WWDC El Capitan = Faster FCPX

Ill start off and Say Metal API will mean a much faster FCPX on all existing hardware once they get the updates in. After Effects getting 8X faster render times on beta software.... Having Done OpenGL programming before, and seeing the Metal API last year for IOS, I was wanting it on the desktop but knew it'd take a it more. More variations etc. If apple waits to update the next mac pro with Broadwell based CPU's, AMD's High bandwidth memory GFX cards, and Thunderbolt 3 over USB-C... :side: :silly: I need to start saving now.... Go away waveforms.... Go away... lol

Metal is going to help Pro Apps in a HUGE way.... Very exciting times.

Maybe this is what kept them from making 10.2 a bigger update with a new UI. I bet the FCPX Metal update in the fall is going to be huge. If they've known about this for a long time that update has got to be epic.

I doubt you'll see a "new UI" for FCPX. That's not Apple's style.

If AE was 8x faster, and Motion has always had better performance than AE, Motion will finally get out of the mud and give us some real performance for sure.

The new navigation tools alone are pretty amazing, I must say. Wonder if it'll help create a real Send To workflow between FCPX and Motion.

So far it was explained to me, Metal is very close programmed to hardware, a friend used the phrase "machine code" ... whatever.

Will be interesting, for which hardware Metal will be avail ... for sure for the nMp ... but what about the smaller Macs? ... I'm impressed every day using latest FCPX (and latest Motion) on my tiny TuberwareBox (=MacMini, late 2012) - my friends using Windows can't believe it, I'm handling here 4k, and multicam, and real time effects without rendering ...

... I'm starting saving too, just in case........

Apple has already stated, any Mac that runs Yosemite. The better GPU and CPU you have, the better the performance increase you'll see. It's pretty simple. And Machine Language doesn't mean it is dependent on hardware just that it is at the very base level of programing, the raw guts of code, where system calls and such are written. Higher level coding simply calls on units from machine language that have been packaged as more easily accessible calls and tools. All code has some hardware limitations, but Apple has stated anything that runs Yosemite.

Now, Metal is a generated graphics engine type of deal, so it won't necessarily help with the playback of plain video clips, which we don't really need tons of help with. But will make generated graphics (effects, generators, titles) more efficient and faster to deal with, thus freeing up a tiny bit of power to playback video on the GPU. The end user experience will be noticed more in Motion and FCPX effects, rather than just plain edition and playback of unaltered video clips.

After Effects has always lagged behind Motion on performance and playback ability. So if AE gets a max of 8x performance, Motion should fly when it is updated to take advantage of Metal (which the current version doesn't). Most FCPX effects should be more snappy, too.

But we will have to wait and see when those updates are actually released to know for sure. Between now and then, it is all speculation.

Something everyone has failed to notice was the more sophisticated Spotlight searching functionality. I wonder if that will in any way help evolve FCPX to be smarter/faster when working with metadata and clip organization? Will I be able to search large Libraries with the same "plain language" wording, rather than guessing at keywords and such?

BenB wrote: .... rather than guessing at keywords and such?

Combine that with a feature, actually google.photo is promoting it service:
automatic describing/taging content, similiar to face-recognition, but (way) beyond that, e.g. in their demo they search for 'dog' ..

And for the documentarists under us:
Combine that with automatic speech-to-text ...
...

Speech to text has been tried in our industry, it never took off. We've got a ways to go with that technology being accurate enough.

... my first contact with speech recognition was Dragon Dictate. you had to 'train' for hours before using it.... and it never lift of on my desk.

Meanwhile, I'm surprised what SIRI is able to understand ....

Last year I also thought that Metal would be made available to Macs and would improve OpenCL/GL. Apple is not noted for having the fastest iteration of these standards, just look to the gaming world; windows vs mac.
Reducing the overhead should see many improvements for certain Mac programs like FCPX/Motion/Photos.
The other area(s) I think will improve will be 3D and animations. Now that Apple has gotten its toe wet, maybe we will see some real expansion of 3D beyond just 3D text in FCPX.
I can tell you from experience that Blender on Mac is slow. Hopefully, Blender will be able to take advantage Metal.
Gamers and developers are really happy.

Interesting thoughts about expanded Spotlight and metadata for FCPX organization. I am also interested in how well(if) it works for apps like Calendar. One thing I have always liked about Fantastical was it "Natural language" abilities.

Speech to text is hard. I bought iListen from MacSpeech while it was still vaporware at a MacWorld conference. Met the owners and can tell you many painful experiences with tech support. There was only a couple of tech support personnel that knew what they were doing. I wished for a long time that Apple would buy MacSpeech. iListen and now Nuance Dictate for Mac have some real problems with the underlying coding. Mostly in how the audio file is tracked to "words". Still can't correct using both keyboard and voice. I was hoping Nuance would correct this, but apparently not. I had long telephone conversations with MacSpeech about this and they blamed Apple for bad window and cursor control; bull! I finally told them I won't pay $100/pop for bug fixes and to quit calling me.
Having said this, the algorithm for speech recognition is pretty darn good considering how many factors have to be interpreted.
Supposedly, Apple is licensing the Dragon Dictate software from Nuance for both Mac Dictation and Siri.
Would be really fantastic if we could just feed video speech audio files to create closed caption/translation text lower thirds.

Funny, that I even get excited about El Capitan, as I am still using Mavericks. (Mac dictionary does not recognize "Capitan", now that is funny)
Glad to see that Apple seems to be dropping discoveryd for networks, I have hard enough time with Ranch wide WiFi as it is. This is just one reason I was not upgrading, and I am mid video project with deadline for delivery coming up fast. Would really like to use some of the new features in FCPX10.2. May do final in both versions using external ssd drive for Yosemite.
Sorry to get so off topic.
Hope this helps, Greg

On the Mac Metal is available for even for intel GPUs like the hd4000. Essentially its a replacement for OpenGL / OpenCL. Where those APIs are heavy weight and have tried to evolve for 20 years encompassing many different iterations of GFX technology, Metal is designed for GPUs Apple is using currently. It allows for distribution of compute and draw calls better form across multiple threads, and reduces the overhead needed to setup and execute functionality on the GPU. The result is that the GPU is better saturated versus waiting on the CPU to feed the next instructions.

When you look at how OS X handles most of its GUI and image processing its via OpenGL. Even things like scrolling in the finder. For El Capitan they are replacing the render pipeline with Metal versus OpenGL for all the Main OS Services like core Animation. This should lead to an over all increase in "the snappy".

WTF is "Metal"? WTF is El Capitan? A link in the original post would have been helpful. Don't assume that everyone already knows what this is.

@thefluentone
Thanks for sharing some insight ... support of 'built in GPU' would be awesome - as a MacMini user this gives me hope.... :lol:

@Redifier
come on, on a board like this the majority knows the up-to-date lingo & features ....

Redifer wrote: WTF is "Metal"? WTF is El Capitan? A link in the original post would have been helpful. Don't assume that everyone already knows what this is.

I could be off the mark but what is wrong with YOU typing those words plus Apple in a search engine, instead of berating the OP?

It's quite simple really ...

There's been a mountain of material written about it since the Keynote on Monday at WWDC ... not to mention a good bit of info on Apple's site.

It the teach a man to fish idea ...

Redifer wrote: WTF is "Metal"? WTF is El Capitan? A link in the original post would have been helpful. Don't assume that everyone already knows what this is.

Hey, sorry about that I forget when my multifaceted passion combine and I forget that people outside my Head Don't know what's going o in my head. I am a Software developer and a video editor. This week is Apple's Developer Conference WWDC. They have unveiled during the conference information regarding new APIs ad the direction of the next iOS and OSX updates.

El Capitan is the 10.11 OSX Update that will succeed Yosemite. Its the equivalent of Snow Leopard or Mountain Lion, an iteration based on the previous version that tries to focus on expanding under the hood APIs for developers. The name, El Capitan references a Famous Mountain rock face in Yosemite Park. lion -> Mountain Lion :: Yosemite -> El Capitan.


As part of El Capitan, Metal is an API developed on iOS that is making its way to OSX. It is a revamped compute / GFX API that replaces the foundation the rest of the operating system uses to accelerate calculations using the Graphics Cards along with the CPU. Just as NVIDIA has CUDA, AMD has Mantle, Apple will have Metal. But a key difference being that Metal will work for NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel Gfx on the Apple platform.

I hope that gives better context. I'll remember to find some links next time, was rather excited while watching the keynote. What makes this significant in comparison is Adobe. The CC uses CUDA to power the mercury engine. But this limits them to NVIDA Cards only to get that type of power. By porting the Mercury engine to Metal, they can access similar power regardless of AMD or NVIDIA Gfx. From the Keynote, Adobe pulled off an 8X speed up. This is not to say Apple will have the same speed up with FCPX, but that they should be ale to get some impressive gains none the less.

www.apple.com/osx/elcapitan-preview/

There's been a mountain of material written about it since the Keynote on Monday at WWDC ... not to mention a good bit of info on Apple's site.

Here's the thing, though. I'm a video editor first, an Apple fanboy last. Yeah I know most people here are Apple fanboys but I do not follow Apple news. To expect one to follow Apple closely just because they use Final Cut Pro sounds a bit elitist. Googling common words like El Capitan and Metal doesn't reveal much. I apologize for not being as big of a fanboy as you think that I should be. OP was not berated.

All hail Apple. Praise Jobs.

Thanks for the link, Ben.

Actually, hit apple.com and it's all there. Not hard to find at all.

Redifer wrote: I'm a video editor first, an Apple fanboy last.

Honestly, you don't have to be an Apple fanboy to be aware of what is coming along. I would think most everyone that participates in this forum are also video editors with busy schedules.

I just tested a google search using the words "El Capitan Metal Apple" and received 1,370,000 results in 0.46 seconds ... at first glance, the first four pages of the results were on this very subject ... I would say that was quite revealing and I didn't have to place the burden on the OP to educate me on the subject.

Seriously, I do use Apple products and am very pleased ... but I am also quite tough on them ... just ask the poor person who has to read my weekly feedback from various pro apps over the past several years since they implemented the function. They will tell you right quick how much I "hail" Apple.

Not to mention there was a nice story with the basics covered on this subject posted June 9 right here that is still the second item on the fop.co cover page.