[Matthew Sonnenfeld]

Oliver, I actually switched to Adobe in September and have been using Audition since then and I agree with you that it is excellent. What I was referring to was exactly the music capabilities of Pro Tools. Seems like that would be a very nice addition if you ask me.

Panasonic HPX170 P
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 8GB RAM
Matrox MXO2 LE with MAX
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5, Final Cut Pro Studio 3, Avid Media Composer 3.5.4
The College of WIlliam and Mary

[Matthew Sonnenfeld]

Adobe Pro Tools. Can anyone else see it?

Panasonic HPX170 P
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 8GB RAM
Matrox MXO2 LE with MAX
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5, Final Cut Pro Studio 3, Avid Media Composer 3.5.4
The College of WIlliam and Mary

[Matthew Sonnenfeld]

Andy, I think that a major issue here is the language. Regardless of how similar things might be in reality, it is a new language, new steps, new methods, and only FCPX people will understand. Try having an audio engineer or a colorist access your media and they will be lost completely. FCPX is not for serious collaboration. It is for one FCPX user to work on a project with maybe a couple other FCPX users. There is still nothing that I have heard in this back and forth that could convince me that FCPX is a good choice for a collaborative production workflow.

This is not an issue of laziness either. There is a universal language among all of post production and FCPX breaks that. It’s not just about the main editor, which is something that FCPX seems to neglect.

As for all this talk about tracks being spreadsheets as bad, as imposing… Editors biggest jobs are organization. We like spreadsheets.

As for the automation of assigned roles, sorry for being a skeptic but I don’t trust it. When I hand over a project to do my mix in Pro Tools, I will have spent more time double checking to make sure it got than automation right than I would have had I just placed the audio in the track I want from the start. The last thing I would ever want is a phone call from a confused audio technician about why my tracks don’t make sense and having to explain to him how FCPX role assignments got it wrong.

Panasonic HPX170 P
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 8GB RAM
Matrox MXO2 LE with MAX
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5, Final Cut Pro Studio 3, Avid Media Composer 3.5.4
The College of WIlliam and Mary

[Matthew Sonnenfeld]

Te problem is that all of those things take extra steps. Tracks work. They’re straight forward. I dont want to think about WHY I need tracks or why some things may interact the way they do. Tracks have been used this way for a reason and it’s proven at this point.

Take the issue with audio in FCPX. Sure you can export audio with dialogue, effects, music, etc. but the way i understand it is that the clips all need to be labeled individually so that the XML can organize them coherently to go to ProTools. Yes it’s nice metadata to know what’s dialogue and what’s not at a glance but its extra steps. It defeats the purpose if you ask me. I just want tracks. They organize themselves with minimal effort.

Panasonic HPX170 P
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 8GB RAM
Matrox MXO2 LE with MAX
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5, Final Cut Pro Studio 3, Avid Media Composer 3.5.4
The College of WIlliam and Mary

[Matthew Sonnenfeld]

Maybe I’m closed minded but until (and it’s still an “if”) they add a way to use a more traditional track based timeline, stellar multi-cam and improved keying, even if I can open my old projects and monitor properly (almost), is still not for me.

Panasonic HPX170 P
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 8GB RAM
Matrox MXO2 LE with MAX
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5, Final Cut Pro Studio 3, Avid Media Composer 3.5.4
The College of WIlliam and Mary

[Matthew Sonnenfeld]

I agree. It does make you wonder. But I too would assume this to be part of unifying the AJA drivers. Making things easier with drivers is always welcome.

There’s been a lot of talk lately on these forums about everything following FCPX but I just don’t see the reasoning. Sure Apple does it but their bread and butter are the iPhone and iPad. Consumer products. I’ve seen it on the Adobe Prelude thread and now about AJA (a joke or not). I just feel that when a company is built on professionals, with products made exclusively for professionals, that’s where they will stay.

With adobe, it’s like saying that photoshop elements would replace photoshop. But elements never would because its never been seriously accepted as anything and doesn’t outsell the real deal unless you count it being bundled with the Wacom bamboo, etc. iMovie and the iLife suite outsold FCP. It made sense to Apple. The same would not be so to others.

Panasonic HPX170 P
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 8GB RAM
Matrox MXO2 LE with MAX
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5, Final Cut Pro Studio 3, Avid Media Composer 3.5.4
The College of WIlliam and Mary

[Matthew Sonnenfeld]

If you’re looking to add a third monitor as a reference monitor, consider getting a real video card. That will let you monitor accurate color with frame accuracy and you won’t have to worry about drivers or graphics cards. It will be dedicated for editing but it will be what you need. AJA makes some great stuff that you may want to check out.

Panasonic HPX170 P
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 8GB RAM
Matrox MXO2 LE with MAX
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5, Final Cut Pro Studio 3, Avid Media Composer 3.5.4
The College of WIlliam and Mary

[Matthew Sonnenfeld]

I for one have actually already ordered my IoXT and I’m looking forward to it immensely. Let me say why…

I made the switch to Adobe CS5.5 in October with a switcher bundle that included a Matrox MXO2LE MAX. I was told that everything should work and that it was a good way to go. It’s January 28th, 2012 and we’re still waiting on working MXO2 drivers for CS5.5. I do have the Thunderbolt adapter and with FCP7 everything works fine. I even got myself one of HP’s new 24″ LED IPS monitors with HDMI for the Matrox’s picky monitoring requirements. But with everything, I still can’t actually edit in Adobe.

I stuck with the Matrox because I heard over and over that new drivers were coming and when I looked at offerings from other vendors, there was nothing else that I actually wanted in the price range. When I saw that the IoXT was shipping I made some phone calls, and I’m exchanging the MXO2LE MAX for the IoXT. With everything that has happened in the last year, I just want a system that works and will be forward thinking. As I run off of a 17″ MBP primarily, this seems to be the way to go. MC6 somewhere down the line may be in my future as well, but for now, I like the offerings of what comes in the Adobe box. I’ve messed with FCPX and I think I’ve given it a fair shot, but I just don’t like the feel.

I’m not looking forward to giving up the H.264 acceleration of the Matrox but plenty of people get by without it. And if I decide I need it again, let there be Thunderbolt. I’ll buy a Sonnett chasis and put a CompressHD card in it. Next purchase on my list though will be a Thunderbolt RAID. I’m just waiting to see what comes out of G-Tech and CalDigit. I personally like Thunderbolt. Yes the cable is a little unsettlingly small and kinda chintzy feeling, but what it offers is great. Maybe third party manufacturers will make locking Thunderbolt cables and that would definitely be nice. I think that ultimately, the best place for Thunderbolt would be as a complement to a regular desktop workstation. If the question is, can you get serious work done on the road, with serious files, and feel good about not being at your desk, the answer is yes.

It all depends on how you want to work. You can get the Pegasus R6 and work off a desk with a laptop, of you can use the LaCie Thunderbolt Little Big Disk and still stay compact and take the sacrifices that may come with that. Options will expand and that’s what will make all the new technology worth it.

Panasonic HPX170 P
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 8GB RAM
Matrox MXO2 LE with MAX
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5, Final Cut Pro Studio 3, Avid Media Composer 3.5.4
The College of WIlliam and Mary

[Matthew Sonnenfeld]

Not sure about the Bridge stuff but moving projects via XML definitely works.

Panasonic HPX170 P
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 8GB RAM
Matrox MXO2 LE with MAX
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5, Final Cut Pro Studio 3, Avid Media Composer 3.5.4
The College of WIlliam and Mary

[Matthew Sonnenfeld]

Hey Nathaniel,

Sorry for the delayed response.

I don’t think that 8gig P2 cards are even available anymore, at least not new. If you’re shooting 720, you have the advantage of shooting in 720/24PN. Assuming you want to shoot in 24P, then this setting will yield you the most recording times for your cards, while maintaining high quality. Basically, PN is truly progressive whereas the 24P modes use pulldown and therefore do use fields which take up space. As a result of using PN modes, you will get about 60% more recording time. But this is ONLY in 720.

If you use a 16gig card, the smallest card available new, you will get roughly 40 minutes in PN and in all other HD frame rate modes, the general rule is 1gig of storage per 1 minute of footage. Yes, DVCProHD is monstrous compared to consumer codecs but you will see the advantages.

Really, I’ve never seen a downside to shooting in the PN modes, and particularly 720 which is generally all I shoot in. I’ve had a lot of success converting to 1080 with Cineform software (which I can’t recommend highly enough), and especially with these cameras, they don’t have native 1080 sensors so you don’t really gain resolution by shooting in 1080 anyway.

Also, yes, you will need 2 cards, AT LEAST! You don’t need that to record but especially if you’re shooting docs, you need to be able to run and gun. What happens if your card is full? And that these storage ratios it doesn’t take much… Then you need to find a computer, dump your card, PROPERLY, clear it, format it, and get it back in the camera and ready to go. It will be a huge waste of time. In the old days, a miniDV tape was cheap and you just bought a 3 pack and popped in a new one after 60 minutes was up. Not so anymore. When shooting in the 720 PN mode, it is much easier to match the type of shooting times you had with a tape per day of shooting, so I would try to replicate that. You can do that with one 64gig card but as I’ve said, I think you would be better with two or three 32gig cards.

It sounds like you’re on the right track. Bottom line is, 1gig of storage per minute of footage, unless in PN mode, multiple cards of however much you’re comfortable paying for, be that 16, 32, or 64 gig cards. Stay away from the 8s and they will be used.

Panasonic HPX170 P
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 8GB RAM
Matrox MXO2 LE with MAX
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5, Final Cut Pro Studio 3, Avid Media Composer 3.5.4
The College of WIlliam and Mary