Personal View site logo
Official Final Cut X topic, moving to ARM and vlogging
  • 405 Replies sorted by
  • >1. In what way are they 100% right from development standpoint? Explain.

    Look above - http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/2982#Comment_2982
    I can also add that in such big software projects sometimes rewriting from scratch is the only choice.
    Sometimes no one understand how some old code parts are really working.


  • funny shit :)
  • Does Final Cut Pro X deal with the AVC-HD files natively?
  • >Does Final Cut Pro X deal with the AVC-HD files natively?

    Yes, it does.
  • FCPX could be the first step toward right direction... but are they already late in the game? FCPX is the last chance for Apple on native app side. iTunes competitors are catching up. So iCloud is Apple's big gamble.

    I own iPhone and Macbook Pro. But I never buy any other things from Apple. No accessories made by Apple. No paid apps made by Apple. No warranty extension. Except major OS X upgrades. $29.99.
  • Does Apple offer evaluation copy?
  • >Does Apple offer evaluation copy?

    No, but they started to refund if you are "angry professional" :-)
  • http://blogs.adobe.com/sforde/2011/06/23/ae-warp-stabilizer-vs-fcpx-stabilization/

    I could upgrade CS 5 to CS 5.5. Or I could get FCPX. Or neither. I like the zero cost choice.
  • >Does Final Cut Pro X deal with the AVC-HD files natively?

    >Yes, it does.

    Well, if you call "deal with" as transcoding to ProRes before you can play it...
  • Some answers from Apple managers to pro's complains (complains reformulated as soft as possible, of course :-)


    Complaint: There’s no multicamera editing. In the old FCP, you could import the footage from various cameras that covered an event (say, a concert) from different angles simultaneously, and then easily cut back and forth between them while editing. It was a star feature of Final Cut, and it’s gone from FCP X.

    Answer: Apple intends to restore this feature in an update, calling it “a top priority.” Until it does, here’s a stopgap facsimile of multicam editing: If you drag two clips into parallel timeline tracks, you can choose Clip->Synchronize Clips. By comparing their audio tracks, the program aligns the clips exactly. Now, each time you select a piece of the upper video track and press the V key (“disable”), you are effectively cutting to what’s on the lower video track.


    Read at - http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/professional-video-editors-weigh-in-on-final-cut-pro-x/

    Especially read the comments below article.
  • Isn't that exactly how FCP cut BEFORE it added the multi-cam feature? How would you know what's on the other camera angle to cut to, until after you do the edit? Wow. That's a work around?

    I think this is one of the best discussions I've heard so far, about just how catastrophic this is for many industry professionals:

    http://podcasts2.creativecow.net/episodes/ipod/1030.mp3
  • >Isn't that exactly how FCP cut BEFORE it added the multi-cam feature?

    I think no, as they suggest using sound matching, and this is FCP X feature.
  • True. You can more easily align your footage, but then you can not see the other camera angles before you actually cut to them. That's not multi-cam. That's Jurassic editing from the 90's. In those days, we were editing on Macs in green cases...
  • Look. I'm not trying to dog anyone. But there are several amazing options available in editing software today. You can even download Premier Pro or Media Composer for free for 30 days, and run in on your AJA cards. It's not like there aren't any other options available. It's worth it to take a look around before investing your cash. FCP is not the only game in town.

    It's 2011. Why would anyone give a company $300 for something they can't test drive first?
  • @TheNewDeal

    I think that your rants are not on point.
    If you want to show how FCP X prevents you to do something for your work, for your particular project - I am interested.
    If you keep talking that you better buy other software, I am not interested to hear this in this topic. Make new one and compare different software, again, not in abstract, but on your tasks.
  • I'm sorry if you think I was ranting. I was trying to help people evaluate if this multi-cam workaround would be a usable solution for people that depend on multi-cam editing on their projects. I'll try to stay more on the specific technical details this time.

    The industry concept of multi-cam editing is generally thought of as five capabilities:

    1- Select different camera angle clips desired, create proxies (so your system can play back all angles in real time,) and align them using either shared timecode, a mark point in each clip, or automatic relative audio alignment as you mentioned in FCP-X, then save that as a new "multi-cam clip." With a little experience, this takes about 10 seconds per clip to prep each camera angle into a multi-cam clip. Then cut the multi-cam clip onto the timeline at the desired position, and enable multi-cam mode on your editor application.

    2- Play, and see the different camera angles playing in real time, in sync with each other. Similar to running a broadcast video switcher in real time while watching the different camera angles on a multiple feed video wall display, and a line cut monitor.

    3- In real time playback, the operator can switch between the different camera angles without stopping playback. As you select camera angles during real time playback, those decisions are reflected as edits on your timeline, allowing you to rough cut an entire scene in one real time play pass.

    4- When you stop playback, you can see that current parked frames of each angle at the playhead point, and as you nudge your playhead position backwards or forwards on the timeline, and all those parked camera angles update in sync. This enables you to see/select the exact image of each angle to fine tune your angle edit choices.

    5- Relink your timeline back to your full resolution version of source media, and continue to color correction or deliverables, etc.

    The workaround mentioned really only helps with #1 workflow step, i.e. the 10 seconds per angle to prep the multi-cam clip. It does little to assist in the rest of their editing of the different camera angles for the rest of their edit session. So the workaround saves the operator maybe one minute compared to having no multi-cam functionality at all.

    I'm just providing information. Not passing judgments. Different people work differently on different projects. Make informed decisions based on your own needs.
  • yeah. vitaliy is right. I´ve downloaded FCPX very soon and first impression was wow. then shocked. but after a while I understand that FCPX ist actually very great. Of course there are lots of features missing. But I do not work in a broadcast or television enviroment, so for my actual work there are only a few features missing. I think Apple will fix that or add them in future updates.

    I think Apple want to develop features that "creative cutter" need. Especially for documentaries these "organisation features" are great.
  • >I'm just providing information. Not passing judgments.

    Thanks.
    Lets try to focus on FCP X and our needs.
    I know that many alternatives exist, but it is for differen topic. This is all I meant.
  • As for provided multicam workflow.
    I used multiple cameras (under multiple I mean >2 ) few times. Such approach is best used if you really want to just switch from camera to camera with little cuts. Maintain time consistency (and for interviews it is not the case sometimes). And not use B-roll much.
  • I used multicam for events several times in FCP7. It would be very important for me to have this option in FCPX, but the workaround suggested above works fine: once you aligned your clip one above the other in different tracks, you can see each of them without to cut or disable. Just scroll with the Trim tool over the track you want to see. It is in my opinion a great thing: in FCPX you can always see what there is in a track under an other just passing the pointer over it.
  • FCP-X is a really interesting option if...

    #1: If FXP-X alone does EVERYTHING you need to do. As it doesn't do anything to help you interact with anything else currently. No additional interaction with plug-ins, or color applications, or audio applications, or Photoshop, or After Effects. FCP-X/Motion/Compressor is an interesting little island. Who knows how long your projects will only live on this island alone. This release took two years (?) so who knows when a bridge in and out of this little island will be built and released... Apple isn't officially saying anything yet...

    #2: If you don't mind having all your footage always converted to ProRes 422 for real time playback/editing. For example, it appears 25 mb/s GH2 files would all get transcoded into ProRes files (6x storage size) before real time playback on the timeline. It's kind of strange. In preferences/playback you can select "Use proxy media" or "Use original or optimized media" with "High Quality" or "Better Performance" pop up options. But there is no selection to force it to use "original media"... So is it really playing the original media in real time or just the ProRes 442? Is the only time it plays original media... if you import ProRes 422? Interesting...

    Example, using a 7D clip, 18 sec clip, about: 48 mb/s: (using the reveal in finder feature to see the files)
    (GH2 files would be about 1/2 the original file size as 7D, but still use the same size ProRes 442 for "real time" playback?)

    Original file: 111.5 MB (1080x1080 23)
    Transcoded Media/High Quality Media: 274.2 MB (1920x1080 23)
    Transcoded Media/Proxy Media: 39.4 MB (960x540 1/4 pixel?)

    Is that what they call h264 supported? Supported for import/transcode only? No one seems to be talking...

    #3: If you have edited projects previously, hopefully all your previous projects were in iMovie, or you currently have no path to open those projects. FCP-X doesn't open any other types of projects, including FCP 7 projects.

    #4: If you like to "mark up" multiple sub-clips from each file in list view, if you select in/out on one file, move to another file and select an in/out on it, then come back to the first file, your previous in/out marks are now gone...

    #5: If you don't need to accurately monitor your video playback. As you can only playback your timeline to a "computer monitor" today (which AJA is faking and throwing out their output...) Not something I would depend on for making paid work decisions or for showing clients...

    #6: If your deliverables are QuickTime movies. For anything else it seems you have time to flatten your output to a single QuickTime movie, then load that into another application to layback to your tape deck.

    It is an interesting option. If it fits all your needs. ALL your needs. As it doesn't seem to currently be designed to work with anything else...
  • FCPX don´t convert your files into ProRes for realtime editing. It´s only a rewrapping.

    But anyway who wants to work witch avchd in post, if you want to grade or even composite?
  • Explored many comments to NYTimes post in more detail.
    Very interesting read for UX designer. And another illustration of early feedback importance.
    One other hard lesson that many people will learn - never rely on huge corporation, especially software ones.
    Their decision making process seems to originate in some advanced form of astrology.
    Sad thing is that this corporations constantly look at the market and buy some players. So, any day instead of perfect support you could get lone mail saying that "Our intellectual property is obtained by Corporation X. Support and updates of existing products will last at least 1 hour after you get this message. Remember, you are very important to us".
  • > Their decision making process seems to originate in some advanced form of astrology...Support and updates of existing products will last at least 1 hour after you get this message. Remember, you are very important to us".

    Very, very funny - and true :-)

    And very often, things which are really successful are accidental or are by-products of something else.

    I have a cynical view that by the time big companies get interested in developing something, the rest of the world has long since moved on...