We have mentioned Worx4 X on here before, but this example should give you an indication of why this app for Final Cut Pro X (now priced at $44.99) can pay for itself with a click
Hard disk space is cheap right?
Wrong.
If you work in the broadcast sector, you will know that an average production can end up with terabytes and terabytes of footage. That’s per production, per year.
We are not talking about building a half hour documentary from camera originals as you would have probably made FCPX camera archives as you ingested. We are talking about building a series made from studio recordings, live feeds and archive clips.
My main area of work is sports, but this could equally apply to game & panel shows, LE and news for example.
I’ve just finished a long summer of daily sports shows which gave me a good opportunity to thoroughly test out Worx4 X, the FCPX media managing app from Marquis Broadcast.
I had used the app before on corporate videos, but this extended run meant I was using it everyday, boiling away the unused media in hour long shows.
Why not use the Library media consolidation in Final Cut Pro X? By using that method, although you will end up with all the media in a show, you will end up with the entire media of each clip.
It simply isn’t economically viable to save every second of unused media in the show
The hour-long show that needs to be media managed down from over 3TB
If you were making an intro to a sports event that showed three seconds of the past 10 winners, consolidation would take the whole clips of each winner. We were recording live feeds in 2 hour chunks which would add up to 20 hours of footage or 1.28 TB!
Running the finished programme FCPXML through Worx4 X trims the unused media with the option of adding handles.
So that intro gets boiled down to 10 clips, each seven seconds long including 2 second handles giving you 70 seconds of media in total or about 1.1GB at ProRes 422.
Impressive stats, but not as impressive as a real life example.
In the example below you can see the project is expected to be reduced down from 3181 GB to 86.6 GB. That's a saving of over 3 terabytes!
On loading the FCPXML, Work4 X calculates the disk space savings.
A close-up of those stats
That’s a pretty big saving - just for a one hour show.
One of the first questions I get asked about Work4 X is ‘How long does it take.’ This is pretty easy to answer although times will vary depending on the speed of your storage as Worx4 X has to read and write media to disk.
The hour long show above took in-between 5 to 10 minutes to finish ‘Worxing.’
As the app is a standalone product, you could continue to edit with FCPX as the media managing happens, but it will slow the process down.
I did find a wrinkle in the process. I tried copying the media managed files to another drive. Everything looked fine until I tried to import the processed FCPXML. Some files wouldn't link.
After a few emails with Marquis, they saw the problem (a slight hiccup in the way FCPX sees the new files) and sent me a script that fixes the issue. Pretty good customer service and I suggest contacting them if you get into the same scenario.
Marquis had priced the app at $99, but this week I had an email saying it had been reduced to $44.99. It was a great deal at the original price so at $44.99 it’s a real no-brainer if you use FCPX. It will pay for itself many times over with the disk space it saves.
Peter Wiggins is a broadcast freelance editor based in the UK although his work takes him around the world. An early adopter of FCP setting up pioneering broadcasts workflows, his weapon of choice is now Final Cut Pro X.
You can follow him on Twitter as @peterwiggins or as he runs the majority of this site, you can contact him here.
I am the Editor-in-Chief of FCP.co and have run the website since its inception ten years ago.
I have also worked as a broadcast and corporate editor for over 30 years, starting on one inch tape, working through many formats, right up to today's NLEs.
Under the name Idustrial Revolution, I have written and sold plugins for Final Cut Pro for 13 years.
I was made a Freeman of Lichfield through The Worshipful Company of Smiths (established 1601). Though I haven't yet tried to herd a flock of sheep through the city centre!
Current Editing
2020 has been busy, the beginning of the year was finishing off a new property series (cut on FCP) for Channel 4 called The Great House Giveaway. I also designed and built the majority of the graphics as Motion templates. It has been a great success and the shows grabbed more viewers in the 4pm weekday slot than any previous strand. It has been recommissioned by C4 for 60 episodes, including prime-time versions and five themed programmes. The shows have also been nominated for a 2021 BAFTA.
Although both were postponed to later in the year, I worked again on ITV's coverage of the Tour de France and La Vuelta. 2020 was my 25th year of editing the TdF and my 20th year as lead editor. The Tour was the first broadcast show to adopt FCPX working for multiple editors on shared storage.
BBC's Snooker has played a big part in my life, I've been editing tournament coverage since 1997. I'm proud to be part of a very creative team that has pioneered many new ideas and workflows that are now industry standard in sports' production. This is currently an Adobe Premiere edit.
Covid cancelled some of the regular corporate events that I edit such as trade shows & events. I was lucky however to edit, from home, on projects for Amazon Kindle, Amazon Black Friday, Mastercard and very proud to have helped local charitable trust Kendall & Wall secure lottery funding.
As for software, my weapon of choice is Final Cut Pro and Motion, but I also have a good knowledge and broadcast credits with Adobe Premiere Pro, MOGRT design and Photoshop.
Plugin Design & Development
I'm the creative force behind Idustrial Revolution, one of the oldest Final Cut Pro plugin developers. It hosts a range of commercial and free plugins on the site. One free plugin was downloaded over a thousand times within 24 hours of release.
I also take on custom work, whether it is adapting an existing plugin for a special use or designing new plugins for clients from scratch. Having a good knowledge of editing allows me to build-in flexibility and more importantly, usability.
FCP.co
Now in its 10th year and 4th redesign, running FCP.co has given me knowledge on how to run a large CMS- you are currently reading my bio from the database! Although it sounds corny, I am pretty well up on social media trends & techniques, especially in the video sector. The recent Covid restrictions has enabled live FCP.co shows online. This involves managing a Zoom Webinar through Restream.io to YouTube and Facebook.
The Future
I'm always open to new ideas and opportunities, so please get in touch at editor (at) fcp.co. I've judged film competitions, presented workflow techniques to international audiences and come up with ideas for TV shows and software programs!
