What Did We Learn?

screendor wrote:
As a small production company, my real concern is being able to source freelance X editors when we are busy. They are few in number at this point.

As I mentioned, I like X. A lot. But I am still unsure of which way to go and am hoping I have made the right decision.

That´s the point. At the moment those houses with X find few freelancers and the freelancers who know X find few productions that look for their service. X might sell, but in the professional market it has no standing whatsoever. Everyone I tell we switched to X says: "YOU are the first one who likes it! I thought this and that does´t work...."...Then I have to explain over and over that the initial reports where simply wrong.......Apple has a long way to go to fix this lame rollout from last year.

BenB wrote: And all of this time, money, and effort because he didn't want to deal with FCP X, which goes to Resolve easier.

magazine.creativecow.net/article/a-cauti...for-the-fcp-switcher

Yes Walter Biscardi cool guy I have met him a couple times.
But the article fits my statement like fist on a eye. He moved away from Final Cut Pro 7 and it looks like he is staying with Adobe. Why not?

This one thing I never understood why look for a service in which tools they use?? I offer my services as editor or as consultant, I don't even mention what I use unless asked for. I am also a bit flexible with the tools. My motto is ProRes workflow even if you material is not ProRes it will be when hits my desk.

Walter was a bit of a pioneer back in the day. I remember I gave him my beta drivers for the CineWave because he was desperate. I was happy to oblige because we were out there on the bleeding edge with FCP 2.0

Now he seems to me VERY conservative and overly hostile towards change. Sure he has a business to protect. But I can't help but feel that Adobe the right way to go. They haven't innovated since the early nineties and it really shows.

At least they offer their rentals now so you don't have to mortgage your house to find out their software is over complicated, bloated, ugly, unintuitive and out of touch.

Still it's going to take some amazing press from Apple to get production houses to sit up and take notice as they've pretty much written FCP X off.

Here's probably the best article on FCPX user data, posted by Philip Hodgets after his chat with the FCPX team at NAB.

www.philiphodgetts.com/2012/04/some-fina...t-pro-x-data-points/

installationspace wrote: A college freshman this coming fall will most likely be born after 1993. Pretty soon college freshman in the U.S. will not be able to understand what a film camera is because the industry has shifted completely to digital. Film distribution is already digital. Film is dead. It will only take another decade or so before it is completely obsolete and filmmakers still using it will be considered dinosaurs. Colleges and industry pros still embrace old workflows because its what they know, there is security in that.

I'd just like to bring up an point many people forget on this front. As "obsolete" as film seems these days, I should be noted that it is still the BEST format for both long-term usage and storage. As great as the image is that you can get out of a DSLR, or even a RED camera- those formats are RESOLUTION LOCKED.

If you're working in projects with a relatively short shelf-life, like corporate or commercial videos, or lifestyle TV programming, this probably isn't much of an issue, and you can be happy with a 1080 master. But if you're working in broadcast drama/comedy, or especially features, Shooting on a Cannon DSLR, BlackMagic Cinema Camera, or even RED or Alexia is ultimately limiting how long your material can stay "relevant" in the high resolution world. Anyone who wants their TV show or movie to have a life 10, or even 50 years down the road should realize that the trade-off to the convenience and cost of digital acquisition is long term obsolescence.

While 100 years of film, on the other hand, will continue to reap the benefits of higher resolution home distribution for years to come. The most recent restoration effort for the 1939 WIZARD OF OZ was a 8K digital scan (7680x4320), so it's longevity is assured for at least another 10-15 years, and by then, they'll probably have even better ways to eek more detail out of those 35mm images.

I don't bemoan the advent of digital cinema. It is making professional level filmmaking available to a wider body of talented people. But let's just be clear that it's not a wholesale improvement by any measure. There's a cost for every benefit. So let's not TOO gleefully chuck out "old" thinking.

Actually celluloid film has a much shorter shelf life than digital. Old films have to be "restored" due to the degradation of the media. And every generation of restoration changes color and quality to some degree.

Digital media only becomes obsolete if it is neglected. I have old videos I did in old, outdated codecs, that were on floppy disks. They still look exactly the same as the day I shot and edited it. You simply move it to newer media, and update to newer codecs.

No digital image or video has ever become obsolete due to technology evolution. I have digital photos from almost 2 decades ago that are still just fine. I've updated them to PNG, so they're as new a format as they ever were. My old Aurora (15 years or more old?) had a proprietary version of some JPEG-A video codec I used in FCP 1. I still have that, and it's in ProRes LT right now.

So how exactly do digital videos die? They don't. It's easy as pie to transcode them to more modern codecs with next to no loss. My 15 year old videos shot on VHS are in ProRes and the color is the same, quality is the same.

But with celluloid film, "restoration" has to be done when the physical media degrades, taking color and fidelity down with it.

So the truth is that film will die, unless digitized, will have to be restored to more film, which in the next 20 years won't exist at all. Digital has a potentially infinite shelf life.

"...1939 WIZARD OF OZ was a 8K digital scan (7680x4320)" proves even celluloid film has to go digital at some point to survive.

As for resolution, digital is at 8k, and will continue to improve. Celluloid movie will has hit a dead end in resolution and longevity. Like digital photography, high end studios have cameras that are greater than film resolution. So will video have greater than celluloid film resolutions.

Same argument was made for analog tape and vinyl for music. We've so surpassed the resolution of those formats with digital, it's not funny. And we can replicate the audio qualities of those formats very easily if you want that vintage sound. Old audio recordings on tape have to be digitized and cleaned up, due to the tapes degrading physically over time. Digital won't. Recording studios are all digital, and everyone benefits.

Good bye film with its unstable and short physical shelf life. It is in fact the WORST media for long term archiving.

Absolutely old films have to be restored. For the better part of 70 years, the maintenance of a studio's film library was a fairly low priority- material was lost or neglected. Only in the last 10-15, since the advent of DVD, has the restoration and maintenance of a studios filmic assets become important, as they see the long-term revenue benefits of that library. Film as a storage medium as succeeded IN SPITE of neglect.

As you say, digital files take maintenance too, if you don't keep reconverting them every couple of years, then the ability to even access them becomes a huge challenge. And when a drive fails, the results are far more catastrophic than keeping film in non-optimum conditions.

But by obsolesce, I'm primarily talking about resolution. Those VHS videos of yours, in all their 480i glory- that's all they'll ever be. Whereas a home video from the 50s to 70s, shot on 8mm, Super8mm, or even 16mm film, can be rescanned with an even greater level of detail as technology progresses. And your 20 year old digital photographs(what- probably 2 megapixel), how do you think they stack up against a 35mm negative from the same period?

Your files will still exist, but what's their USEFUL lifespan.

My point is that CASABLANCA will still look great in 15 years at 8K when, when SOCIAL NETWORK will forever be stuck at their 4K master workflow.

There will be a point a while down the road, where digital cameras are shooting at an operative resolution that supersedes film, but we're not there yet.

The 8mm film I shot as a kid has a fixed resolution. Film has a fixed resolution.

",,,if you don't keep reconverting them every couple of years," That's an unfair exaggeration. More like every few decades, and a process any high school kid can do in an hour or so for very little money. Film is very expensive and time consuming to maintain.

Casablanca will look great at 8k. When we evolved to 16k, it won't gain anything, as those digital videos will be higher resolution than the film. Film does in fact have a set resolution.

And the 4K and 8K films I've see look pretty damned good to me.

Film was great, but will be surpassed and become "low resolution" eventually.

My 8mm films I've had digitized from when I was a kid, my DVX100 shot better quality.

Now, the reality is that film was never famous for its sharpness of detail. It's the analog limitation of fuzziness that allows it to be shown on larger screens. And it had a problem with gate shift, something digital doesn't have to deal with.

If you have a theatrical release, maybe there's something in celluloid film you'd like. But the overwhelming majority of our industry has no use for it at all, we're not going to big screens. Not to mention movie theater screens have been shrinking in size, not growing.

Film has a fixed resolution (depending on frame size), but in the case of professional formats, 16 and 35mm- it's still superseding current presentation formats.

I'm not saying it won't happen, Ben. Absolutely it will. In 5-10 years the point will probably be moot. Heck, it's already happened in still photography. But in the here and now, to shoot on film is the best protection against having your image be outmoded in the long term. Let's see where movies like TINY FURNITURE or ACT OF VALOR are at in 10 years, with their 1080 digital negatives. I'll tell you, the same place that 90s TV programming posted (or worse, shot) at 480i is; locked out of HD syndication because they have no way forward. While GILLIGAN'S ISLAND from the 1960s can continue to be upgraded and rebroadcast and generate revenue for decades to come.

You're comparing 8mm against a 2004 progressive camera? Come on... now THAT's an unfair exaggeration.

We put too much faith in the reproducibility of the digital format. Film can be preserved in the right conditions almost indefinitely, while if you leave digital files sit on an unused hard drive, that HD will eventually break from disuse. HDs need to spin up every once in awhile to remain functional.

Other possible problems arise from digital too. One famous example is Toy Story 2. When Pixar needed to source the original project files to release the film on DVD, a ton of footage was almost lost because someone hit the delete key and started erasing the drive accidentally. Luckily, a producer had taken home a backup home at the end of the original production or else we would never have an accurate source for the movie.

Source: LA Weekly

Now with solid state, we enter a whole new world of unexpected problems regarding long term storage of digital assets. With continued reliance on ever-changing tech, this will remain a problem that largely goes untested b/c of the time it takes to reproduce such long term storage problems.

"Film can be preserved in the right conditions almost indefinitely" with a lot of work and a lot of money.

Digital can also be preserved in the right conditions almost indefinitely.

Actually Toy Story was almost lost due to an accident by someone who shouldn't have been dicking around on their Linux systems, not just idle drives.

I mentioned 8mm film since someone else used it as an example.

Film takes more time and money to preserve than digital, simple fact.

Film may take more time and money to preserve but the fact remains that it can be indefinitely preserved in the right conditions. Basically, you just leave the reel on a shelf with the correct temp/humidity.

Digital will always be increasingly more complicated to preserve as different storage formats arise. Every few years, production houses have to switch over to new servers or HD formats. In this very task is where the risk arises. Duplication itself can result in a bricked file structure, mostly due to human error.

And then theres file formats. When old file formats become obsolete, how are you supposed to work with them? Imagine 15 years down the line, every film edited with legacy FCP probably won't be able to be opened with the contemporary hardware and software. What are we supposed to do in 2025 when we need to restore "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" to release it on the latest format for distribution, go out and buy a used 2010 Mac Pro that probably barely works to open the file?

And the film just sits on the shelf...

Interesting article on the death of film and the complications that arise from preserving digital.

www.laweekly.com/flipbook/april-2012-1647620/

I explained already, a newer better file format for achiving comes along, you transcode it, done! Very cheap, very quick, a high school kid could do it.

A reel of film in perfect environment still degrades with time. It is not bullet proof, nor is it infinite.

In 2025 digital files that folks want to hang on to WILL be in formats easily readable for that year with next to no cost or time spent. It's so simple a dead monkey could do it.

A can of film on a shelf will degrade and need to be re-copied, just like digital. And at least as often. But hey, shoot your stuff on film, cut negatives, and stick with that as long as you are able. If it works for you, fine, nothing wrong with that.

But to say digital files will not last is just nonsense and defies logic, seriously.

Sorry, Ben. There's 100 years worth of history behind film's solidity and ability to be recaptured for new formats and resolutions.

The fact that restorations like WIZARD OF OZ are going to back to the 80 year old original camera negative (not a duplicate or print) tells me that film, when cared for properly, has a lot more staying power than you're giving it credit for.

No archival process can survive abuse and mismanagement unmolested, but film seems to withstand it better.

Again, I'm not being dismissive of digital acquisition. It's superseded film in a number of ways already (workflow, latitude, price) but there's no denying that TODAY, film still has the upper hand in raw resolution which will make movies shot on film possible to migrate to next-generation resolutions the way that comparable digital files cannot.

BenB wrote:
Film takes more time and money to preserve than digital, simple fact.

This is not true, my neighbor works for the city archives so I know this for a fact.
They have film packed away in environmental sealed packed where digital you need power and on top of that digital storage changes every 10 to 5 years... $$$

Film has theoretical infinite resolution, but everything comes down to what differences
the eye can differentiate. It is said that a frame containing 25,000,000 pixels and up is
virtually identical to film.

The highest single frame resolution of today's high definition cameras is 12,065,000 pixels.

Scrubelicious wrote: his is not true, my neighbor works for the city archives so I know this for a fact.
They have film packed away in environmental sealed packed where digital you need power and on top of that digital storage changes every 10 to 5 years... $$$

Digital storage does not change every 5-10 years. I'm using the same SATA drives I was using 8 years ago.

I've consulted for Library Of Congress. That film storage costs money. There's 24/7 power to keep the environmental controls running. Media archiving is not setting a drive on a shelf, but storing it in active RAIDs that are also part of active production in most facilities. That film in sealed packs still can't stop the organic materials in film from degrading due to age. That happens no matter what.


There's 100 years of old film needing a lot of work to be restored. I work with folks who do it.

Yes, there are advantages to film. But original negatives or prints do not last 100 years at all.

And digital archiving do not have the issues being brought up here. Those are non-issues. Digital storage media may evolve, but you can still fire up IDE drives and floppy disks. You can easily upgrade the codec and storage media not to keep you old digital files in tact, but because your archiving software and systems will be upgrading along with all of your other production equipment over time.

Digital is dirt cheap and stupid easy to keep. Simple fact.

Yes, film has lots of advantages, but a single piece of celluloid film does not last 100 years.

That's all I'm saying, is get the facts straight, and dump the myths. I consult for folks doing both all the time.

OK, moving on, since none of this has to do with the original posted subject.

Ben, just do some research on the OZ restoration. They are using the 80 year old neg. They brought it out, scanned it, and then put it back in the vault. In 20 years they're still going to be using that neg for any new restoration efforts, because technology will have improved and I'm sure they'll be able to eek even more detail out of the image. As a 3 strip technicolor film, it's somewhat of a special case (with 3 black and white negatives), but film can last.

But preservation was always the side point. My main point about film was resolution lock-in.

I'm working on an animated christmas special currently, and even though it's going to be meant for broadcast next year, I'll be producing it at 4K, with all the backgrounds oversized (maybe not 8K, but perhaps 6) and all the characters as vector art so they could be scaled up later if remastering ever became an issue.

But, yes, let's set this issue aside.

EDITED TO ADD A LINK TO THIS GREAT ARTICLE:

magazine.creativecow.net/article/the-lib...imate-archive-system

In reply to the original post, the FCPX Project Manager at LAFCPUG that the next version of Xto7 will include a feature that allows you to export XML just for audio.

That's it. That's all he said. There were no mentions of any specific app, but it could be implied this method would eliminate any workarounds for getting XML out of FCPX and into ProTools.

Yeah, there was come confusion about whether it was 7toX or Xto7. Since it's Xto7 that exports FCPXML, it would seem the natural choice. If the product works for ProTools and Logic and stays the same price, it will certainly be a hit to X2Pro.

Honestly, I think there's a lot of exciting things coming from Intelligent Assistance, which Philip Hodgets hints at on his blog.

While there's certainly some merit to the complains about a 3rd party providing a solution for essential workflow like OMF export and legacy FCP7 project migration. No one should be complaining about how quickly an application like 7toX has evolved- 10 updates since February, many of them built to solve specific user project issues. If legacy import was built into FCPX, we'd only be getting an update every 3 months.