flexible way of working, not a less flexible.
I could keep all my media external. I can copy it to the library. I can consolidate it outside. I can work with clips where I use them as secondary clips instead of putting it on the primary or use the position tool and have a lot (not all) of the magneticism gone. Or I could work more with the magnetic timeline (which is faster in *a lot * and I would dare to say *most* cases).

About users vocalizing it’s flaws instead of evangilizing… First of, I have a bullet list of things that I want Apple to do differently with FCPX or change, or add. I send it to their feedback page once in a while, mostly after a new update is out and I cut out the stuff that has changed that was on my list.
I also think a lot of people here using it a lot (Charlie, Jeremy, Oliver, …) often say in a thread “it would be handy if you could do…”. But it comes from using it a lot.

I could reverse the question. Why, if we talk about other track-based NLE’s, don’t we talk about the fact that you have to patch tracks? That bins can’t have the overlapping flexibility of keyword collections? That I have to make 3 tracks where in X I have an Audition feature, where I can try clips out, and all the rest of the timeline adjusts itself even if you put markers on clips in the Audition? Why do they force me of looking for clips manually in a timeline, instead of me being able to search trough a Timeline Index?
They force you just as much as X does. Maybe not in the same arenas though.
And considering that X is pretty new, has a different way of working, has a very bad reputation (partly because of ignorance, partly because of a -very- bad launch by Apple), I think a lot of people praising it after using it, can be PERCEIVED as Evangilizing. And I think the software could use it too.
Not because we think people are stupid and we are geniuses. Because a lot of use complained about how stuff worked in X too, and learned along the way that we just had to get used to new stuff and looking back, we talk about our own faults and experience when we talk about how most people that first work with X hate stuff because they haven’t learned to use it ‘correctly’.
And we notice that some of us *really* think now it’s faster than a lot of track-based NLE’s in a lot of editorial tasks, and to be quite frank, a lot more fun too.

I’ll give you an example. Last year I did a demo on X in Belgium. Apple, in combination with a provider of editing systems in Belgium, did a kind of small event for the launch of the new Mac Pro. I saw teachers from high school passing by. Before I did my demo they came to me and they literally said: “you can try to convince us to use X, but you’re not gonna succeed. We work on 7, we tried X, we don’t like it, we hate it, we’re gonna stay with that, but you can try to give your demo.”

I showed them X, they completely reversed course after my demo, and I got a mail from them last month that they finally got permission to buy X-licenses for the school and they asked if I could come and teach the teachers of the school how to work with it.
A lot of people in the audience where people from broadcast, camera-men, editors, etc. …
Most of them had only heard bad stuff about X, had tried it a couple of times, hated it, etc. … When they saw it in action by someone who knew it (not only talking about myself) and the time they could speed up stuff with 3rd party products like Sync’ N Link and Shot Notes, these people gasped and/or laughed OUT LOUD.
With some of the tricks you could sense this ‘wow’ mood going trough the room.
A lot of people came to ask questions afterwards. Those people all were clients from the editing-systems provider and he told me most of them where VERY sceptic about X before they went in, and he got A LOT more interest afterwards.
You can call it evangilizing, I don’t mind that. But the term insinuates that I think it’s all holy and I don’t have a critical voice. I do. I used Premiere. I went to FCP7. I used that for years before I used X. I hated it first. I still have stuff that I critisize. I don’t mind sharing you my bullet list once if you would be inclined.
It’s about 30-35 points, so I don’t think X is perfect by any means 🙂

But I do disagree with *most* of the complaints made. A conclusion that because X doesn’t have a certain feature that another NLE has, it is ‘forcing its way unlike other NLE’s’. That being said, I enjoy the civilized discussion. Let’s keep it going 😉

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Hi Christian,

well, FCPX has a ‘better performance’ and ‘better quality’ button. It seems simple, and in my opinion, just simple enough. In one it will try to optimalize to give you a smooth playback, but at reduced resolution, whatever it has to go to, to give you that. And the other is full quality.

I *really* like the simplicity of the one-button switch for proxy workflow. I don’t disagree with everything you say in the sense that I think Apple could give some more options (although I don’t miss it with the playback control, and I even prefer the current solution).
I would like it that you could choose which kind of Prores you want to use for optimizing. Now it’s Prores 422, or when working with RED RAW, Prores 444.
I also would like some easier control over where to put Proxies and that the Proxy Mode would also make clips with alpha channel into a kind of proxy 4444.
And it would be nice that clips that you didn’t convert to Prores Proxy just have a yellow warning signal when you are in Proxy mode, but would still play in the timeline. Now you just can’t see them. Pitty.
But I think Apple will give more options. It has already when talking about placement of Proxies, the Library Structure, etc. …
But I also think, just like with a lot of their software, they try to think about what is necessary and what is too much. Of course that could be different for everyone, but I think FCPX’s simplicity works in it’s advantage a lot of the times. Like with the Better Performance or Better Quality choice. Simple. Clear.

And I really think some of the examples are weird. The post you reply to is complaining about how you don’t have storage to make Apple Prores Proxy. But this is a CHOICE. You can also Optimize. You can also stay Raw. You could also use Resolve to make light weight H.264’s and link back to the R3D’s in Resolve. (I wouldn’t recommend it, but you can do it). How is this much different then Premiere or Avid?
Personally, I’ve even been able to play 4K R3D on a Macbook air with a USB 3 drive, so I really don’t think performance is bad, but I also haven’t worked with 20hours a week R3D 4K or higher resolution material, with the work-load of a feature. But from what I read on REDUSER, I’m not sure if Premiere is all that much better in performance with R3D RAW then FCPX. I read a lot of the oppossite, to be honest. I don’t have my own experience, I haven’t touched Premiere in a couple of years.

And complaining about editing 6K material being sluggish without making Proxies… Even in Hollywood (Gone Girl) they were using 2K Prores to edit with.
6K is still very new, very high demanding (4K is very demanding for computers, 6K is a LOT more data even, in most cases). I don’t know if this is completely fair, or an FCPX problem. Or an issue where FCPX is very sluggish and Avid and Premiere is supersmooth. Again, I have my own experience in FCPX, but also read a lot on Reduser. Since when is 6K native editing something normal and is it a big software fault if it doesn’t happen supersmooth? Eh? I think you would have trouble doing it in any NLE.

I do agree that FCPX used to get a bit sluggish in the user interface. Newer hardware and the latest updates (10.2) have done a lot to remedy that, however.

I don’t know if the ‘my way of the highway’ thing is so specific to FCPX, or more because people aren’t used to how FCPX does some stuff and a lot of the track-based NLE’s work pretty much the same way in a lot of ways. I could also complain that Avid and Premiere and FCP7 FORCE me to use bins instead of keyword collections. But in FCPX I actually have MORE choice. I would work with Keyword collections like folders. I could drop folders from Finder in it, and it will take the name of the folder as a keyword collection (it has some caveats though). But I have EXTRA options. Of making smart collections (which Premiere had in it’s latest update to, I believe?). I can have overlapping parts with clips having multiple keywords? Which most people see as a MORE flexible way of working, not a less flexible.
I could keep all my media external. I can copy it to the library. I can consolidate it outside. I can work with clips where I use them as secondary clips instead of putting it on the primary or use the position tool and have a lot (not all) of the magneticism gone. Or I could work more with the magnetic timeline (which is faster in *a lot * and I would dare to say *most* cases).

About users vocalizing it’s flaws instead of evangilizing… First of, I have a bullet list of things that I want Apple to do differently with FCPX or change, or add. I send it to their feedback page once in a while, mostly after a new update is out and I cut out the stuff that has changed that was on my list.
I also think a lot of people here using it a lot (Charlie, Jeremy, Oliver, …) often say in a thread “it would be handy if you could do…”. But it comes from using it a lot.

I could reverse the question. Why, if we talk about other track-based NLE’s, don’t we talk about the fact that you have to patch tracks? That bins can’t have the overlapping flexibility of keyword collections? That I have to make 3 tracks where in X I have an Audition feature, where I can try clips out, and all the rest of the timeline adjusts itself even if you put markers on clips in the Audition? Why do they force me of looking for clips manually in a timeline, instead of me being able to search trough a Timeline Index?
They force you just as much as X does. Maybe not in the same arenas though.
And considering that X is pretty new, has a different way of working, has a very bad reputation (partly because of ignorance, partly because of a -very- bad launch by Apple), I think a lot of people praising it after using it, can be PERCEIVED as Evangilizing. And I think the software could use it too.
Not because we think people are stupid and we are geniuses. Because a lot of use complained about how stuff worked in X too, and learned along the way that we just had to get used to new stuff and looking back, we talk about our own faults and experience when we talk about how most people that first work with X hate stuff because they haven’t learned to use it ‘correctly’.
And we notice that some of us *really* think now it’s faster than a lot of track-based NLE’s in a lot of editorial tasks, and to be quite frank, a lot more fun too.

I’ll give you an example. Last year I did a demo on X in Belgium. Apple, in combination with a provider of editing systems in Belgium, did a kind of small event for the launch of the new Mac Pro. I saw teachers from high school passing by. Before I did my demo they came to me and they literally said: “you can try to convince us to use X, but you’re not gonna succeed. We work on 7, we tried X, we don’t like it, we hate it, we’re gonna stay with that, but you can try to give your demo.”

I showed them X, they completely reversed course after my demo, and I got a mail from them last month that they finally got permission to buy X-licenses for the school and they asked if I could come and teach the teachers of the school how to work with it.
A lot of people in the audience where people from broadcast, camera-men, editors, etc. …
Most of them had only heard bad stuff about X, had tried it a couple of times, hated it, etc. … When they saw it in action by someone who knew it (not only talking about myself) and the time they could speed up stuff with 3rd party products like Sync’ N Link and Shot Notes, these people gasped and/or laughed OUT LOUD.
With some of the tricks you could sense this holy fuck mood going trough the room.
A lot of people came to ask questions afterwards. Those people all were clients from the editing-systems provider and he told me most of them where VERY sceptic about X before they went in, and he got A LOT more interest afterwards.
You can call it evangilizing, I don’t mind that. But the term insinuates that I think it’s all holy and I don’t have a critical voice. I do. I used Premiere. I went to FCP7. I used that for years before I used X. I hated it first. I still have stuff that I critisize. I don’t mind sharing you my bullet list once if you would be inclined.

But I do disagree with *most* examples given here, and some of the complaints made. I notice that I disagree much less with complaints made by Jeremy or Charlie. I suppose because I notice a lot more experience in their complaints. That being said, I enjoy the civilized discussion. Let’s keep it going 😉