Apple introduces new version of Final Cut Pro X

G

Gary T

Well-known member
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018...s-third-party-workflow-extensions/?1542304822

Apple introduced a new version of Final Cut Pro X with support for third-party workflow extensions, noise reduction, and (finally) batch sharing!

I was thinking they might wait until the new Mac Pro was released before we got another big update but this looks like it could be great release.

I really needed the batch sharing and I'm intrigued to see what comes of the third party workflow extensions.
I am downloading now to test it out.
 
Solid upgrade over-all, still probably going to stick to using Neat Video for the highest quality denoise, but it's nice to have this built in now. The workflows stuff is a great long term bet on Final Cut getting extended functionality in a way more usable fashion.
 
I'm a big Fan of FCP, I co-founded the LAFCPUG.org and was on Studio for years and years, only having moved over to FCP X about a year and a half ago. FCP X is cool and is definitely the fastest editor on the market. I just reviewed Resolve 15.1 though (havent even had time to download 15.2 yet) and I have to say, Resolve, as an editing suite, seems superior to FCP X. It even renders a lot of stuff faster, it handles audio with Fairlight at a level that FCP X could only dream of. Color Wheels versus DaVinci Resolve Color? Motion versus Fusion? I will always use FCP X but I am buying Resolve Studio. IMHO, it is a more capable package by far than FCP X. And this is coming from a huge Apple/FCP fan. Apple has done a good job in making FCP X a ton better than the early FCP X iterations but BMD seems to be wanting to dominate the editing software arena a lot more than Apple. Audio handling, color correction and motion graphics in FCP X are good but compared to Resolve? No comparison.
 
I've been thinking of dumping Premiere for some time, it's too damn clunky and joyless. But many of my clients are on Adobe CC, how well do FCPX and also Resolve interact with Adobe?
 
I am (was) Adobe user for 13 years. Recently I have moved to Resolve. It was not that bad as I thought. Still miss some features but overall Resolve is basically ready for someone like me. Only one drawback is Fusion.. compare to AE it is so much more complicated for easy stuff. But it can be done in it.
 
KrocanX said:
I am (was) Adobe user for 13 years. Recently I have moved to Resolve. It was not that bad as I thought. Still miss some features but overall Resolve is basically ready for someone like me. Only one drawback is Fusion.. compare to AE it is so much more complicated for easy stuff. But it can be done in it.
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I had the opposite impression of Fusion vs AE. I have a VFX background and learned compositing on Shake before Apple bought it and killed it. AE was always a compromise for complex VFX work. To me now that we have a free and affordable version of Fusion that 100% replaces the old legendary Shake there is absolutely no need for AE anymore. AE and Photoshop were the only two applications that made CC and Premiere worth it. I now use Affinity Photo, Affinity Design, Motion for motion graphics work and Fusion for more image processing heavy VFX type work. At $50 it's hard to beat Motion for motion graphics and the playback engine can actually play in realtime. For VFX stuff I move to Fusion.
 
I'm really impressed with this FCPX update. Best of all FCPX is still not charging for updates. I paid $299 the day it came out and have not paid a single penny since then. That has really offset any extra hardware costs I may have endured ever since FCPX came out.

One thing I would love to see Apple add is the ability to tell FCPX to use multiple eGPUs. They greatly increased the viability of eGPUs by allowing us to now set which GPU to use but taking it one step further and allowing us to use 3 eGPUs attached would be a great way to continue improving the performance of Macs. Much harder thing to do but Resolve is doing it and there are plenty of benchmarks out there of attaching up to 3 eGPUs and seeing Resolve take advantage of them all. To me that's the real raw potential of eGPU. Also makes systems like the iMac make more sense since one could use the internal RX580 and a RX580 eGPU to double the performance for very little investment. You can now get a RX580 eGPU for $420 which is not a bad upgrade to double the processing potential on the iMac. Right now you really need to get a Vega 64 eGPU to make getting a eGPU for the iMac to show any level of performance gain.
 
Thomas Smet said:
I'm really impressed with this FCPX update. Best of all FCPX is still not charging for updates. I paid $299 the day it came out and have not paid a single penny since then. That has really offset any extra hardware costs I may have endured ever since FCPX came out.

One thing I would love to see Apple add is the ability to tell FCPX to use multiple eGPUs. They greatly increased the viability of eGPUs by allowing us to now set which GPU to use but taking it one step further and allowing us to use 3 eGPUs attached would be a great way to continue improving the performance of Macs. Much harder thing to do but Resolve is doing it and there are plenty of benchmarks out there of attaching up to 3 eGPUs and seeing Resolve take advantage of them all. To me that's the real raw potential of eGPU. Also makes systems like the iMac make more sense since one could use the internal RX580 and a RX580 eGPU to double the performance for very little investment. You can now get a RX580 eGPU for $420 which is not a bad upgrade to double the processing potential on the iMac. Right now you really need to get a Vega 64 eGPU to make getting a eGPU for the iMac to show any level of performance gain.
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I tested the BMD e-GPU and I couldn't agree more. I just bought a new iMac top of the line without getting the Pro and the ability to add the e-GPU Pro or make my own using the Vega 64 is really appealing for Resolve. Stacking GPUs sounds like a way to make your not so expensive system perform like a very expensive system. Come on Apple, get with the program! That's the only thing frustrating about Apple, with the money they have laying around in the vault, they could throw just a little more resources and money into FCP X and make it leagues better than Resolve, AVID or Premiere, they have the engineering and mindset to do it. They have been "keeping up" but Resolve is pulling away in my mind and BMD is a MUCH smaller company with very limited resources compared to Apple.
 
puredrifting said:
I tested the BMD e-GPU and I couldn't agree more. I just bought a new iMac top of the line without getting the Pro and the ability to add the e-GPU Pro or make my own using the Vega 64 is really appealing for Resolve. Stacking GPUs sounds like a way to make your not so expensive system perform like a very expensive system. Come on Apple, get with the program! That's the only thing frustrating about Apple, with the money they have laying around in the vault, they could throw just a little more resources and money into FCP X and make it leagues better than Resolve, AVID or Premiere, they have the engineering and mindset to do it. They have been "keeping up" but Resolve is pulling away in my mind and BMD is a MUCH smaller company with very limited resources compared to Apple.
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I agree, but that goes to show what you can do when you are singularly focused on something, like BMD. FCPX is honestly so far out on Apples back, back, back burner compared to the next iPhone or Apple Watch. Even though it would honestly be the proverbial drop-in-the-bucket to devote more money and resources to it. It's just not a priority to them. They probably sell more iPhones a quarter than they've sold copies of FCPX since it was released.*



*I have no clue about that, just a WAG. But it sounds good ; )
 
Still patiently waiting until we can consolidate timelines with the exact frames that were used in the project instead of the entire source clip(s). Or even being able to just add an additional 5-10-15 frames on each end of each clip when consolidating.

It's understood it's a complex feature, and I don't see how they would do it besides transcoding all of the clips into new clips, but at this point any lossless method would be okay as it's such a necessary feature for editors who turnaround hundreds of videos (short & long) throughout the year.

It's frustrating that even if I use 5 seconds of an interview/soundbite in a promo, I'll have to consolidate the entire interview (which may be 50GB) instead of maybe 500MB for the few seconds.

[Of course I can create a master file of just those 5 seconds - which is what I would do if I'm looking to save space/share - but this gets tedious for bigger projects with dozens of these instances.]
 
Apple will never have pro apps and computers as more than a street cred thing. When they make tens of billions on iPhones, I guess we're lucky they update FCP X as often as they do. Personally, I would really like dupe detection, which Resolve now has, that's a feature any editor needs. I agree with NorBro, consolidation with used clip footage would be super cool too. I would personally like for them to get serious about audio, audio in FCP X is a joke, it's so uninutuitive, primitive and clunky. Overall, it's a great program but the color correction tools and audio tools in particular, are primitive.
 
puredrifting said:
Overall, it's a great program but the color correction tools and audio tools in particular, are primitive.
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Compared to what? I will send anything requiring tracking or advanced color selection to Resolve, but it doesn't seem that Premiere is any better at color correction. I used to do all of my color correction in resolve but I feel pretty comfortable in FCP X. I find the internal audio editing to be quite easy to use, especially now that you can individually edit and apply effects to each track in a multitrack clip. It isn't fast for those people who are accustomed to Pro Tools and like to use sliders I guess, but for those of use who are editing short corporate videos it seems to have everything we need. Of course, I'm not primarily an editor.

I mean I started editing on FCP X when it came out. It has come a long way in the past seven years. I recently tried to work on a project in Premiere and it felt like taking a significant step back.

I'm really interested to see where the new apps function leads. I am sure Apple has built in some significant blocks. For example, I am sure they won't let an app consolidate and delete media. But I am guessing somebody could certainly create an XML type feature that would automate a roundtrip to consolidate a file with handles on each end of a clip.
 
Am I missing something or is there no precise secondary color correction in FCPX? What I mean is the ability to isolate a precise range of color/luminance/saturation and tweak just that. In FCP7 you checked the "limit on luma/chroma/sat/etc." boxes in the CC effects to accomplish this, and that had sliders you could ride to find the optimal settings. Seems like X seriously only has the eyedropper/drag, and that's it. You wanna tweak the mask, you start again. I've looked it up and this is all I can find. That seems crazy to me that that's all we have right now (or 'til this new update).
 
Josh Bass said:
Am I missing something or is there no precise secondary color correction in FCPX? What I mean is the ability to isolate a precise range of color/luminance/saturation and tweak just that. In FCP7 you checked the "limit on luma/chroma/sat/etc." boxes in the CC effects to accomplish this, and that had sliders you could ride to find the optimal settings. Seems like X seriously only has the eyedropper/drag, and that's it. You wanna tweak the mask, you start again. I've looked it up and this is all I can find. That seems crazy to me that that's all we have right now (or 'til this new update).
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Yes, FCP X doesn't have any advanced color selection tool. You need to do a round trip to Resolve for that type of work. Hopefully, an app will be created soon.
 
cpreston said:
Yes, FCP X doesn't have any advanced color selection tool. You need to do a round trip to Resolve for that type of work. Hopefully, an app will be created soon.
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While that is true - I would suggest buying a plug-in, like Color Finale for FCPX - if you want to do more advanced color correction stuff staying within FCPX. Or - as you say - round trip thru Resolve works a treat as well.
 
Thanks. Probably look into plugins. I guess if they introduce round trip functionality thatd be cool. I wish Motion projects could still work within fcp like it used to be. That was nice. I have resolve but have barely touched it as I basically only edit for client, and he’s on FCPX. It made sense then to learn X and be able to trade “libraries” back and forth etc.
 
Are you sure? I thought was one of the big conplaints. Used to be you could drop a Motion project in fcp as a clip, and as you made changes and saved them they would update in the fcp clip. As far as I know we dont have that in X.
 
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