Comments on: Full Details: Apple Updates Final Cut Pro X

By: Lou Borella

Lou Borella — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 01:02:00 +0000

Larry
I pulled a Key in Motion 5 the other day. Took 2 seconds!! Didn’t even have to play with a slider. There isn’t even an eyedropper!!! I just applied the filter and the key was done. Then is played in close to real-time.

For arguments sake I tried the same key in AE with Keylight and gave up after 2 minutes of tweaking.

If you don’t buy Motion for any other reason it will be the best $50 chroma keyer you have ever owned!! It cheaper than a plug-in at this point.

Lou …

By: Lou Borella

Lou Borella — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 00:58:50 +0000

Hey Steve,

Can you say PCI expansion card?

I do have my problems with FCPX but I really can’t stand the “worst-case-scenario” approach to debating this issue.

Lou …

By: Steve Douglas

Steve Douglas — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 19:08:49 +0000

You will forgive my cynicism, but if Apple were committed to the professional editor, FCX would not have been released in the first place. In no way, was X ready for the pro editor. All anyone was asking for was true 64 bit, and access to all ram and cores. We got that plus a whole new GUI, new workflow, new key commands…a whole new application that no one asked for. So why was it released? Simple, Apple was playing catch up to Adobe who, with CS 5.0, came out with apps being 64bit. A far better approach by Apple was to wait. Wait until they could include the necessary pro features into their complete code rewrite for 64bit. Not being able to monitor externally upon initial release, no multi cam, and so much more was an egregious slap in the face to committed Apple users. Now the word is out, and I hope it is only gossip rather than truth, that external monitoring will eventually be part of an update but only for those using Thunderbolt equipped Macs. If that is the case, it would force all production houses and independent freelancers to go out and sell their current Macs and buy new ones. I can see the dollar signs in Apple’s eyes but don’t think that many will do this. My one year old 12 core, with 20 gigs of ram and FX4800 card are not ready for the garbage heap yet just because of the lack of Thunderbolt. Yet, external monitoring is mandatory and its lack within the initial release of X is proof that their ‘commitment’ is in words only. You are now walking a fine line between your dealings with Apple and the public and I understand that, but as a voice, to maintain your credibility, you have to call it as it is and not how Apple wants you to project it.

By: Mal

Mal — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 14:13:01 +0000

Just to update my previous post: seems that Apple’s *official* advice to update the FCPX that wouldn’t update is to indeed “drag the previously installed app to the trash, empty the trash and download again.”

I find this incredible, but what I find really believable was that when I did it, sure enough the new version came down the line fine, installed itself, but left me with a message next to the little “installed” icon in the App Store. This message was — “There was an error.” (In RED text, by the way, which I thought fitting, I only wish it had used the word “fatal”. It won’t let me re-download now, so whatever this “error” is, seems like I’ll find out, sometime, somewhere, down the track… )

By: Mark Morache

Mark Morache — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 15:46:56 +0000

Larry,

Was there any talk about versions or backups? I can’t tell you how many times my butt has been saved by the autosave vault.

In fact I just lost several hours of editing and I’m not sure why. My firewire wiggled out of the port on the computer, and when this has happened in the past, I plug it back in and restart FCX. This time the app wouldn’t open. It got stuck loading the one project I’m currently editing.

I tried hiding the project and seeing if just the event would open, no dice. Tried just the project and hiding the project, hoping that the offline project would open. Failed.

I’m resolved that I just need to start over again, but this would be so easy with the autosave vault.

Is this something built into Lion? I’ve been waiting to leave Snow Leopard, but I can’t be losing work. If I lost more than a few hours I would have been in a bad way.

Thanks for the work you do.

–> Mark

By: Dick Applebaum

Dick Applebaum — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 02:06:28 +0000

Ya’ know, I went back today and re-watched the August 18th panel about FCPX at:

http://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/news/540-the-final-cut-the-whole-presentation-online

It means even more today, than it did a month ago.

It would be useful to have an update to this panel, say, end of October (give a chance for the dust, and the XML to settle).

But what I want to talk about, now, was in video 6 at about 7:17 in — the question is asked:

‘How does the panel see crowd sourcing or “distributed editing” being used for story telling?’

Norman Hollyn’s answer is profound:

“Oh, oh… I want to answer that! One of the non-Michaels on the panel! I think this is totally, absolutely, what is going on in the future — um, between crowd sourcing and distance collaborative techniques in editing… and these are the two most exciting parts! Uh. Uh it’s why I wish that I was one of my students instead of me — because that’s the world they’re moving out to.”

What Norman seems to be saying, at least to me, is the story is what’s important (and often the timing of the story).

Should you wait around for the perfect edit — or can you, and your audience, be better served by a “good” edit delivered in a timely fashion?

After all… it is the story that’s important!

Here’s an example of a collaborative-sourced video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hhX0KkQBW4&feature=player_embedded

Many of you, me included, would say: “I can do a better edit than that!”

In this case, the timing may have been more important than the edit — if true, that is a damn fine edit!

The only question I have is: How’d they do that?

Dick

By: Larry

Larry — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 22:03:41 +0000

Sorry for the confusion. The phrase “Color is dead,” means that Apple is not continuing the development of the application “Color” which shipped with Final Cut Studio (3). Apparently, there is a lot of confusion about whether Apple will continuing developing Color. They won’t. However, as of today, they are still supporting it, so Apple tells me.

By: Srsjr

Srsjr — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 21:48:01 +0000

What does Larry mean when he said “color is dead”?

If FCP X is $300 add on color, motion and DaVinci youare talking Avid Media Composer pricing. Then if you have the adobe Production Premuim suite Apple has Created the conditions to jump ship.

By: Mal

Mal — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 07:14:17 +0000

Cooper:

Your “Arrggghhh” sounds like you’re now experiencing crashes too. To answer your initial question to me… I installed Lion on my Laptop to trial (thankfully discovering several incompatibilities with scanner drivers, Quicktime, Flash and Printers) BUT deliberately kept Snow Leopard on my editing deck. It’s still Snow Leopard.

FCPX crashed relentlessly when I had After Effects, Photoshop and FCPX open simultaneously (my system is fast enough), especially After Effects rendering in the background… and including just FCPX and After Effects open. I had to keep closing FCPX every time I went to AE to minimise this issue. I saw more spinning beach balls in a day than a lifetime on the French Riviera.

As I said before I haven’t updated FCPX yet due to the issues a lot of people faced with the App Store Update System — I refuse to do workarounds like dragging apps to the trash, etc, I’m not that desperate to update — I’d prefer Apple to sort out the issue professionally as they should. Having said that, I’m going to wander back into the office now (as it’s been a few days) and see if they’ve fixed it.

By: Larry

Larry — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 16:29:50 +0000

This is not as bad as it appears.

All editors have access to the SAN all the time. This just affects how Projects and Events are loaded into FCP X.

FCP X allows linking to media, rather than copying it to the Events folder. (This is an import setting.) This allows multiple editors simultaneous access to the same media.

However, Events and Projects can only be accessed by one editor at a time. Because Events and Projects are always available in FCP X, we need to do the equivalent of mounting or unmounting a volume. Event Manager X does something similar for the local system. The “mounting” process is very quick – a second or two – and simply allows one editor to move a Project, or Event, into or out of their system.

The IDEAL is for multiple editors to be in the same project. However, that is not possible. This is the workaround.

I’ve been using this “move it in, move it out” concept at the local level for all of my FCP X training. I found it to be fast, reliable, and really helps me to stay organized.

Just my comments.

Larry