FCP X 10.1.4 RELEASED

My bad, I always assume that everyone who uses FCP X also has the latest Compressor installed

As Andreas said: if you have the latest version of Compressor all the MXF export settings will be available in the FCP X Destinations panel, also from earlier versions. This is a screenshot from 10.1.3:



- Ronny

BenB wrote: OK, new update out. But it is as lame as lame can be for the time we've waited. As a trainer, this will hurt us, and training centers who offer FCPX training. Motion and Logic training has all but died. But, they make all their training money off of IT training. So, I guess no one at Apple will care much. Major let down, IMHO. And those that know me, know I fight tooth and nail for FCPX. ugh... what a lame ass excuse for an update... MXF, that's all, really? Who cares? Audio mixer? BMD support? Collaboration on an network? Where are the "pro" features? I'm so disappointed...

Too many bugs and fixes, not enough moving forward. Sorry, but from a die hard FCPX supporter and trainer, that's what I'm seeing now.

sucks... ugh... so falling behind...

I think you've really got the wrong end of the stick here Ben. MXF support is a huge 'pro' feature in that it make Final Cut far more useful in broadcast. If you make you money from training you've just significantly increased the size of your potential client pool.

Seamus

Just for fun.

Screenshot from Compressor under 10.6.8

I think it is a great addition to FCPX. In fact the need for proper MXF export was the only reason I still used FCP7 once in a while. I bought the Calibrated plugin some years ago for that purpose.
Now I can import and export everything from within FCPX.
I think I will start to lose muscle memory for FCP7 from now on.
Super!

Robbert-Jan

@Andreas:

LOL!

@Seamus:

I couldn't agree more. I am in contact with a fairly big television production company that is switching from FCP7 to a completely new editing setup. The main reason why they were reluctant to choose FCP X was the fact that they needed workarounds or expensive plugins to produce their deliveries in MXF, which is the industry standard for broadcast delivery. This update has taken away their last concern

- Ronny

DSvoboda356 wrote: I have a suspicion that this update was geared towards high end facilities, and the last update for FCP on the mavericks platform. From personal experience the auto backup bug was plaguing our post facility for months and it would only occur if libraries were stored on an XSAN volume, local DAS was fine. I think that Apple wanted to fix that bug along with adding some pro functionality while not forcing high end facilities to upgrade to Yosemite. Again, from experience our place just fully upgraded to Mavericks two months ago.

DSvoboda356, I think you are pretty much spot on! Also, I agree 100% with Ronny's comment.

The more I think about the 10.1.4 update, the more sense it makes to me. This update rounds up pretty nicely what I would call "A year dedicated to Pros" in FCPX development. It started with the introduction of libraries in 10.1 (around December 19th, 2013, according to Marcus Moore's log), and it wraps up almost a year later with 10.1.4 (December 2nd, 2014).

The addition of MXF support is yet another feature that FCP Legacy never had (unless you purchased a third-party plugin) and now it's included in FCPX for all of us, at a much reduced prize! This can't be understimated, specially now that MXF is the new tapeless standard for delivery in the broadcast world.

Now, I don't consider the broadcast world as a niche market. I think these days the broadcast world means a wider spectrum than it used to be: many content creators are working remotely from their home suites and delivering programming in an MXF file. This wasn't easy for the freelance FCPX editor prior to this update. And now it's a reality.

ronny courtens wrote: Native MXF support was long overdue. That's why I am pretty excited about this evolution. Purchasing MXF4Mac and making it free just for the sake of their broadcast clients clearly shows Apple's commitment to FCP X in enterprise-level workflows. Seeing this I don't think anyone can pretend anymore that "Apple does not care about the pros" without sounding utterly ridiculous. I am pretty sure a more general feature update is also in the pipeline for the near future. One does not necessarily exclude the other.

- Ronny

DSvoboda356 wrote: I think we will see either a Yosemite specific update or even a paid update in the next few months.

Just my two cents.

I also think we are going to see great things from Apple in 2015. Now that the "pro" and "broadcast" workflows are pretty consistent, they can concentrate on polishing the editing tools and add the highly anticipated "feature requests". Who knows? Maybe we even get a significant update for the New Mac Pro (Thunderbolt 3, better AMD graphics, more power across the board) and a 5K Thunderbolt display too!

Let's keep a positive attitude, folks!

Certainly it's a great update for us in the broadcast world. But it's over a year now with any real significant feature releases.

They still haven't even given us back what was taken away back in 2011.

Dupe detection
Remove Attributes
Sync Indicators
Robust Matchframe
Timecode Overlays
Customisable User Interface
Consolidate Used Media with Handles
Timeline Layouts
Browser Layout

To name but a few.

I going to guess its all part of this extensibility thing and am hoping that we'll see something major in the new year.
But I agree with Ben. Apple really needs to pull it's finger out, and at the very least give us back what we lost with switching to FCP X.

Hi Sean,

Native MXF support is not a new feature related to 10.1.4, it is a Pro Media update that works with any version of FCP X.

10.1.4 is essentially a bug fix and performance enhancement update, which means a real feature update might be next. Wether or not the features you mention will be addressed in this update remains to be seen. I can name dozens of other features that are equally or more important for us, and other users will have different wishes.

- Ronny

I think that anything that is a .X.x build is just a maintenance update. I'm OK with that. What makes me crazy is when software is updated in such a way that you have to completely re-learn where everything is. And then the books, tutorials and lessons, most which you pay for for a good education, follow that creating a sub-economy for those that do that, and that's fine.

As an example, it seems as if every time Adobe comes out with some major update, things get moved around, shortcuts are different, program bloat, and so on. Software engineers are not artists and don't think like artists. I sometimes think that the team that works on say, Photoshop are divided up and don't talk to one another. Why does Illustrator still insist on using two selection cursors???? I know that there is a short cut for that, but geez.

And I really wish that things like control knobs in Garageband et al actually worked intuitively: using a mouse to turn a knob turns it the RIGHT way.

I digress.

I hope when Apple in their development of X and MAJOR updates progress, that it is done in such a way that it doesn't interrupt work flow to much by moving a bunch of stuff, bloat and so on.

I am really loving FCP X. And as others have said, when you go back to revisit older versions like 6 or 7 or even Premiere, just seems old and now that I know a thing or two has really made concentrating on story and spontanaity much more of a reality.

About a year and a half, maybe two years before v.7 was dropped, I'd say 80% of my Apple authorized training jobs were teams of editors sent in by their broadcast stations. Apple was doing deals with them in that long ago, lost era, with discounts, service contracts, etc, if their editors got FCP pro user certified. But then training started to drop off rapidly. Long before X was released, training was in a huge slump. We hoped it would pick up when X was released, but it didn't. The past year, it has picked up somewhat, for some locations, but not all. Point is, broadcasters stopped paying for in-class or in-house trainings long ago. And broadcasters don't make up as large of a market segment as they used to. Just like Hollywood feature editors and broadcasters at one time were 100% of the market, both are small segments of a much larger market today. As for training, broadcasters don't send teams of editors to classes anymore. Not like they used to. They get a new system and throw their editors to the wolves. I work with and am friends with a large number of professional, seasoned broadcast editors, too. So training will never be the market it ever was. And MXF support won't change that across the board. So no, this is not a huge deal for trainers.

I understand it is a huge deal for broadcasters, mostly in the UK. Great. But seriously, it has been 3 years and we don't have some of the vital basics still. Things are in deed dragging along. It will be interesting to see what updates we get, or don't get, between New Years and the NAB convention. MXF is big, but there are still things, even broadcasters need, that are missing.

OK, enough about who is or isn't disappointed in the 10.1.4 update. Back to digging in and finding out what's not advertised. There's always at least one or two things not advertised about each update.

I have noticed something interesting. Trivial, but interesting. Old Libraries I've opened (and updated) in 10.1.3 do NOT need to update when opened in 10.1.4. BUT, old Libraries I've never opened in 10.13 DO need to be updated. HHHmmm... Interesting... I don't recall past updates not requiring ALL Libraries to be updated.

I've tested this on many Libraries, one at a time, and it is pretty consistent. Not that it means anything, just a curiosity.

Also, the online manual and the web version of the manual haven't been updated. MXF isn't listed as supported yet. So, that'll be interesting go cruise through when it is updated.

I typically would have no use for MXF except for the fact I just got an avid export from an editor at a commercial production house and now I can finally work with the footage without having to go and do a crazy premiere round trip voodoo thing.

I'm dying for new features, but I must say that the need for them comes from a desire for "new" and not a practical place. I have Adobe CC because I need photoshop, lightroom, indesign, etc etc so I'm always tempted with each new update to master Premiere and switch, but I open that app and stop every time because it's just so complex and I'm a storyteller, not a technician.

@BenB you might say FCPX is lagging, but it's still light years ahead of the rest IMO.

Hallo Andreas,

Besides being readable and importable with FCPX, when you say QT aware apps, do you also include the legacy QT7 & the "modern" QTX players themselves ?
Tried to read some MXF files from my archives with these players, to no avail.
Only the official MXF player from Hamburg Pro ( and the ubiquitous VLC ) can read MXF videos.
Putting aside P2 files with their crazy flavour of MXF that segregates audio and video in separate subfolders .....

Thx for clearing this up.

Hi Alex,

With the new Pro Media components installed I am able to open any MXF file with QT7. QTX does not play these files.

- Ronny

BenB wrote: Old Libraries I've opened (and updated) in 10.1.3 do NOT need to update when opened in 10.1.4. BUT, old Libraries I've never opened in 10.13 DO need to be updated. HHHmmm... Interesting... I don't recall past updates not requiring ALL Libraries to be updated.

Libraries only need to be updated when the features or underlying data management change enough that they are not backwards compatible. I'm assuming that some of the library's you've opened are pre 10.1.2, so they need to be updated to come online with the current structure. Where as 10.1.3 to 10.1.4 is only a bug fix. No changes to data management, feature and no new filters.

I think.

OK, exactly HOW do you access the MXF export in FCPX 10.1.4?

I see the MXF group listed in Compressor, but when I try to access it in FCPX, I don't see anything about MXF anywhere.


TGC, some are 10.1.2, but never opened in 10.1.3, and get updated. Anything I updated or created in 10.1.3 doesn't need the update. Yeah, bug fixes, no new filters, no new metadata, no new XML properties, etc. This is the slimmest, lightest update ever, I believe.

I think that's correct

- Ronny

My thinking about this whole update is that it's the final clean up on a Mavericks compatible fcpx. Mopping up the last of the big bugs, adding in the missing MXF links and leaving big post houses with a version of the software for which they don't have to rush to update the OS.

Combined with the fact that they didn't bring the UI inline with Yosemite (even the little top left balls are untouched), I believe that the next BIG release is not far off at all. New features. Fresh UI, making use of Yosemite AV Foundation, but Apple leave behind VERY stable and powerful NLE for companies unable up move that fast.

Just my thoughts.

Ben,

To find the MXF presets in FCP X choose Share and click the Add Destination button. In the destinations window double-click Compressor Settings and choose an MXF preset from the MXF folder. The setting will be added to your Share destinations.

If you just need an MXF with a stereo mix you can do this right inside FCP X.

If you need to supply a specific compliant multitrack MXF with separate MIX, M&E and different language versions you export a Master File with multichannel audio based on Roles and you create the MXF in Compressor 4.

I have just created my first DPP AS-11 MXF with multichannel audio according to EBU specifications and it went flawlessly. The file got perfectly validated by a special DPP app that checks the file structure and all the metadata of your MXF before you can send it to the broadcaster. No issues at all.

- Ronny

Hey Thomas,

I think you hit the nail right on the head

- Ronny