FS7: Adobe CC2015 looking interesting

CS6 is amazingly stable and functional (just lacking XAVC import). I've VERY pleased with it so far and I've cut a few concert videos on it in record time thanks to MPE and NVENC (the latter is a beta-ware plugin written by a forum community member) to render my window dubs for clients. Rendering video on a GPU is ridiculously fast. It's changing my entire approach to workflow.

I can see where CC has some advantages of staying on the cutting edge, with LUTs being a drop in and making grading of S-Log a simple pushbutton operation, but what about those MXF read errors, and problems with decoding frames that a lot of people have been experiencing since CC 2014? It seems that a year later, those problems have not been fixed.

Just for kicks, I downloaded the trial version. I could not install it. I had to then download the CC desktop. This downloading took over two days on my rural telephone connection. But I finally got it installed. I can see that the system requirements "Core2Duo and 8GB RAM" are unrealistic. More like 18 cores and 64GB RAM would seem the minimum. I couldn't get it to play video for more than a few seconds, with 95% of the frames dropped, before it would crash. I have a Core2 Quad and 8GB RAM. I do have my swap file disabled, so maybe that's the problem. (When I upgraded to Windows 7 2 years ago, they told me that with a whopping 8GB RAM I don't need a page file anymore). My systems were assembled by me in summer 2007. It's probably time to upgrade.. but oh, the price of each of those 18-core CPUs is more than the entire system cost me ($4K) in 2007!
 
If you're trying to edit 4K video with a dual core processor and 8Gb of ram I think you're going to struggle with any NLE.

That said, I recently built a new system that absolutely flies and didn't break the bank.

32Gb ram, i75820k processor, H100i liquid cooler, 512Gb SSD, Geforce 980GTX for CUDA and then external raids for media.

And there is so much headroom for very easily overclocking and getting 30-40% extra horsepower for free.
 
Pr CC 2015 working perfect here on Yosemeti, iMac 2014
i've edited on MC, then switched to FCP5,6,7 - CC.
through all that experience this version (2015) Rocks!
Codecs are numerous & meta data is king.
Sequence carve is pretty awesome as well.
 
Just to respond to a couple things said on here. First,
if you are making 1k per month editing and live in the
US, you do not have to 'depreciate' software you buy
for your business. You can use a 'section 179' expense
to fully write off the costs of the software. CC on the
other hand does not qualify for the section 179 as you
must 'purchase outright' the software for it to qualify.
You may be able to write off CC somewhere else, but
at best, that is a 'draw' as you can write off the full
cost of software you buy, no depreciation needed.

http://www.section179.org/section_179_and_software.html

Second, there is nothing especially new or revolutionary
about CC despite what Adobe would have you believe.
FCP X delivers the same thing as CC (online, downloadable
updates to the newest version of their apps), and they
do it for free after a one time purchase fee. You are not
stuck with 'old codecs that won't work with newer cameras.'

No, what CC IS, is a new way of paying for something.....similar
to leasing a car. Instead of coming up with a large lump
sum of money to buy a car you own.....you pay a smaller
amount every month.....but always have the payment
as long as you want the car. Works good for some people
and not so good for others.
 
alaskacameradude said:
Just to respond to a couple things said on here. First,
if you are making 1k per month editing and live in the
US, you do not have to 'depreciate' software you buy
for your business. You can use a 'section 179' expense
to fully write off the costs of the software. CC on the
other hand does not qualify for the section 179 as you
must 'purchase outright' the software for it to qualify.
You may be able to write off CC somewhere else, but
at best, that is a 'draw' as you can write off the full
cost of software you buy, no depreciation needed.

http://www.section179.org/section_179_and_software.html

Second, there is nothing especially new or revolutionary
about CC despite what Adobe would have you believe.
FCP X delivers the same thing as CC (online, downloadable
updates to the newest version of their apps), and they
do it for free after a one time purchase fee. You are not
stuck with 'old codecs that won't work with newer cameras.'

No, what CC IS, is a new way of paying for something.....similar
to leasing a car. Instead of coming up with a large lump
sum of money to buy a car you own.....you pay a smaller
amount every month.....but always have the payment
as long as you want the car. Works good for some people
and not so good for others.
Click to expand...

I'd really have to say that taxes are a complex issue, and that everyone should consult their respective CPA. Some of my prior points had to do not with IRS taxes, but the myriad of state, county, and municipal tax codes that business frequently are obligated to comply with, and that vary drastically.

Specific to my example I indicated that editing (using the software) was responsible for $1000+ in monthly billings - not that my monthly billings were limited to $1000. The limit on total section 179 deductions in 2015 appears to be $25,000, so for businesses with over $25,000 in asset acquisitions in 2015 the matter is more complex, and taking the section 179 on the software might mean not being able to take it on other items.

Furthermore, it does not always benefit a business to take all possible depreciation, where the business may legally choose not to do so. Depreciation counts against profits, but depreciation used in one year is not available in future years. Depending on the business' revenue and profit outlook it may make more sense to hold depreciation for a tax year that is expected to (excluding depreciation) fall into a higher tax bracket. Furthermore, a business that actually only made $12,000 per year (the $1000 a month figure used before) would likely owe little or no taxes, and would likely not benefit from depreciating the asset using section 179.

While laws may vary depending on locality, a subscription is not ownership. It's a payment for access. Since you don't own anything with a subscription, there's nothing to depreciate. Instead, it would typically be considered a business *expense*, and the cost could be written off as part of the expenses that reduce the gross revenue figure to the net revenue figure.

Counties and municipalities frequently levy business taxes in the form of "Tangible Personal Property Taxes", meaning the fixed assets of the business are subject to taxation for a portion of their depreciated value. It's important to note that they use their own depreciation rubrics, and just because you've written an asset off with the IRS doesn't mean it's written off for the state or county or city.

Also, back to ownership, an asset that is owned and depreciated also must be written out of the books as a capital gain or loss upon sale or disposal. Thus, if you bought Adobe Master CS6 for $2,500, took a Section 179 on it for the full amount (immediate depreciation in full of $2500), and then sold it in a future tax year for $1500, the IRS would typically consider that a capital gain of $1,500 - a profit.

So, generally speaking - you can write off a subscription in full, it's just a different line item. And taking full depreciation immediately does not always have the best tax outcome. Do your homework. Know your circumstances. If I could have bought outright the software that makes my clients happy, I would have gladly considered doing it, but I probably wouldn't have taken the depreciation all at once.
 
Viddovation said:
I'd really have to say that taxes are a complex issue, and that everyone should consult their respective CPA. Some of my prior points had to do not with IRS taxes, but the myriad of state, county, and municipal tax codes that business frequently are obligated to comply with, and that vary drastically.

Specific to my example I indicated that editing (using the software) was responsible for $1000+ in monthly billings - not that my monthly billings were limited to $1000. The limit on total section 179 deductions in 2015 appears to be $25,000, so for businesses with over $25,000 in asset acquisitions in 2015 the matter is more complex, and taking the section 179 on the software might mean not being able to take it on other items.

Furthermore, it does not always benefit a business to take all possible depreciation, where the business may legally choose not to do so. Depreciation counts against profits, but depreciation used in one year is not available in future years. Depending on the business' revenue and profit outlook it may make more sense to hold depreciation for a tax year that is expected to (excluding depreciation) fall into a higher tax bracket. Furthermore, a business that actually only made $12,000 per year (the $1000 a month figure used before) would likely owe little or no taxes, and would likely not benefit from depreciating the asset using section 179.

While laws may vary depending on locality, a subscription is not ownership. It's a payment for access. Since you don't own anything with a subscription, there's nothing to depreciate. Instead, it would typically be considered a business *expense*, and the cost could be written off as part of the expenses that reduce the gross revenue figure to the net revenue figure.

Counties and municipalities frequently levy business taxes in the form of "Tangible Personal Property Taxes", meaning the fixed assets of the business are subject to taxation for a portion of their depreciated value. It's important to note that they use their own depreciation rubrics, and just because you've written an asset off with the IRS doesn't mean it's written off for the state or county or city.

Also, back to ownership, an asset that is owned and depreciated also must be written out of the books as a capital gain or loss upon sale or disposal. Thus, if you bought Adobe Master CS6 for $2,500, took a Section 179 on it for the full amount (immediate depreciation in full of $2500), and then sold it in a future tax year for $1500, the IRS would typically consider that a capital gain of $1,500 - a profit.

So, generally speaking - you can write off a subscription in full, it's just a different line item. And taking full depreciation immediately does not always have the best tax outcome. Do your homework. Know your circumstances. If I could have bought outright the software that makes my clients happy, I would have gladly considered doing it, but I probably wouldn't have taken the depreciation all at once.
Click to expand...

I would agree that taxes are a complex issue (ugh don't I know it, as I've been doing
taxes for my business for the last 10 years.) And that's just federal taxes, which are
pretty complicated but at least 'universal' for anyone that lives in the US.....what I mean
by that is that the federal tax laws are the same no matter which state you live in.

I am lucky, in my state, we have no statewide sales or income tax. But some states do.
Some cities have 'Business Personal Property taxes' which tax business assets.
However, with local government budgets being what they are, many of them are
now looking at ways to tax you for SaaS.

For example, SaaS used to pretty much be free of state sales tax because it was not
considered 'tangible' and was delivered electronically instead of physically. However,
that is no longer the case.
The following states tax SaaS (Software as a service......ie Creative Cloud)
AZ, CT, DC, HI, IN, MA, MI, MN, NY, OH, PA, RI, TX, UT, WA.
So DON'T just assume that because it is a 'subscription' it is going to be better for
tax purposes. I see this argument often used as some kind of 'universal benefit'
that SaaS is somehow 'superior for tax purposes' and that is not necessarily true.
For me, it is not any better than buying software.....not so far anyways, as my business
has not had over $500,000 in purchases in any year yet (more about this below.)
So it's not accurate to imply that SaaS is 'a tax advantage' (I'm not saying you did this, but
I see a lot of other people who have.) It may, or may not be, depending on your circumstances.
Other countries probably handle this in even more varied ways which means you should
always know the tax laws for your country, and state/province/city/county.

Lastly, the CURRENT rules limit Section 179 to $25,000 of expenses. Traditionally
it has been $500,000 (largely to help farmers purchase high priced farm equipment.
combines, tractors, sprayers and such. Of course the machinery companies that make
these machines benefit as well! And they have pretty good lobbies in DC). So this is
pretty normal for the year to start out with only $25,000 being eligible for Section 179,
and then later in the year, it is extended yet again. This has been happening for quite a
few years now. Obviously you cannot predict the future, so who know what will happen this
time, but it's good to keep in mind what has happened in the past with this program.
 
Last edited:
I think we can agree that taxes are complicated, and "benefits" are relative to individual scenarios. Probably best we leave it at that...
 
Good point about not being able to sect 179 the Adobe CC software. I hadn't thought of that, but perhaps it comes under licenses and fees, or some other such category.

When I bought my EX1s and EX3, I spread the 179 over 5 years. I'll probably do the same with the FS7. Some years, I net zero profit, but I still have self employment tax.

Either way, it looks like another big expense for a new computer to edit 4K. The UHD I get in Prores from the Shogun is workable for short form projects, but I could not do a 4 camera long form concert with a quad core machine. My next machine will probably be my last, as I will either be deceased or in a rest home by the time it becomes as obsolete as my present machine, so I think I'll throw everything I can at it and make it the best that can be built with today's components. Realistically, it may have to wait 6 months until the credit cards are paid down for the FS7 purchase and I have to work my tail off in the amp repair shop to pay for this stuff, since the revenue isn't coming from video work at the moment.
 
The debate about Adobe's pricing structure is yesterday's news. This thread was discussing exciting new features of a widely used professional suite of software. I'd like it to get back on topic so we can share useful information about the new release. There are other forums available to discuss accountancy and finance;-)
 
I think Blackmagic buying and giving away Resolve has really got Adobe to focus on Colour. It's great what competition does to the market.
The new embedded morph edit feature looks great for the talking heads that I often do
 
robster180 said:
I think Blackmagic buying and giving away Resolve has really got Adobe to focus on Colour. It's great what competition does to the market.
The new embedded morph edit feature looks great for the talking heads that I often do
Click to expand...
The 'morph' feature does NOT work very well unless there are only minor
changes between the 'jump cuts'. If the head position changes a lot (or hand
position if you have a wider shot) it just doesn't work well. It's basically
'interpolating' frames (like Twixtor or Optical Flow in FCP X). Any time you
are 'creating frames' it's not ideal. Works well with very small movements.
Looks pretty bad with big ones. I can see it being useful once in awhile, but
you are going to have to get lucky and hope the two 'pieces' you want to cut
together have very close to the same head position and so on. Try it out,
they have a free trial. You will see what I mean.
 
I have been playing with the Morph Dissolve in CC2015 and can agree with Alaska Dude. Avid's comparable dissolve seems to work better. But if there is only slight motion, it is terrific. Also, I've had to experiment with various durations to fine tune the dissolve. In short, it is a useful tool and better to have it than not.

The real advance in PPro CC2015 is the Lumetri Color Panel. It does seem to me that Adobe will bring more and more of Speed Grade into PPro. I, for one, just can't get my head wrapped around Speed Grade and feel much more comfortable in Resolve or, if working with plug-ins, Colorista. But that's just my own idiosyncracy.

Still, always remember that a manufacturer is going to demo the best case scenario of a feature. Once it gets down here to the trenches we end up figuring out how to (or whether we can) actually use it.

Ned Soltz
 
As only an occasional user of PP (prefer FCP X for projects < 30 min + Resolve), and my heavy usage of AE (the only thing that keeps me with Adobe CC and its 2015 incarnation BTW that morph transition is a bad joke as far as I m concerned), I'm waiting for Resolve 12 and Fusion for Mac (which BMD is about to release soon), Adobe CC will soon be a history to me. Though I have to admit that editing in Resolve 12 may still not be good enough - that's what happen with Resolve 11. But if they are, that's it.
 
...What I mean is I usually use After Effects / Time Warp to hide the 'ums' and 'errs' in an edit, therefore I'll look forward to not having to Dynamic Link and round trip for a Morph cut in CC15.
I'm aware of it's limitations, but it helps my work a lot - but to each their own
 
Cutway, B-roll, whatever... Still more dependable for a clean cover of a jump cut than morph cut. I'll of course continue to play with it and may find the ideal jump cut for it.

Ned
 
Why can't a company come up with a common 'engine' where as new cameras enter the market, you can just update the plugin CODEC? I have been a happy CS6 user for a while now and my only frustration is that I have to run everything through Shogun to get QFHD into my system.
I had this frustration with Photoshop too. Every time I'd buy a new DSLR, the raw files were incompatible. Why can't raw be raw, a common format read by all? Instead there is Nikon raw, Canon raw, and the spec varies with the camera model. For years, I'd been using a DNG converter to get my raw Nikon images into CS3.
I suppose a lot of this is by design, to strongarm us into shelling out upgrade $$$.
I suppose I was lucky with CS3, given it had no support for XDCam, but 8 months later, Adobe released an update that added support for the new CODEC. No such luck with CS6 and XAVC though.
So now I'm trying to get used to DaVinci, but I see it letterboxes all my 4K footage, so that's not gonna fly either.. maybe Sony Vegas? Or maybe wait until Shogun supports 4K recording and keep using what works? Though there are times when I'd like to run & gun with less gear flopping around. That shoe mount is under a lot of stress when this camera is shoulder mounted and someone is running around with it.
 
basspig said:
Why can't a company come up with a common 'engine' where as new cameras enter the market, you can just update the plugin CODEC? I have been a happy CS6 user for a while now and my only frustration is that I have to run everything through Shogun to get QFHD into my system.
I had this frustration with Photoshop too. Every time I'd buy a new DSLR, the raw files were incompatible. Why can't raw be raw, a common format read by all? Instead there is Nikon raw, Canon raw, and the spec varies with the camera model. For years, I'd been using a DNG converter to get my raw Nikon images into CS3.
I suppose a lot of this is by design, to strongarm us into shelling out upgrade $$$.
I suppose I was lucky with CS3, given it had no support for XDCam, but 8 months later, Adobe released an update that added support for the new CODEC. No such luck with CS6 and XAVC though.
So now I'm trying to get used to DaVinci, but I see it letterboxes all my 4K footage, so that's not gonna fly either.. maybe Sony Vegas? Or maybe wait until Shogun supports 4K recording and keep using what works? Though there are times when I'd like to run & gun with less gear flopping around. That shoe mount is under a lot of stress when this camera is shoulder mounted and someone is running around with it.
Click to expand...

Well, whenever companies innovate they patent and so forth, to protect their hard work from being used for free by others. So that's one part of it. They'll license stuff out a lot of the time, but frequently competitors choose not to pay the licensing fees and develop their own processes in-house. And so forth. What good for the consumers isn't always beneficial to the companies trying to recoup R&D costs and turn a profit.

Not to mention, in terms of implementing a universal "engine" - I expect it's difficult to anticipate advances and integrating new functionality into preexisting code isn't always efficient. And as we move to larger and larger frame sizes and greater bit depth, it'll be more impractical to implement in old software. No to mention, Adobe has little profit motive to add "new" features to CS6 when they'd like to move everyone to CC.


...I think your letterboxing in Davinci... I'm guessing you only have Davinci Lite - which limits output to UHD. You could get the full Davinci and "resolve" the issue (har! har!), or you could just shoot UHD, or you possibly can crop instead of letter box.
 
Standards are what make systems a desirable purchase. Too much proprietary stuff drives customers away--we don't want to be locked into one supplier and beholden to their every more.

CC is Adobe's way of wresting even more control over their customers. Well they've lost me as a customer as a result. I'll go with what's more open source.

I bought into 4K so that I could have the extreme detail. If I were willing to accept an upscaled UHD picture, with all the quantizing errors smoothed to a soft picture, I'd simply stay with 1080P. I've been having that 'argument' over on the Atomos Shogun support forum. Even when presented with the very document published by DCI, some over there still argued that QHD is 4K. The topic was firmware and when the heck is Shogun going to support 4K. :-/
 
basspig said:
I bought into 4K so that I could have the extreme detail. If I were willing to accept an upscaled UHD picture, with all the quantizing errors smoothed to a soft picture, I'd simply stay with 1080P. I've been having that 'argument' over on the Atomos Shogun support forum. Even when presented with the very document published by DCI, some over there still argued that QHD is 4K. The topic was firmware and when the heck is Shogun going to support 4K. :-/
Click to expand...

You could have a very long discussion on what 4k should mean. The "traditional" meaning came from film scanning and a 4k film scan would be 4000 columns of Red, 4000 of green, and 4000 blue... or 4096, 4096, 4096 for DCI framing. That's not the way any of these digital cameras are doing it.

You probably knew that. But from your phrasing I'm not sure you understand the difference between UHD (3840x2160) and DCI 4k (4096x2160), as implemented on the FS7.

Firstly, know the relationship in terms of the image sensor: the FS7 UHD just crops the left and right edges off, simply not recording them. There's no scaling involved. It's still using the same algorithm to make pixels from the sensor as it does for DCI 4k.

Secondly, UHD (3840x2160) is exactly 4x the pixels as 1080p (1920x1080). Divide 3840/2, and you have 1920. Divide 2160/2, and you have 1080.

Third, the UHD from the FS7 is not the same as upscaled 1080p. Many single chip implementations of 1080p clock in at only a little over 2MP. The Sony PMW-F3 came in on the high side for 1080p, using 3.36MP to resolve 1920x1080. The FS7 uses about 8.3MP for it's UHD (3840x2160) mode.

And perhaps the thing that so many people fail to understand - it really comes down to what your output is. People think more is always better, but there's a catch when it comes to DCI 4k if your output isn't to the same aspect ratio exactly. Let's say you shoot DCI 4k for a project that ultimately will be shown on UHD televisions with 3840x2160 16:9 screens.

You have two choices: either scale your 4k content, resulting in letterboxing (black bars, top and bottom), or crop the edges. There's a tendency to think downscaling is good, and that therefore letterboxing is fine, but you're only scaling the 4k to ~93.75% going to 3840x2160. It doesn't divide well - the adjacent pixels have to be averaged and the result is far softer and lower resolution than cropping the edges.

You might respond that you wanted to letterbox. Fine. If the display source is UHD, you'd get a sharper image by cropping to the letterbox (from DCI or UHD) instead of scaling ~93.75%.

You might respond that the difference isn't as noticeable if the delivery is 1080p. True. But it's not better than scaling from UHD, which benefits immensely from being exactly double the horizontal and vertical resolution of 1080p. Scaling by 50% will give far better result than scaling to ~46.875%.

You might respond that you rely on reframing, and want the extra pixels. Under some circumstances, it might be a real benefit to record DCI instead of UHD, and might give a better scaled image. But, even so - how frequently are you reframing? If it's not over 50% of the time, you're probably better off comprimising on the reframed shots, and using the better settings for the majority of the content which was framed correctly on set.

Mind you - if your work is actually going to a 4k DCI output and being watched in the manner, than by all means - record 4k DCI. But UHD is being demonized terribly by people who aren't thinking through where their content is actually going to be watched.
 
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