[Mathieu Ghekiere]

I’m surprised the MB looks filter still needs approximately 4 times real-time export even on your fastest machine. I haven’t run the numbers, but I’m wondering if Red Giant can optimize their Magic Bullet Suite more to speed up the render times.
I have the suite in its newest version, bought it for compatibility for FCP X, but I was a *bit* disappointed with the exporting speed. Maybe I was expecting too much, with all the talk of the 64-bit FCP X support.

I do love the quality of the Magic Bullet filters though. I find they give very nice results quickly (sometimes with a bit of fiddling, and their newer UI in comparison with their first ones, is much better and user-friendly for changing presets) and although it can dramatically change the colors in your video, I find it still keeps a lot of detail in the image.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

I think you’re right, and it’s a huge problem for me. I’ll copy from a thread I just started the other day (sorry for the long post, but I hope it’s interesting to people):

“I want to check if I’m doing something wrong, forgetting a step somewhere, or if my suspicion is correct:

I loaded in an XDCAM HD Quicktime in FCP X. I just wanted to do a quick export without audio.
I set the project settings on ‘First Video Clip’, and just dropped the clip integral in the timeline. Just a 5 minute clip.

When I exported, I just went for Export Media, and I choose Export Video Only and Current Settings.
In my logic, this would be XDCAM HD. Why? I picked the project setting based on the first clip (which is XDCAM HD) and in the export I choose ‘CURRENT setting’.

This would take me 10 seconds to export in FCP 7, because it would just copy the media (If you’re not having color correction, just some cuts or dissolves). In FCP X this process took 7 minutes, and afterwards I had a Prores File. So the export converted everything to Prores.
So next to the fact that my export took a WHOLE lot longer then in FCP 7, it also gave me a file 3 times as big.

Now, this is my suspicion, but someone please correct me if I’m wrong:
– if you choose the setting in the project, it’s only about frame size and framerate… not codec
– your render settings are only Prores and Uncompressed. You don’t have any other option.
– In the export you only have Prores or Quicktime to choose from, and considering the fact that following all ‘current settings’ options in FCP X STILL made the program convert everything to another codec, is proof that FCP X can NOT really output in the ‘current settings’ in the same way FCP 7 did. You can render out to Compressor, but it’s a work around, and not always fail proof.

Is my suspicion correct, or did I make a mistake somewhere?

Because if I’m correct, it would be a big blow to using FCP X in my facility.
We often do congresses where you have 10 hour days filled with 8-minute presentations. Workflow now is importing footage (hour by hour, while the congress is going, often with XDCAM discs coming in), cutting in FCP 7 (just cuts and dissolves/fades), export (which happens very quickly), and then we do batch renders trough Compressor with a Matrox MXO2, to deliver presentations in H.264 around 2 hours after the presentation was made.
And we have to do this a lot (10 hour congress day divided by 8 minute presentations… do the math ). But exporting in FCP 7 only takes 10 seconds or something. It just copies the media, and adds fades, and maybe some audio volume changes.
So if in this scenario, FCP X is only able to output quickly (Export Media is still the quickest) to Prores or Uncompressed instead of following the video codec of the Project (in this case XDCAM HD), then we cannot use it.

In the scenario described above (delivering H.264 2 hours after presentation), we cannot have waiting real time for our HD-export (8 minutes instead of 10 seconds) and having discs fill up with file sizes 3 times as big as if we would just keep the export in XDCAM HD (like we do now).

Am I wrong or correct?
FCP X can not output to XDCAM HD, except maybe going through Compressor?
Choosing Export Media to export your HD master is only Prores or Uncompressed, no matter what 99 percent of the codec in your timeline is?
And, following that, there is no real ‘current setting’, because that only sets a base for frame size and frame rate?

I got confirmation there that ‘Current Settings’ is only a render setting, where only Prores and Uncompressed is available.
So, really? FCP X is only able to output Prores and Uncompressed, no matter that 99 percent of your project/sequence/timeline is XDCAM, which old FCP 7 did not have any problem with?

You have this really fast cutting tool, able to use all your computer power and suddenly in a simple cut/dissolve situation you are looking suddenly at 10 times the export times.”

Then I did some tests on my MBP 13″ 8GB RAM:

“I took the 5 minute source XDCAM HD file.
I put background rendering off. Made a new Event, put it in there, not working with proxy media or anything.
I made 3 new projects, all with the same presets, namely: video properties following the first clip in the timeline.
I cut 2 times a 1 minute clip from the source file, and put it in the timeline, getting a timeline that’s exactly 2 minutes long.

Those 3 projects I exported from FCP X using 3 settings:

– CURRENT SETTINGS in FCP X.
This gave me a Prores File, even though I picked current settings AND picked video properties of the first clip. Export time: 2 minutes and 21 seconds.

– EXPORT MEDIA XDCAM HD 35Mbps
I hadn’t seen this option before, but checking the Video Codec in the Export window, next to Current Settings and Prores I also had some DVC PRO HD and XDCAM HD etc. options. So I could see XDCAM HD 35Mbps in the Export Media. I don’t know if this is standard, or it’s because of an XDCAM plugin installation in FCPX, but considering that my original source media is the same format, I decided to pick this.
Export time: 3 minutes and 27 seconds. So it re-compressed everything.

– EXPORT USING COMPRESSOR SETTINGS
I dropped my source media in the Compressor 4 Settings windows, saving it as a preset, insuring that I had a preset that had EXACT the same settings as my source media. When exporting in FCP X I choose: Export using Compressor Settings, and choose that one.
Export time: 2 minutes and 51 seconds.

Now the kicker:

– EXPORT USING FCP 7 – EXPORT QUICKTIME MOVIE – CURRENT SETTINGS:
I did the same in FCP 7. Dropped in the source media, and took the exact same 2 clips of 1 minute and dropped them in the timeline. Let the timeline take over the settings of the clip, like it asks automatically.
I then did an Export Quicktime Movie, using Current Settings.
Export Time: 35.9 seconds.

So even the fastest FCP X export time was 5 times as long as old FCP 7 on the same hardware.
This is a really serious issue. This implies that FCP X ALWAYS recompresses on output, while FCP 7 would just copy your media if you did straight cuts and exported using the same video codec.”

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

A lot of people seem to use the term ‘Uncompressed’ because they mean (in their words) ‘full quality!’.

I’ve had the same kind of issues before with clients…

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Just to put it out there:

yes, Adobe communicates much better then Apple, BUT:

– When I mailed Tim Cook (hey, why couldn’t I try?) about in how far they would take the suggestions and feedback of the real professionals serious in making FCPX better, I got a mail back 3 days later from the FCPX team that they want to have it known that they are taking FCPX and the professional market serious.

– When I mailed about a bug to Apple recently, I got a mail back 1 day later asking for specifics. When sending that, they confirmed sending it to their engineers.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Depends which codec.

I think it pretty much can work natively with HDV and XDCAM (for instance).

H.264 is one codec (and all it’s flavors) where I know FCP 7 struggles and it’s best to transcode.
And RED, but although Premiere has the best way of working with it, it’s still not perfect (extremely long export times, and of course like you can read, it has it’s own media management problems from time to time).

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

I do think the concept of the clip connections instead of linear timeline is very powerful.
It doesn’t always work, sometimes it works against you. But it’s definitely logical in a lot of narrative scenarios (cutting fiction or documentary) and in a LOT of scenarios (you could argue, most of them, but I’m not qualified to do such big statements) it saves you time and headache.

Having more flexibility would be great, although I do think that people constantly bashing FCP X for the way it works are looking it very one-sided (not saying you are constantly bashing it). Other NLE’s also have their set of rules you have to follow to get things the way you want, and FCP X is no different.

That being said, I do agree that FCP X is still not rock-solid at this point and it still misses a lot of features (although the powerful 10.0.3 and 10.0.1 updates give me a lot of hope)

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Yes, I have (I made shiny letters like this in Motion 4, I also have Motion 5).
I know how the rigging thing works (more or less), I just don’t really know in what way I could automate this effect.
And considering that although I know some basics in Motion, it still takes me quite a bit of time.

BTW: on another forum I already got the tip of CHV software (haven’t checked that out yet), and Volumetrix 2, which didn’t look exactly what I wanted in the previews, but maybe the one that I want is in the presets somewhere (and adjustable in such a way).

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

I understand your worries…

But look at it this way:

FCP X has its own way of handling media. Some of us hate it, some of us think it’s much better then FCP7, but it can be setup in a way that people won’t be quick to loose their media.

It imports images in the background, they can start editing fast.

Finally… It’s all for Vimeo. They can immediately output to Vimeo from in FCP X, tagging it, giving it the right subject name, …
I think FCP X looks like the best option for your clients.

And as Tony said… It is a pretty powerful program. Very incomplete, still, yes. But once you really learn how to use it, it does grow on you.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Good question.

I don’t think the perception of FCP X has changed. To be honest. Mine has, btw.

When it was first released, ‘everyone’ hated it. Me too. I tried some things, was very enthusiastic, and came back from a cold shower after trying to cut a theatre play on it. This was FCP 10.0.0.
First day of release. You couldn’t even relink media. Sorry, but that users had to wait more than a half of a year for this was really worrying, especially because communication from Apple was very bad.

Then I took the Switch deal of Adobe’s Production Premium (I didn’t have a Photoshop license yet, so it was a good deal for me anyhow).
Regarding that PRemiere worked with RED RAW, and I knew I was going to work with RED RAW in the future, and at that point NO indication of Apple that they would support this, or if they had Professional Plans with FCP X, I bought the deal.
But I don’t really like editing in Premiere. The interface is clunkier, the difference is in the small things, and I quickly returned to FCP 7.

After the 10.0.3 update, I became interested because it had the multicam features WITHOUT angles needing to be the same format or even frame rate.
I had something I needed to do in that week with a LOT of Ken Burns style animations. I knew about the automatic Ken Burns effect in FCP X, and the no 4K limit on pictures like in FCP 7 so I decided to try the software again.

Long story short, I cursed a lot in those 2 weeks, yelling a lot, giving Apple a lot of feedback, BUT at the same time I also had a lot of “aha!” moments. The speed of the editing, once you got used to the program, could be so fast in comparison with FCP 7. It really did felt ‘backwards’ opening FCP 7 again.

I’m not convinced, still; though. I really have a a very dual feeling about it.
I used FCP X more and more. I really begin liking it. I like the speed of exporting. I like the editing features. I like the fact that I can immediately see where audio clips. I like that if I change the volume of an audio clip, I can immediately dynamically see the difference on the waveform.
I like the possibilities of the meta data, I love the multicam feature. I love how there are more and more plugins coming every week, more and more programs supporting it’s XML. It’s reassuring.
But there are also a lot of things I hate. The way it doesn’t have timecode overlays in the canvas now, the way you cannot work with clip timecode sometimes (I loved the Timecode overlays in FCP 7 and we use them A LOT, the way 10.0.4 doesn’t have a clip timecode reader function, etc.
And when I pulled in a lot of XDCAM clips, working in 3D with the Dashwood Stereo Toolbox, it was much smoother in FCP 7 (!!!) then in FCP X, on the same Macbook Pro. Also the way FCP X showed it’s viewer on the second screen was not that easy for working with a 3D plasma.
The program misses a lot of features, and some of them need such work-arounds that there are moments that you ask yourself: it is all worth it?

But yes, MY perspective has changed. I think it’s very capable, but also pretty buggy in moments, and still misses a lot of functionality. BUT, the updates that Apple announced (R3D support, Audio tools, Dual Viewers, …) are very good, and very ‘pro’. I like their magnetic timeline, although it could use some more flexibility. I like their meta-database way of thinking. Like it or not, these are huge fundamental changes, and I think this really could give Apple a big step forward in the future.
I mailed Apple about the future of FCP X, if they were listening to the feedback of pro’s, or if they were gearing it towards prosumers. I got a mail back (yes, it surprised me too) they they took it seriously and and they really wanted it known as a professional package.

They also added a FCP X in Action page again on their website. I think they should do much more of this, because as I said, they still have the stigma.

Which brings me to the other side: yes my perspective changed, but NO, I don’t think the general perspective of the industry changed towards FCP X. All the editors I talked too cursed on FCP X (yes, most of them HAD NOT used it), they stayed on FCP 7 while learning AVID, …
I did my bunch of complaining when the program was just released, but I also did my bunch of sharing positive experiences after using it with the 10.0.3 update. But most editors don’t really want to listen.
We’ll see.

I think if Apple released the program in the 10.0.3 version, I think A LOT of this stigma never would have been there. I think they should be much more responsive. They do it, but they could do more.
They should put more videos on their website, advertise more on NAB and professional outlets (although from what I’ve been told, NAB 2012 had a lot of FCP X on stand too, with the Smoke accepting the XML, Davinci working with FCP X XML, Thunderbolt accessories, …), and help getting this stigma out of the world. Get a better manual out there too, which is more transparant.
(Example? I used proxies for a test, small test. When I exported using Current Settings, the final media file was Prores Proxy. I was under the impression that proxies were solely used for having editing speed, but that the final render wouldn’t be in proxy files, even if you selected to use them. Well, FCP X did, if I checked off the proxy feature in the preferences again, and then re-exported, it was regular Prores, which I also thought was strange, because the original setting of the first images was XDCAM. It just isn’t that transparant in how it handles media. Yes it has these automatically making proxies and prores in the background, automatically relinking if they are ready, but it also has a lot of small gotchas that AREN’T well described in the manual)
A lot of it is based on the 10.0.0 version. That being said, I do think the program has a long way to go in features. On the other hand, when I use Premiere Pro or read about Avid, I also think they would have to go long ways to get the same kind of fluidity and editing speed of FCP X.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

You can choose to only edit down the video or the audio.

You can use the shortcut Shift+1 for Audio & Video, Shift+2 to only edit Video and Shift + 3 to only edit the audio in.
Or you can use the buttons, see screenshot.