[Ronny Courtens]

You have a point there, Walter. I should have said “single threaded CPU speed is reaching its limits” and we agree parallel computing is the way to go. Obviously that’s also the way Apple is going with this machine. That’s why I resent the title “speed tests of the new MacPro” while this is merely a benchmark test of the supposed CPU, not of the complete system.

[Ronny Courtens]

I was comparing it with CS6.

Our shop in Brussels has been around for 50 years now, having started small as an audio post house for film. The one in Paris opened in 1987. In both we mainly work for national television, editing and finishing short to long form shows and documentaries.

Most of our clients have been with us for many years now as there is not really any fierce competition at our level, opposed to what you find in LA. Our clients always work with our own people. To most of them it does not matter what equipment we are using as long as the work gets done perfectly, in time and within budget. I think that’s a healthy attitude and it’s been woking really great for us ever since we started.

Since we went linear I have always opted for having the same NLE system in all our suites. Avid was perfect for a long time, until they got too greedy. When we transitioned from Avid to FCP we did use both for awhile, just like we kept using legacy FCP while we were testing out the new FCP workflow. As most of our editors haven been with us for a long time they can easily switch from one system to another without anyone ever noticing. It’s only hard- and software after all. To me our people are far more important because they make the real difference, not the equipment.

[Ronny Courtens]

Keyframing in AE is absolutely not subpar, nor is it in Motion. Both applications offer very precise and intuitive keyframe animation options. Behaviors in Motion are actually quite powerful. You can apply a Behavior to quickly create a complex animation and then (for most Behaviors) you can convert the Behavior into physical keyframes (CMD+K) to further tweak the animation.

Yes you can easily paste entire collections of keyframes from multiple layers onto others in Motion. Not by option-dragging to be fair, but by a simple copy/paste action, which comes down to the same.

And yes you can proportionally shrink or expand the timing of keyframes in Motion. Actually this works exactly like in AE.

Let’s face it, in video edits, quite a lot of the keyframing is simple linear moves. A push on something, a photo montage, etc.

I totally agree, that’s what we use keyframes for most of the time in an NLE. And just like you I really liked the auto extending capability in Avid. I cannot tell you how frustrating it was when we switched to FCP having to manually adjust every keyframe whenever you wanted to extend an animation or when adding a dissolve between two animated clips.

But in FCPX you do have a similar feature. When you use the Crop > Ken Burns effect to create a simple linear move or push and then you extend your clip the animation timing will adapt automatically. Same as when you put a transition between two animated clips the start and end of the animations will automatically extend under the transition. This does not work for complex manual keyframing yet, but for simple linear moves it is perfect and we use it all the time.

Now back to the OP: as a hardcore FCPX user and proponent I agree that manual keyframing in the Viewer is shite. So I don’t blame you for ranting, we all have had such moments in X ((-:

Workarounds do not justify the lack of proper interpolation behavior in the Viewer. Fortunately there are a few ways to skin a cat in X and keyframing in the Inspector does work quite well, same as using the Crop tool for creating simple linear moves and pushes works exceptionally well and fast. All of these should be grouped into one powerful keyframe animation editor like in Motion, or we should get a fully seamless integration with Motion straight from the FCPX timeline. Now wouldn’t that be “awesome”.

[Ronny Courtens]

Hey Chris,

We indeed all have different requirements for our specific workflows. I understand that for you the DNx and control surface support are a big deal, while for me these are irrelevant. That’s why in my replies I try to include the words “to us” as often as possible as I do respect that other people using different workflows might see things differently. I do think PP still needs a lot of work, which does not mean it isn’t already a decent NLE as it is now. We use FCP10 on a daily basis for very demanding customers and lord knows this app still needs some improvements as well ((-:

I sometimes envy people who can use different NLEs in their workflow. In a post house like ours with many editors working together on fast turnaround projects we need to develop a seamless workflow based on very specific choices. So I have to go with my gut feeling, a lot of testing and some 37 years of experience to make those choices. Like you said: not all workflows are the same, so choices and opinions will always differ and no-one will be right or wrong in the end. As long as you make the right choices for your specific requirements all is well.

[Ronny Courtens]

Yes to both, but that’s going to change. AE has been an excellent companion to our work since we switched to linear editing on Avid. When we moved to FCP we continued using AE. But when Motion became part of the FCS suite we gradually started doing a lot of graphics and comp work in Motion because it is faster for quick every-day jobs like creating custom lower thirds, openers and bumpers. Since we added a Flame station to our film post workflow we also started doing the more complex broadcast related comping in Flame, and AE became less important.

We have adopted FCPX from day one, first on two test systems and since October last year in full production. No regrets whatsoever. At the same time I have set up a test workflow using FCPX for editing and Smoke 2013 for finishing. It’s a pretty decent workflow as SMAC imports FCPX projects quite flawlessly and it’s like you are comping right on your editing timeline, being able to do any last minute editorial changes as well as versioning while you are finishing.

Now it’s only a matter of seeing what Apple will do with Motion before I decide which route we will finally go. AE will probably not be part of that route anymore.

[Ronny Courtens]

Very interesting points made here. Thank you for the clarifications.

[Ronny Courtens]

Gary you are correct, my bad. This does not alter the fact that calling this a “speed test for the new MacPro” is rather short-sighted as it only shows figures about the presumed CPU. The comparative figures confirm however that CPU speed is indeed slowly reaching its limits and porting processor tasks to the GPU is the way to go. So real performance tests will only be possible once the new MacPro is actually here.

[Ronny Courtens]

“in scale terms – all they need to do now is throw a security bone to the bees?”

I don’t think this is going to happen Aindreas, at least not now that I have been able to compare the CC hype with the bare reality.

I have been working with the trial versions of PhotoshopCC, AECC and PremiereCC for two days now. Just to see if we will stick to what we have (CS6.5) and gradually replace everything Adobe, or if it would be worth renting some CC versions after all. My conclusion: if this version of CC had been offered as a payed upgrade to CS6.5 I am sure we, and I think many others, would politely have skipped the offer. Just like many have skipped Adobe “upgrade” versions in the past years.

But I do fully understand now why Adobe has decided to impose a life-long paying update program on its user base. And honestly I cannot blame them: I don’t think many people would have upgraded to this version anyway if they had the choice. Premiere CC has got some minor attention, but after all that’s an app that definitely still needs a lot of improvement. Photoshop CC is not even worth considering from a video point of view and we have already started replacing AE by faster alternatives for our post workflow since last year. So for us (others may be in a different situation, which I do respect) it’s simply not worth it.

To get back to the OPs question:

If your choice is really limited to these two NLEs I would give Avid a decent try. I have been a very happy Avid user from day one and if it hadn’t been for their absolutely arrogant monopolistic price enforcement policy (now that does ring a bell, doesn’t it) we would not have switched to FCP 8 years ago, like so many people have done. But as far as efficiency and reliability is concerned Avid is still much higher in my book than many others. The new Final Cut Pro is an exception to this, as this is quite a different approach to many existing NLE workflows and no-one knows how far it will evolve in the near future. So I’m giving it all the credit it deserves while we already happily use it full-time in our broadcast post workflow.

The next 6 months are going to be quite interesting. If you feel that your business will not go broke by waiting another couple of months I would just wait until the end of this year. By then we should get a much more objective picture of where everyone is heading.

[Ronny Courtens]

It’s amazing how much B.S. some people will try to pull on you just to sell you some software.

[Ronny Courtens]

So someone claims they have tested the CPU that is probably going to be one of the CPUs used in the new Mac Pro. “Claims” because this source has not been officially confirmed. “Probably” because this is an educated guess. And to be fair: if this test were indeed official I certainly would not call it a “speed test of the MacPro 2013”, but merely a test of the CPU that will possibly be used in it.

I think we will have to wait for real performance tests until anyone actually has his hands on this machine. Anything else is mere speculation.

On the other hand there are also people who have the capabilities to put “tests” like this into a more realistic perspective, like this reaction from Kyle Russel (Business Insider):

“The new Mac Pro is also extremely power-lopsided: it will initially max out at 12 cores (almost certainly this exact CPU), which is upper-midrange by Xeon standards, but it comes with a ridiculous amount of GPU power. This is overkill to just be about future desktop Retina Displays — clearly, Apple’s pushing for pro and scientific apps to shift more of the heavy lifting to OpenCL. If they succeed, the new Mac Pro will probably crush everything else in its price range (and the rest of the Mac lineup).”