Just for perspective the transition from OS 9 to OS X affected Apple's entire customer base and Apple's entire third party development base.
To be honest what Apple is doing with FCP isn't any different that what they've done with other software products. Its just FCP turn for its slash and burn upgrade cycle. People aren't happy about it. In the long run they will be alright.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flaneur
I take your point, and this will work out okay in time too. But I'd say this is different, because of the slice of Apple's customer base that's being affected.
Leave it as is, don't waste an ounce of resources fixing bugs, but sell new copies or serial numbers to people stuck in the old environment for the indefinite future.
In return, we all start cheerfully adapting, just as before. But like with iMovie 6, only this is ten times more significant because we're not talking about home movies here, acknowledge your customers' past loyalty and/or preferences by saying something or doing something to help them with the transition.
Maybe I've been living in L.A. too long, but I see this huge reservoir of good will and creative capital built around Final Cut being tossed away cavalierly. It seems like a slap in the face, like someone here said. Apple has great public relations, but sometimes not so great customer relations. All they have to do is say a few words and not round up the old stock for shredding, or whatever they do with it. I know, too emotional . . .
Love it!
It is an opportunity!
You go to your clients with the "Bad Cop / Good Cop" routine:
"Damn Apple! They're coming out with this great new video editor that's going to revolutionize everything... In the future we'll be able to create better results for you, quicker and at lower costs... But (bad) Apple hasn't given us a way to upgrade your/our legacy projects -- it's that revolutionary."
"I (the good guy) can help you to review your projects for things that you may want to access or change in the future. Why don't we pick a small completed project as a proof of concept to show the advantages of the new solution."
If the client is reluctant, a really good cop might offer to do the job gratis* as a demo of future benefits to the client.
Ha! Gratis! You are going to need to learn the system sometime -- might as well do it with a real project and the client goodwill as remuneration.
P.S. There are so many very good posts to this thread -- even some that appear to be B&M have valid concerns. I can't read and type fast enough to give justice in a reply to many posts -- and +++QFT replies would just clutter the thread. It has been a very informative discussion -- I've gone back and re-read quite a few posts several times. I wan't to post "right ON", "exactly", "Wish I'd said that" to many posts.
3) Supporting apps, like Motion can bind themselves more tightly to FCPX than to FCP. Motion almost appears as a popup function in FCPX rather than a separate app.
You don't really round-trip to Motion -- rather you invoke and dismiss it as a tool or a sub-app.
Aside: if you like multiple track editing, you'll love Motion.
To me, FCPX looks like a glass half-full!
These are indeed reassuring discoveries, especially the last part about tracks. What the heck, maybe the glass is at three-quarters.
These are indeed reassuring discoveries, especially the last part about tracks. What the heck, maybe the glass is at three-quarters.
Off to the Apple store to check it out.
If you've got FCPS, it contains Motion (replaced by the new Motion from the app store). The new motion is compatible with both FCPX and FCPS -- just better integrated with FCPX.
Anyway -- either the old or new motion can work as a standalone app. It is great for compositing, titling, and effects generation.
Maybe save you a trip -- unless you just want to play.
If you've got FCPS, it contains Motion (replaced by the new Motion from the app store). The new motion is compatible with both FCPX and FCPS -- just better integrated with FCPX.
Anyway -- either the old or new motion can work as a standalone app. It is great for compositing, titling, and effects generation.
Maybe save you a trip -- unless you just want to play.
Dick,
What's the performance like of the new 'X' apps?
With them utilizing both GCD and OCL, I'm curious if those technologies live up to their promise of helping to usher in a new era of multi-core performance improvements.
With them utilizing both GCD and OCL, I'm curious if those technologies live up to their promise of helping to usher in a new era of multi-core performance improvements.
In short, fantastic!
I kinda' addressed this at the end of a long-winded post:
I just had a chance to play with FCPX without a lot else going on -- FCPX got my, and my computer's full attention (iMac 24 2.8 GHz Core 2 Duo 4 GB RAM ATI, Radeon HD1600 -- no real powerhouse).
Anyway I started import of about 4 GB Compressed AVCHD from a card reader.
I can tell you this:
FCPX ain't no iMovie Pro!
A few seconds after inserted the AVCHD card the 38 thumbnails appeared in the import screen
I could scrub/play through them as if they were already imported.
I started the import/analysis/transcoding of all the clips and closed the import window.
I opened up the event I was importing and could immediately use the clips while they were still importing (analyzing and transcoding in the background -- in iMovie I would have waited 10-15 minutes before I could do anything.
When I did something that needed CPU/GPU power like playing a clip yet to be imported -- the background processes would pause, as necessary so there was no noticeable effect to the FCPX UI.
I was playing the clip on a 23" Cinema Display while editing on the iMac 24.
This is good stuff!
To put it in other words:
I started an import of 2GB * compressed AVCHD video including transcoding analyses for people, color, stabilization and sound:
* I misread the size of the input on the original post.
Normally this would take 5-10 minutes on iMovie (which has a similar import) before you could do anything else and it would max both CPUs on Activity Monitor.
I immediately closed the import window and started editing the clips -- just as if all the processing and analysis had already competed.
I never saw a beach ball or experienced a delay in the UI. I had the background tasks window open and could see the progression of the tasks -- any time I did something in the editing window it would pause/resume tasks as needed.
I never saw a render!
But, admittedly I didn't have enough experience to do anything but edit clips and apply some effects
Oddly, the imported original files were the same size as the compressed originals -- Apple has done some magic here! Normally, compressed to expanded AVCHD has a 1::7 ratio.
The transcribed ProRes 422 were slightly smaller.
I have to look into that.
It's a funny experience -- no waiting!
If you use iMovie or FCP you kinda' get used to where there are delays and adjust your workflow to compensate -- take a coffee break, lunch, go to bed. But FCPX always seemed to be waiting for me.
Unsettling!
I plan to spend some time this weekend working through the tutorials and should get a better feel for performance when doing "Real Editing" things.
Gotta prove that as a company on the bottom line, sorry to say. iOS is Apple's present and future... again, sorry to say. As an Apple fan, you still can't get around the sorry fact that with all of the "pro" advantages that Apple has brought to the table over the years, they haven't broken 15% in the desktop/workstation market for a couple of decades.
On the other hand... iOS, it's devices, and it's eco-system is like printing money. In fact, they may have enough in a couple of years from iOS alone to BUY GREECE! Think about that.
I'm an unashamed APPL stock holder... and I'm still hugging the tree AND looking around that huge trunk, at the forest. What do I see? Creative pros in all industries, yelling, screaming, tearing their hair out... when the writing has been on the wall for some time. More importantly, the money is IN THE BANK! Apple's own bank, which they add to by obscene amounts daily, without touching what's already there.... and most importantly to them, "creative pro purchases" add up to taxi change and marketing bullet-points at best.
Having pro-grade software and hardware, catering to the techies, adding specs, has gotten Apple NOWHERE!
Serving 3 square iOS meals (iPod, iPhone, iPad) with all of the accoutrements, has made Apple in 4 short years King of the Tech Kitchen. OK. So it's consumer... or even Pro-sumer. You think they're freaking over that? No. They're happy to be showing the world the recipe to success. (Period). And "pros" be damned.
Now go catch that Avid or Adobe train. It's SO much nicer.... NOT! Truth is that ALL creative pro software has been in the toilet for the last 5 years, and I don't see anyone with the money, balls, or both to change that sad fact.
PS. How funny that Macromedia initially created FCP, as well as FreeHand, which got killed by Adobe, and Flash, which will die at Adobe's hands. Must have been quite a few geniuses at that old company, never to be repeated again. Or were their coding practices so horrible, that no one can truly update the stuff, and it all needs rewrites? Just Curious
What good are all those iOS devices without content to play on them? If 'pros be damned', who is going to create the content which people see on TV and pay movie tickets for, and that Apple sells on iTunes?
First people say "Send feedback because Apple listens." But when Apple provides features that people have been demanding, it's because "Apple was planning to do it anyway." So which is it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by TenoBell
Remember when the iPhone first came out. People complained about what it could not do. Did Apple scramble to add those features simply because people complained. Or has Apple been systematically and methodically adding features over time?
People complained about MMS and copy/paste from the beginning. Apple did not add those features until two years after the launch of the original iPhone. Was that because of people complaining or was that because Apple felt they those features were ready?
People have been complaining about pop up notifications for years. Apple is just now providing a better notifications UI four years after the launch of the first iPhone. Is this simply because people complained. Or because Apple feels the feature is ready?
Quote:
Originally Posted by backtomac
Thanks. Thats good to hear.
I hope that Apple listen to the valid concerns of their user base and bring in the features needed to restore this app back to what it was.
Apple doesn't need to listen to anybody. Apple always knows what's best, what features to release, and when to release them. And if Apple happens to release features that people were demanding, it's pure coincidence because the users had nothing to do with it. But in the meantime, we will keep telling people to send feedback to www.apple.com/feedback knowing that there is no point in doing so.
What good are all those iOS devices without content to play on them? If 'pros be damned', who is going to create the content which people see on TV and pay movie tickets for, and that Apple sells on iTunes?
Good question!
AFAICT. FCP was successful because it provided a solution that cost 1/10 of the competition and produced output that was "good enough".
I wouldn't be too surprised if today's FCP "pros" were outliers who couldn't afford to compete with the "pros" of their day until FCP came along.
All to the discomfiture of the establishment "pros".
Funny, how that works.
Anyway -- it ain't the tools so much as it is the talent of the storyteller/editor.
We'll get a lot of truly mediocre output -- but we'll get some true gems.
Over the past 10 years the film/television industry has gone through this problem with the transition to High Definition. Prior to this everything was either shot of finished for Standard Definition. Which for the most part looks terrible on high definition television. With the emergence of web streaming/downloading standard definition is pretty much to the point of unacceptable for the web.
So now movies and shows that have been finished for standard definition are "legacy" and pretty much useless for the future. Sometimes this problem is easily solved and sometimes it cannot be so easily solved.
We have been creating new HD Whataburger spots from their original SD spots. We load the SD spots as a reference and then load the original SD dailies. We do an eye match or if we are lucky we have the old Avid project to pull from. Then something interesting happens. We generate an EDL from this cut and send it to a transfer house that pulls new selects from . . . wait for it . . . FILM! Yep they pull the original LEGACY 35mm film and create DPX selects that we then put in our Autodesk system to color with Lustre and finish with Smoke in HD.
So legacy project files can be important. Of course it only helps you if you have software that can read the old files (hint, hint). Another lesson here is that film is a near perfect archival medium.
AFAICT. FCP was successful because it provided a solution that cost 1/10 of the competition and produced output that was "good enough".
I wouldn't be too surprised if today's FCP "pros" were outliers who couldn't afford to compete with the "pros" of their day until FCP came along.
All to the discomfiture of the establishment "pros".
Funny, how that works.
Anyway -- it ain't the tools so much as it is the talent of the storyteller/editor.
We'll get a lot of truly mediocre output -- but we'll get some true gems.
Everything old is new again!
Thanks DA for a better reply than I was going to write
Also for taking the dive and letting us know the inside scoop from a "normal* everyday" user, and a peek into your life. Your grand kids you're always talking about I suspect... good bunch!
*Not to pin you as "normal" whatever that means... but ya know what I'm sayin'
-- Apple ][ vs Mac - a document you had saved to an apple 2 was still accessable from a Mac no?
-- minifloppy vs microfloppy - ? mini to micro? so...5.25 -> 3.5? the whole industry did that in the 80s...you could still get at the data with external drives.
-- DTB vs USB - you can or could in the olden days buy USB adapters for any and just about all older legacy interfaces so a computer without a serial port or other bus didnt make hardware devices useless.
-- floppy vs dvd - External floppy drives gave access to legacy code
-- OS 9 vs OS X - Apple gave us built in emulators/VMs for years (Classic)
-- PCC vs Intel - See above (rosetta)
-- MultiTouch vs Mouse/KB - u can still plug in a usb mouse to any apple computer and the KB is still included IIRC
-- DVD vs nothing - External DVD drives are cheap now a days and I would rather have it external and have either a lighter laptop or a bigger battery.
With FCP7->FCP X the problem is no legacy support and no support for a lot of gear...you cannot build any new seats or bays on 7 any more so that means any new bays wont be able to open projects that were created yesterday on existing bays...that is absolutely unacceptable, if there were a bridge device or middleware to make this all work, the problem would not be a problem...
FCP as we know it is much more flexible -- but this has costs.
I've only found flexibility to save costs in the past. The complexity it introduces is usually something that can be dealt with easily.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum
For example I have a 3rd-party Karaoke plugin that does synchronized subtitles (optional bouncing ball).
You gotta have the ball.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum
How is FCPX supposed to import a project using that filter?
Even if it could import it, how does it present itself in the timeline vis-a-vis other FCPX clips?
Will this plugin force a render and wait for completion -- and destroy the UX?
I think everyone understands the need for plugins to be rewritten and the new APIs to be used. The burn comes when they pull the rug out instantly (call it carpet burn) and then expect everyone to pick themselves up. In the mean-time, people are left without options and risk losing money, missing deadlines and so on.
People are generally receptive to change if that change is better and Final Cut desperately needed change. What people don't like is sudden change if it's not suddenly better.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum
FCPX provides some basic compositing, but relies on the new $50 Motion for any heavy lifting!
Why? Because Motion has compositing capabilities well beyond anything that FCP ever dreamed of -- and no constant re-rendering.
The new Motion has a much closer relationship with FCPX than the FCP7-Motion combination.
This does open up a lot of possibilities like having animated overlays vs static PSD ones. While having to jump back and forth can still slow down your workflow and may cause clipping problems at times, I can see how it would offer improvements over having it in Final Cut.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum
-- Should Apple supply a best-effort FCP7-FCPX project migration tool?
It doesn't even have to be a decent effort. FCP exports EDL and XML files, FCPX just needs to import those and it should be good to go:
This is one of the most basic, fundamental things they could have and should have done for launch. Still, a plugin developer should be able to make an XML parser in a matter of a couple of weeks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum
Both The FCPX Project file and the FCPX Event file are SQLite db files -- this is not the case for either FCP7 or iMovie.
Wonder if that came from iMovie for iPad - iOS uses SQLite dbs for things.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum
To me, FCPX looks like a glass half-full!
Yeah but it's half-full of what looks like Apple Juice. That juice ain't sweet though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum
I never saw a render!
But, admittedly I didn't have enough experience to do anything but edit clips and apply some effects
Are you able to export a timeline immediately? Someone reported that you have to wait for the full transcode before you can export.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum
Oddly, the imported original files were the same size as the compressed originals -- Apple has done some magic here! Normally, compressed to expanded AVCHD has a 1::7 ratio.
Normally it gets transcoded to ProRes Standard minimum (about 50-150Mbps) but there are 4 versions proxy/LT/standard/HQ. I suspect they are using proxy quality, which should match the bitrates you get with AVCHD cameras except the transcoded files will likely be lower quality as ProRes is an inter-frame codec vs intra-frame codec like AVCHD. You probably won't notice it though because 15-25Mbps is not bad for 720p. If you think about the data per frame: 15Mbps / 8 = 1.875MB / 30 = 60KB per image at 1280 x 720.
ProRes LT would be a safer option IMO and they may be using that. If you open the render files, it will tell you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum
It's a funny experience -- no waiting!
It sounds good but I just hope they keep up with the format support. Apparently they don't support mxf files that come from some of the higher end cameras yet, which they used to do in FCP and you still can't open AVCHD files directly. This makes sense when some formats split audio and video but it could even just try to open them - having to rebuild directory structures manually is such a pain.
Thanks for sharing your experiences. If you have time to take any more screenshots of workflows, that would be great e.g the link between Motion and FCPX.
Yes I acknowledged that sometimes this is a fairly easy problem to fix and sometimes it is an impossible problem to fix. Yes when a project was shot on film that makes it a lot easier to solve.
But A LOT of material was shot on video. In the 70's and 80's most of the TV sitcoms were shot on video. Their is no easy way to convert any of those shows for something like Blu-ray. This conundrum was realized in the 90's and most all television shows switched back to shooting on film.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WelshDog
We generate an EDL from this cut and send it to a transfer house that pulls new selects from . . . wait for it . . . FILM! Yep they pull the original LEGACY 35mm film and create DPX selects that we then put in our Autodesk system to color with Lustre and finish with Smoke in HD.
As someone fairly new, and still on that steep learning curve, to editing, I like many was waiting for the release of FCPX. I don't have knowledge of any Pro editing suite apart from FCE4, which I migrated to very quickly.
For the past two days I've read and listened to endless complaints about FCPX, I'm not rushing out to buy it because I can't simply work on projects I'm doing in FCE4 in FCPX, which seems a bit remiss of Apple. However, whilst FCPX clearly as issues of compatibility and Apple should have known better, 48 hours after its release is too short a time period to start condemning FCPX.
Whilst FCPX is completely new, and appears to have many advantages, background rendering being the No.1 benefit for me, Apple for some strange reason are doing everyone a disservice, and I might add, being somewhat arrogant in (1) poor available information, (2) taking a position whereby they seem to be saying 'like it or lump it'. This is not good business and has we have seen FCPX is generating a lot of negativity, which in turn will cause many potential Apple customers from buying Apple products.
The launch of FCPX has been a disaster, and will go down as being 'not one of Apple's finest hours.' I'm sure if those complaining about FCPX just took a time out and objectively looked at the obvious benefits FCPX, they might be surprised to see just where Apple is going with this. It's version 1, which means it's going to have teething problems. But potentially it has the makings of a wonderful product, which is what we should all be concerned about.
Will I buy it? Yes I will, but not now because with the projects I'm working on I need XML, which is not available. Should we be critical for the way Apple have launched FCPX? Yes we should because this is not the way to treat its loyal customer base. There are faults on both sides, but the greatest fault must lie with Apple for the way it has needlessly shot itself in the foot.
I totally agree from a marketing and PR standpoint Apple is doing a terrible job. They are not communicating with their customer base about where they are going with a crucial product that people depend on for their work.
At the same time. I believe Apple is being so arrogant in its stance because they know they have a great product that they know their customers are going to love. But they are not communicating that to the wider community.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ToniBryan
The launch of FCPX has been a disaster, and will go down as being 'not one of Apple's finest hours.' I'm sure if those complaining about FCPX just took a time out and objectively looked at the obvious benefits FCPX, they might be surprised to see just where Apple is going with this. It's version 1, which means it's going to have teething problems. But potentially it has the makings of a wonderful product, which is what we should all be concerned about.
I found out that FxFactory has repackaged their plugins to run in FCPX. FCS and Premiere.
I dloaded them and they seem to work in FCPX just fine -- apparently all they needed was a Motion 5 wrapper to run in FCPX -- so I suspect the inability to install 3rd-party plugins will soon become a non-issue for FCPX. ping
I am not doing much FCPX or Motion activity today because I am installing the latest iOS on 8 iDevices.
I have used FCP occasionally for hobbyist purposes over the past 10 years, mainly because I'd taken the trouble to learn it when more appropriate hobbyist products were not yet available.
The comments suggest that FCPX does not deliver what professionals require, when compared with previous versions. Perhaps we should be asking why this has happened.
The software business has become a serious arena for litigation and it is possible that either Adobe or Avid have a whole suite of impregnable patents on methods that make a full featured FCPX impossible, without payment of excessive royalties.
Apple has decided to play hardball with other companies using the 'look and feel' of iPad etc. Perhaps they are simply cleaning out their cupboard of 'iffy' software solutions that others might have a patent grip on. If that is the reason for producing dumbed down, cheap software, then it is a poor outlook for progress in the industry as a whole. The golden era of software development may be finished as we seem to be entering a new golden era of software litigation.
Comments
To be honest what Apple is doing with FCP isn't any different that what they've done with other software products. Its just FCP turn for its slash and burn upgrade cycle. People aren't happy about it. In the long run they will be alright.
I take your point, and this will work out okay in time too. But I'd say this is different, because of the slice of Apple's customer base that's being affected.
Leave it as is, don't waste an ounce of resources fixing bugs, but sell new copies or serial numbers to people stuck in the old environment for the indefinite future.
In return, we all start cheerfully adapting, just as before. But like with iMovie 6, only this is ten times more significant because we're not talking about home movies here, acknowledge your customers' past loyalty and/or preferences by saying something or doing something to help them with the transition.
Maybe I've been living in L.A. too long, but I see this huge reservoir of good will and creative capital built around Final Cut being tossed away cavalierly. It seems like a slap in the face, like someone here said. Apple has great public relations, but sometimes not so great customer relations. All they have to do is say a few words and not round up the old stock for shredding, or whatever they do with it. I know, too emotional . . .
Love it!
It is an opportunity!
You go to your clients with the "Bad Cop / Good Cop" routine:
"Damn Apple! They're coming out with this great new video editor that's going to revolutionize everything... In the future we'll be able to create better results for you, quicker and at lower costs... But (bad) Apple hasn't given us a way to upgrade your/our legacy projects -- it's that revolutionary."
"I (the good guy) can help you to review your projects for things that you may want to access or change in the future. Why don't we pick a small completed project as a proof of concept to show the advantages of the new solution."
If the client is reluctant, a really good cop might offer to do the job gratis* as a demo of future benefits to the client.
Ha! Gratis! You are going to need to learn the system sometime -- might as well do it with a real project and the client goodwill as remuneration.
P.S. There are so many very good posts to this thread -- even some that appear to be B&M have valid concerns. I can't read and type fast enough to give justice in a reply to many posts -- and +++QFT replies would just clutter the thread. It has been a very informative discussion -- I've gone back and re-read quite a few posts several times. I wan't to post "right ON", "exactly", "Wish I'd said that" to many posts.
3) Supporting apps, like Motion can bind themselves more tightly to FCPX than to FCP. Motion almost appears as a popup function in FCPX rather than a separate app.
You don't really round-trip to Motion -- rather you invoke and dismiss it as a tool or a sub-app.
Aside: if you like multiple track editing, you'll love Motion.
To me, FCPX looks like a glass half-full!
These are indeed reassuring discoveries, especially the last part about tracks. What the heck, maybe the glass is at three-quarters.
Off to the Apple store to check it out.
These are indeed reassuring discoveries, especially the last part about tracks. What the heck, maybe the glass is at three-quarters.
Off to the Apple store to check it out.
If you've got FCPS, it contains Motion (replaced by the new Motion from the app store). The new motion is compatible with both FCPX and FCPS -- just better integrated with FCPX.
Anyway -- either the old or new motion can work as a standalone app. It is great for compositing, titling, and effects generation.
Maybe save you a trip -- unless you just want to play.
If you've got FCPS, it contains Motion (replaced by the new Motion from the app store). The new motion is compatible with both FCPX and FCPS -- just better integrated with FCPX.
Anyway -- either the old or new motion can work as a standalone app. It is great for compositing, titling, and effects generation.
Maybe save you a trip -- unless you just want to play.
Dick,
What's the performance like of the new 'X' apps?
With them utilizing both GCD and OCL, I'm curious if those technologies live up to their promise of helping to usher in a new era of multi-core performance improvements.
Dick,
What's the performance like of the new 'X' apps?
With them utilizing both GCD and OCL, I'm curious if those technologies live up to their promise of helping to usher in a new era of multi-core performance improvements.
In short, fantastic!
I kinda' addressed this at the end of a long-winded post:
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showt...44#post1888144
But here is the performance part.
I just had a chance to play with FCPX without a lot else going on -- FCPX got my, and my computer's full attention (iMac 24 2.8 GHz Core 2 Duo 4 GB RAM ATI, Radeon HD1600 -- no real powerhouse).
Anyway I started import of about 4 GB Compressed AVCHD from a card reader.
I can tell you this:
FCPX ain't no iMovie Pro!
A few seconds after inserted the AVCHD card the 38 thumbnails appeared in the import screen
I could scrub/play through them as if they were already imported.
I started the import/analysis/transcoding of all the clips and closed the import window.
I opened up the event I was importing and could immediately use the clips while they were still importing (analyzing and transcoding in the background -- in iMovie I would have waited 10-15 minutes before I could do anything.
When I did something that needed CPU/GPU power like playing a clip yet to be imported -- the background processes would pause, as necessary so there was no noticeable effect to the FCPX UI.
I was playing the clip on a 23" Cinema Display while editing on the iMac 24.
This is good stuff!
To put it in other words:
I started an import of 2GB * compressed AVCHD video including transcoding analyses for people, color, stabilization and sound:
* I misread the size of the input on the original post.
Normally this would take 5-10 minutes on iMovie (which has a similar import) before you could do anything else and it would max both CPUs on Activity Monitor.
I immediately closed the import window and started editing the clips -- just as if all the processing and analysis had already competed.
I never saw a beach ball or experienced a delay in the UI. I had the background tasks window open and could see the progression of the tasks -- any time I did something in the editing window it would pause/resume tasks as needed.
I never saw a render!
But, admittedly I didn't have enough experience to do anything but edit clips and apply some effects
Oddly, the imported original files were the same size as the compressed originals -- Apple has done some magic here! Normally, compressed to expanded AVCHD has a 1::7 ratio.
The transcribed ProRes 422 were slightly smaller.
I have to look into that.
It's a funny experience -- no waiting!
If you use iMovie or FCP you kinda' get used to where there are delays and adjust your workflow to compensate -- take a coffee break, lunch, go to bed. But FCPX always seemed to be waiting for me.
Unsettling!
I plan to spend some time this weekend working through the tutorials and should get a better feel for performance when doing "Real Editing" things.
Gotta prove that as a company on the bottom line, sorry to say. iOS is Apple's present and future... again, sorry to say. As an Apple fan, you still can't get around the sorry fact that with all of the "pro" advantages that Apple has brought to the table over the years, they haven't broken 15% in the desktop/workstation market for a couple of decades.
On the other hand... iOS, it's devices, and it's eco-system is like printing money. In fact, they may have enough in a couple of years from iOS alone to BUY GREECE! Think about that.
I'm an unashamed APPL stock holder... and I'm still hugging the tree AND looking around that huge trunk, at the forest. What do I see? Creative pros in all industries, yelling, screaming, tearing their hair out... when the writing has been on the wall for some time. More importantly, the money is IN THE BANK! Apple's own bank, which they add to by obscene amounts daily, without touching what's already there.... and most importantly to them, "creative pro purchases" add up to taxi change and marketing bullet-points at best.
Having pro-grade software and hardware, catering to the techies, adding specs, has gotten Apple NOWHERE!
Serving 3 square iOS meals (iPod, iPhone, iPad) with all of the accoutrements, has made Apple in 4 short years King of the Tech Kitchen. OK. So it's consumer... or even Pro-sumer. You think they're freaking over that? No. They're happy to be showing the world the recipe to success. (Period). And "pros" be damned.
Now go catch that Avid or Adobe train. It's SO much nicer.... NOT! Truth is that ALL creative pro software has been in the toilet for the last 5 years, and I don't see anyone with the money, balls, or both to change that sad fact.
PS. How funny that Macromedia initially created FCP, as well as FreeHand, which got killed by Adobe, and Flash, which will die at Adobe's hands. Must have been quite a few geniuses at that old company, never to be repeated again. Or were their coding practices so horrible, that no one can truly update the stuff, and it all needs rewrites? Just Curious
What good are all those iOS devices without content to play on them? If 'pros be damned', who is going to create the content which people see on TV and pay movie tickets for, and that Apple sells on iTunes?
Unsettling!
In short, fantastic!
Thanks. Thats good to hear.
I hope that Apple listen to the valid concerns of their user base and bring in the features needed to restore this app back to what it was.
First people say "Send feedback because Apple listens." But when Apple provides features that people have been demanding, it's because "Apple was planning to do it anyway." So which is it?
Remember when the iPhone first came out. People complained about what it could not do. Did Apple scramble to add those features simply because people complained. Or has Apple been systematically and methodically adding features over time?
People complained about MMS and copy/paste from the beginning. Apple did not add those features until two years after the launch of the original iPhone. Was that because of people complaining or was that because Apple felt they those features were ready?
People have been complaining about pop up notifications for years. Apple is just now providing a better notifications UI four years after the launch of the first iPhone. Is this simply because people complained. Or because Apple feels the feature is ready?
Thanks. Thats good to hear.
I hope that Apple listen to the valid concerns of their user base and bring in the features needed to restore this app back to what it was.
Apple doesn't need to listen to anybody. Apple always knows what's best, what features to release, and when to release them. And if Apple happens to release features that people were demanding, it's pure coincidence because the users had nothing to do with it. But in the meantime, we will keep telling people to send feedback to www.apple.com/feedback knowing that there is no point in doing so.
What good are all those iOS devices without content to play on them? If 'pros be damned', who is going to create the content which people see on TV and pay movie tickets for, and that Apple sells on iTunes?
Good question!
AFAICT. FCP was successful because it provided a solution that cost 1/10 of the competition and produced output that was "good enough".
I wouldn't be too surprised if today's FCP "pros" were outliers who couldn't afford to compete with the "pros" of their day until FCP came along.
All to the discomfiture of the establishment "pros".
Funny, how that works.
Anyway -- it ain't the tools so much as it is the talent of the storyteller/editor.
We'll get a lot of truly mediocre output -- but we'll get some true gems.
Everything old is new again!
Over the past 10 years the film/television industry has gone through this problem with the transition to High Definition. Prior to this everything was either shot of finished for Standard Definition. Which for the most part looks terrible on high definition television. With the emergence of web streaming/downloading standard definition is pretty much to the point of unacceptable for the web.
So now movies and shows that have been finished for standard definition are "legacy" and pretty much useless for the future. Sometimes this problem is easily solved and sometimes it cannot be so easily solved.
We have been creating new HD Whataburger spots from their original SD spots. We load the SD spots as a reference and then load the original SD dailies. We do an eye match or if we are lucky we have the old Avid project to pull from. Then something interesting happens. We generate an EDL from this cut and send it to a transfer house that pulls new selects from . . . wait for it . . . FILM! Yep they pull the original LEGACY 35mm film and create DPX selects that we then put in our Autodesk system to color with Lustre and finish with Smoke in HD.
So legacy project files can be important. Of course it only helps you if you have software that can read the old files (hint, hint). Another lesson here is that film is a near perfect archival medium.
Good question!
AFAICT. FCP was successful because it provided a solution that cost 1/10 of the competition and produced output that was "good enough".
I wouldn't be too surprised if today's FCP "pros" were outliers who couldn't afford to compete with the "pros" of their day until FCP came along.
All to the discomfiture of the establishment "pros".
Funny, how that works.
Anyway -- it ain't the tools so much as it is the talent of the storyteller/editor.
We'll get a lot of truly mediocre output -- but we'll get some true gems.
Everything old is new again!
Thanks DA for a better reply than I was going to write
Also for taking the dive and letting us know the inside scoop from a "normal* everyday" user, and a peek into your life. Your grand kids you're always talking about I suspect... good bunch!
*Not to pin you as "normal" whatever that means... but ya know what I'm sayin'
-- Apple ][ vs Mac
-- minifloppy vs microfloppy
-- DTB vs USB
-- floppy vs dvd
-- OS 9 vs OS X
-- PCC vs Intel
-- MultiTouch vs Mouse/KB
-- DVD vs nothing
-- Apple ][ vs Mac - a document you had saved to an apple 2 was still accessable from a Mac no?
-- minifloppy vs microfloppy - ? mini to micro? so...5.25 -> 3.5? the whole industry did that in the 80s...you could still get at the data with external drives.
-- DTB vs USB - you can or could in the olden days buy USB adapters for any and just about all older legacy interfaces so a computer without a serial port or other bus didnt make hardware devices useless.
-- floppy vs dvd - External floppy drives gave access to legacy code
-- OS 9 vs OS X - Apple gave us built in emulators/VMs for years (Classic)
-- PCC vs Intel - See above (rosetta)
-- MultiTouch vs Mouse/KB - u can still plug in a usb mouse to any apple computer and the KB is still included IIRC
-- DVD vs nothing - External DVD drives are cheap now a days and I would rather have it external and have either a lighter laptop or a bigger battery.
With FCP7->FCP X the problem is no legacy support and no support for a lot of gear...you cannot build any new seats or bays on 7 any more so that means any new bays wont be able to open projects that were created yesterday on existing bays...that is absolutely unacceptable, if there were a bridge device or middleware to make this all work, the problem would not be a problem...
FCP as we know it is much more flexible -- but this has costs.
I've only found flexibility to save costs in the past. The complexity it introduces is usually something that can be dealt with easily.
For example I have a 3rd-party Karaoke plugin that does synchronized subtitles (optional bouncing ball).
You gotta have the ball.
How is FCPX supposed to import a project using that filter?
Even if it could import it, how does it present itself in the timeline vis-a-vis other FCPX clips?
Will this plugin force a render and wait for completion -- and destroy the UX?
I think everyone understands the need for plugins to be rewritten and the new APIs to be used. The burn comes when they pull the rug out instantly (call it carpet burn) and then expect everyone to pick themselves up. In the mean-time, people are left without options and risk losing money, missing deadlines and so on.
People are generally receptive to change if that change is better and Final Cut desperately needed change. What people don't like is sudden change if it's not suddenly better.
FCPX provides some basic compositing, but relies on the new $50 Motion for any heavy lifting!
Why? Because Motion has compositing capabilities well beyond anything that FCP ever dreamed of -- and no constant re-rendering.
The new Motion has a much closer relationship with FCPX than the FCP7-Motion combination.
This does open up a lot of possibilities like having animated overlays vs static PSD ones. While having to jump back and forth can still slow down your workflow and may cause clipping problems at times, I can see how it would offer improvements over having it in Final Cut.
-- Should Apple supply a best-effort FCP7-FCPX project migration tool?
It doesn't even have to be a decent effort. FCP exports EDL and XML files, FCPX just needs to import those and it should be good to go:
http://developer.apple.com/appleappl...ns/fcpxml.html
This is one of the most basic, fundamental things they could have and should have done for launch. Still, a plugin developer should be able to make an XML parser in a matter of a couple of weeks.
Both The FCPX Project file and the FCPX Event file are SQLite db files -- this is not the case for either FCP7 or iMovie.
Wonder if that came from iMovie for iPad - iOS uses SQLite dbs for things.
To me, FCPX looks like a glass half-full!
Yeah but it's half-full of what looks like Apple Juice. That juice ain't sweet though.
I never saw a render!
But, admittedly I didn't have enough experience to do anything but edit clips and apply some effects
Are you able to export a timeline immediately? Someone reported that you have to wait for the full transcode before you can export.
Oddly, the imported original files were the same size as the compressed originals -- Apple has done some magic here! Normally, compressed to expanded AVCHD has a 1::7 ratio.
Normally it gets transcoded to ProRes Standard minimum (about 50-150Mbps) but there are 4 versions proxy/LT/standard/HQ. I suspect they are using proxy quality, which should match the bitrates you get with AVCHD cameras except the transcoded files will likely be lower quality as ProRes is an inter-frame codec vs intra-frame codec like AVCHD. You probably won't notice it though because 15-25Mbps is not bad for 720p. If you think about the data per frame: 15Mbps / 8 = 1.875MB / 30 = 60KB per image at 1280 x 720.
ProRes LT would be a safer option IMO and they may be using that. If you open the render files, it will tell you.
It's a funny experience -- no waiting!
It sounds good but I just hope they keep up with the format support. Apparently they don't support mxf files that come from some of the higher end cameras yet, which they used to do in FCP and you still can't open AVCHD files directly. This makes sense when some formats split audio and video but it could even just try to open them - having to rebuild directory structures manually is such a pain.
Thanks for sharing your experiences. If you have time to take any more screenshots of workflows, that would be great e.g the link between Motion and FCPX.
But A LOT of material was shot on video. In the 70's and 80's most of the TV sitcoms were shot on video. Their is no easy way to convert any of those shows for something like Blu-ray. This conundrum was realized in the 90's and most all television shows switched back to shooting on film.
We generate an EDL from this cut and send it to a transfer house that pulls new selects from . . . wait for it . . . FILM! Yep they pull the original LEGACY 35mm film and create DPX selects that we then put in our Autodesk system to color with Lustre and finish with Smoke in HD.
For the past two days I've read and listened to endless complaints about FCPX, I'm not rushing out to buy it because I can't simply work on projects I'm doing in FCE4 in FCPX, which seems a bit remiss of Apple. However, whilst FCPX clearly as issues of compatibility and Apple should have known better, 48 hours after its release is too short a time period to start condemning FCPX.
Whilst FCPX is completely new, and appears to have many advantages, background rendering being the No.1 benefit for me, Apple for some strange reason are doing everyone a disservice, and I might add, being somewhat arrogant in (1) poor available information, (2) taking a position whereby they seem to be saying 'like it or lump it'. This is not good business and has we have seen FCPX is generating a lot of negativity, which in turn will cause many potential Apple customers from buying Apple products.
The launch of FCPX has been a disaster, and will go down as being 'not one of Apple's finest hours.' I'm sure if those complaining about FCPX just took a time out and objectively looked at the obvious benefits FCPX, they might be surprised to see just where Apple is going with this. It's version 1, which means it's going to have teething problems. But potentially it has the makings of a wonderful product, which is what we should all be concerned about.
Will I buy it? Yes I will, but not now because with the projects I'm working on I need XML, which is not available. Should we be critical for the way Apple have launched FCPX? Yes we should because this is not the way to treat its loyal customer base. There are faults on both sides, but the greatest fault must lie with Apple for the way it has needlessly shot itself in the foot.
At the same time. I believe Apple is being so arrogant in its stance because they know they have a great product that they know their customers are going to love. But they are not communicating that to the wider community.
The launch of FCPX has been a disaster, and will go down as being 'not one of Apple's finest hours.' I'm sure if those complaining about FCPX just took a time out and objectively looked at the obvious benefits FCPX, they might be surprised to see just where Apple is going with this. It's version 1, which means it's going to have teething problems. But potentially it has the makings of a wonderful product, which is what we should all be concerned about.
I found out that FxFactory has repackaged their plugins to run in FCPX. FCS and Premiere.
I dloaded them and they seem to work in FCPX just fine -- apparently all they needed was a Motion 5 wrapper to run in FCPX -- so I suspect the inability to install 3rd-party plugins will soon become a non-issue for FCPX. ping
I am not doing much FCPX or Motion activity today because I am installing the latest iOS on 8 iDevices.
...maybe tomorrow!
The comments suggest that FCPX does not deliver what professionals require, when compared with previous versions. Perhaps we should be asking why this has happened.
The software business has become a serious arena for litigation and it is possible that either Adobe or Avid have a whole suite of impregnable patents on methods that make a full featured FCPX impossible, without payment of excessive royalties.
Apple has decided to play hardball with other companies using the 'look and feel' of iPad etc. Perhaps they are simply cleaning out their cupboard of 'iffy' software solutions that others might have a patent grip on. If that is the reason for producing dumbed down, cheap software, then it is a poor outlook for progress in the industry as a whole. The golden era of software development may be finished as we seem to be entering a new golden era of software litigation.