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Official Final Cut X topic, moving to ARM and vlogging
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  • @Mark_the_Harp

    I don't know why, but I am good on selecting things that last.
    Like Delphi and Xara (now Xara X). Both have long long history.
    Xara is especially interesting and unique. They also have some ranting vector pros.
    But generally they are quite happy.
    And developers (they changed three companies as I remember, no one seems to be able to affect them much) always keep their level.
    I can open Pentium based Thinkpad note that I keep for very good keyboard, draw some things and open them in latest Xara X.
    Same for Delphi. Many new components are usable in versions 12 years back :-)
  • One other interesting observation about FCP-X, and Apple in general over the last five years: It's seems like Apple has developed a pipeline strategy to write their release demo scripts before they ever start coding. It seems there is almost nothing in this release that wasn't in the demo presentations to get you to buy it. It seems Apple today has a strategy to build only enough of the product to sell what they demo, and nothing else, (without getting into legal trouble for not delivering what they promised in the demo.) It is an interesting business strategy. Especially with the sales channel now only through their own controlled AppStore. The customer can no longer hands on evaluate it before they buy it. You like the demo. You buy the demo. You get software capable of doing that demo... It's like Apple is turning into a "3 minute movie trailer" company, but after you buy the ticket at the door, you sit down in the theater, and the end movie is... just the 3 minute trailer... That's it. You got exactly what they advertised. No more. No less. Why complain?

    If it is not in their demo, it's not in the software.
  • "FCPX don´t convert your files into ProRes for realtime editing. It´s only a rewrapping."

    I don't think "only a rewrapping" would make the file size go from 24mb to 140mb/s. Open the files from the "high quality" folder. Open it in QuickTime, check the inspector window. From what I see, all high quality media is converted to ProRes 422 on my computer.

    "But anyway who wants to work witch avchd in post, if you want to grade or even composite?"

    Agreed. They market that it "supports h264." In reality, It looks like to them it means:
    - It imports and converts h264 to ProRes 442 at 6x the storage size to play it real time on the timeline. Remember, that's not just the media you want to process or final with on your timeline, but all the media in the project from start to end of each file.
    - On a laptop, it's more like ProRes Proxy real time only for real time playback, at 720, adding another 1x storage size too. That requires two rendered files: One at ProRes 442 and one at ProRes proxy 720. So you will need about 8x the storage of your original GH2 original file sizes to edit your current GH2 footage on your laptop. So 125 GB of production footage (4x 32GB SDHC cards) = about 1 TB of storage for editing? If you are editing footage on a hour long project at 10:1 production shooting ratio that would be how big?

    It's not good or bad. It just is. Plan storage needs accordingly. If that works for you, celebrate!
  • there are "original media" and "transcoded media/ high quality and proxy" folders in your final cut events folder

    I cheched my folders. One clip original .mts file is 156,5 MB and rewrapped file in "orignal media" folder is 161,8 MB.

    Quicktime Player 7 Inspector says: "avc" 1920 x 1080...

  • Sure. That's the copy of your original media. But look at what is in your Transcoded Media folders just below that "Original Media" folder?
  • nothing but proxy media, because I work with proxy and I check the box.
  • If I import avchd files and have optimal media and proxy media unchecked, then no others files than the rewrapped avchd files are in the event folder.
  • Two corrections:

    - My first project is all from a 7D. I just assumed the file structures would be similar from GH cameras. That may have been an incorrect assumption. I'll check that later this week on an upcoming GH2/G13 shot project. However, if this is consistent, I will not have enough room on this computer's G-RAID storage to edit that project. I'll have to use a different application that doesn't transcode all the media files twice.

    - The proxy media on this 1080 project is actually 960x540 lines. (I said it was 720 lines above. That was a mistake.)
  • I´ve imported files from a 5D no rewrap, no optimal media, no proxy, just a alias to original folder.
  • Final Cut Pro X is infinitely more "professional" than FCP 7, IF for a moment you:

    1) assume that "professional" means "high degree of control" by the user over every functionality of the software

    2) carefully compare the functionalities that the two software shares....


    I could give many examples, which I learn in these first days using Final Cut Pro X, but everyone can see by himself using it and reading the help, which by the way is short and clear; just one I saw five minutes ago: the flexibility it has in using and manipulating shapes, nothing to with the old version! Same for color correcting, editing on the time line and everything else: using compound clips is a much more powerful tool the the old sequences, brilliant idea and flexible tool.

    This is not professional??? Final Cut Pro 7 maybe! You have here a Ferrari compared to a coach...

    Surely, the impact with the software is shocking, it seems you can't do millions things you could do, but it is not true. You can do everything you did in a much better way. It is a wonderful piece of new technology. I can understand all the complaints, I myself was desperate at the beginning, I thought I had not an editing software anymore, FCP 7 being too old and FCP7 being only a toy... during a night of desperation I even downloaded the demo of Premiere and started using it for couple hours...! But now, the more I use Final Cut Pro X, the more I love it. And its price is absolutely reasonable.


    This being said, the new version ABSOLUTELY needs support for multicam and import/export capabilities. On EVERY other aspect Apple got it right and did a cheap product which is worlds ahead than the older version.


  • Red Giant’s industry leading set of color correction and grading tools, such as Magic Bullet, are well known for ease of use, powerful performance, extreme flexibility, and simple design. And they are perfectly suited for the current and next generation of Final Cut Pro users.

    In terms of development, you’ll be seeing Magic Bullet products available on Final Cut Pro X very soon. In fact, with the SDK in hand, we’ve already begun the engineering effort for what will be free Final Cut Pro X updates for current users.


    From http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/blog/2011/06/24/final-cut-pro-x-and-red-giant/

    As I told, SDK is already available for major plugins manufacturers.
    And first thing that they'll do is to close some FCP X holes sooner than Apple.
  • I hope so. I begin to like how fcpx works.


  • another funny video:)
  • So finally it's here! I just installed the NEW Final Cut Pro X.
    For at least one of it's features, native AVCHD support, I've been waiting for years!

    Try to import my MTS-files. Nope ... they can only be imported from a camera :-(
    A little change in my workflow: ok, I can live with that.

    Connect my GH1 (17). Mounts fine in the finder. Does not mount in FCP X.
    A little research shows: GH1 is not supported :-(
    http://help.apple.com/finalcutpro/cameras/en/index.html

    Connect my old Canon HG10. Works in FCP X.
    Nice clip preview: that's what I've always been missing in Premiere.
    Importing some clips. Very slow, stalls the application completely for minutes (Background task? Nope!). At least, file size is approximately the same as for the original MTS.

    So, I'll have to re-encode my clips to ProRes as before, but cannot import previous projects?!

    No way. Goodbye Final Cut, hello Premiere!

  • >No way. Goodbye Final Cut, hello Premiere

    And a lot of studios are saying the same thing due to lack of support for EDL (which frankly makes it unusable in a film environment), OMF (ditto) and even their own server software so that many ppl can work on a central repository of footage. Though most studios will probably take up Avid again, Avid could really do very well out of this and get back the market it used to have in the studios. Plus no RED support, after all this time still no RED support, it's quite surreal. Apple are interested in consumers these days, not so much content creators. Why should they be too, they contribute such a tiny fraction to their revenue these days.

    Look at what they did to Shake, forcing the VFX studios that rely on it to pay large sums for the source code so that they could maintain it themselves. They've also screwed Logic Audio thru neglect. The message is pretty clear, Apple are not interested in the pro market anymore. They only put FCP out there anyway because they couldn't find anyone to buy it off them when they bought it originally as a 'defensive' move (and they did try to sell it on). God knows what they though they were defending against though. The main guy behind FCP development is the guy behind the last releases of imovie, so taking that and their previous record with pro software they've built none of this should really be a surprise. FCP is just going to be imovie plus. Sure, a one guy operation or small studio may be happy with FCP and that seems to be Apples target market for FCPX, fair enough. If that is the case though, they do really need to sort out proper native AVCHD support.

    Also if you have an Nvidia card you are really going to love the Mercury Engine in Premiere, though you may have to do this,
    http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/adobe-creative-suite/477968-how-make-premiere-cs5-work-gtx-295-possibly-all-200-gpus.html I did this on CS5.5 with my GT430, works really well but I must get a better card or more cards, I do have 3 slots for SLI on this mobo and its frankly embarassing they're empty.

  • @harry7 Have you tried ClipWrap? I'm still waiting on my GH1 & GH2 so I'm completely clueless about the workflow but I have good experience with the application when I used Sony Vegas to capture HDV tapes, which it put into m2t containers yet I needed them in mov container for FCP. ClipWrap rewrapped them into a mov container, meaning no re-encoding. ClipWrap is supposed to support m2t, mts and m2ts files.

    It's a nice app but I kind of dislike the auto clip merge option which is on by default but you can turn that off in the top somewhere and make all files rewrap separately. Also make sure to double check if all files were rewrapped correctly because it gives errors on big files sometimes (I would rewrap the failed clips again until they succeeded), although that's supposed to be fixed with the new version.

    Rewrapping is so much faster and no loss in quality. I hope it works for you.
  • Why use ClipWrap? Why not FCPX's built-in transcoding feature? Background transcoding, right? Also Apple is claiming no gamma shifting.

    But... there are many angry pros http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1178470

    Yes I think this is a step toward the right direction. But I don't like the big words like... future of editing blah blah. Whatever. Just let it sort out. When they ship v2.0 next year, I will jump on the bandwagon. Then every little things will be covered by youtube tutorials :)
  • @stonebat I haven't tried FCPX yet but their previous transcoding method was no good. I couldn't get m2ts files to work with FCP without the original camera file structure and all those sorts of issues. Besides, rewrapping is so much faster than transcoding and guarantied no quality loss since you're basically putting the original h264 video file and audio file into a different container.
  • You can recreate the camera directory structure for GH1/GH2 clips using a program called multiAVCHD. It runs on Windows though, so you need some kind of virtualization or a spare PC. I did it for a few folders' worth of my footage (I just keep and rename the MTS files) before deciding there's no point in continuing with FCPX in its current version anyway (it's particularly buggy on my system, in addition to the common complaints).
  • Interesting read:
    http://digitalcomposting.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/x-vs-pro/

    Like Vinny the Puh said - "This are the wrong bees and they are making wrong honey"

    I'll add more soon.
  • I guess what I'm wondering is why would I bother wasting money? FCP 7/studio works great for me as it is... no need to toss money in the toilet.
  • Or add $100 more. Get CS 5.5 for student discount. That really adds values.
  • Here is part of Final Cut X tutorial



    Watch full free tutorial consisting from 26 parts at - http://www.izzyvideo.com/final-cut-pro-x-tutorial/
  • Also remember that second post of this topic is constantly updated.
    I added links to many new tutorials videos and links to opinions.