Eight years later - So was FCP X "the future"?

[dorsal]

It was a leap of faith, bumpy, scary. Was it the right direction?

 

[casperes1996]

Shouldn't this be a poll post?

But my opinion, hell yes. Apple might've had more success with FCP if they'd been more traditional with it that's hard to say, but what FCPX is, is beautiful and special and in my opinion the best NLE on the market.

 

[e1me5]

Yes. It did many things first and many things just better. Proxy workflow, background rendering and overall performance, skimming, lightweight but scaleable, multicam, magnetic timeline, metadata management, 3rd party plugins, price. If you use Resolve you will find features that were firstly found in FCPX as well as the price, and the new Adobe Rush being a clone of it. Still many things missing or are not as good, i.e sound and colour options, but some are done via plug ins and other coming steadily thought the updates.

 

[dandeco]

Gee, I can't believe it's been almost eight years now since the first release of FCP X, and how it wasn't so great at first. Today it's a really slick, professional and very feature-packed video editing application, and it's what I typically use for anything elaborate; even my YouTube Poops! I also recommend taking a look at the "Off the Tracks" documentary about FCP X, its' difficult launch and how it's evolved for the better...
https://offthetracksmovie.com/

What I especially like is the background rendering, third-party plugin support, unlimited video and audio tracks, its' wide variety of format support, library skimming, the ability to upload videos right to the web, multicam editing, and its' large library of customizable transitions and effects. There are even some effects that were on the pre-2007 versions of iMovie, such as Earthquake and Rain and Ghost Trails (with the latter it's not called that but it's there) and customizable aged film looks. Now we just need electricity, fairy dust and fog to be built-in (i.e. without the need of third-party plugins.) Heck, with that said, FCP X seems to also have quite a bit in common with iMovie HD, including the background rendering.

 

[fig]

It does some things nicely, I find the whole workflow for saving/linking/exporting to be an absolute nightmare though.

Had a recent friend project that I had to edit in FCPX, and trying to edit that and return him a file with everything in place to make other minor updates was a massive pain. In Premiere that would have been saving a source file then having him possibly relink to the footage folder on his end.

Granted, this was certainly at least somewhat due to me not being familiar with the software, but it didn't give me any reason to look at switching.

 

[casperes1996]

It does some things nicely, I find the whole workflow for saving/linking/exporting to be an absolute nightmare though.

Had a recent friend project that I had to edit in FCPX, and trying to edit that and return him a file with everything in place to make other minor updates was a massive pain. In Premiere that would have been saving a source file then having him possibly relink to the footage folder on his end.

Granted, this was certainly at least somewhat due to me not being familiar with the software, but it didn't give me any reason to look at switching.

Exactly the same workflow can be achieved with Final Cut. When the library is originally created you can set it up as a referencing library or a packaged library (I invented those two terms - I forget what Apple calls it). If set up as a referencing library your familiar workflow is basically unchanged. With the packaged library, sending over the library will be a bit of a pain since it'll have to contain all the footage inside the library. It's possible to conert between the two library types after creation but becomes a bit of a hassle. - But yeah, if you work with the correct files and know where the buttons for linking in Final Cut are, it's no different workflow wise

 

[joema2]

Exactly the same workflow can be achieved with Final Cut. ...if you work with the correct files and know where the buttons for linking in Final Cut are, it's no different workflow wise

Both editors must generally have the same media whether in Premiere or FCPX. In FCPX you can just send the other editor a project (aka timeline) XML file in email which conveys the latest updates. I agree some of the fine points and "gotchas" of this workflow are not well documented.

You can have one editor using proxy-only files, but that entails additional complications. In the current FCPX version proxies cannot be relinked (say if a drive name changes).

Using the 3rd-party utility MergeX, multiple FCPX editors can non-destructively merge their work: http://www.merge.software

 

[casperes1996]

Both editors must generally have the same media whether in Premiere or FCPX. In FCPX you can just send the other editor a project (aka timeline) XML file in email which conveys the latest updates. I agree some of the fine points and "gotchas" of this workflow are not well documented.

You can have one editor using proxy-only files, but that entails additional complications. In the current FCPX version proxies cannot be relinked (say if a drive name changes).

Of course - The difference I was trying to point out with packaged vs linked libraries was more to do with how to share the footage vs timeline information - In that a packaged library would contain all the footage inside the library, and thus would be easier to share around if the large file size is not an issue, otherwise a linked library would be better, assuming both editors have the source material already and just want to swap timelines.

Regarding your second paragraph; Is that fairly new? I haven't done colaborative workflows in a while so I haven't had much need for it, but last time I colaborated I could do this.

 

[joema2]

...Regarding your second paragraph; Is that fairly new? I haven't done colaborative workflows in a while so I haven't had much need for it, but last time I colaborated I could do this.

A proxy-only workflow has been possible since user-specified external storage locations were added in 10.1.2. This enabled placing proxies in a separate storage location vs inside the library. Those proxies could then be distributed to another editor.

However proxies (despite being only 1080p resolution) are ProRes 422 so the overall size is still about 60% that of 4k H264.

The workflow to distribute and use proxy-only media can be somewhat complex and is best documented in Ripple Training's FCPX 10.4 Media Management tutorial: https://www.rippletraining.com/products/final-cut-pro/media-management-in-final-cut-pro-10-4/

 

[Minxy]

Apple was lambasted not only for the magnetic timeline but also the way it was introduced on users, them being 'forced' to replace it. I think Adobe have been taking lessons from this...

They have released a separate video editor called Rush, later rebranded it Adobe Premiere Rush. It has a magnetic timeline. They are developing it as a separate line of video editor to run alongside Premiere. If they want it to become their main video editor than this would be the way to do it as they don't risk alienating any users and they nurture them onto the new product as it improves.

Also, the upcoming Mac Pro I suspect will be marketed in part for its video editing capabilities, maybe there will be a big upgrade to Final Cut Pro then.

 

[OldCorpse]

As far as I can see, the philosophy behind FCPX was quite forward looking. The problem (as I see it) was execution. I'm not talking about EOLing FCP, and the botched transition. I'm talking about development of FCPX. In a nutshell: development by Apple was (and is) too slow. Way, way, too slow. Feature requests that are no brainers are implemented very, very slowly if at all, as if Apple is dragging their feet. Sound is still a disaster - no, I don't want to learn Logic.

Personally, I'm mulling over transitioning to DaVinci Resolve. Yes, it's often buggy in the beginning, but boy, do they move fast - updates, major changes happen at a speed where a minor point release from BM is bigger than a full year relase from Apple for FCPX. I like that. And it seems BM listens to their users. Add in the fact that it's multi-platform, and that's a powerful advantage - you're no longer stuck with Apple's glacial pace of hardware updates... how long has it been since MacPro was updated? Just not enough hardware choices for FCPX (and no, I'm not interested in hackintoshes).

Now, Resolve still needs to up their game, but I seriously think at this point it really is not a clear-cut choice for FCPX (depending on what you're using your NLE for). And the pace at which DaVinci Resolve is moving, I think within the next 1-2 years, they'll leave FCPX completely in the dust. Plus, while both are cheap at $300, it doesn't hurt that Resolve has a respectable free option for folks to try.

Bottom line, while FCPX was definitely a strike into the future, I think it's been undermined in the marketplace by a poor transition from FCP, slow development all around, including hardware, and people just not trusting Apple after the horrendous way FCP was shut down, Aperture abandoned, and those kinds of shenanigans - people can all too easily imagine waking up one day and finding that FCPX become abandonware.

In short, I'm thinking Resolve is more the future these days than FCPX. YMMV.

 

[kohlson]

From FCPX there's a learning curve. In fact the recently announced Resolve 16 makes a big deal out of a "Cut" page, designed to help users through the complexity of their "Edit" page. The capabilities I've used on the Color page are nice. And, you get a very nicely featured version for free. The $300 version is really aimed at workgroups, as far as I can tell.

 

[sevoneone]

Something is definitely going on between Apple and Blackmagic. The eGPUs, and some impressive optimizations for Metal and OpenCL, the Resolve 15 and the beta version of 16 each seem much faster than the previous version on my 2013 era Macs. I don't think it is an accident they are moving and advancing so fast. The energy around Blackmagic right now, the speed at which they are moving, listening and catering to every level of video production professional, reminds me very much of Apple at the height of Final Cut Studio.

I think Apple knows they've blown it with pro film and video. They've lost the trust of too many users, the pulse of the industry and the ability to effectively get it back. I believe Apple is setting up Blackmagic to be the Mac pro video successor going forward. Apple wants to make money selling Macs and, if Apple is going to continue to make pro workstations like the iMac Pro and upcoming Mac Pro, they need userbases that will want to buy them. Making buddies with Blackmagic to build macOS into the platform of choice of Blackmagic software and hardware is a smart move.

FCPX has become something great, but what makes it great also limits it. I love FCPX for short, relatively simple projects. I have not cut any long-form content in a while, but I know trying to organize and workflow something like a 30-60 minute documentary in FCPX would drive me crazy. I think I'd definitely consider Resolve for a project like that at this point.

 

[casperes1996]

FCPX has become something great, but what makes it great also limits it. I love FCPX for short, relatively simple projects. I have not cut any long-form content in a while, but I know trying to organize and workflow something like a 30-60 minute documentary in FCPX would drive me crazy. I think I'd definitely consider Resolve for a project like that at this point.

I agree that the strength of FCPX is definitely in quick turnarounds for shorter projects; But I'd personalise still prefer FCPX for long form content over most alternatives - Like Premiere or even Avid. Resolve is however quickly moving up the list, and the only reason it hasn't overtaken FCPX on that front is familiarity with FCPX.

You need to take quite a different approach to long form content with FCP, but if you create separate events and projects for different scenes or chapters in the larger piece, organising it all can be quite amazing . I recommend following Sven Pape's organisation strategies (This Guy Edits on YT). He's an award winning editor who uses FCP as his go-to platform of choice, but has of course edited on all platforms under the Sun

 

[joema2]

...The energy around Blackmagic right now, the speed at which they are moving, listening and catering to every level of video production professional, reminds me very much of Apple at the height of Final Cut Studio...

I agree the rate of progress on FCPX is nothing like DaVinci Resolve. Lots of experienced people have noted that.

...I think Apple knows they've blown it with pro film and video. They've lost the trust of too many users, the pulse of the industry and the ability to effectively get it back...

From the perspective of unit sales and # of users, FCPX is far more successful than legacy FCP. Apple has announced over 2.5 million "seats" of FCPX. Lots of these are professional users, just not Hollywood or in the traditional "industry".

Chasing the film industry is unwise since that is a tiny market. Avid has a 95% lock on that market, yet their total revenue from that and related support services has declined each year since 2011 and is now only $200 million per year. Apple makes more than that on adapters and watch bands.

There are Industry reports that Avid is still laying off people. Their stock price was near a 24-year low until it got a slight bump in February. If Apple somehow gained 100% of Avid's software market (not consulting) that would probably only be $100 million per year.

...I love FCPX for short, relatively simple projects. I have not cut any long-form content in a while, but I know trying to organize and workflow something like a 30-60 minute documentary in FCPX would drive me crazy. I think I'd definitely consider Resolve for a project like that at this point.

Resolve is rapidly improving. FCPX once stood alone as the NLE with the quickest interactive performance and lightning-fast skimmer. Now Resolve is nearly that fast and it's cross platform. In some cases Resolve 15/16 is faster at encoding than FCPX -- on the same Mac hardware.

But FCPX still is better at organizing large-scale long-form projects. Indeed, handling large unscripted documentaries is one of FCPX's major strengths. This is due to FCPX's database-centric tools and range-based keywording. My documentary team has organized and edited very large projects on FCPX -- over 7,000 clips of 4k H264 material totaling about 20 TB or 200+ hr of material in a single library. It worked very well.

That said, FCPX needs to demonstrate some significant improvements, esp. in areas like collaborative workflow and proxy management.

 

[casperes1996]

Resolve is rapidly improving. FCPX once stood alone as the NLE with the quickest interactive performance and lightning-fast skimmer. Now Resolve is nearly that fast and it's cross platform. In some cases Resolve 15/16 is faster at encoding than FCPX -- on the same Mac hardware.

But FCPX still is better at organizing large-scale long-form projects. Indeed, handling large unscripted documentaries is one of FCPX's major strengths. This is due to FCPX's database-centric tools and range-based keywording. My documentary team has organized and edited very large projects on FCPX -- over 7,000 clips of 4k H264 material totaling about 20 TB or 200+ hr of material in a single library. It worked very well.

That said, FCPX needs to demonstrate some significant improvements, esp. in areas like collaborative workflow and proxy management.

A thumbs up is not enough to say just how bang on this is.
You really hit the nail on the head with the strengths of FCP and where it really needs to get going.

 

[Acden]

How I like their first transparent and 3-d interfaces... Why the stopped it and developed such flat editing app now (((

 

[dandeco]

Another bump! Look at this article from nine years ago, when FCP X was new...
https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/final-cut-pro-x-the-missing-features/

Today, Final Cut Pro X now HAS most of those missing features, like chapter markers, a lot more export settings, XML import, multicam, capture from tape, modifying/arranging your workspace somewhat, third-party plugin support, AND external monitor output. Amazing how long FCP X has come...

 

[Msivyparrot]

Was it the future..nope, they introduced a novel concept with the trackless system, and keyboarding/rating, but on the whole it is not worth the price you pay for it, it is basic, effective, but as a "system" nope..

It is missing way too many useful features, for example, you are stuck with 1 pro Rez proxy format, you cannot determine how much compression, and no compressor is not a suitable tool, it is way too confusing, it has never been updated to be useful.

The fight over RAW, and other issues, leaves you wondering is there a future for the app, and I am starting to believe that Apple Inc has signed the death warrant, the very infrequent updates, and the updates when they do occur never fix the niggling issues that should have been dealt with years ago.

I watched the movie "On the Tracks" and I disagree with the wholesale delete of Final Cut Studio 2/3, should it have remained and updated to 64bit? Yes, there was so many useful features in FCS3 that have never been put back/introduced into X...

The biggest issue with X is importing media, it is whole or nothing, you cannot preview and range select say whilst the card is attached, then only import what you need..

The old log and transfer window in FCS3 would have been handy, you ingest what you need, at a compression ratio you feel you need, do the offline rough cut, then when you need to hand over the project at full Rez, you re-ingest only the clips you used, then share...

FCPX works, but it is competing for time against Resolve 15/16, and with the Resolve 16 Cut page, as a way to quickly edit [once DR16 is decent enough..], with DR16 you have within 1 app, color, graphics, video editing, audio track editing, advanced motion tracking..With FCPX not as much, and does XML solve all problems??

Why was Final Cut Studio 4 [replacement for 3] not a clone of Resolve? Where you have the choice of tracks, trackless...X is not trackless, it just uses tracks in a slightly different way, the same way as a hybrid car is still a petrol based car, it just uses the petrol engine in a slightly different way...

Apple went down a path and that path ended in a design dead end, and now 8 years later, they find they are stuck...Do they bin X and reboot for the 2nd time, or just cancel the project for good???

No audio sliders, the relationship between logic and X is strained, Logic gets all the development Dollars/Euro's, and it shows...

Why has Apple not merged Motion+X+Logic+Compressor+Automator into 1 functional App??

As much as I love FCPX, I feel that with the user interface issues, the inability to zoom into the waveform when in list view, the stupid proxy Rez, the whole app feels rushed and not well thought out...It still to this day suffers from the 10.0.0. debacle and the re-launch, the 10.1 version has never really taken off...

X is popular, but the issue is more deep rooted, it is a product of the war between Cook and Ive, and no question there was a war, before with Jobs you had the ability to purchase upgrades for laptops, then all of a sardine, this was no longer an option, the website says 8GB RAM is good enough for FCPX, when 8000GB RAM is barely enough...

The only reason FCPX works is because of external eGPU, so why not 2 versions..a lite bite and a full box of curry powder version?? So folks can edit on planes/trains on a MacBook Air, and if you need to do extreme work, you use the Mac Pro??

The high cost of hardware, and the instability of the apps working together, for me I would look outside of X/Logic...

 

[ColdCase]

You forget the media management, indexing, tagging capability within FCPX, which is much more important to most than the little details you may have objection too and resolve is sorely lacking in. There are work arounds, of course, just as there are work arounds to the minor things you are complaining about. Like you can always reject the sections of imported video you don't want and get rid of them. The log and transfer window was useful when dealing with DVT, Hi8 or VHS tapes where it took awhile to import and you didn't want to spend the time importing the whole tape. Awkward to use and not relevant for today's environment of SD cards or digital memory.

Apple software and OSs in general have lost stability over recent years, its not a FCPX issue. My workflow has no use for eGPUs.

Perhaps the new MacPro would address your upgrade problem. Dunno.

Life is full of compromise, however, and FCPX does not suit everyone.

 

[Msivyparrot]

Media management means a lot of things, many tasks fall into this aspect, and sadly proxy file is one of them, if Apple fixed the proxy workflow method so that the cameraman could send me via an "log and transfer" app the files I needed, and whilst I was editing, he was uploading his side to the large storage, when I came to publish, I could send back the edited file and it would publish full rez...

The power of the pc is not important, fcpx is nothing more than a pretty excel worksheet, in it's most basic that is what video editing is, it is just taking data from A1+formula= that is what non linear video editing is, just basic workspace editing on excel...data in+formula=data out...

We use a pretty interface to help the process, and Apple is not at this point doing a very good job, the spreadsheet is broken, and Apple don't give a hoot about it, period!

The problem we face in 2019 is the same problem we faced in 1919, only the media has changed, we face a storage space issue, before it was not enough feet of tape, that was solved pretty much by tape, in and out in 2 seconds, back shooting, now in 2019 we face the 8K and TB's of storage and how to process this information..

Some idiots figured it was the way to go with REC x, or with RAW, choose your poison, or with LUTS, LOGS, etc, we shoot in very data intense file sizes for what??

We should not be spending $100 000 for a pc to edit a 30 second utube video... That is insane..

The question was 8 years later was FCPX the future?? For a brief moment it was, until they changed from the 10.0 to the 10.1 style, then stopped as Apple did with FCP7..

FCPX is fiddly to use, it lacks so many basic options that would make it a Avid/Premiere/Resolve killer, FCPX is bloated now with too many features that just require over expensive hardware, that if for smarter coding might be solved with maybe the introduction of a lite bite version of X, X Xpress or something like that...

FCPX does not play nicely in a multi-user environment, after 8 years and 40 updates or whatever the update count is, this is important, you want to be able to "Send to...." for color grading, audio work, to the studio, but no this is not possible...Why??

Answers are really not required, it is my thoughts about the future, 8 years later I kind of expected flying cars and a home printer that prints the spare ribs I love...

 

[e1me5]

on the whole it is not worth the price you pay for it

Paid 300 Euro once, made them back from the first ever project, I installed it on 3 different computers, 2010, 2012 and 2018 models, it works flawlessly on each one of them, I transitioned to 4k since 2017 and there is no difference in performance when editing.

you are stuck with 1 pro Rez proxy format, you cannot determine how much compression, and no compressor is not a suitable tool, it is way too confusing

It will be much more confusing if you are provided with so many options that you will never use anyway, like FCP7 had and was making everything more complicated, unstable and created problems with monitoring and outputting. There is only one ProRes proxy flavour anyway, so what's the point of arguing the there you are stuck with 1 format and also ProRes has variable bit rate so you can't select your compression anyway. It creates files that can be edited on an old firewire drive if you like, while they doesn't choke your computer. It's an one click workflow to work with proxies in FCPX, how complicated is that?

I disagree with the wholesale delete of Final Cut Studio 2/3, should it have remained and updated to 64bit? Yes, there was so many useful features in FCS3 that have never been put back/introduced into X...

They didn't delete it, you were able to run it without problems until last year. 6 years after they stoped selling it. And you can still use it if you don't update or buy a new mac as long as you don't update the OS. They couldn't be updated in 64bit, they had to be rewritten from the ground up and that was never a viable economic decision for apple as they would shoot themselves on the feet and cannibalised the X.

The biggest issue with X is importing media, it is whole or nothing, you cannot preview and range select say whilst the card is attached, then only import what you need..

Yes, you can range select and import from the files on the cards. Use I,O or refer the Apple support pages and the FCPX manual.

The old log and transfer window in FCS3 would have been handy, you ingest what you need, at a compression ratio you feel you need, do the offline rough cut, then when you need to hand over the project at full Rez, you re-ingest only the clips you used, then share...

Too complicated, you import anything you need, you ask it to transcode to proxy or optimised media to suit your computer capabilities, or use the raw files if you can, then export from the high quality material. No back and forth, no loss of data and metadata, easier for roundtrips, NO loss of time. I will agree only for importing DV tapes from a deck, it should give you an option to disable automatic clip generation based on the image.

FCPX works, but it is competing for time against Resolve 15/16, and with the Resolve 16 Cut page, as a way to quickly edit [once DR16 is decent enough..], with DR16 you have within 1 app, color, graphics, video editing, audio track editing, advanced motion tracking..With FCPX not as much, and does XML solve all problems??

No, they don't compete on time. Maybe Resolve is gaining users migrating from Premiere as they get sick from the Adobe tactics. They are two different beasts, FCPX is and editing software that can do color and sound well enough when you are 1 person band, lightweight enough to use it from the skinny MacBook to the Goliath MacPro. Resolve is an all-in-one package and although it has the edge on colour and sound (but you need to be an expert in both fields to actually push it more than FCPX) it has many complexities in user interface, data management, setup and you need beefy hardware with dedicated GPUs to use it without issues. FCPX runs and edits 4K on my 2010 MacPro and 2012 & 2018 MacBook Pro with out issues, Resolves runs only in my 2018 MacBook Pro because of it's 6core CPU and 4GB GPU. And crashing regularly Vs never.
XML is the problem solver but it needs to be supported correctly from the other 3rd party apps. Resolve can perfectly read it with no errors whatsoever, at least in my experience, if you do your homework right in FCPX (consolidating media in the library and this is due to Resolve's media management), other grading softwares can't read it perfectly and some other companies even refuse to support it on their software due to FCPXs bad rep (although this is changing due to the ProRes RAW).

Why was Final Cut Studio 4 [replacement for 3] not a clone of Resolve? Where you have the choice of tracks, trackless...X is not trackless, it just uses tracks in a slightly different way, the same way as a hybrid car is still a petrol based car, it just uses the petrol engine in a slightly different way...

How can be FCS4 be a clone of a software that came out 10 years later. FCPX is trackless, you built your timeline on clips connected with each other. That's how was designed. From the ground up. For a faster and more efficient workflow.

Apple went down a path and that path ended in a design dead end, and now 8 years later, they find they are stuck...Do they bin X and reboot for the 2nd time, or just cancel the project for good???

How do you know that? Do you have inside intel from Apple or it's just your personal opinion. Apple teased the new update at the WWDC last June and you can read about it on their website. So more is coming. No dead end.

No audio sliders, the relationship between logic and X is strained, Logic gets all the development Dollars/Euro's, and it shows...

There are more than enough audio options if you dig deep enough. Same tools as Logic. But I agree FCPX and Logic have problems communicating. Sometimes the XML can not be read or wrong sound clips get imported. At least that's what I experienced when I passed a project to my sound designer. But he may set up logic wrong.

Why has Apple not merged Motion+X+Logic+Compressor+Automator into 1 functional App??

Because that would much more expensive to develop and issues updates, it would make it much more expensive to buy and have features you would never use, so they wouldn't use the price as a selling point and it would require much more resources from your computer to load and run all those features and make it impossible to use it on older and weaker hardware. Like Resolve is as I mentioned above.

it is a product of the war between Cook and Ive, and no question there was a war, before with Jobs you had the ability to purchase upgrades for laptops, then all of a sardine, this was no longer an option, the website says 8GB RAM is good enough for FCPX, when 8000GB RAM is barely enough...

Nonsense, FCPX came out 2 months after Jobs died. It is a product of Steve Jobs, he asked Rubillos to create it after seeing how he rewrote iMovie. You never had the ability to purchase upgrades, you could just double your RAM and install an SSD, something that comes as standard now with laptops. Now you can really upgrade your laptop, with the addition of TB3 as an I/O port you can add eGPUs and RAIDS and create a small powerhouse. Also if you buy a machine to make money on it, you buy the appropriate spec depending on what you will use it for. All Macs can edit broadcast material, but if you go for the cinema standards then you have to spend more. Faster computers and peripherals to do the job right. 8 GBs are more than enough for HD, FCPX use RAM adaptively, the more RAM the more it uses it when it needs it. But it never bogs down due to RAM if you are in spec. Unless you use a bad written 3rd party plug in. That's not Apple's fault.

The only reason FCPX works is because of external eGPU, so why not 2 versions..a lite bite and a full box of curry powder version?? So folks can edit on planes/trains on a MacBook Air, and if you need to do extreme work, you use the Mac Pro??

eGPU is an extra, FCPX does not need it. The reason FCPX works well even on weaker systems is due to the optimisations and QuickSync that allows the CPU to handle compressed video efficiently. And that's it's power. You buy it once, you can have it on your Air and Pro concurrently and just plug your hard drive to any. No need for 2 versions. It beats the point.

Media management means a lot of things, many tasks fall into this aspect, and sadly proxy file is one of them, if Apple fixed the proxy workflow method so that the cameraman could send me via an "log and transfer" app the files I needed, and whilst I was editing, he was uploading his side to the large storage, when I came to publish, I could send back the edited file and it would publish full rez...

FCPX allows you to do this with the new extension feature that was introduced 2-3 updates ago. You just wait for another software company to write an app. Apple still cares.

The problem we face in 2019 is the same problem we faced in 1919, only the media has changed, we face a storage space issue, before it was not enough feet of tape, that was solved pretty much by tape, in and out in 2 seconds, back shooting, now in 2019 we face the 8K and TB's of storage and how to process this information..

No one is forcing you to shoot 8K if you can afford it and support it. If a production requires such high resolutions then it has to provide the cash to create the pipeline. Most of the world is still on HD.

Some idiots figured it was the way to go with REC x, or with RAW, choose your poison, or with LUTS, LOGS, etc, we shoot in very data intense file sizes for what??

Rec.xxx exsist since 1982 and they are standards for encoding and displaying your work correctly. RAW and Log are ways to capture more information from the digital sensors or film so we can process it with higher quality and more accurate control and bring it closer to our artistic desire for expression. But again, no one is forcing you to shoot in RAW or Log if you can afford it , have the knowledge and support it.

We should not be spending $100 000 for a pc to edit a 30 second utube video... That is insane..

Who does that?

The question was 8 years later was FCPX the future?? For a brief moment it was, until they changed from the 10.0 to the 10.1 style, then stopped as Apple did with FCP7..

FCPX is fiddly to use, it lacks so many basic options that would make it a Avid/Premiere/Resolve killer, FCPX is bloated now with too many features that just require over expensive hardware, that if for smarter coding might be solved with maybe the introduction of a lite bite version of X, X Xpress or something like that...

It was the future, now it's the present that brings the future closer. Apple didn't stop, it keeps walking until 2021 at least as they said when they introduced it back in 2011.
It's fiddly to use for someone who comes from a track based editor but with enough will and patient they discover that it's vastly superior from the others. I know 3 60 year old editors who jumped to it after cutting with tracks for at least 15 years and they have no problem with it.
No need for expensive hardware, it's smarter than anything else and definitely no need for 2 versions. If you want to pay more use Premiere.

FCPX does not play nicely in a multi-user environment, after 8 years and 40 updates or whatever the update count is, this is important, you want to be able to "Send to...." for color grading, audio work, to the studio, but no this is not possible...Why??

Yes, true, you can't have more than one person working on a project at the same time. But we might get that soon.
It is possible to send it for further work to another software, as I said before, Resolve is full compatible, Assimilate's Scratch probably soon as they announced support for ProRes RAW although you can import an FCPX project to it if you convert and fcpxml to a plain xml, Logic is compatible as Apple says but I am not 100% sure that's the case, Pro Tools is via a 100$ app. Only motion I wish was but since I don't know to use it it doesn't really bother me.

The fight over RAW, and other issues, leaves you wondering is there a future for the app, and I am starting to believe that Apple Inc has signed the death warrant, the very infrequent updates, and the updates when they do occur never fix the niggling issues that should have been dealt with years ago.

I dont believe the case between RED and Apple will directly affect FCPX development.
There is definitely a future for the app as it is future proof by including all the new tech and standards of the HDR workflow for editing, and by issuing 3 major updates per year really show the commitment to it.
Yes, no software is perfect and bug free, but FCPX is the best. At least in my opinion.

 

[loby]

Why has Apple not merged Motion+X+Logic+Compressor+Automator into 1 functional App??

This would be the key to rapidly expand FCPX. You could have three separate apps, but have the ability in FCPX to interface with the other two apps while working seamlessly in FCPX, even add compressor instead of exporting to it.

Would make FCPX a monster of a "all in one" go too....

 

[Msivyparrot]

The point of my post was not for it to be pulled apart and dissected, it was my thoughts and you are free to comment you agree or disagree, the way my post was pulled apart is nothing less than cyber bullying, I took the time to compose that post as my thoughts, I will not pull apart paragraph by paragraph another user's posts like was done to mine.

I posted to encourage dialogue, not for the purpose of abuse.

FCPX is by far the better interface, it needs a bit of work, and for me, this is my opinion, no reply required, in my mind, having a single suite of apps under a common "roof" aka DR16 would allow for faster throughput of work, I am not sure if it would work, maybe Apple considered the "1 house-many rooms" approach, coded a version and found it through testing non viable, or maybe this is what 10.5 will be...

Never quite understood why compressor has not been folded into FCPX, so that you have 2 options, external compression and internal, I like the idea of "1 house-many rooms" or at the very least a "send to..." command that allows for sending of work to and from apps if the "1 house-many rooms" is deemed non viable...

Proxy workflow, sending data across the network needs work, there needs to be a better way, maybe via icloud, or Apple buying dropbox, or Akamai, so that invisible FTP occurs, the sender MAC address, the receiver MAC address are used to link together and if I select "send to..[external client] option, I could send via this option an email, and the 2 devices resolve MAC address issues and I can send the data or receive the data...

If someone is sending data, FCPX via the send to external client has the option to allow for how much compression, what files via a check box, selected folder etc...so that all I get is a compressed version with/out timecode burnt in/watermarked media etc..edit then after editing I send back a compliant file that the sender could open and export at full rez or by that time I have downloaded the media...

Not all places have 1000MB/s up and down fibre, so sending compressed or uncompressed, users choice..makes sense, as long as both devices are on the "web" using icloud to icloud as a passthrough is an option...No idea if it is possible or not...why not??? A sort of data buffer, send and receive as per network traffic, proxy editing if done right is beauty to work with.

 

[joema2]

...Proxy workflow, sending data across the network needs work, there needs to be a better way, maybe via icloud...Not all places have 1000MB/s up and down fibre, so sending compressed or uncompressed, users choice..makes sense, as long as both devices are on the "web" using icloud to icloud as a passthrough is an option...No idea if it is possible or not...why not??? A sort of data buffer, send and receive as per network traffic, proxy editing if done right is beauty to work with.

This is available right now via two different methods:

(1) FCPX can relink to smaller-resolution proxies - as regular media - which are generated in-camera, by Handbrake or other methods. The proxies can be very small. A few criteria must match the original media such as audio channel config, pixel aspect ratio, etc. After editing on the low-res proxies you just relink back to the man media.

(2) KeyFlow Pro 2 has an integrated web proxy workflow designed specifically for FCPX: