Anyone cut long piece on FCP X?

KarlSutton

KarlSutton

Well-known member
I'm evaluating FCPX and Premiere for 3 upcoming docs I'll be editing. I was just curious if anyone here had cut a 90 minute video with many different interviews/B Roll etc. on FCP X and how your experience was with that.

I'll need to do the sound in Pro Tools, is there currently a bullet proof way to export the audio separately into Pro Tools?

Thank you for any info!
 
I can't answer the question about Pro-Tools, but with Logic Pro FCP imports all the filters you get with it so might adjust audio natively in FCPX that way. I also did a 50 minute documentary and there were no issues. I believe there was a problem with the release a couple years ago, but that has been fixed long ago.
 
I'm currently in post with a 50 minute film and I've had it close on me here and there, but nothing I'm not use to with other NLE's. I'm not sure about the workflow for protools, but possibly assigning roles to the audio and exporting the roles as separate tracks (an option when you're exporting) could work?
 
I'm currently in the midst of a 5 camera DSLR shoot of a 2 1/2 hour play.

We got the sound from the board, and have some drift issues to deal with from that, but FCPX has been amazing for it.

Syncing everything into multicam clips and using that to handle everything, I'm flying through it.
 
On your pro tools question - currently two way of doing it.

1/ Purchase http://www.x2pro.net. This does an audio conversion from within FCPX that you can open in Pro Tools. It does not generate a video proxy however so you will need to export that yourself.

2/ If you're working with FCPX and have an old copy of FCP7 on your system theres two apps that can help you roundtrip so you can export an OMF from 7. They're simply XML converters call X to 7 and 7 to X. They work.
 
Cory Braun said:
I'm currently in post with a 50 minute film and I've had it close on me here and there, but nothing I'm not use to with other NLE's. I'm not sure about the workflow for protools, but possibly assigning roles to the audio and exporting the roles as separate tracks (an option when you're exporting) could work?
Click to expand...

That would defeat the purpose. Being able to export an OMF is critical to a final mix in protools. Otherwise all the roles you described exported as sound tracks will have all of the changes to the audio baked in, and all reference back to the original files gone. It'll just become one long audio file, which is no good.

As stated above there's ways to do it, just make sure you're prepared and test things out :)
 
KarlSutton said:
I'm evaluating FCPX and Premiere for 3 upcoming docs I'll be editing. I was just curious if anyone here had cut a 90 minute video with many different interviews/B Roll etc. on FCP X and how your experience was with that.

I'll need to do the sound in Pro Tools, is there currently a bullet proof way to export the audio separately into Pro Tools?

Thank you for any info!
Click to expand...

I made a 40min back in the FCPX 10.0.2 days. It got a little ugly cause there were still issues with compound clips. But currently the program is quite stable even in large projects. The only issue that I would say is, be sure to optimize your media. By that, I mean: 1) Be sure that photos that you use are sized reasonably. A 2000x1500 size photo is more than enough. Tons of huge (4000x4000+) photos is poor managing of media and will lead to spinning wheels. 2) Optimizing footage to ProRes on import can help with playback later. It's not "necessary", but the bigger the thing gets, the more you might want it.

Another recommendation, if you CAN divide your documentary up in to multiple projects, I would recommend doing so. It makes things more manageable, and you can easily combine the pieces into a "Master Project" at the end. We did a HUGE live music DVD (90mins) with a total of 14+ cameras, and we did each song individually, and combined into one Master Project in the end, and it worked FAR better than trying to do the whole thing in one chunk. If you have a plan that has "pieces", just do it that way from the start. If you want to think of it like different "scenes" or "acts" into different projects, it's good to do if you can.
 
Thank you for all the tips, a few days into FCP X and some Ripple & I'm pretty impressed. Good tip about breaking it up into acts, not sure if I'll be able to do that with the content but we'll see.

Most of the footage is XDCAM with some 5d3 thrown in here & there. Would you recommend optimizing the XDCAM footage? Prores really eats up the drive, but if it's worth it for stability I guess it would be worth it.

Does that x2pro make a file ProTools 9 can read?

Thank you again for all the input.
 
I frequently edit 90-100 min pro with 10-12 AVC-I 100 camera media on 10.0.8 with ease! FCP likes time coded camera originals media. If you have non-TC sources, you'll be modifying a lot because it doesn't always automatically sync it correctly. You'll have to go in and adjust in/out point many times if syncing by audio. Generally the front camera to the source is pretty accurate vs. the rear camera 300-500 ft away. SMPTE TC is the most accurate way when dealing with more than 6 camera sources that stop/start on a frequent basis.

Just make sure you have plenty of capacity left for FC Events folder. Last prj eats up about 2.6 Tb just on FCP Events not countin the original raw media. I do not use proxy. All AVC-I 100 and few XDCAM 422 converted media. RAID 50 config of eight 3 or 4 Tb hdds is highly recommended.
 
I am finding that a two hour multicam dance recital with three AF100a's multicamed and pro resed is a bit of a mouthfall for FCPX. Things like resizing the frame of one scene or fixing up the horizontal plane requires a re render and the system becomes sluggish. If I continue to edit and not pause while it does its thing, I get a crash. I am on a fast MacPro and Raid drives with about 360 mbs/sec read
 
I'm doing a 2 hour plus rock opera with 5 DSLR's shooting throughout, and have not had those issues.

It's crashed once or twice throuhgout this project, but not regularly...knock on wood.

It's eating it up and doing fine though.

I'm on a later 2010 Imac i7
 
greytail said:
I am finding that a two hour multicam dance recital with three AF100a's multicamed and pro resed is a bit of a mouthfall for FCPX. Things like resizing the frame of one scene or fixing up the horizontal plane requires a re render and the system becomes sluggish. If I continue to edit and not pause while it does its thing, I get a crash. I am on a fast MacPro and Raid drives with about 360 mbs/sec read
Click to expand...

Something doesn't sound right here. Can you just turn off background rendering? That may help better than what you've got going on currently.
 
If you work with XDCAM a lot, I would advice rendering it all to Prores LT before editing. Reasons being:

- FCPX is kinda sluggish with XDCAM. Really. You notice it in everything: importing, analyzing, effects, exporting, ...

- Rendering from XDCAM to Prores LT or regular Prores goes REALLY fast if you have a recent Mac, and use Compressor 4 (as example).

- Yes, Prores LT is about 2.5x the size of XDCAM but it's worth it.

- with Prores LT, or Prores in general, FCPX can be really fast to work with. Exporting 5 unrendered layers of Prores LT, all of them with unrendered timecode generator on it seperately (trough a compound clip), all in one image as picture in pictures, and we get about 2x Real Time Export. Just having ONE timecode filter in FCP 7 slowed down things enormously. We use them trough editing and all.

Stability with FCPX 10.0.8 has been really good, actually. In the 10.0.0 days, the program used to crash a lot, but it evolved with every release. Personally, I think it's about as stable as FCP7 for me was now. But use Prores LT (it's lighter then regular Prores, and not a lot of visible quality difference. Prores Proxy has the same bitrate as XDCAM, but has a visible degraded quality).

The whole Proxy workflow within FCPX (letting the program make Proxies in the background, and connecting between those and high-resolution masters with one click in the preferences) is pretty genius too, especially when working with RED material.
 
Sidderke said:
If you work with XDCAM a lot, I would advice rendering it all to Prores LT before editing. Reasons being:

- FCPX is kinda sluggish with XDCAM. Really. You notice it in everything: importing, analyzing, effects, exporting, ...

- Rendering from XDCAM to Prores LT or regular Prores goes REALLY fast if you have a recent Mac, and use Compressor 4 (as example).

- Yes, Prores LT is about 2.5x the size of XDCAM but it's worth it.

- with Prores LT, or Prores in general, FCPX can be really fast to work with. Exporting 5 unrendered layers of Prores LT, all of them with unrendered timecode generator on it seperately (trough a compound clip), all in one image as picture in pictures, and we get about 2x Real Time Export. Just having ONE timecode filter in FCP 7 slowed down things enormously. We use them trough editing and all.

Stability with FCPX 10.0.8 has been really good, actually. In the 10.0.0 days, the program used to crash a lot, but it evolved with every release. Personally, I think it's about as stable as FCP7 for me was now. But use Prores LT (it's lighter then regular Prores, and not a lot of visible quality difference. Prores Proxy has the same bitrate as XDCAM, but has a visible degraded quality).

The whole Proxy workflow within FCPX (letting the program make Proxies in the background, and connecting between those and high-resolution masters with one click in the preferences) is pretty genius too, especially when working with RED material.
Click to expand...

So is using compressor is better than having FCPX "optimize" the footage on import?
 
Well, it depends. The big problem as of yet, is that if you optimize trough FCPX, you get regular Prores, and you do not have the choice to have Prores LT.
The bitrate for Prores LT is already 2,5 times that of XDCAM. At our company, when we worked in XDCAM, we were already getting about 70 TB a year. So, working in Prores LT is already enough for us ;-) Regular Prores is even more, so in that case I would say: yes, Compressor is more flexible.
But if you do it in Compressor, you just can use those as your 'masters' in FCPX. There is for FCPX nothing to relink, except if you work in Proxy mode.
Another problem with having FCPX doing it, is that your Transcoded Media goes into the Event Folder of your FCPX 'Project'.
I'm not a big fan of this, we have our own way of organizing our media. So when you make Prores LT with Compressor, you can place them wherever you want, and let FCPX just link to them trough simlinks (just check off 'Copy to Event Folder' in your FCPX Preferences before you start importing footage, in that case)

That being said, there are advantages of letting FCPX doing it.
- It reconnects trough all sorts of Optimized Media, and Proxy Media automatically. This is very handy. Example: if you work with a lot of media, you can let FCPX make Proxy Media (Proxy Prores) in the background, take those files with you on the road, edit with the Proxies, and come back into the studio and relink to the high-quality originals. All the scale and transform adjustments, and so forth, are all taken into account, you do not have to worry about anything in the 'conform'.

- It does this all in the background. It uses the original files until it is finished transcoding all the media to Optimized and/or Proxy Media, then it automatically reconnects.

Personally, if you work with XDCAM media, and H.264 media, I would first let Compressor make all the Prores LT media BEFORE you use it into FCPX. You have to take into consideration the storage that you need, but storage is getting cheaper all the time. It's one of the costs as an editor you have to live with.
You let Compressor make Prores LT. If your source format is XDCAM, this is pretty fast. Don't use Mpeg Streamclip if timecode is important. Mpeg Streamclip is faster, but it discarts original timecode. This may or may not be important to you.

Then you import them into FCPX. You can leave the XDCAM or H.264 files somewhere as backup, but I wouldn't use them in the edit.

You will see, performance will be MUCH better.

Another option, but this does not need to exclude the other option, is use Prores LT, but let FCPX also make Proxy Media. I would only do this when working with Multicam-clips or having specific needs. For instance, a while ago I wanted to go and edit in Italy on location with a client. I wanted to travel as light as possible, and I had about 1.5 TB or something of original Prores LT material. I copied the Event and Project to the SSD of the Retina Macbook Pro. I let FCPX make Proxy Media, which it stored on the SSD.
I did not need any external drive, all the proxy media was about 300 GB. I could go and edit with the client, using a small T-Tap from Aja connected trough their display, and edit trough 8 hours of recorded material with 6 recorded feeds (so in total 6x 8 hours of material, totalling 48 hours on my internal drive). I could just edit very lightweight. 6 feeds on top of each other in FCPX, all in picture in picture, playing at the same time, all of them compound clips with unrendered timecode generator on it. I could cut with ease, come back to the studio, and let FCPX relink to the original HD media with ONE click in the Preferences. The experience was pretty amazing, and speaks volumes about the capability of FCPX.
 
Sidderke said:
Well, it depends. The big problem as of yet, is that if you optimize trough FCPX, you get regular Prores, and you do not have the choice to have Prores LT.
The bitrate for Prores LT is already 2,5 times that of XDCAM. At our company, when we worked in XDCAM, we were already getting about 70 TB a year. So, working in Prores LT is already enough for us ;-) Regular Prores is even more, so in that case I would say: yes, Compressor is more flexible.
But if you do it in Compressor, you just can use those as your 'masters' in FCPX. There is for FCPX nothing to relink, except if you work in Proxy mode.
Another problem with having FCPX doing it, is that your Transcoded Media goes into the Event Folder of your FCPX 'Project'.
I'm not a big fan of this, we have our own way of organizing our media. So when you make Prores LT with Compressor, you can place them wherever you want, and let FCPX just link to them trough simlinks (just check off 'Copy to Event Folder' in your FCPX Preferences before you start importing footage, in that case)

That being said, there are advantages of letting FCPX doing it.
- It reconnects trough all sorts of Optimized Media, and Proxy Media automatically. This is very handy. Example: if you work with a lot of media, you can let FCPX make Proxy Media (Proxy Prores) in the background, take those files with you on the road, edit with the Proxies, and come back into the studio and relink to the high-quality originals. All the scale and transform adjustments, and so forth, are all taken into account, you do not have to worry about anything in the 'conform'.

- It does this all in the background. It uses the original files until it is finished transcoding all the media to Optimized and/or Proxy Media, then it automatically reconnects.

Personally, if you work with XDCAM media, and H.264 media, I would first let Compressor make all the Prores LT media BEFORE you use it into FCPX. You have to take into consideration the storage that you need, but storage is getting cheaper all the time. It's one of the costs as an editor you have to live with.
You let Compressor make Prores LT. If your source format is XDCAM, this is pretty fast. Don't use Mpeg Streamclip if timecode is important. Mpeg Streamclip is faster, but it discarts original timecode. This may or may not be important to you.

Then you import them into FCPX. You can leave the XDCAM or H.264 files somewhere as backup, but I wouldn't use them in the edit.

You will see, performance will be MUCH better.

Another option, but this does not need to exclude the other option, is use Prores LT, but let FCPX also make Proxy Media. I would only do this when working with Multicam-clips or having specific needs. For instance, a while ago I wanted to go and edit in Italy on location with a client. I wanted to travel as light as possible, and I had about 1.5 TB or something of original Prores LT material. I copied the Event and Project to the SSD of the Retina Macbook Pro. I let FCPX make Proxy Media, which it stored on the SSD.
I did not need any external drive, all the proxy media was about 300 GB. I could go and edit with the client, using a small T-Tap from Aja connected trough their display, and edit trough 8 hours of recorded material with 6 recorded feeds (so in total 6x 8 hours of material, totalling 48 hours on my internal drive). I could just edit very lightweight. 6 feeds on top of each other in FCPX, all in picture in picture, playing at the same time, all of them compound clips with unrendered timecode generator on it. I could cut with ease, come back to the studio, and let FCPX relink to the original HD media with ONE click in the Preferences. The experience was pretty amazing, and speaks volumes about the capability of FCPX.
Click to expand...

Just another note, ProResLT is somewhat lossy. It can break down with higher-speed footage. I'm not saying it's bad or that you can't use it. The codec is amazing for what it does in the amount of space it takes up. Just be aware ProResLT is not the best for max quality projects.
 
TheReverend, you are right, but if your source footage is XDCAM 35Mbps LONG GOP Mpeg2, or H.264, then I think Prores LT is more then enough because it's a much better codec then any of those.
 
Sidderke said:
TheReverend, you are right, but if your source footage is XDCAM 35Mbps LONG GOP Mpeg2, or H.264, then I think Prores LT is more then enough because it's a much better codec then any of those.
Click to expand...
I think it's just a question of how much disk space you have to work with, and how important that space is. If you have the disk space, use ProRes422, it's better and is really made for rerendering and archiving. Going from XDCAM to ProResLT then to h264/DVD delivery will have a lower quality than XDCAM to ProRes422 to h264/DVD. How much? It honestly might be very miniscule, but it is good to be aware of this info.

At my work, we use ProResLT every weekend when recording our content that goes on TV later. We also record content with little/no fast movement, so ProResLT holds up well, and we save on space. It's a win/win. But sometimes we have faster moving content we want to capture, and in those cases, ProRes422 does look alot better.

It just comes down to what you are recording, what you have available, and what your standard for quality is.
 
Sidderke said:
Well, it depends. The big problem as of yet, is that if you optimize trough FCPX, you get regular Prores, and you do not have the choice to have Prores LT.
The bitrate for Prores LT is already 2,5 times that of XDCAM. At our company, when we worked in XDCAM, we were already getting about 70 TB a year. So, working in Prores LT is already enough for us ;-) Regular Prores is even more, so in that case I would say: yes, Compressor is more flexible.
But if you do it in Compressor, you just can use those as your 'masters' in FCPX. There is for FCPX nothing to relink, except if you work in Proxy mode.
Another problem with having FCPX doing it, is that your Transcoded Media goes into the Event Folder of your FCPX 'Project'.
I'm not a big fan of this, we have our own way of organizing our media. So when you make Prores LT with Compressor, you can place them wherever you want, and let FCPX just link to them trough simlinks (just check off 'Copy to Event Folder' in your FCPX Preferences before you start importing footage, in that case)

That being said, there are advantages of letting FCPX doing it.
- It reconnects trough all sorts of Optimized Media, and Proxy Media automatically. This is very handy. Example: if you work with a lot of media, you can let FCPX make Proxy Media (Proxy Prores) in the background, take those files with you on the road, edit with the Proxies, and come back into the studio and relink to the high-quality originals. All the scale and transform adjustments, and so forth, are all taken into account, you do not have to worry about anything in the 'conform'.

- It does this all in the background. It uses the original files until it is finished transcoding all the media to Optimized and/or Proxy Media, then it automatically reconnects.

Personally, if you work with XDCAM media, and H.264 media, I would first let Compressor make all the Prores LT media BEFORE you use it into FCPX. You have to take into consideration the storage that you need, but storage is getting cheaper all the time. It's one of the costs as an editor you have to live with.
You let Compressor make Prores LT. If your source format is XDCAM, this is pretty fast. Don't use Mpeg Streamclip if timecode is important. Mpeg Streamclip is faster, but it discarts original timecode. This may or may not be important to you.

Then you import them into FCPX. You can leave the XDCAM or H.264 files somewhere as backup, but I wouldn't use them in the edit.

You will see, performance will be MUCH better.

Another option, but this does not need to exclude the other option, is use Prores LT, but let FCPX also make Proxy Media. I would only do this when working with Multicam-clips or having specific needs. For instance, a while ago I wanted to go and edit in Italy on location with a client. I wanted to travel as light as possible, and I had about 1.5 TB or something of original Prores LT material. I copied the Event and Project to the SSD of the Retina Macbook Pro. I let FCPX make Proxy Media, which it stored on the SSD.
I did not need any external drive, all the proxy media was about 300 GB. I could go and edit with the client, using a small T-Tap from Aja connected trough their display, and edit trough 8 hours of recorded material with 6 recorded feeds (so in total 6x 8 hours of material, totalling 48 hours on my internal drive). I could just edit very lightweight. 6 feeds on top of each other in FCPX, all in picture in picture, playing at the same time, all of them compound clips with unrendered timecode generator on it. I could cut with ease, come back to the studio, and let FCPX relink to the original HD media with ONE click in the Preferences. The experience was pretty amazing, and speaks volumes about the capability of FCPX.
Click to expand...

I was on vacation last week, thank you for this very thorough reply! There will all be at least 2 camera XDCAM source and occasionally the extra 5d3 source added in as well. Can you tell me what advantage there would be to using the proxy media when editing multicam?
 
Faster response, faster system. You can always just try to edit it like it is, and see if your system holds up or not.
When you feel it doesn't, you can always start a proxy-encoding afterwards. Although it also depends on under which deadline and pressure you need to edit, of course.
 
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