Why do Final Cut Pro 7 editors consider Final Cut Pro X?
Passions run a lot when we talk about the software on which we base our business. Last week, I wrote an article examining why publishers in Final Cut Pro 7 consider Adobe Premiere Pro CC. (Read here.) I was fascinated by all the comments.
This week, I want to take the same approach and look at Final Cut Pro X.
HISTORY
Final Cut Pro 7 was released on July 23, 2009, along with the rest of the Final Cut Studio suite (3). FCP 7 was last updated at the end of 2010 to version 7.0.3. Since then, a lot of technology has changed. Final Cut Pro 7 has not.
Final Cut Pro 7 was never designed for today's operating systems. Although it still works on OS X 10.9 (Mavericks), many of its plug-ins do not. And no one expects FCP 7 to run all future OS updates. This means that current publishers of FCP 7 are forced to choose:
Keep running the software on the current hardware, stop updating the operating system and do not buy any new hardware.
Migrate your projects to a different editing system and learn something new.
If you are in the middle of a great FCP 7 hardware and software project that is working fine, do not switch. Finish the project. Worry about what to do after the project is complete.
But, if you want to see this article, you can help decide what to do.
CLEANING THE AIR
Before comparing FCP X to FCP 7, I need to clear the air at three points that keep reappearing in my email.
1. "If I wait a little longer, will Apple bring back Final Cut Pro 7?" No. Final Cut Pro 7 has run its course. Development stops. It will not come back Put a fork in it, it's done.
2. "Apple made me very angry when FCP X was released." It is true that the launch was not one of the best Apple. In fact, the initial release of FCP X was widely criticized. But do not let the release of the quote is what Final Cut Pro X has become:
12 updates in less than three years at amazing level of support
It has more than 1 million registered users, larger than the installed base of FCP 7
It is in use every day for corporate video projects to great movies
There is a thriving ecosystem of developers, plug-ins and training that is larger than what exists in the era of Final Cut Studio
You have a free trial so you can try it out for yourself
3. "Apple took the easy way out by creating iMovie Pro." If Apple wanted to take the easy output, it added some small features FCP 7, increased the version number and called it one day. There are documents from Apple employees working on Final Cut Pro X every day - an investment of millions of dollars a year. No one does that for a "disposable" product.
If you like to be mad at Apple, fine. But, if you enjoy getting the job done on time and on budget, you have some very interesting options.
NOTE: Accessibility for the Final Cut Pro X Ecosystem page in the Mac App Store. Have a look.
LARRY'S VIEWPOINT
In the 1980s I wrote business software. It was not great, but he put a son of my kids in college. I learned that good software represents a way of thinking; A philosophy about how to do a task.
Final Cut Pro 7 and Final Cut Pro X are good examples of this. FCP 7 is based on the philosophy of "how editing has always been done". Beginning with editing between film rollers, morphing into multiple tape decks and expanding into the digital world. It is a solid, traditional and fully understandable point of view.
Final Cut Pro X took a different approach. Apple began by asking, "What does digital editing look like in the digital world?" He then asked, "What do editors expect in the world of computers and digital media?" Final Cut Pro X came from exploration The answers to my questions
This resulted in major changes in media management, the interface and the editing process. Apple's vision is that modern digital video editing software must take advantage of the vast amounts of metadata available from cameras and audio devices and the power of computers to help users tag, filter and classify media In a way that never before
Media management has become more robust, more flexible and supports far more than FCP devices 7. Apple has continued to refine this as FCP X continues to evolve.
And thinking about the interface, another important change, changed from light gray background to a dark gray background; Similar to iMovie ... and DaVinci Resolve, Autodesk Smoke and Photoshop. Dark gray makes colors easier to see.
PERFORMANCE
Each week, build a one-hour demo using Final Cut Pro 7. It's a template I created five years ago for my podcast: Digital Buzz Production. It takes me a few minutes to update the sequence template; Then an hour and a half to process and export the master file. To make it go faster, I make sure nothing else is running on the computer during export. In fact, it was dedicated to Mac OS X 10.6.8 for a weekly project.
NOTE: Final Cut Pro 7 only efficiently used 1 processor and only with a few exceptions, it does not support the GPU at all. Also, since it only had 32 bits, FCP 7 would only have 4 GB RAM access, regardless of how much RAM was installed on your system.
Because FCP 7 was so slow, Final Cut Pro has to do with speed blinding speed and moving as much work as possible sea bottom so you can do a creative job without waiting for something to end.
Final Cut Pro X has a modern architecture built to take advantage of multiple CPUs, multiple colors, multiple GPUs and its support for 64-bit memory addressing, which means that FCP can use all the RAM it can give you.
While FCP X is highly optimized for the new Mac Pro, dual-GPU support across the graphical line for real-time effects rendering, rendering, video monitoring and optical flow analysis also works great on all MacBook Pros and current iMacs.
One thing that keeps surprising about the application in the fluid that it is. I can play a sequence, while opening and closing other windows, zooming in and out of the timeline, all without dropping a frame in the playback. It is enormously sensitive; Even on a two-year-old iMac.
To give you an idea of how cool this is, you can import clips, export a project, process effects and edit - all at the same time; Even on an iMac.
WORKING WITH THE MEDIA
The FCP X database used for media tracking allows more and better clip metadata, and better file organization.
Skimming allows you to review the audio or video content of a clip without opening it first in the Viewer. Skimming makes browsing clips much faster and easier than FCP 7.
Scratch discs have been transformed. Now, we have Libraries. These are master "containers" that are similar to FCP 7 project files. Libraries have everything we worked on during the project: media, work files and edits (called "sequences" in FCP 7, "projects" In FCP X). The ability to consolidate media in one place makes copying, moving, sharing, managing and archiving much simpler, since they can store media ( "Managed Media") or point to media stored in External folders. The media can be stored anywhere and the storage location may vary by project. (Storing media per project was a major annoyance in FCP 7.)
And, like FCP 7, we can open multiple libraries at the same time and work with media or projects stored in any open library. Libraries can be opened or closed at any time.
Imported media can be organized by folder (Event), sort, or keyword. (FCP 7 only supports the organization per folder). Although keyword management is difficult when using more than 30 keywords in a project, search speeds with qualification or keywords are almost instantaneous.
The creation of optimized files (edit master) and high-quality proxy can be performed automatically on import. Background rendering and transcoding is optimized for ProRes 422 and ProRes 422 Proxy.
NOTE: An interesting feature behind the scenes that is shared between FCP X, Compressor and / or Motion is managed with ColorSync during rendering.
Switching Between Original Files and Proxy in FCP 7 took 17 different steps. (I know because the article I wrote explaining how my article was most popular for almost 18 months). Now, the switch between the native camera and proxy media is an option button and the media changes instantly.
Final Cut Pro X provides native, real-time support for professional video codecs like ProRes 4444 XQ and Sony XAVC along with more common codecs such as H.264 and AVCHD. In fact, FCP X fully supports the entire ProRes family through importing, editing, rendering and exporting.
NOTE: For a complete list of FCP X compatible cameras and codecs, click here.
WORKING WITH AUDIO
The waveform display in the timeline is larger, more accurate and more adjustable. We can also visualize waveforms, which are a "ghost" image of what the audio would look like if it were normalized.
The audio clips of the synchronized clips are no longer separate clips. It is impossible to accidentally delete out-of-sync audio. Working with multichannel audio is as flexible as FCP 7, without the risk of hitting clips out of sync. Dual-system audio can be automatically synchronized based on matching waveforms.
Audio fade transitions have been replaced by melt "points", with the ability to change the shape of the fade.
And all Logic / Soundtrack Pro plug-ins migrated to the latest version of Final Cut, with the ability to adjust the plug-in directly into its own interface within FCP X.
NOTE: FCP X also provides a variety of audio repair tools, however, honestly, if I have audio issues, I will move it to Adobe Audition for repair and mixing. On the other hand, for audio beginners, the audio repair features in FCP X are easy to use.
WORK WITH EFFECTS
Like FCP 7, FCP X has massive support from a wide range of third-party developers as well as all the companies they use in FCP 7. In addition, there are new effects and utilities that go beyond what they could in Final Cut 7 .
The chroma-keyer in FCP 7 was a dog. Beyond useless; I'm trying to be nice The chroma-keyer in FCP X is amazing. The default setting creates surprising keys.
Final Cut Pro X uses motion as its graphics engine. In fact, all effects in FCP X are actually Motion projects saved in such a way that Final Cut can access them. Like FCP 7, we can create animated titles in Motion that can be opened in FCP X, preserving all the animation, but allowing personalized text and text formatting. But the integration of Motion with FCP X is much more extensive than in FCP 7. You can customize any parameter in a Motion template and then export directly to Final Cut to create modifiable effects of a Motion template within Final Cut.
Apart from the confusing decision to redesign the color wheel as a rectangle, which I find to be totally inintuitive and awkward, the color correction in FCP X is better:
Color correction is performed using the non-YUV RGB color space.
We can automatically match the color between the frames and balance the color to improve the contrast and remove the color molds. FCP 7 just allowed the automatic color correction of a single clip that, frankly, was not so good.
We have unlimited secondary color corrections using masks that can be keyframed.
We have more control over color saturation.
Real-time LUTs can be applied to many ARRI, Canon, Blackmagic Design and Sony cameras
Apple has also improved the viewing of all video scopes, though I lack the small line to measure specific values and percentage indicators in the Vectorscope.
NOTE: For a truly powerful color correction, DaVinci Resolve imports FCP X XML files easily with just a mouse click, without having to prepare files for color classification.
WHAT YOU TRANSFER WHEN YOU INTERRUPT
To move projects from Final Cut 7 to Final Cut Pro X you need a separate and very cheap utility - 7toX from Intelligent Assistance - and three steps:
Export from media files to FCP 7 using File> Export> XML
Convert the XML file into FCP X format using 7toX.
Import XML file into FCP X with File> Import> XML
When transferring files using XML, all media and edits are transferred seamlessly. It dissolves and audio levels are generally transferred well. However, effects, titles, and color correction will not be transferred correctly.
NOTE: Because XML is required to move projects from FCP 7 to FCP X, it is critical that you export an XML to any FCP 7 project that you want to transfer in the future. Without an XML version, or a working copy of FCP 7, you will not be able to move the old projects from an FCP X. (Or Premiere Pro or Avid, for that matter. All these applications require XML to transfer FCP 7 projects.)
SUMMARY
The change is frightening. The change that has the potential to affect our business is scary. But we live in an industry based on technology. Change is inevitable. The key is to accept that change is as part of life, plan for change, and to continue learning for what when changes come, we are ready.
We can not keep the past much longer. FCP X is fast. It is fluid. And it manages technology so we can focus on editing.
As usual, let me know what you think.
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