Final Cut Pro X adds features to win back the pros

G

Gillvane

Veteran
http://www.cinema5d.com/?page_id=11

I"m not going to be shooting anything on an Alexa any time soon so great that Cut Pro X has support for it, but I certainly don't need it. Looks like some great updates and added features. I don't know where the pros went, but maybe this will bring them back:

What’s new in version 10.0.8
- Support for Sony XAVC codec up to 4K resolution
- Option to display ProRes Log C files from ARRI ALEXA cameras with standard Rec. 709 color and contrast levels
- Resolves an issue where some third-party effects generated green frames during render
- Resolves performance issues that could occur with certain titles and effects
- Time reversed clips render in the background
- Ability to use key commands to adjust Clip Appearance settings in the timeline
- Ability to view reel number metadata located in the timecode track of video files
- Mono audio files in a surround project export with correct volume levels
- Drop zones no longer reset to the first frame of video after application restart
- Fixes a performance issue which resulted from selecting multiple ranges on a single clip
- Fixes an issue where the Play Around function did not work properly on certain clips when viewed through external video devices
 
refocusedmedia said:
The phrase "too little, too late" comes to mind, but at least they are looking at the right direction again.
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I don't know if it's to late, but it is reactive rather than proactive and things change so fast in the NLE game you really need to be proactive and give your customers what they need before they know they need it.
 
traviswears said:
I want a feature that disables those ridiculous connectors.
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You can temporarily disable them by pressing the Tilde key (the key just under the esc key). This will allow you to temporarily break the connection between primary clips and connected clips
 
Gillvane said:
I don't know if it's to late, but it is reactive rather than proactive and things change so fast in the NLE game you really need to be proactive and give your customers what they need before they know they need it.
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Ya, also a good point. I mean, but even FCPX itself was mostly reactive. Combine that with their obvious pulling away from the pro field to begin with, and I would think many pros would find it hard to put faith in Apple again for their editing future. I know plenty are invested in the Apple workflow though, so they will always have a market.

Regardless, I'm glad Apple is doing this. Healthy competition is good for everyone.
 
refocusedmedia said:
The phrase "too little, too late" comes to mind, but at least they are looking at the right direction again.
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Not if you're still on FCP7. For me, to move from FCP7 to FCPX, Avid or Adobe would be big transition & until I see a need for that extra effort, I'm sticking with FCP7. If FCPX get updated so that transition doesn't take effort, it'll be an easy move.

Though if I end up going Adobe or Avid, then I'm thankful that both of those companies have put out info on how to help with that transition.

Still if it ain't broke...
 
zijital said:
Not if you're still on FCP7. For me, to move from FCP7 to FCPX, Avid or Adobe would be big transition & until I see a need for that extra effort, I'm sticking with FCP7. If FCPX get updated so that transition doesn't take effort, it'll be an easy move.

Though if I end up going Adobe or Avid, then I'm thankful that both of those companies have put out info on how to help with that transition.

Still if it ain't broke...
Click to expand...

I switched to Premiere Pro and it is almost exactly like FCP7 (you can even use the same keyboard short cuts). There is another thread on here pointing to this: http://provideocoalition.com/ssimmons/story/an-early-look-at-the-next-version-of-adobe-premiere-pro

It looks like Adobe is very interested in winning us FCP7 people over. The few little gripes I had coming from FCP7 look to be addressed in the next release. PPro is like FCP7 but updated with full 64-bit (buy a NVidia card) and awesome GPU performance. It runs circles around FCP7. Period.

For Apple to end of life FCP7 when there are people who literally earn every dime they make using it for a living without having even the most basic of all software legacy options (i.e. being able to open older projects!) basically sent me away from FCP. At the end of the day, I need to earn a living.

Let's see, in my opinion somehow Apple and Avid have basically wrecked each other leaving Adobe as the only obvious choice. In the Baltimore/Washington area I see more and more Premiere jobs being posted, obviously less and less FCP7, and only some local news (and Sinclair) sticking with Avid (and some bigger shops in DC are Avid). Avid Co. is on the brink of going bye-bye, Apple is in the fight of it's life with Samsung and getting iOS7 done by summer, so that leaves Adobe as the only company left that has long term stability and must create good software to survive.

I own an Avid seat and it just feels like a step back from FCP, PPro seems like a step forward. Oh... Apple, couldn't you have just made FCP7 64-bit w/ realtime performance?

The thing I miss most about FCP7 is the render breaks I used to take. I can now play a native .MP4 GH2 camera file, with chromakey, background layer (uncompressed HD), two layers of text, and another video layer as a p-i-p and it plays more or less realtime and doesn't take long to render.

Good luck!
-J
 
jkrepner said:
I switched to Premiere Pro and it is almost exactly like FCP7 (you can even use the same keyboard short cuts). There is another thread on here pointing to this: http://provideocoalition.com/ssimmons/story/an-early-look-at-the-next-version-of-adobe-premiere-pro
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This is exactly the reason I didnt want to switch to Premiere. Id found over a number of years that I was tired of the same old way of doing things from an NLE perspective, but with FCPX missing so many things I was stuck on FCP7. Enter 2012 and FCPX adds a key feature - XML. With the low price of FCPX I just bought it and grabbed myself a demo of CS6. I also got a new nvidia card for my mac pro and away I went. I found that the mercury engine gave some performance increases over the OpenCL in FCPX, but it was nothing I'd write about as a "BIG" difference.

What I did find is that once I mastered FCPX there were some big gains in cutting time. That's very important to me.

Then, after some updates occurring on my mac I found that FCPX had become very unstable. The basic titles which I rarely used, preferring to use AE for titles, were for lack of a better term "a processing problem". They'd cause slowdown or worse, a crash out and I was starting to become frustrated. FWIW Id found many users with the same issues and very few answers to resolve them.

Enter the most recent updates. I decided with an already unstable FCPX I wouldn't apply the update. Instead I trashed FCPX altogether and re downloaded and reinstalled. Happy to conclude FCPX is now working fast, without any issues at all. It's now back to super quick edit times. One of the things before the update was that the background renders weren't going as fast as I'd hoped and sometimes they were better left to do their work without me adding more tasks to the list - this issue has also completely disappeared.

Updating mid project. We're no longer in the days of FCP7 and updating mid project is a non issue. I did it with 4 projects on the go. The app itself is disconnected from your Events and Projects. When the app opens it simply reads the events and projects folders. On this, for those that dont or havent come across it, on recommendation from others Ive created two additional folders 1/ Final Cut Events - Hidden 2/ Final Cut Projects - Hidden. Anything Im not currently working on goes in these folders.

XML: Working perfectly with resolve each and every time.

Audio: My still missing link. No OMF out. I hope this is added at some stage as its one of two reasons I retain a version of FCP7 on my system. To do OMF export I have to: Export FCPX XML, use an app called Xto7 to transform the XML to FCP7 readable (this app works very well FWIW), import XML to 7, set up two pop in timeline, export OMF, wait for soundmix to come back, export XML, use an app called 7toX to change the XML, import XML into FCPX.
 
How do you FCP X converts deal with the lack of tracks and totally new way of editing/layout? I know people like the program and say you become loads faster, but I just can't imagine a world without tracks! Such a fundamental editing thing (or so it seems). For instance on my simple corporate video edit I'm doing now, I have two cams, each with own stereo pair audio tracks ( so four of those), and then another track above for slides which I'm editing in where appropriate. I understand (or believe) that FCP X can handle all this, I just don't understand how.
 
I'm not sure what you're asking. You can detach the audio from the clip. RMB > Detach.

Josh Bass said:
How do you FCP X converts deal with the lack of tracks and totally new way of editing/layout? I know people like the program and say you become loads faster, but I just can't imagine a world without tracks! Such a fundamental editing thing (or so it seems). For instance on my simple corporate video edit I'm doing now, I have two cams, each with own stereo pair audio tracks ( so four of those), and then another track above for slides which I'm editing in where appropriate. I understand (or believe) that FCP X can handle all this, I just don't understand how.
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let me ask you guys this: can you give some examples of common editing tasks that you can do noticeably faster with x than 7 or another NLE? im curious as to the specifics of HOW it has sped up your workflow and made you a faster editor.
 
I don't know why FCPX gets such a bad rap, i think the interwebs are responsible for passing around misinformation and chinese whispers about it after the bash apple phase a while back from the vocal minority.

I find FCPX a more creative environment than CS6, but a lot of people seem to get hung up on 'unlearning' their tools and approaches. Well if your approaches are so set in stone then how creative can you be?

You know that FCPX is AFAIK the only NLE that internally implements ACES colour standards and works in linear? Even it's basic grading is actually correct mathematically. It's moved away from the YUV and REC709 foundations that most others are on.

Having said this i'm not primarily an editor and our current feature is being edited in Avid, which i find so archaic, but we hired the editor based on their talent, not the tools they prefer. Of course i'm working on him... I have had so many interop issues with Avid and their ecosystem, but they are unique to our pipeline..

cheers
paul
 
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