Apple releases free update to Final Cut Pro X with multi-cam editing - Page 3

Too little, too late? I hear Avid is picking up customers.

I doubt what you say is Apple's intentions. Apple gets a lot of free publicity because of its roots in the creative community. Many companies pay to have product placement in TV and movies, not Apple.

I think Apple thought the pro community would love the new Final Cut Pro. Stories suggest Apple actually consulted with professionals to gain impute into the release before releasing it. I think Apple was shocked at the back lash.

As others stated, Apple could have saved itself a lot of trouble by 1) to have kept selling Final Cut Pro 7, 2) to have kept supporting it, and 3) to have called this Final Cut Pro Express X. Apple probably made those mistake, however, because it honestly thought professionals would love the features.

A lot of people, however, don't understand releasing Final Cut Pro X was a huge undertaking. Since Apple abandoned support for its Carbon development framework, it had to rewrite Final Cut Pro from the ground up. Like when Apple went from OS 9 to OSX, users gained a solid foundation (and the features that come with that), but lost many of the classic features found in OS 9. After two or three major updates, most if not all the features found there way back. The same will happen with Final Cut Pro X. When Apple released OSX, however, it was smart to not have it be the default OS. It took almost a year after release before Apple felt confident to make OSX be the default OS.

Avid will probably gain some customers. However, so will Apple.

IDK... The total rewrite to Cocoa and modern technology has allowed two significant FCP X updates in 7 months...

FCP 7 has wallowed for several years without any feature updates...

Interesting that not all the pros were so-closed minded as portrayed here.


And Radical Media is no slouch in the industry.

Don't hang out much on the Avid user board? : ) It's not as simple as that. Grass not being greener and all.

Yeah, pros are very conservative. They keep the old setup going until they're completely sure of the next step. I don't think shows will use X for maybe a year, still. The editors have to learn new ways. And third parties, likely will make the hardware and black boxes they need.

House M.D. is a paid product placement for Apple.

Yeah... Though technology changes a few minds... Wait until the "pros" start losing work to the young upstarts who can deliver better results at half the cost...

Is it? I can only think of one episode where that MIGHT be the case, but do you have evidence otherwise?

You of all people should know that is not how things work. Young up starts in video start in porn then they make their way into legitimate media. Traditional media business does not employ up starts because they are not proven to be dependable which is essential when you are making a huge financial investment in a production.

I'm sorry did I say porn? I meant the excitable content industry as it is known at Samy's in LA where we shop for equipment.

Better results at half the cost? Where are the better results coming from? Where are those savings coming from? Break it down for me.

I work in the industry, and you're going to have to prove what you say is based on facts.

As it stands now, you'll be hard-pressed to find a media outlet willing to let you work on FCPX. Along with your contract comes a list of deliverables that you must provide.

A vendor that can't provide an OMF is a vendor that needs to give up.

Editing your iPhone-shot videos for YouTube and delivering broadcast-quality content is the difference between scribbling on a sidewalk in chalk, and writing for the New York Times.

The childish attacks on professional post-production people from fanboys are hilariously off-base and ignorant.

Only if they were idiots. They still had their existing tools to work with while they waited for the additional enhancements.

I meant no attack on the "pros"...

But I am a observer of history -- specifically computer technology -- since 1956...

Every now and again, technology will provide a massive disruption to the status quo.

It usually involves something that couldn't be done before, or wasn't timely or cost effective before.

It normally involves a trade-off between "best" or "great" quality at a high price -- versus "good enough" at a much lower cost...

A little more than a decade ago, FCP disrupted the established "video editing" profession because it was good enough and a lot less costly than the tools in use.

I suspect that many of today's "pros" got started as "upstarts" using this new technology.


I believe that, within the year 2012, some young upstart will cut an acclaimed movie or major video primarily with FCP X -- on a very low budget.

Then...

What nonsense. Of course they will otherwise why would they be putting so much effort into a much more powerful software offering. I'm sure their competitors are loving feeding this FUD.

Until Apple ACTUALLY release that speculated new tower, it is not nonsense at all to also assume they MAY not, especially when you consider the lack of pro focus in recent years, due (allegedly) to Apple success and focus in/on other areas.

I'm personally HOPING (and think they will) release a new mac pro but anything any of us say until they do/don't is only speculation.

The lack of faith in Apple from the pro market perspective, isn't something that just suddenly appeared out of thin air or was caused simply by the initial disappointment in FCP X. If you look back over the past few years regarding Apple's relationship with the pro market, like many of us have been doing, that concern is much more understandable and something that Apple should probably address if they really do have an interest in further supporting their established and existing pro market and preventing them from moving to solutions like Windows/Avid/Premiere

I hope you're right though and that our concerns prove, in time, to be 'nonsense'.

Apple's mistake was letting the PC industry catch up to them. The days of the boring beige box that's only good for John Hodgman's PC Guy to do vacation spreadsheets on are over.

Apple has always relied on better software to overcome hardware shortcomings (let's not pretend those IBM G5 processors were worth a damn), but now that the hardware is (should) be the same as a PC, it's difficult to limit oneself artificially.

Sure, Apple has always been great about giving us high end options before we need them (THunderbolt, gigabit ethernet, even USB to a certain extent) but always being a generation behind on graphics cards (especially high end openGL cards) is hard to do. When a $2500 computer built from gaming parts off the shelf at newegg can edit Red Epic 4K footage at 96 FPS in premiere without a hiccup, the current mac offerings look a little...weak.

That said, the features in the new FCP X lead me to believe that there might be a new paradigm coming. I can't imagine editing 64 channels of multicam footage on an iMac. Apple's one of the largest companies in the world, they can (and should) strive to sell more than just shiny toys to maximize short term profit.

Awesome - this is an essential feature IMO and one of the biggest things lacking from previous releases. Hopefully this will make it easy enough to share edits. Still not sure how you can send an edit when you have no save as... function. There is possibly the option for XML export for exchange but it would be better to just send the edit file.

It's good to see these features being added within about 7 months after release and I think it was a good time to release it last year as they had something to help market Thunderbolt products but there's been a 7 month gap where Apple didn't sell a production-ready editing package - they should simply have kept FCS3 on the shelves until this release. As of 10.0.3, the production testing can step up and Final Cut Pro 7 can be put to rest.

I have never needed multicam -- so a while ago I manufactured a situation to see how it works in FCP 7 and FCP X (I couldn't find any tutorials that include multicam footage, so I created some using 3 different cameras).

Anyway, I experimented and found that FCP 7 was more flexible -- but you had to do a lot of PITA prep work to get the videos in the proper format and sync method...

FCP X .0.2 seemed easier/faster but was limited to audio sync ala PluralEyes.

I've read comments by pros that audio sync is not acceptable for concerts, large venues, etc. where the camera distance from the subject varies considerably.


Now, FCP X .0.3 has robust multi cam support -- and from what I am reading (and seeing demoed) it is superior to anything else out there!

I wonder if this "robust multi cam" capability is enough justification to use FCP X -- for that capability, alone?

Here's some of the FCP X benes:
-- any combination of [supported] cameras/file formats
-- any combination of [supported] codecs
-- any combination of frame sizes
-- any combination of frames per second
-- photos and still images can be included
-- automatically assemble broken timecodes from each camera and lay out as a single angle
-- sync by timecode
-- sync by the recorded date / time of the camera
-- sync by start of first clip
-- sync by first marker on the angle
-- sync by audio

The audio sync can be used alone or in combination with other sync methods.

Here are some links that show what I mean:

FCPX INs and OUTs - Multicam Part ONE

FCPX INs and OUTs - Multicam Part TWO

Multicam Editing in Final Cut Pro X


Finally, this last tutorial has nothing to do with multicam -- but really blows me away:

Advanced Tips for FCP X: Editing During Playback

That's right he is editing in real-time during playback!

He shows how easy it is -- fast, natural and fun!


He says that editing this way is almost like playing a musical instrument...

"editing this way is almost like playing a musical instrument..."

Apple's been in the "Promotional Consideration" credits of House for years. I believe they were also there for "Lie to Me" and Heroes.

Attached is image from House. I don't know if they pay anything, or just donate equipment.

Then what?

You're talking vague nonsense.


This is still a huge problem.

One thing that a lot of people don't understand is that if you are hired to do a post job, the company that hired you usually owns absolutely everything you create for that project. They expect and almost always require that you provide everything necessary to pick up where you left off. (That way, someone in-house can just change a title or something when the request comes in six months later.)

If a vendor gets asked to provide the project files, and the vendor comes back with "Sorry, I can't, there's no Save As... feature, are the renders OK?" then that vendor is risking a lawsuit.

Talking about vague benefits like "new paradigms" and other crap is meaningless. If you can't provide a company with everything they need to continue a project, you will not work on anymore projects. Simple.

We're planning on having people in two different cities working on FCP X projects. One to start, one to finish.

According to http://help.apple.com/finalcutpro/ma...1/#verb8e5fcf4 it should be possible using the "Copy Project" option.

Are you saying that won't be able to start in City A and finish in City B? We haven't yet made the move to FCP X, so we've not tried to do this.

You can do what you want... Encapsulate and move your project or alternately check it out from NAS -- only one person can work on a project at a time. but multiple people can access the source footage simultaneously (read only).

I was even able to import/edit clips from my iDisk.

Then... anybody with imagination will be able to see the potential of FCP X.

I suspect it will gain broad acceptance among "pro" editors.


BTW, I define a "pro" as someone who understands all the tools available and selects (and exploits) those which best serve his needs for a certain activity.

Simply stated: A "pro" defines the results he can accomplish regardless of the tools available -- rather than being defined by the tools he posses (uses),



I think you will find that the above is incorrect -- a widely published misunderstanding when FCP X as first introduced.

You can encapsulate and move your project -- it's just done differently in FCP X.

You can easily prove this to yourself (if you are open-minded) by using the 30-day free trial.

Or, you can continue to spread FUD while others move on...

Thanks.

I'm looking forward to trying out FCP X. We may not be "PRO" editors to some, but we sell a ton of our DVDs, all created on FCP. :-)

Copy Project doesn't seem to do this, it's only for copying to another drive. But it seems as though you can take the files directly out of the project folder and send them. The only problem with that is the render files are in there too so you would just duplicate the .fcpproject file, compress/encrypt it, email it and on the other end, they should just be able to make another folder in their FCP Projects folder and drop the .fcpprojects in there, reload FCPX and it will show up in projects.

Then hopefully, the media relinking in 10.0.3 will allow it to reconnect with whatever footage is on the other end. If the Events had been sent across, it should be seamless. It would be good to be able to send just the metadata separate from the footage. That way, it's easy to get someone to categorise all your media and not have to ship large files back and forth. I'm sure as time goes on, a decent workflow will come to light.

You may not even need FCPX. How about $5 for Avid Studio? : )

http://appshopper.com/blog/2012/02/0...ipad-released/

I bought Avid Studio (iPad only) and I rather like it. It is straight-forward and offers some features that iMovie iPad lacks. It isn't as well integrated with the content as iMovie but works well.

My 16-year-old granddaughter recently cut 3 videos entirely on her iPad using iMovie -- She is going to try Avid Studio and give me her evaluation.

Dick, keep us posted. Kind of interested in any cool plusses or gotchas in that.

I mean, I spent $5 on a snack between breakfast and lunch, so ... : )

We'll have plenty of chances to tweak the process. I guess in the beginning we'll send everything and later see what can be safely removed.

I'll get this for my children to try. iMovie won't install on the original iPad, so this looks like fun.
And, at $5, even if it's a dud, it's no big deal.

I don't recall where I read that but Apple almost never pays cash but gives products to use. So House isn't paid in cash but paid in products.

The app looks good, but if you have an original iPad prepare for a lot of crashes. I rebooted, make sure all apps were closed, and the farthest I've been able to get to is adding a few second clip. Then it crashes.

I am looking forward to trying it on an iPad 3 when it comes out.