FCPX 10.0.9 PRE-RELEASE DISCUSSION

I still need them to greatly improve the audio mixing capabilities (including meters) before I can move 'everything' over from Premiere Pro to FCPX.

It's a shame. The one thing we *really* miss in Premiere Pro is FCPX's colour board!

Yes Premiere could really do with much better color correction, just like it definitely needs much better multicam and keying and media management. But seeing how it only has received minor improvements even in the much touted CC version I think this will take some time. In the meantime we all expect FCPX will get another major revision soon, and you probably will be able to switch happily by the end of this year.

Resolve 10 is going to change everything for all NLEs.

BenB wrote: Resolve 10 is going to change everything for all NLEs.

It may we do for you.... but not for us. We really need to do audio and colour all in the same app. We often need to go back and make changes and don't have the time (or client's budget) to keep round tripping to external apps for audio and/or colour.

While Resolve is great when you have picture lock, we're often making decisions up to the last moment and so need to have everything ready to go in one self contained project.

There's very little we can't do (for what 'we' need) in the FCP colour board, so why go to Resolve?

Where we do need some help is in the audio section. Right now, FCP X is not up to the job for all project types, yet Premiere Pro can quite easily handle them.

If I could take the audio (mixer, meters, effects) from Premiere Pro and put them in FCPX --OR-- take the colour board and put it in Premiere Pro I'd be quite happy.

While the multicam is better in FCPX than PP, it's not a show stopper. For us, the audio in FCPX often is.

[Edit] Oh, and project sharing with multiple editors working on the same footage is still a major PITA with FCPX too

Resolve 10 is going to change everything for all NLEs.

If you mean the basic editing features that have been added in Resolve 10 are going to make things easier when you do your final grading in Resolve, I agree to a certain extent.

We are already doing that with our FCPX/Smoke2013 integrated workflow: edit in X and finish in Smoke straight from the FCPX timeline. Smoke imports FCPX projects flawlessly, including multicam projects, retimed clips and primary CC. Even if we have to do some last minute editorial changes in the finishing stage (should not happen, but in I agree with Dave in the real world it happens all the time even when your edit has been locked) we never have to go back to the NLE as Smoke offers very decent editing and mixing tools both for video and for audio. But for editing from scratch Smoke 2013 is not a valid option yet, and from what I am seeing here neither is Resolve 10.

project sharing with multiple editors working on the same footage is still a major PITA with FCPX

I don't know where you got that information but many of us are doing this without any issues. We use FCPX over SAN with 6 bays in Brussels and collaborative editing works very decently. Not as powerful (nor expensive) as an Avid Interplay, but at least as well as we did with classic FCP. I will happily assist you if you have any specific issues with collaborative editing and FCPX at your facility.

cseeman wrote: I think it's possible that Snow Leopard support will end because of the move from Quicktime to AVFoundation/CoreMedia. It depends what they do with the code base that was used to allow FCPX to run on an OS that didn't have AVFoundation natively.

I think parts of AV Foundation from Lion were included with Final Cut Pro so that it can run in Snow Leopard.

In practice that means that Snow Leopard will be dropped if there are new features that require libraries that aren't in 10.6.X and that cannot be packaged to work in the old system.

@Alex4D

ronny courtens wrote: I don't know where you got that information but many of us are doing this without any issues. We use FCPX over SAN with 6 bays in Brussels and collaborative editing works very decently. Not as powerful (nor expensive) as an Avid Interplay, but at least as well as we did with classic FCP. I will happily assist you if you have any specific issues with collaborative editing and FCPX at your facility.

We don't need an expensive SAN for Premiere Pro, and would prefer not to need one for FCPX. Not all editors are located in the same facility either.

The promise ofAdobe Anywhere was a nice dream but was never going to work for the majority of people in the real world (requires too much expensive equipment).

Maybe Apple can pull off something similar using the new mac pro as the server

We don't need an expensive SAN for Premiere Pro, and would prefer not to need one for FCPX.

Well you don't really need a SAN for FCPX, but IMO it's what is working best at this moment. As we already used SAN collaboration with classic FCP this was not a big deal for us. I agree that if you need to invest in a new SAN or in something like Anywhere this may be out of the question. If you do a search on the net you will find some very good examples of people sharing FCPX projects without the use of a SAN.

Maybe Apple can pull off something similar using the new mac pro as the server

Now that would be a great idea
Although the new MP would be very much overkill to be used simply as a server. Still a good idea.

ronny courtens wrote: Well you don't really need a SAN for FCPX, but IMO it's what is working best at this moment. As we already used SAN collaboration with classic FCP this was not a big deal for us. I agree that if you need to invest in a new SAN or in something like Anywhere this may be out of the question. If you do a search on the net you will find some very good examples of people sharing FCPX projects without the use of a SAN.

We've also shared projects without a SAN, but the workflow is not good. If two different editors add new media to the same event it all gets messy trying to merge them etc. It happens. It shouldn't, but it does. Using additional events for the added media only becomes more unwieldy as you have to now track and merge multiple events. /having lots of different 'projects' is also a PITA too (IMO). Call me old fashioned, but I really liked the single project file as a way of keeping everything in one place Easy to know if you have everything (or not) and also much easier for tracking backups, archiving and any subsequent restores.

Yes, the current FCPX can be made to work, but they didn't make it simple.

While there are great advances made in the 'video editing' side of things, they really did leave the audio, project management and archiving in a poor state.

I understand your points and I do agree with most of them. One thing that has me kept onto FCPX is the pace at which it has been progressing. Not only adding back features and workflows, but also making them better than anything we had before. Seeing the feedback I and others are getting whenever you submit a bug or feature request I think Apple is pretty well aware of what the FCPX user base would like to see improved. The next major upgrade should confirm this.

BenB wrote: Resolve 10 is going to change everything for all NLEs.

How so specifically?

Resolve is trying to make it VERY easy to get everyone's work in and out, and in FCPX's case, I seem to remember them saying that you might even be able to track online edits back to your Project Sequence.

Still, many people said the same thing about Smoke- and while it (like Resolve) is a powerful program, it's just not going to be in everyone's wheelhouse to roundtrip out to another application- either because they don't need the power that Resolve provides, OR because their budgets/schedules don't allow for it.

BenB wrote: Resolve 10 is going to change everything for all NLEs.

Yup in the color-grading-correction workflow... I know there cameras won't. :evil:

Personally I'd like to see FCPX handle Cinema DNG import and, ideally, stay native. Perhaps Blackmagic will develop a plugin that one might be encouraged to use on the new MacPro.

For Resolve's edit functions to really be valuable to me, I'd want the changes to be reflected in FCPX. There's nothing like opening a project two years later and discovering the timeline doesn't match the master.

While I don't expect FCPX's internal grading features to match Resolve, I do hope the next FCPX update or, at least, the MacPro update, to offer some major improvements for grading.

Really needed are multiple scopes for the dual viewer, the ability to load and match two shots from the timeline easily. key framing, tracking (yes I know about SliceX/Mocha).

An important seemingly invisible feature I'd like to see soon: A big update to the XML format.

Imagine how much more third parties would be able to do if the XML format included effect, generator and transition parameter and keyframe information.

An example would be the ability for third-party apps to add titles using different fonts, colours and alignments to an exported project.

@Alex4D

alex4D wrote: An example would be the ability for third-party apps to add titles using different fonts, colours and alignments to an exported project.

Have you seen Andreas Kiel's XTI (part of Title Exchange Pro)? It uses a Motion 5 project file to apply font face and color to subtitles when importing them to FCPx. You were talking about something like that?

alex wrote

An important seemingly invisible feature I'd like to see soon: A big update to the XML format.

Imagine how much more third parties would be able to do if the XML format included effect, generator and transition parameter and keyframe information.

An example would be the ability for third-party apps to add titles using different fonts, colours and alignments to an exported project.

can't agree more !!!!!!!

@canelson
what i do is the best what currently can be done with xml the options are veeeeery limited. in so far hopefully alex's and my dream become reality.

-andreas

I spent a lot of time at NAB Show 2013 speaking with someone on the inside track, and working with a BMD rep with the new features of DaVinci Resolve 10. It is going to be super cleaned up, super easy, give tons more power to small production houses (DCP to start with), and DMG is very dedicated to what they're working on. It will ingest and output any major NLE format. So I can take in projects from an FCP X, a PPro, and a MC editor. The PPro editor moves to a different production, I can still send his work back to the FCP X or MC editor, fully in tact. Did I mention the plugin support that will be really amazing? It will function as the hub of a multi-format editing environment, period. But the many other new features, not to mention being free, will change everything. Except for those who refuse to learn the app. I admit BMD was promising us thre in person at NAB Show 2013 basically, the moon, but I am also convinced based on those demos and my personal in depth conversations, they will come through.

I'd also never compare Resolve to Smoke. The two developers have very different goals.

As for Cinema RAW native file support, I see absolutely no reason why we would not see it in FCP X.

I also have complete faith we will see a very nice 10.0.9 update before the new MP upgrade version.

Yeah, considering how well BMD has made the FCPX/Resolve workflow, I was surprised not to see CinemaRAW at NAB- but perhaps we'll see that in 10.0.9; timed to the July release of both the Pocket and 4K cameras.

I like your optimism about a feature update followed quickly by an upgrade. We haven't had two feature releases back to back, so it breaks the pattern so far- but that can happen.

I've been desperately trying to carve time out in the last year to dive into Resolve. Ben (or anyone for that matter), for your money, what's the best online training? Ripple? Tao of Color? Color Grading Central?

This Tuesday will be 96 days since 10.0.8. That makes it already the 3rd longest interval since FCPX launched.

10.0.8 was 112 Days.

10.0.6 was 134 Days.

If Apple waits until the launch of the MacPro for the next update/upgrade. It will probably be Sept/October. That would make it about 180+ days since 10.0.8 was released in March.

I'd find it remarkable if we had to wait that long.

Wouldn't surprise me. They announced they are working on a new version to come out with the new MacPro so I assume it's all hands on deck to get there.

Why waste resources on the current version which is stable enough?
I think at best we'll just get more bug fixes but no new features until Oct.