why FCPX can not be professional.

I've tried xtitle, results are the same. The consumption of xtitle's template is higher than basic title, at least the same as basic title.

tpayton wrote: I have 32gb on the iMac. The macpro had 12gb. I suspected the same thing and the macpro was only using 1gb for fcp. My iMac isn't even using a gig. (I was using the XML file you sent me on both of these).

Why don't you download Andreas's xtitle, install it and then use his textup titles that he designed for captions. Then run your test again, see if they results are any different.

www.spherico.com/filmtools/TitleExchange/XTI/index.html

hi Andreas, your product is very nice for FCPX, and how you guys make subtitle?
we have a software to make the subtitle use "blank" button while playing the timeline of FCPX/FCP/Avid. Are you the same?
Of course, the software has the function to export xml for FCPX etc, even for Flame2015. But as a matter of fact, both FCPX and Flame2015 has very very slow response when you have maybe about 500 subtitles.....
I mean we touch a button, then wait for about 5seconds or 10s or 5min.
Now, I know the solution for FCPX is to insert black or make compound clip for subtitles. But even if these solutions, the FCPX isn't that smooth as FCP7 when
there's about 500 subtitles. I can smoothly press 4 times "t" botton, then move the 1hour clips with 1000 subtitles to anywhere I want.

What we want , is to build a 4K system for broadcasting, so we need subtitles, we need smooth controlling, for TV production is speedy, and realtime is very important.
Now we have some Flames and FCPXs, autodesk promise us Flame can cut 4K 50p sony F55 raw realtime@4K resolutin SDI out, just like cut 1080i TV clips. That saves our disk space for we don't have to debayerng these 4K clips to dpx.
But apple gives us nothing, and I see some immature of FCPX.
Now we want to build another system, of coure I like FCPX for I've been a FCP user,
so I can wait its improvement, but our company may not wait, and I really don't know whether I should go on with it.

Andreas Kiel wrote: Again my 2 cents.

I don't see any advantages for subtitles in Avid with SubCaps. I had/have some huge companies using Avid for editing and FCP legacy for subtitles cause its more flexible.
There are several award winning movies subtitled in FCP even though the edit was done in Avid.

I had been one of the "big haters" of FCPX on first release cause the missing XML and the bad subtitle support and some more things.
Now with 10.1 I see the power coming back – though the workflow requires 3rd party apps.

I don't critize 'compative' products but have to note that the sugarFX subtitle is easy and makes it easy to import subtitles for a finished movie. But it makes it hard to modify timing or settings for a group of subtitles and also styles per line for subtitles automatically. Also projects "in work" are hard to handle same as grammar and spell corrections from outside.

You can do that in Avid somehow, but not with the elegance it can be done within current FCPX. So no styles per title line via import. Spell and grammar correction from outside will "flatten" your individual subtitles to one style.

Have you ever tried to export high quality rendered subtitles (1 frame long) to an EDL or an authoring app compatible file format from Avid. You can do somehow but you loose your subtile settings.

I could talk here for hours.
But the issues the OP mentioned seem to be a kind of workflow issue or setup issue.

As said, I know what I'm talking about and I'm definetively not an Apple fan boy. But I see a lot of workflow opportunities with FCP X.

-Andreas

P.S. Last big project was 7500 subtitles distributed over several languages. Everthing worked fine - though sometimes pretty slow.

Hi ronny, we have plugin to import MXF into FCPX, but we don't have software to export it. Do you know any can do it? We've developed a transcode software to handle it, but we distribute the software on another machine. If we can export FCPX's timeline direct into Avid 120Mb/185Mb MXF file, that can save us a lot of time.

ronny courtens wrote: for now if i make film on Avid - i export from Avid to XDCAM disk (1080i 52 min of film writes to disk about 40 min)

My dear friend,

I agree with Tom this is a stupid conversation.

I have been in broadcast for over 37 years and I never have had to export to an XDCAM disk as a master delivery format, nor would I ever want to do so. Disks are used for capturing footage on older XDCAM cameras.

Exporting OP-1 MXF files is simple and straightforward in FCP X. But modern broadcasters prefer AS-11 deliveries these days, and for this you need a third-party plugin. If you cannot afford a professional MXF plugin you shouldn't be doing broadcast editing that requires MXF export.

And as to your subtitle issue: I don't see the problems you are having, and from what I have been reading nor does anyone else. So that makes me suspect the problem may be with you and not with FCP X

Kind regards,

Ronny

For importing and exporting MXF with FCP X we use the MXF ImEx suite from Hamburg Pro Media.

The plugin offers native MXF Support for Final Cut Pro X (no transcoding). It imports MXF OP1a and OP-Atom as well as AS-11 in XDCAM HD, AVC-Intra, Avid DNxHD, DVC-Pro HD, IMX-D10 and JPEG2000 formats. It exports as MXF OP1a in various XDCAM HD, DVC-Pro HD, IMX-D10 and AVC-Intra codecs. We don't go to any other software, we just export and deliver straight from the FCP X timeline.

For DPP broadcast delivery in the UK we use the AS-11 suite from the same manufacturer. Again no intermediate software needed, we export and deliver straight from within FCP X.

- Ronny

Silly question, why would one need to export an MXF file?

Darren Roark wrote: Silly question, why would one need to export an MXF file?

Everyone has different situation and demands.
We need mxf op1a 120 or 185 file with afd information burned in every frame,
that is not silly, just what we need you can not imagin.

I labeled it as silly for a reason, as it's my ignorance of the newer file based delivery standards.

I mostly deliver indie features, which most distributors still require an HDCAM tape as well as a prores master with all the split tracks along with a closed captioning file for broadcast. Is MXF delivery now a SMPTE standard?

Our company does not use tape recorder any more, we use xdcam, p2..etc, all file based, and in tape field only maintain SR recorder for it's high quality and it can read dvw&hdcam&SR.
So we've developed our own file based broadcasting years before. Now every seconds Tv program of over 20 channels are using file for broadcasting. Our file is not simply Avid's Mxf, but our own Mxf,
cause years ago, apple do not open their prores mov to us, so we use other's codec and warp method.

MXF is a wrapper, just like MOV or AVI. Avid does not have it's "own" MXF and neither does anyone else. The MXF wrapper can contain any given format such as IMX, DVCPRO HD, XDCAM or AVC Intra in various sizes and bitrates. So it's just a container and nothing more.

ProRes in a MOV wrapper is far more popular as a file-based delivery format these days. But some broadcasters, especially the older ones, still ask for MXF wrapped files. Tape based delivery still exists, but it's really on its way out in modern production workflows.

- Ronny

Ronny is correct. It only needs to analyze the wrapper structure.
As an example: in old days of P2 when only DV25 and DV50 were supported it was easy to work with them natively just by changing the extension from .mxf to .dv.
Wrappers have become more complicated and sometimes rely on other data externally, but it is still the same principle for all.

-Andreas

Why mxf OP1a format?
The Department in which I work, working with the regions of my country and other countries.

There is a need to standardize HD material that is sent from regions.
A lot of people working on different editing systems under windows (edius, premiere, avid, - Vegas).
MXF OP1a is the only option for HD material to avoid transcoding.

Besides, the BBC and Discovery send material MXF OP1a via FTP or on HDD.

About the tape.
All move on tapeless technology, but it will last at least another 5 years.
The material is archived at present HDCAM or XDCAM.
I personally do not like the quality of XDCAM, it is comparable to ProRes light or even with proxy.

ronny courtens wrote: For importing and exporting MXF with FCP X we use the MXF ImEx suite from Hamburg Pro Media.

That's over $1000 just to be able to do something that FCPX really should already be doing on it's own. I AM stupid enough to buy a Mac Pro but I'm not stupid enough to pay that much just to import MXF.

You only need this plugin if you need to deliver files wrapped in MXF OP-1 on a regular basis to specific broadcasters who still require this format. Professional plugins like this make it easy to incorporate the correct metadata in the delivered files. If you are not in this position (98% of all editors isn't) you don't need such a plugin. If you are in this position the plugin pays itself back with the first couple of deliveries you make.

If you just need to import MXF: all camera manufacturers provide free utilities for importing or rewrapping their MXF wrapped footage into any NLE. And if you don't have the original card structure there are dozens of cheap converters that will convert MXF files to any format.

- Ronny

I always find it astonishing that people always look at the price of a plugin or add-on software and also comparing it to the price of their NLE. They often enough don't look at their time spent (and hourly rates) to finish a job. Often enough there is a fixed budget and it is a just a matter of simple math to find out the break even point.

I see this every day. Some people are telling me that my title tools are way to expensive compared to the price of FCP(x) or other NLEs, other people say it pays back with one production. So who is right?
I wrote the P2 Flow app for Hamburg Pro Audio. Some people said whooo 1000 EUR(USD) is still very pricy for the complete bundle (discounted). Others after testing and comparing their workflows with and without the suite some ordered up to 20.

As Ronny said all of the NLEs are made for the "average" user in their business. None of them covers all. In any or at least many cases you need some third party stuff. And as I mentioned above, it is up to the user to make the math whether the additional money spent is good or wasted.

-Andreas

Well only you know if it was a good price to set or not by how many you've sold. One wonders if you would have sold more and made more if it were at a lower price. It's all give and take I guess.

The only MXF rewrapper/converter that I know of is Pavtube and it's OK. Not sure why FCPX only sees the first 30 seconds of an MXF that doesn't contain the original card structure. Doesn't seem to bother Premiere Pro. Apple needs to fix that.

Redifer wrote: Well only you know if it was a good price to set or not by how many you've sold. One wonders if you would have sold more and made more if it were at a lower price. It's all give and take I guess...

Yes that's true.

Regarding the MXF suite from Hamburg Pro Media the price was not my decision. My tool was only a small part of the bundle. That time I developed the tool Panasonic Japan was beta testing and comparing the tool to their own free one and suggested a price of 199 EUR. As said in this case I didn't had any influence regarding pricing.

With my own little apps I can make decisions comparing estimates sales and the time it takes to develop and support the product.
And that's always hard to do for a niche market.

If you look a my X-Title apps – they are only 20 Euro compared to the sugarFX tool with 99 USD. And while my apps are more powerful than the only competing product several people still complain that 20 Euro are way too much money, even though they can use the apps an unlimited time for free with the limitation that they only can convert 50 titles at a time.
On the other hand there are people who think 20 Euro is just a joke. This morning I got a request from one of the worldwide leading companies in the entertainment industry whether they can get a slight discount if they donate for dozens of the apps – in case not it wouldn't matter, they will make a volume buy anyway.

So as I said in the other post, its always a matter of how much something is worth from the point of the user.
Even 18000 Euro can payback in a month.

What Apple tries to do is not to pack everything and anything into one package but trying to give open "hooks" to third parties. This way every user can build his own "economical" and "effective working" system.

I agree that there still some missing basics but these are (IMHO) peanuts.

-Andreas

Andreas Kiel wrote: If you look a my X-Title apps – they are only 20 Euro

Regarding add-on costs - Speaking of professional, I bill out at $2 a minute (which is a bit low in my market) therefore I need to only have X-Title save maybe 12 minutes for it to make sense. In my book if you are working professionally, software costs of <$100 are are pretty much incidental.

Regarding MXF - I would venture that the only reason Apple does not have better native support is that they see only a small minority needing the feature. (if you recall in 10.0.6 they added MXF support via third party plug-ins) It would stand to reason that if more folks requested it in feedback they would strongly consider a native implementation.

It's really not a question if FCP X is professional.
It's more accurate to ask the question can I make money with FCP X.
By definition a professional is someone who makes money at their craft.
I find that the increased render speed and nimble workflow a serious argument to move to FCP X.
Is it LEGO editing maybe... but can I work faster DEFINITELY!

Think Different.

Topher5 wrote: Is it LEGO editing maybe...

Good points. So what is Lego editing?

With a a new update to FCP X coming down the pipe soon.
I can only see FCP X becoming more and more a purveyor to social media and VOD delivery systems.
FCP 7 is DEAD... get over it. When I say its dead, I mean.
It's no longer in development.

Some who are resistant to change may hold out with futile arguments "If I copy 1200 clips over and over in the timeline and add gaussian blur to all of them FCP X crashes.

What do you prove, really?
Other than you will go beyond common sense to try and prove something.