So as an AVP creator this weeks Final Cut update is disappointing. It’s hard to explain without experiencing the AVP but SPATIAL video and IMMERSIVE video are very different.
Spatial video you shoot on your iPhone or the new canon R7 and Lens. It’s 16:9 widescreen like a regular video but has depth like you’re looking into a floating window. It’s more like a 3D movie at the theatre. It’s very cool. They are typically 1080p 30fps
IMMERSIVE is when the video wraps around you in 180 degrees. And you can turn your head and look around. These are 8K 90fps and are jaw droppingly stunning. This is the format of the weekends new video and the submerged film. They are filmed with experimental cameras and prototypes of the new black magic immersive camera.
As a ‘consumer’ you can shoot 8K 60p clips on a canon R5C with Canon dual lens and I do and they come pretty close to apples stuff. But you’re going to need to invest close to 10 grand for that camera gear.
Final Cut 11 was updated to edit Spatial video from the iPhone / R7. It’s very cool. But there is still no easy way to edit IMMERSIVE footage. VR creators were hoping Apple would add it but they did not and reading between the lines they may never and just leave that developing work flow to Davinci Resolve.
In all the Final Cut news and coverage every single editor and YouTuber gets spatial and immersive confused and gives wrong information saying - oh and Final Cut can do Vision Pro stuff now. Which is annoying 😃
This one article with the brief mention of - spatial video can now be edited on the Vision Pro - is the only correct one I’ve seen.
Side note, captions are an industry standard with very little flexibility in the spec. The new caption function adheres to that it’s why there’s not many options. But people are confusing it with wanting BIG FONTS AND BRIGHT COLOURS for Tik Tok. That’s not what this is.
Good info, but there was plenty of positive progress for AVP owners at the conference.
You're right that Spatial and Immersive are quite different things, and that most people have missed the distinction. I've been at the FCP Creative Summit all week, I've spoken to some of the people behind these features, and I just presented on "3D, Spatial and Immersive Video" at the conference.
For anyone still confused, here's a quick guide:
- 3D (in a video context) means stereoscopic, with separate images for the left and right eyes. Both Spatial and Immersive are 3D, but Spatial has a narrower field of view.
- Spatial is MV-HEVC 3D with stereoscopic metadata (field of view, interaxial distance). Spatial videos are shown with a fuzzy border in the Apple Vision Pro. Feature films (Disney+, iTunes Store) are not shown with a fuzzy border. Vimeo doesn’t use a fuzzy border either. (They’re 3D, but don’t use a Spatial presentation.)
- Immersive is 3D with a very wide (typically 180°) field of view.
It is actually possible to work in a 3D 360° timeline in FCP 11, but not a 3D 180° timeline. Most of the work is there, and if you want full Immersive support, the best path is to submit feedback requests. And though most Spatial content is 1080p30, you can shoot at 4K (even stabilized) with the right app (I recommend
Spatial Camera).
That said, Immersive is far more complex to shoot, with far more expensive cameras, and with less editing involved because you have to shoot in an entirely new way. I can completely see why they tackled Spatial first.
To correct the video, there *is* a good way to present Spatial videos to other Apple Vision Pro users — Vimeo. It should also be possible to convert Spatial for YouTube if you want to target Meta Quest users, but without a native AVP YouTube app, it's hard to test how it looks unless you also have a Quest.
Regarding captions, if you want to convert closed captions to flashy titles with font control etc.,
captionAnimator is a new, good option.
Here's my full wrap-up of the new FCP 11 release:
https://www.provideocoalition.com/fcp-11-released-at-the-fcp-creative-summit/
