Thread: FCPX Proper Opinions

Everyone knows the internet was strife with opinions on FCPX made by many people, before it was released, that had never even touched it and many more within days of having a quick look. Now that things are settling and people are getting know it's power I thought I would start a thread where wee can offer proper thoughts and/or links.

Here's some very interesting reading.

Apple Supplement Televisual 2011

David.

Here's an interesting interview that gives a bit of an insight of how FCPX is doing in broadcast.

Using FCPX on long format broadcast productions

David.

My thoughts are FCPX would work on some jobs and not on others. Cutting something on just one suite for tapeless delivery it may be good, but I cant see how it can work in a Professional Post House. Lots of reasons why! but mainly what happens when you need to play out to tape ( and you still do in the real world, you hire the deck in ) or take in FCP7 projects from offlines to grade / online. I spend a lot of time getting FCP jobs ready for broadcast and ALL of them have been started on FCP7. Tape is still the format you need to deliver masters on / archive on, this will change in a years time? so maybe FCPX's time will come.

Rob
robnixonediting.co.uk

It's definitely got a bit of a way to go before being used on large scale productions with large numbers of editors, but laying off to tape is the last worry for anyone, especially a professional post house, this doesn't need to be done from directly within the NLE.

David.

When I first seen seen FCPX I had the impression that moving to it from Avid would be easier than from FCP 7, here's a nice video that compares Avid MC6 and FCPX, it shows how Apple have taken this release very seriously, how they are taking Avid as more of a base than FCP7 and how anyone familiar with Avid can see where Apple are going with it.

It's a long video, but well worth watching for anyone interested in finding out what makes Avid the editors choice, and why FCPX is the first real potential contender.

Comparing FCPX to Avid Media Composer 6 on MacBreak Studio Live

David.

Here's something very interesting that may show a big future for FCPX in large scale production.

Apple's new patent hints at Collaborative Media Production with Final Cut Pro - fcp.co

David.

FCP-X is about putting the ability to create a story and tell it to the world, The same way twitter allowed anyone to "share wise words" they are hoping FCP-X will enable people to just get on and create stories. The same way Itunes was a game changer for the music industry I feel that FCP-X will get some serious traction with the video market.

I'll start off by saying that FCP X has grown in to a very capable editing program. There's very little you can't do with it and for projects that involve a main story line with some add-on b-roll and audio clips added where needed FCP X can pretty much do the job. It's (relatively) fast and editing can be slick.

Unfortunately, it's not the perfect editor for everyone. If you have lots of multi cam & multiple audio sources that run for long periods in parallel, and you want to edit between those audio clips over a long period of time (say an hour or so) and need to expand the audio in the timeline to see the keyframes etc then the interface is still too clunky. If you want to see just ONE large audio track while keeping the others small - you CAN'T. you have to expand them ALL, and this makes the timeline rediculously large and unwieldy.

This means that FCP X is not good as an 'events' editor with lots of cameras and lots of audio.

While you could argue that you should take the audio in to another program for editing, you didn't / don't need to in other apps, like FCP7, Premiere Pro, Avid etc, so this and the lack of a visible audio mixer with meters is the one thing that really lets FCP X down for me.

Also, the lack of ability to customise the user interface is a major PITA. Clearly Apple programmers (or the people directing them) don't use their own software on large projects where multiple screens are needed so you can see more of the world. I hate having to keep moving the centre bar between the project and the viewer just to get more real estate when I'm much rather just move things across two or three monitors and have all the real estate I want.

I'm also not a fan of the colour brick. I still like the 3 way colour correctors with everything visible at the same time. I don't want to have to tab between colour & exposure, they should all be right there. Think of Colorista II for example - everything right there.

On the positive side, the way they implemented secondaries is much better than other NLEs and goes some way towards negating the need for external colouring apps (e.g. Apple Color, Resolve, etc), but again, I'd like to be able to move things to a different monitor and have more screen space to do this stuff in.

I want to see more than one scope at a time. Please? Pretty please? Is that so much to ask?

In terms of the magnetic time line... it does what it says I like the way things move out of the way, although it's introduced some interesting quicks, like not being able to add cross fades between audio unless you create secondary story lines, which is an extra couple of steps, or you have to manually grab the handles to add cross fades on each clip manually. Clunky at best.

I know that Apple no longer like CDs, DVDs Blu-rays, so it's not surprising they removed all support for chapters etc. However, since I still delivery a lot of content for DVD production this also gets in my way. Not a problem for TV programs or films destined for theatres or the web.

I also like the way you tell FCP X to import your media and it goes ahead and copies it to your folder, automatically creating ProRes 422 or Prores Proxy files for you, and that you can switch between HQ and Proxy workflows with a single click, but to call those imports 'background' is a laugh. 'Background' should mean it happens while you are doing other things, so you can get on and edit right away. However, as soon as you begin skimming clips in the project the imports PAUSE and don't resume until you stop working. C'mon, that's not background at all!

Also, if for any reason you have to quit before it's finished copying the media you basically lose anything not yet copied. It doesn't seem capable of picking up where it left of. This has happened to me several times.

All in all, FCP X is 'getting there' and for many people it now does absolutely everything they need, but for others it's still a little clunky and still needs some workflow optimisations. Hopefully Apple will make it happen.

I'm loving FCPX, and watching it grow. I'm a big fan of the magnetic timeline but also have things I'd like to see change about it, dynamic trimming as the main one. I don't mind working with multiple story lines I quite like it but even working with them could be improved.

The audio shouldn't be an issue for much longer as Apple have announced that it will be dealt with this year. Working with 2 monitors isn't so bad if you happen to like the setup it gives, I got lucky and it does as I like it, but I also think full customisation possibilities should definitely be there.

The colour square is a well debated one. I'm one of the minority that think it's great, but I do think it should have the option to switch to wheels for those who want them. I've always preferred working with a single scope at a time, but a keyboard shortcut to switch is a must have addition for me, as is the soon to come source/record style monitors that will hopefully indicate dynamic trimming improvements and reference monitors. I just have a feeling it's going to show the reference monitor or the scope as options, I'd rather see both.

A tracker for secondaries and the ability to rename them would top it off for me, that takes it way beyond what I would ever have expected from a colour toolset built in to an NLE. For anything that needs more the Davinci Resolve route is always there.

The main thing I seen in FCPX when it first showed up was the way it dealt with media management, the keyword/smart collection system is way beyond any other NLE available and the way it deals with optimised/proxy media is the foundation of this NLE, it's taken what made Avid so stable for so long and improved on it. But, Apple have started to play with this offering no optimization option for certain codecs, it's a little worrying I suppose but they feel it's codecs that don't need optimised to run smooth on their machines.

I think the full background rendering may turn out good as a future proofing for when we get faster and faster hardware. For the moment, on import it's fine, import your footage and have the option to edit straight away while it gradually transcodes as you idle, or go the Avid route and have coffee/lunch as it transcodes. I'm good with that, but the timeline background rendering I don't like, it just fills up hard discs with loads of little unnecessary render files that get created while/between making adjustments that probably won't be final. I like to chose what and when I want to render or not. The option to switch this off is there of course.

I really think Apple will make it happen, they've done so much to it in it's first year and it's only getting better.

Originally Posted by david walsh

The audio shouldn't be an issue for much longer as Apple have announced that it will be dealt with this year.

I really hope so.

Originally Posted by david walsh

A tracker for secondaries and the ability to rename them would top it off for me, that takes it way beyond what I would ever have expected from a colour toolset built in to an NLE

Agreed

Originally Posted by david walsh

The main thing I seen in FCPX when it first showed up was the way it dealt with media management, the keyword/smart collection system is way beyond any other NLE available and the way it deals with optimised/proxy media is the foundation of this NLE, it's taken what made Avid so stable for so long and improved on it.

Yup. I definitely want the key wording and and smart collections. I don't miss bins as much as I thought I would.

Originally Posted by david walsh

For the moment, on import it's fine, import your footage and have the option to edit straight away while it gradually transcodes as you idle, or go the Avid route and have coffee/lunch as it transcodes.

Well, TBH, it's a little slow. I have two machines here, one is a 17" MBP with i7 and 16GB ram and the other is an 8 core xeon with 16GB ram. Both have SSD so they aren't hard disk I/O bound. I have to tell you that importing 10 hours of footage brings FCP X to it's knees, whereas in Premiere Pro I can start editing almost immediately (it likes to conform audio, but after that everything is editing natively).

So, the background transcoding is not as good as the marketing would have you believe.

I'm not trying to be negative towards FCP X. We have it. We use it on some projects and not on others for equally valid reasons.