With the recent release of FCP X 10.0.3, a lot has been written about the ability to – at last – move Final Cut Pro 7 projects to FCP X. However, there’s another segment of videographers that can also easily migrate to the power of Final Cut Pro X: iMovie users. Let me show you how this works.

Unlike all past versions of Final Cut Pro, the latest – FCP X – makes it easy to import an iMovie Project or just the media from all your iMovie Events.

IMPORTING iMOVIE EVENTS

An Event is Apple’s name for a collection of media. Most often, this media collection comes from a single activity – a performance, for instance. However, an Event can contain any collection media.

Importing the Event folder from iMovie into FCP X adds ALL the Event media from all your iMovie projects as separate Events in the Event Library of Final Cut Pro X.

The only requirement is that the media needs to be imported into iMovie first.

Here, for instance, I have two iMovie events. Since all Events are stored in the same iMovie Events folder, when I import these into FCP X, all the media from all the Events will transfer.

To import the iMovie Events Folder into FCP X, select File > Import > iMovie Events folder.

FCP X is smart enough to know what it has already imported and, if you’ve already imported media, Final Cut will only import the media that’s new.

After you click OK your iMovie media is imported into FCP X, where each iMovie Event creates its own Event in Final Cut.

This is a very easy way to bring ALL your iMovie media into FCP X.

IMPORT iMOVIE PROJECTS

However, you may not want to import all your iMovie media – perhaps you just want to bring in one project.

That, too, is simple.

Select File > Import > iMovie Project.

Final Cut immediately displays all your iMovie projects; these are stored in Movies > iMovies Projects inside your Home directory.

Select the project you want to import and both the Project file and all its media are imported into Final Cut, ready for you to edit.

Simple and fast.

As always, let me know what you think.

Larry

[Updated Sept. 21 with a few extra details and the link to the free trial.]
[Updated with a link for the QuickTime update.]
[Updated with more information on Roles, and clarification on Davinci and AutoDesk.]
[Updated with clarification on XSAN.]

About two hours after Apple updated Final Cut Pro X to version 10.0.1, earlier today, I was in a meeting with key Apple product marketing folks to discuss the new features. Let me share with you what I learned.

UPDATE ACCESS
Unlike past versions of Final Cut, upgrades are only available through the App Store. In fact, if you look closely at the App Store icon in the Dock, you’ll see a small badge appear, indicating that an upgrade is available for FCP; or any other application that you purchased through the App Store.

(By the way, a benefit to upgrading to Lion is that upgrades only download the differences between the old and new software versions, which significantly reduce the download time. I’m still on Snow Leopard, so my download is, um, continuing. Some people are reporting problems with the update. I downloaded mine with no difficulty, however, if you have troubles wait a day and try again. Otherwise, the workaround is to remove FCP X from the Applications folder, then redownload from the App Store. Or contact Apple Support.)

FREE TRIAL
Also, for the first time that I can recall, Apple is offering a free 30-day trial for Final Cut. The 30-day period starts when you launch the program, so you can download today, yet not work with it till the weekend without costing yourself time on the demo.

Here’s the link: http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/trial/

Apple also updated QuickTime with new codecs. Get more information here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1396

APPLE’S KEY POINTS
As our meeting began, I asked what were the key points Apple wanted to convey with this upgrade. The answers were instantaneous:

1. Apple is committed to the professional user.
2. Apple is listening to user feedback and adding major new features far faster than they could do in the past.

I remarked that a release labeled: “10.0.1″ was hardly a new feature release. At which point, our discussion began.

VERSION NUMBERING
The new version is numbered 10.0.1 – which, given the past numbering system Final Cut used, implies this is only a minor bug-fix.

However, Apple has moved FCP X to the same numbering system that OS X uses. Using that example, the current version of OS X is 10.7.1, which we commonly call “7.1″. Using the same convention, the upgrade moved FCP X to version 0.1. In other words, Apple views this as a significant product enhancement.

HIGHLIGHTS

You've probably read the highlights on Apple's webpage (by the way, Apple also refreshed the FCP webpage with this update): http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/software-update.html

* Media Stems Export
* XML Import and Export
* XSAN network support
* Customized timecode by project

…and others. Let me go into detail.

XSAN (NETWORK) SUPPORT

XSAN is bundled with Lion (a small fact that I forgot). However, these network features should work with any network file server provided the data transfer rate is fast enough from the server to the local computer to support media file transfers, and the server supports user permissions and record-locking, which OS X Server does.

Shared media on a server has always been supported by FCP X. However, Project and Event folders needed to be stored locally.

Now, media, Projects, and Events can all be stored on a server. Media can be accessed by multiple users at the same time, however Project and Event folders can only be accessed by one person at a time. In other words, multiple editors can now access the same project, however only one editor can be in the Project at the same time. FCP X provides a simple menu choice allowing editors to move Events and Projects into, or out of, the app as necessary.

(As a network bandwidth thought, render files are stored in the Project folder. You might want to consider putting Events on the Server and storing Projects locally to minimize network traffic. Just a thought…)

XML IMPORT AND EXPORT

The core of Final Cut Pro is metadata and XML is the language of interchange of this metadata from one application to another. From XML we can get EDLs, OMFs, and all the other acronyms that we need. However, the first step is XML. The new version supports both XML import and export. While this feature will be used primarily by developers, the benefits of this feature will be used by all of us.

At our meeting, I was shown an XML export of an FCP X project directly into a pre-release version of Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Lite! This replicates the ability to send a project to Color, with fewer restrictions and faster export. The Apple representatives told me that all the DaVinci Resolve line would support XML transfers from FCP X. (This is a correction, as I earlier wrote that this would be supported by the entire Davinci family.)

This is great news for anyone looking to do serious color grading of their FCP projects.

Another use of XML involved CatDV. Again, Apple showed a collection of media stored and cataloged in CatDV, a great media asset manager for the Mac. We built a short rough-cut, using clips stored in CatDV then, with a single AppleEvent keyboard shortcut which activated an Apple Event — Shift+Command+X — the entire rough cut was sent to FCP X, along with all the media and project data. The whole XML transfer process took about two seconds from pressing the button to seeing the new Event with media and the Project opened in the Timeline. This was very impressive.

Two other programs that use XML transfer were mentioned:

AutoDesk Smoke. Apple demoed an FCP X export to Autodesk Smoke. UPDATE: However, Apple told me that they are working with Autodesk and collaborating to support XML based workflows for FCP X. It is not supported just yet.

Atomos, I was told, is also launching an export utility for their file-based digital recorders that transfers ProRes files and metadata directly into FCP X. In fact, more than 20 companies are in the process of announcing new utilities or programs to work with the new version. (As we realized at the launch, XML import and export is the critical first step to unlocking the flow of third-party applications.)

AUDIO ROLES AND MEDIA STEMS

We spent a long time talking about Roles and Media Stems. Roles are a new metadata category that allow you to assign “roles” to clips. The most obvious is tagging audio for export to mixing, but the benefits are deeper than that.

FCP X is trackless. This means that the “age-old” method of putting the same audio in the same track so that you can mix all your dialog separately from your effects won’t work.

Instead, we assign Roles, which is a special metadata tag similar to a keyword. Some Roles are assigned on import. FCP looks at the file and attempts to determine if it is dialog, effects, or music. (If it guesses right, you save time. If it guesses wrong, you can easily change it.) You can create an unlimited number of new Roles.

Roles can apply to video, titles, or audio. There are three default audio Roles: Dialog, Effects, and Music. All have keyboard shortcuts and you can add as many as you want. You can even add “subroles” — roles related to other roles.

You can also apply Roles to titles – say to flag all English titles or Spanish titles.

When you export, you can export all audio that is flagged with a specific Role. You can export just music clips, or dialog, or effects.

But, Roles can be a real benefit in the Project, separate from exporting. You can solo all clips that belong to a specific role. For example, you can just listen to all dialog clips.

You can highlight all clips that belong to a specific Role – for instance, display all sound effects clips.

You can make invisible all clips in any combination of Roles. This is the equivalent of turning off the green Visibility light at the left side of the FCP 7 Timeline. This is VERY cool, because now, you can hide or reveal any combination of clips that all have the same Role assigned to it.

When it comes to exporting audio, using Roles we can export all our different audio stems, for example dialog, in a single pass. Or, for multiple-language video, Roles makes exporting video in different languages simple. Turn on all the English titles and export. Then, turn on all the Spanish titles and export again. I can see all kinds of ways to use Roles in editing.

UPDATE: For moving projects to ProTools, use Automatic Duck. According to Apple, the stems are really for delivery of final mixes either as a digital delivery or output to tape using a third party app like the upcoming Media Express or VTRxchange. The Roles info is in the XML so a third party could use the metadata for a wide range of workflows.

Apple took Roles far further than simply flagging clips for export into something that can help make sense of a complex timeline.

EXPORTING
Apple added an entirely new export option to allow exporting Roles. In fact, the process of exporting a QuickTime movie is now faster – if you are working with optimized media FCP just does a simple file copy of the ProRes in the Project to the ProRes of the export. Also, you can export a master QuickTime file and have it automatically loaded into Compressor, while still retaining the master file.

Then, both Blackmagic Design and AJA have announced products that will take the exported file and output it to tape.

OTHER NEW FEATURES

We can now change the starting timecode in a Project. Timecode is set in Project Properties.

We can now add transitions to connected clips with a single keystroke. What this does is both add the transition and converts the connected clip into a connected storyline. (We still can’t add an audio transition to audio in the Primary Storyline without detaching clips, however.)

A new Theme — Tribute — was added.

If you have Lion, FCP X now supports editing in full-screen mode. However, there are no other Lion-specific features in FCP X, so if you are still running OS X 10.6, you aren’t missing anything else in Final Cut.

Exports are now GPU accelerated. In the initial version, exports ran in the background, and they took advantage of multiple CPUs, but they didn’t take advantage of the graphics card. Now, exports are significantly faster. However, in order to take advantage of GPU acceleration, you need to export in the foreground, because the GPU is shared for both exports and real-time playback of Timeline effects.

(An interesting sidenote: Given the technical specs of the H.264 codec, exporting directly to H.264 will be MUCH faster if you use single-pass than multiple-pass. Apple suggested using single-pass unless you can see a difference in image quality, at which point compress as multi-pass.)

Apple released a camera import SDK so that camera manufacturers can provide support for their latest cameras without waiting for Apple to update the software. What this means to us is that we should see cameras launch with support for FCP X built-in.

THINGS STILL MISSING

For the first time ever, outside a Steve Jobs speech, Apple announced products that are coming, but more than 30-days away. Apple publicly stated that both multicam editing and output to broadcast monitors will arrive “early in 2012.”

I tried to pin them down to a more specific date; no success.

Apple said they also fixed a number of bugs, but I didn’t have time to find out what some of them were.

There are still some significant missing features which are not addressed in this upgrade or their announcement: Retaining In and Out points for clips in the Event Browser is undergoing a debate in Apple. So is the ability to read source timecode for clips in the Timeline. Drop shadows for elements other than text and a few generators requires creating a custom Motion template. The ability to apply an effect to a group of clips, then modify that effect — think audio mixing — is still severely limited. There is no out-of-sync indicator for detached audio clips that have shifted in the Timeline. There is no way to set the default project audio to stereo.

Apple stresses that there is far more development planned for the program.

But this update is significant for several reasons:

1. The speed with which Apple was able to get it released.
2. The fact that most of these features are of interest to pro editors; an iMovie editor is not going to care about audio stems
3. The flexibility Roles provide as part of the editing process is really amazing.

If you currently own FCP X, I recommend you get the update as time permits.

Let me know what you think.

Larry

P.S. If you have purchased my Final Cut Pro X training, I will be providing a FREE upgrade later this month highlighting how to use the new features. (This update applies to all new purchases as well.) We’ll send you an email notice when our update is available. Learn more about my FCP X training here: www.larryjordan.biz/fcpx

Let me confess, before you read further, that I am such a fan of singing and dancing that… well, let’s just say that when I was a young director, I was in awe of the television musical specials directed by Dwight Hemion and produced by Gary Smith.

Most of the performance video techniques that we rely on today were invented by these two guys. To my mind, they are the gold standard against which all other performance videos need to be judged.

Anyway, I was given a ticket to a preview of the upcoming 3D Glee Concert Movie. So I went to see it tonight. (And, yup, I’m a fan of the show — it has singing and dancing!)

The movie interweaves three storylines: onstage performances to what looks like a crowd of about 50,000 enraptured screaming Gleeks, backstage with the performers getting ready to go on, and interviews and profiles of fans.

Its also shot in 3D.

For people interested in production and editing the movie is worth seeing for a variety of reasons.

First, the sheer energy, enthusiasm, and talent of the performers just radiates off the screen. It is enormous fun watching talented performers who clearly enjoy what they are doing.

Second, the editing on the main set pieces is always good and many times borders on amazing. The performance by The Warblers is an outstanding example of successful editing in a 360 degree environment. The Puck solo as he traverses the entire floor of the stadium is a great balance between being lost with the crowd and keeping the viewer oriented. And the dance number by Brittany and her backup dancers is a clinic on how to edit dance for the big screen.

However, there are also a number of other things to watch that didn’t work so well. Notice how 3D does not enhance the performance. In many cases, there were real issues where they had trouble shooting a live scene and keeping performances separated from the screen plane. All too often, the performer would touch the edge of the physical frame and the 3D effect was lost. The Mercedes set piece is an excellent example of the breakdown of the screen plane. 3D may sell tickets, but it doesn’t enhance the performance… especially a live performance when so much of camera work is “keeping up and winging it.”

Another issue with 3D is that camera angles that work in 2D, don’t work in 3D. An example of this is a low camera angle shooting up at a performer. Very uncomfortable. Also, fast cuts that work great in 2D, are too fast in 3D. The brain can’t orient in space fast enough.

The whole 3D editing issue needs to be thought through more when dealing with fast-paced music. In this case, the cutting was too fast and the 3D made it disorienting.

Notice how hard it is to weave three separate storylines, and five different Gleek profiles into a coherent performance video. Also notice that the documentary sections switches into 2D, then back to 3D for the music. As an editor, how would you handle the challenge?

For anyone who’s a fan of the show, the movie is well worth seeing.

For people who are fans of production and editing, the movie provides an exceedingly good example of what works and what doesn’t when integrating performance with documentary footage. And, while most of us don’t work on this scale or with these budgets, this combination is a popular format where we are all wrestling with the same issues:

* How do we transition from speaking to performance and make it appear seamless?
* Is the musical performance enough to carry the film? If not, what do we need to add?
* How do we compensate for the inherent imperfections in a live performance?
* How do you edit multi-camera musical performance without excessive jump cuts and without obstructing the flow of the performance itself?
* How important is it to make people in the film audience feel like they are in the concert audience?

An example of this last question is compare the editing of this concert to the editing in “Singing in the Rain,” any Fred Astaire movie, or “Woodstock.” The Glee movie has outstanding talent that can easily fill the frame, yet, many times, the editors were afraid to stay with a shot, cutting off action too soon, just to keep the pace up.

Many times, I feel that editors are afraid to trust their actors to fill a scene. That the imperative of cuts for the sake of cutting gives the illusion of pacing, but actually obscures what’s going on and frustrates the audience.

When you are trying to hide the fact that your performers are inept, then rapid cutting, shaky handheld shots, wild angles, bad lighting, and unmotivated effects are the rule. But when you have talent that glows, cutting too soon should be a crime.

I enjoyed the movie. And I’m old school – I’ll buy it on DVD when it comes out. Its worth watching more than once because there’s a lot we can learn from it – both good and bad.

As always, let me know what you think.

Larry

[Image courtesy Apple Inc. Click for enlarged view.]

Apple this evening provided a “sneak peek” at the next version of Final Cut Pro – now called “Final Cut Pro X” at the NAB SuperMeet in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The new Final Cut Pro is a bold move – a totally redesigned interface, 64-bit memory addressing, multi-processor support, tight integration of metadata in the project file with metadata stored in the clip not just in the project, heavy use of automation to simplify tedious tasks, and a rethinking of the entire concept of what it means to edit.

I can’t think of any other company that could so totally redefine what a non-linear video editor is than Apple. Since the release of Final Cut Pro 1, each version of FCP has contained incremental improvements. This is a complete restatement at every possible level.

As Phil Schiller, senior VP for world-wide marketing for Apple told me after the presentation, “This is a total rethinking of how we tell stories visually.”

Love it or hate it, our editing life won’t be the same again.

Oh, and did I mention — it has a ship date of June, with a suggested retail price of $299, and will be sold through the App Store (more on that in a bit).

TAKING A STEP BACK

But to look at Final Cut Pro in terms of its features or spec list misses a much bigger point that I want to reflect on for a bit. And it all revolves around a term I used in my first line – this was a “sneak peek.”

This is why you won’t see anything about the new Final Cut on Apple’s website – this is a preview, not the launch. There is still much work that needs to be done on the software.

Understanding an Apple event is like understanding a meeting of the Federal Reserve Bank. It is essential to concentrate on both what was said, and what was not said.

After the presentation, I spoke with Richard Townhill, Director of Pro Video Product Marketing for Apple (who served as the host for Apple’s presentation) who told me that “the purpose of today is to focus exclusively on Final Cut Pro, highlight some of the new features, and give people a chance to see and comment on the new interface. We will have much more to say about both Final Cut and our other applications in the future.”

Final Cut has been rewritten from the ground up and borrows a lot from other siblings in the suite. The audio cleanup and processing borrows heavily from Soundtrack Pro, primary and secondary color correction tools are taken from Color (see the screen shot below), and some of the motion effects techniques are taken from Motion.

However, this does not mean these other applications are dead – simply that Apple is not talking about them… yet.

I was reading posts this evening on IMUG and Twitter, where users were saying: “is it iMovie on Steroids?” I think this is a premature question.

[Image courtesy Apple Inc. Click for enlarged view.]

THIS IS A PRO APP APPLE DESIGNED FOR PROS

After the presentation, I went down front to talk with the folks from Apple about what I saw. And I asked Richard directly: “Explain to me why this isn’t a big version of iMovie?”

Richard replied: “We designed this to have professional features for the professional user. The reason we chose to present it here at the Supermeet was that we wanted the professional user to see it and understand what we are doing.”

As one attendee said to me after the event: “Both a Ford and a Ferrari have an accelerator, but that doesn’t make them the same car.”

Also, what viewers in the audience did NOT see was who from Apple was attending the presentation that did not appear on stage.

Somehow, I managed to sit in the Apple executive section of the hall. In front of me was Phil Schiller, Senior VP for Worldwide Marketing. The head of PR was sitting to his right. The two lead engineering directors, or VPs, were sitting on either side of me. I was surrounded by top-level executives from engineering, PR, marketing, product management — literally a dozen extremely senior executives were sitting in the front two rows.

Apple would not send this level of executive talent simply to watch the roll-out of a product that they did not care about.

SIDE NOTE: I was sandwiched between two senior engineering executives who had as much fun as anyone in the audience watching the demo and applauding. I suspect it was because they were finally seeing the public result of years of behind-the-scenes work.

Another interesting data point. This presentation was almost exactly the same one that I saw six weeks ago in Cupertino. Apple used it then to get feedback from a small group; I suspect they are using this exact presentation tonight for the same reason — to get reactions from a much larger group.

LOOKING AT THE NUTS AND BOLTS

Based on tonight’s presentation several long-standing irritants with Final Cut Pro disappear:

* Rendering is now in the background and much faster because it harnesses the power of the GPU.
* The 4 GB memory limit is gone – FCP will use as much RAM as you have installed on your system.
* FCP X now uses all the processors on your system, not just one and a half.

In addition, a flock of new features were added:
* It supports editing video image sizes from standard definition up to 4K.
* It uses fewer tools from the Tool palette (which is no longer there, by the way) by making the cursor smarter. WHERE you click something determines WHAT you can do with it.
* A lot of existing features are jazzed up (linking and grouping are replaced by the much more elegant Clip Connection and Compound Clips)
* While new features like the magnetic timeline, permanent audio sync and auto-metadata generation are flat-out stunning.

NOTE: Nothing said, or implied tonight, indicated that you would need any special hardware. My guess is that any Mac you buy now will run FCP perfectly. Also, contrary to some rumors, I spoke with Apple engineering about Thunderbolt. This is a system level I/O connection. If your Mac has it, ANY version of FCP – or any other Mac application – will take advantage of it.

[Image courtesy Apple Inc. Click for enlarged view.]

THINGS I WAS STRUCK BY

While the slide show was identical to the February meeting, the demo was not. Randy Ubillos, who did the demo, added more features and additional explanations on effects (see the screen shot above). However, I was told later that the build that was demoed was the same build that was shown in February – and that the application has moved significantly forward since that time.

In other words, what we saw tonight was nowhere near the final form of the application.

I was also very impressed that audio was not treated as an unwelcome step-child. First, the demo paid a lot of attention to setting and maintaining audio sync, however lots of little details were also obvious:

* Sample rate precision in scrolling an audio clip
* Pitch corrected audio scrolling in slow motion
* Displaying waveforms at a size big enough to see what they look like
* Displaying audio levels within the waveform that are approaching clipping (as one engineer near me remarked, “And THAT took us a LONG while to figure out.”)
* Displaying audio peaks for the entire mix that are approaching clipping
* Improved audio cleanup controls, which can be applied or ignored by the user (these look to be borrowed from Soundtrack Pro)
* Adding fades with a keystroke, or by pulling in the top corners of a clip, with four different fade shapes, rather than the limit of two inside FCP 7; these, too, borrow interface ideas from Soundtrack Pro.

THE CROWD’S REACTIONS

In brief, the crowd was loving it. Granted, many of them got well-lubricated at the no-host bar before the event, but nonetheless, everyone seemed to have a good time.

The new interface drew applause, 64-bit support and background rendering had people drooling and the new price of $299 received a standing ovation.

MY REACTIONS

I’ve been thinking hard about this since I first saw the software six weeks ago.

And, truthfully, I’m very torn. There are some features here that I really like a LOT. There are a few that I don’t like at all. But there is a great deal that has not yet been said.

And that, I think, is the key point. The devil is ALWAYS in the details.

Apple has done its usual magnificent job of previewing a new product. But this is only the preview.

I met Randy Ubillos, Chief Architect for Video Applications at Apple, after he presented the demo of the software. I told him that parts of what I saw I liked a lot and parts had me quite concerned. And I asked if Apple was interested in our feedback. He immediately said that Apple is VERY interested in our feedback, that they are listening and want to make this application something that all of us can be proud of using.

I believe him. And I also believe that it is way too early to make any final decisions about this version. There are too many unanswered questions. For example, here are some questions the answers to which are still unknown:

* The retail price for FCP is $299 – but what is the retail price of the other software parts of the Suite? Are we back to ala carte pricing?

* The application will be sold through the Mac App store. What happens to all the great data files that were available with the suite in earlier versions?

* How does FCP X work with existing FCP 7 projects?

* What other applications ship with Final Cut and how do they integrate?

* How many of our existing plug-ins, peripherals, hardware, and other gear need to be updated to work with the new software?

* Editing does not exist in a vacuum, how do we share files, clips, metadata, and project information with other software tools?

* How does it handle media?

* How has QuickTime changed to support what Final Cut Pro X can do?

* Real-time, native video processing is great for editing – however, we still need to encode to get files on the web. How?

As of tonight, Apple hasn’t provided answers to these, or many other questions. As they do, or as I’m able to find them out, I’ll share them with you in this blog and my newsletter.

As one engineer told me at the Cupertino meeting in February, Final Cut Pro is still a work in progress. We’ve seen the outline of the work – the rough cut, if you will. Now we need to give the engineers time to listen to our feedback, polish it up, and deliver the final cut of Final Cut.

ONE LAST THOUGHT

I’ve made a promise to myself to provide training on the new version of Final Cut Pro as soon as possible after the release date.

If you are interested in getting up to speed quickly on the new version – please sign up for my free monthly Final Cut Studio newsletter. As I learn more, I’ll be sharing it with you there.

And as I make new training available, I’ll announce it there first.

For now, I’m going back to the drawing boards. I’ve got a lot of new work to do.

Larry

UPDATE – April 13, 2011

I just posted an eight minute audio review and commentary on the new version of Final Cut Pro X, with Michael Kammes. You can hear it here.

It shouldn’t be this difficult.

NOTE: This blog grew out of my webinar last week on how to archive Final Cut Pro projects. If you are interested in archiving, click here to learn more.

The process of creating films and videos generates LOTS of data. From getting the footage shot, through the editing process, we are dealing with dozens, if not hundreds, of gigabytes of data.

And we solve this problem by buying ever more and ever larger hard disks and RAIDS. So far, a trifle expensive, but not really a problem.

However, once a project is done, we can’t just throw all these files away. The images and interviews are irreplaceable and have a value long after a project is complete.

We need to save these for the long-term, a process called “archiving.” And here, we are caught between a rock and a hard place.

In the camera industry’s head-long rush to convert to cameras that shoot tapeless video, they seem to have overlooked the fact that we need to save these video files after editing is complete.

I have spoken with executives at Sony, Canon, JVC, Panasonic, and the rest of the camera industry, not one offers any kind of long-term archiving solution.

NOTE: I define archiving as the ability to save all video project and source files for a period of 10 – 25 years. Backup is what we do to protect ourselves during a project from the risk of data loss.

One camera vendor told me, dismissively, that tapeless media should just be handled as part of an “IT workflow.” Which is great if you have an IT department and the budget to support it. But, I looked in my checkbook, and the ability to write a $100,000 check for an automated tape archive library is not possible this week.

For me, the long-term solution to archiving tapeless video is LTO-tape. This has the flexibility, storage, and longevity to meet all our archiving needs. But, while this seems obvious to me, manufacturers of LTO gear seem to be doing everything they can to avoid selling us the products we need.

HOW YOU CONNECT IS CRITICAL

Currently, most LTO-tape drives connect via FibreChannel, SAS, or mini-SAS. Which makes sense if you are selling to the corporate market, where every server supports plug-in cards, speed is everything, and budgets are always expressed in units of ten thousand dollars.

But that isn’t the reality of video editing.

More than 70% of all video editors work in companies of five employees or less. Generally, the video editor provides all their own tech support, without access to an IT department.

Additionally, I would guess that close to half of all video editing is done on a laptop with a FireWire-attached RAID or hard disk. Portability is more important to a producer shooting a documentary than sheer horsepower.

Or, take an independent filmmaker on a budget. They have a collection of multi-terabyte FireWire drives, containing all the elements of their film, scattered across their desktop while editing on an iMac to take advantage of the large screen. Saving money yet getting a large screen is more important than buying the fastest possible computer.

I don’t have any research here, but I would guess that two-thirds of video editors are working on a system that isn’t a MacPro. And every one of those editors is juggling terabytes of data and praying they can figure out a way to store it for the long-term.

NOTE: The newly announced Thunderbolt provides a very fast data bus that tape vendors can tap into that would give them access to every new Mac that Apple ships. However, it doesn’t solve the archiving problems of the millions of Mac users that already have gear.

SPEED ISN’T EVERYTHING

When backing up corporate servers, speed is important, because many of the files on a server change daily.

But this isn’t typical for video. Video and film shoot a lot of files in a very short period of time, then spend a while — sometimes a long while — editing them. In other words, once the initial backup is complete, the only files that change are relatively small project files, not the massive media files.

This means that a workflow that features easy-to-connect and easy-to-use is far superior to one that emphasizes blinding speed. We are making archives here to last for decades. Taking an extra few hours to back everything up is a non-issue.

My large media files don’t change that often. My small project files change daily. And I only need to archive my project once – when the entire project is complete.

A FireWire-attached LTO drive would not be a speed demon, but I’d bet you’d never be able to keep them in stock. Security of my assets is FAR more important than transfer speed.

THE SIMPLE TASK OF GETTING AN HP LTO-5 TAPE DRIVE TO WORK ON A MAC

Here’s a specific example.

HP is a leading manufacturer of LTO drives. About a month ago, I contacted them for a loaner unit to review so that I could use it to illustrate a webinar I just did on how to archive Final Cut Pro projects.

HP agreed and shipped me an HP StorageWorks Ultrium 3000 SAS LTO-5 tape drive. It uses an ATTO ExpressSAS H680 interface card, which, because it is a plug-in PCIe card, only works with a MacPro.

The drive arrived a month ago and I am STILL trying to figure out how to connect it to my MacPro!

NOTE: Installation on Windows and Linux is close to click-one-button easy. Not so on the Mac.

I teamed up with two software engineers to help me get this to work. The first took one look at the installation instructions and gave up.

The second spent many hours over the last four weeks trying to configure the system. Here’s what he learned:

1) The HP unit didn’t come with firmware compatible with the software
2) Updating the firmware is seriously non-trivial.
3) It’s loud. The drive is about two feet from his ear and measures 57dB in operation.

Here is a BRIEF summary of the steps necessary to install the HP StorageWorks Ultrium 3000 SAS unit on a MacPro. (Keep in mind this required a Unix-trained hardware engineer to accomplish — this is only a summary, the actual installation process took more than 30 steps and two weeks to figure out!)

1. Install the ATTO SAS card into PCIe slot #1 of the MacPro.

2. Go to Google and download MacFuse, which is special utility software that allows the drive to operate on a Mac)

3. Install MacFuse

4. Go to HP’s website — www.hp.com/go/ltfs — to download the latest drive firmware.
HINT: To get this to work, you need to know the version you need. To make this easier, HP doesn’t tell you which version that is.

5. Download and install ICUFramework.pkg

6. Download and install LinearTapeFileSystem.pkg

7. Format the tape cartridge – this is LOUD! 57 dB.
HINT: Formatting a tape can only be done from the Terminal window. You ARE familiar with entering Unix commands via Terminal, aren’t you?)

8. Update Firmware on your drive.
HINT: This involves a return to the Terminal.

9. Prior to installation move the downloaded firmware into the /VAR/ROOT/ folder.
HINT: You will be glad to know that this folder is invisible on the Mac.

10. Make yourself a SuperUser in order to install the software.
HINT: You should be familiar with how to become a root user.

And this is only the START! There are still about 20 steps left to go involving terminal commands, more downloads, accessing invisible folders, and, if I read the fine print correctly, sacrificing a small goat.

This is ridiculous!

THERE ARE OTHER SOLUTIONS

Yes, there are existing Mac solutions out there.

The Tolis Group — www.tolisgroup.com — has BRU Producer, a hardware/software system for archiving that runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux systems. I’ve spent the last 30 minutes on their website, I still have no idea what products I need or how they are priced. The purchase they product, they refer me to a dealer. When I go to a dealer’s site, for information or pricing, they refer me back to the Tolis Group site.

The Tolis Group has hardware bundles, software bundles, and add-ons, which, apparently, are neither hardware nor software, but assume you already have the hardware you need, whatever that is.

Cache-A — www.cache-a.com — is another company that makes archiving solutions for the Mac. They only have two products, which makes deciding a lot simpler. However, nowhere on their website do they mention a price.

OK, that means I need to buy it from a dealer. So, I went to four of the dealers listed on their website:

* AbleCineTech — doesn’t list Cache-A in their vendor list, and Cache-A can’t be found using a search
* Digital Video Group — doesn’t list the products they sell and their site is not searchable
* B & H Studios — Cache-A not listed, site not searchable
* TekServe — Cache-A can’t be found using a search

And these are not small dealers here. It seems I can only buy Cache-A through dealers and the dealers are too embarrassed to mention they carry the product!

Is selling archiving solutions REALLY that difficult??? Is this much secrecy about your pricing, your products, or your service necessary?

Apparently, archiving IS rocket science!

CONCLUSION

If you are an manufacturer that has an LTO-tape-based archiving solution that:

* Can be installed easily on the Mac OS
* Is willing to list the product and its price on their website
* Has an announced shipping date
* Has an announced price of between $2,000 and $4,000
* Can connect to Macs via Thunderbolt or Firewire
* Supports the LTO-5 standard, which makes file backup/restore VERY easy
* And includes archiving software that can be run by mere mortals and not IT gods…

Contact me. I will happily share the news of your product to the MILLIONS of video editors that are desperately searching for ways to safeguard their media.

Otherwise, we run the very real possibility that every movie we are watching today will slowly disappear over the next few years as our current archive solutions fail.

Larry

The good folks at Accusys sent me an 8-drive RAID to test recently. (You can read my review of their ExaSAN A08S-PS unit in the next issue of my newsletter; coming out later this month.)

However, what I want to share with you today was something I discovered during my testing that totally surprised me.

Video editing is the most difficult thing we can do on a personal computer, because it requires really top-notch gear and editing software to all mesh perfectly in order to get any work done.

But what REALLY pushes your system to the limit is multicam editing. Working with more than two or three streams of simultaneous video truly separates the weak from the strong, from a hard disk point of view.

So, I decided to test this RAID by editing some 720p/60 P2 (DVCPROHD) footage with it.

NOTE: A quick technical note. DVCPROHD requires a data transfer rate from your hard disk to your computer of about 15 MB/second in order to display video in real-time. So, two streams of P2 video require about 30 MB/second. The key number to watch in the charts below is the READ number.

FireWire 800 drives can deliver up to about 80 MB/second of data; which means they are limited to about five streams of HD video. In practical terms, they may play less, depending upon the video format.

So, I created a multiclip containing 10 DVCPROHD clips, edited it into the Timeline, and started to switch between shots during playback by clicking the appropriate image in the Viewer.

NOTE: All the images match because, for simplicity, I took one image and duplicated it. These are all separate video files, not aliases pointing to the same file.

ONE CLICK and I got the dreaded “Dropped Frame” warning. (I hate this thing!)

Sigh…

So, I scaled back the number of clips in the multiclip to six, and everything worked perfectly.

But, what’s the sense of spending all the money to buy a fast RAID if it only does six streams of HD video.

NOTE: And if THAT isn’t a snobbish sentence, I don’t know what is. Imagine what you would have paid ten years ago to edit six real-time streams of HD video. You would have KILLED for the chance. Today, pffft…, can’t be bothered.

Then, as I was about to give it up as a bad job, a little voice in my head said: “Larry, what happens if you edit using keyboard shortcuts?”

So, I selected Tools > Keyboard Layout > Multi-camera Editing. This allows me to use the numeric keyboard to switch between cameras.

Six streams of 720p60 HD worked perfectly. (Which I would expect, since it worked in the Viewer.)

But TEN streams of 720p60 HD also worked perfectly, provided I use the keyboard shortcuts. And this I did NOT expect. I would have expected the same performance from the keyboard shortcuts as I would in the Viewer.

So then I tried 16 streams of 720p60 HD video. Worked PERFECTLY using keyboard shortcuts!

Even though running 16 streams requires Read speeds of 231 MB/second from the RAID; far more than I could get from a single drive.

Hmm… Time to get serious about this.

I transcoded 22 clips of 1920×1080 60 fps AVCHD into ProRes 422. ProRes 422 requires 17.4 MB/sec, at a minimum, for real-time playback of a single 1080p HD stream. The images are gorgeous, but the files are not small.

I linked all 22 clips together, turned off the display of six tracks (because a multiclip in FCP only displays 16 tracks at one time).

NOTE: There’s that snobbery again… ONLY 16 tracks of real-time full-res HD clips…! Sheesh…

There they are. (Thanks, Joe Centeno, for the video!)

WOW! 271 MB/sec. Playing smoothly and editing perfectly — and I was editing to a new shot about once a second, with ZERO dropped frames. Perfect playback!!

Holy Smoke! I did not expect this.

So, here’s the key thought. The next time you are editing multicam work, make it a point to use the keyboard shortcuts. You’ll be stunned at how much easier this is and how few dropped frames you experience.

And having a fast RAID is critical when you start editing more than four streams of video.

Larry

P.S. Here’s a short video tutorial, available in my store, that shows how to create and edit Multiclips using the Viewer, keyboard shortcuts, and buttons.

Putch, over at Putch Films, sent me this link on Apple’s website on how the film: Eat Pray Love was edited on Final Cut Pro.

www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/in-action/eatpraylove/?sr=hotnews.rss

I liked their description of their use of ProRes Proxy and the workflow they followed.

Larry

“When I first got started in this editing business,” he said creaking back and forth in his rocking chair, “editing video took a minimum of two quarter-million dollar videotape recorders – plus a control room – a lot of patience and some blind luck.”

Today just blew the doors off what we used to consider “editing systems.”   Let me start with an email I got this evening from Tony Liuzzi:

I have been using LogMeIn.com for at least six months. It works great. With that as background, here’s my story.

I was flying from New York to San Francisco recently, and said, “why not try using LogMeIn  from an airplane at 35,000 feet and see how it behaves?”  I had purchased an internet connection on my flight — the cost was discounted since I was a first-time user.

I checked my email and read that my client had a revision to be made on a current Final Cut Pro project. So, I said, what the heck? Let’s see.

I logged into my edit system and discovered I had great response/control from the flight. As good as I had when I am connected on land. I was amazed!

I made the changes to the project and exported the file.  It went from Final Cut Pro to Squeeze, all controlled from my flight. Then, I opened up Transmit to send the newly compressed file to their FTP site for approval.

Now, here is where the story gets even funnier.  I sent an email to the client telling her I was making the changes right now — but NOT that I was on a plane.  She reviewed and approved the changes — all before I landed.

It was a VERY cool moment. And I thought you’d enjoy the story.

Larry replies: This whole idea of remote computer control totally changes what we consider an editing system.  Is it the computer doing the editing or the computer CONTROLLING the computer doing the editing.

These lines got even more blurred this morning, when Steve Jobs showcased the new iPhone 4 running iMOVIE!

Sheesh!

What made this even funnier for me was that Tom Tomchak ran an April Fools Day press release talking about porting Final Cut Pro to the iPhone.  At the time, it made for very funny reading. Who knew that he was actually able to see the future?  He wasn’t being preposterous, he was being prescient!

The editing community is already starting to take sides on this new $4.99 software.  But I think some of the discussion misses the point.

Tens of millions of people will have access to simple equipment to shoot 720p30 HD video. Using the latest version of iMovie for the iPhone, they can edit it in their phone. Then, imagine that when they connect their phone to the computer, that iMovie file transfers over in a format that’s readable by iMovie on the Mac.

At which point, it is only a mouse-click to send that edited file via XML to Final Cut Pro for final polish.

The mind reels — I was blown away when I realized a few years ago that I had more editing power in my laptop than I did in a multi-million dollar post-production suite 20 years ago.

Now, that power is migrating to cell phones!

The key for us is not to run away from this new technology, but to realize that there are about to be millions of new customers than can use our expertise and experience to make their movies look even better. At the end of the day, it isn’t the tools, but the people using the tools that make the difference.

As another email today emphasized: “We’re not in Kansas anymore.”  (Actually, I’m beginning to think we aren’t even on the same planet.)

Strange times, indeed!

Larry

Scott Simmons just wrote about this on the Studio Daily blog, but this could be a great service and I wanted to let you know about it.

It’s called Movie Repair. Scott writes:

It looks to operate like this: if you have a movie file that seems to be corrupted and can’t be opened, you download a piece of software called Treasured which can diagnose the file in question. That software helps to file a Repair Request. You are then sent a Repair Kit that will try and repair the file. If you are happy with what you see you then pay for the repair to get the full file.

You can read the full posting here.

Michael Rubin sent me the following:

I don’t know if you know me – i’ve written frequently about editing over the decades… anyway, I recently posted a link to my book DROIDMAKER, (which chronicles, among other things, the birth of nonlinear editing, EditDroid, Avid, etc.) which for a short time i’m making available as a FREE download. I think you will like this book if you haven’t seen it, and i figure your readers and subscribers will also appreciate hearing about the free book.

Here’s the link. Check it out. Your feedback, of course, is valuable. Let me know if you’d like to chat about it.

Larry adds: Michael, I love history and I like free. I’m happy to share this with everyone. Thanks!