Autodesk Smoke 2013

Autodesk attracted a lot of attention last year with the revamped version of Smoke for Mac OS X. I had originally been working on a review with the earlier version (Smoke 2012), but held off when I found out Smoke 2013 was just around the corner. Indeed, the more “Mac-like” refresh wowed NAB attendees, but it took until December to come to market. In that time, Autodesk built on the input received from users who tested it during this lengthy public beta period. Now that it’s finally out in the wild, I’ve had a chance to work with the release version, both on my own system, as well as at a client site where Smoke 2013 has been deployed. Both of these are on recent model Mac Pros. Although Smoke 2013 is a very deep application, I would offer that the learning curve for this new version is a mere 25% of what it used to be. That’s a significant improvement.

Getting set up

There are several ways to install and operate Smoke 2013. Most users will install the application in the standalone mode. The software is activated over the internet and works only on that licensed machine. Facility users can also purchase license server software, which allows them to float the Smoke license among several machines. Only one at a time is activated, but any of the machines can run the software, based on the permission assigned by the license server application over the internal LAN.

Smoke 2013 operation is tied to the media storage, so the first thing to do after software installation is to run the Smoke set-up utility. This allocates which drives are accessible to Smoke. You can grab media files from any connected drive, but specific locations must be assigned as library locations for media caches, proxies, render files and so on. These can be internal drives, SAN volumes or externally-connected drives. The key is that when you create or launch a project, it is tied to a specific library location. If that drive is unmounted, any projects associated with it won’t show up and are not accessible (even in an offline mode) to the operator.

You should approach Smoke operation with a media strategy in mind. Smoke 2013 handles more native codecs and file formats – and in a more straightforward fashion – than Smoke 2012. If you are working with ProRes media, for instance, no conversion is necessary to get started in Smoke and files can be rendered as ProResHQ, instead of the previous default of uncompressed DPX files. This means drive performance requirements are less than in the past, but it’s still a good idea to use fast RAID arrays. Even two 7200RPM SATA drives striped as RAID-0 will give you acceptable performance with ProRes media. Naturally, a faster array is even better. Smoke will let you render intermediate proxies for even better performance, but if you want to simply drag in new media from the Mac Finder, then Smoke 2013 now performs on par with other desktop NLEs.

Smoke uses OpenGL and not CUDA or OpenCL acceleration, so performance from ATI or NVIDIA cards is on even footing. If you run a dual monitor system, like my set-up with two 20” Apple Cinema Displays, you can enable dual-screen preview. This will let you mirror the UI or display a selected viewport, which is most often the current clip, but can also be the ConnectFX schematic. You are best off with two 1920×1080 or 1920×1200 screens. The scaling function to reduce the full screen viewer to fit my 1680×1050 resolution introduced artifacts and affected the performance of the card. Smoke 2013 can work with screen resolutions starting at 1440×900, but it’s better to stick to one higher resolution screen like a single 27” or 30” Apple Cinema Display or iMac screen. It’s best to run a broadcast monitor connected to an AJA KONA, IoXT or Blackmagic Design card (in a future version). In that configuration, you can’t use a second computer display to extend the real estate of the Smoke user interface, but could display the UI from another open application, like Adobe Photoshop.

The editing experience

The reaction to Apple Final Cut Pro X kicked up interest in Smoke. Users who wanted a 64-bit, track-based application that didn’t stray too far from FCP 7’s operational style, felt that Smoke 2013 might be the hypothetical “FCP 8”. Autodesk indeed sports an editing workspace that is closely aligned with the look and feel of Final Cut Pro “legacy”, as well as Adobe Premiere Pro. It even defaults to FCP 7 keyboard shortcut commands. If you can edit on Final Cut (before FCP X) or Premiere Pro, then you can be productive on Smoke with little relearning.

The user interface is divided into three panes – a browser, a viewing area and a workspace. Across the bottom are four tabbed interface pages or modes – MediaHub, Conform, Timeline and Tools. MediaHub is where you search drive locations for files. It is analogous to Adobe’s Media Browser within Premiere Pro. Locate files and drag or import them into the editing browser window. Conform lets you reconcile imported media with edit lists and is also a place to relink media files. Timeline is the standard editing workspace and lastly, Tools holds clip tools and utilities, such as deinterlacing, pulldown, etc. Each pane changes the information displayed, based on the context of that mode. In the Timeline mode, you see viewers and a timeline, but in the MediaHub mode each pane shows completely different information.

Editors will spend most of their day in the Timeline mode. This interface page is organized into the standard editing view with player windows at the top and a track-based timeline at the bottom. Smoke always loads at least two timelines – the edited sequence and the selected source clip. Effects can be applied to the source clip, as well as to clips on the timeline. The viewer pane can display clips on a single, toggled viewer (like FCP X) or traditional source/record windows (like FCP 7). There’s also a thumbnail and a triptych view. The latter is helpful during color correction, if you want to display previous/current/next frames for shot matching. The browser displays all imported source clips for a project. It can be placed on the left, on the right or hidden entirely. Within it, clips can be organized into folders. You may have more than one sequence in a project, but only one project can be open at a time. As you select a clip, it immediately loads into the viewer and timeline window. No double-clicking required.

Smoke is a good, fast editor when it comes to making edits and adjusting clips on the timeline. There are some nice touches overlooked on other NLEs. For example, it uses track-based audio editing with keyframable real-time mixing. There are a set of audio filters that can be applied and the output has a built-in limiter. Formatting for deliverables is built into the export presets, so exporting a 1080p/23.976 sequence as 720p is as simple as picking a preset. The edit commands include the standard insert, overwrite and replace functions, but also some newer ones, like append and prepend. Ripple and snapping are simple on/off toggles.

While editing is solid, I would still categorize Smoke 2013 as a finishing tool. You could edit a long-form project from scratch in Smoke, but you certainly wouldn’t want to. It lacks the control needed for narrative long-form, like detailed custom bin columns, a trim tool, multi-camera editing and more. On the other hand, a scripted short-form project, like a TV commercial – especially one requiring Smoke’s visual effects tools – could be edited exclusively within Smoke.

The better approach is to do your rough cuts in another desktop NLE and then send it to Smoke for the remainder. You can import various edit list formats – EDL, XML, FCPXML and AAF. Cut on Final Cut Pro 7/X, Premiere Pro or Media Composer and export an edit decision list in one of these formats for the sequence. Then import and link files in Smoke and you are ready to go. In my testing, XMLs from both FCP 7 and FCP X worked really well, but AAFs from Media Composer were problematic.  Typically Smoke had difficulty in relinking media files when it was an Avid project, most likely due to issues in the AAF.

Come for the effects

The visual effects tools are the big reason most editors would use Smoke 2013 over another NLE. There are four ways to apply effects. The first and easiest is the effects “ribbon” that flies out between the viewers and the timeline. It contains eight standard effects groups – Timewarp, Resize, Text, Color Correction, Spark, Blend, Wipe and Axis. (Spark is the API for third party filters. GenArts Sapphire is the first effects package for Smoke 2013.) The “ribbon” effects are always applied in the same order and some are multiple purpose tools. For instance, the Resize effect is automatically applied for format correction, such as a ProRes4444 clip in a ProResHQ timeline. When these effects are added to a clip on the timeline, a reduced set of parameters appears in a fly-out panel at the top of the timeline. You can immediately apply and adjust effects in the timeline without the need to step deeper until you’ve mastered the simpler methods.

The last effect, Axis, is a “super tool”. It’s the 2.5/3D DVE effect, but you can enter its effects editor and do a whole lot more. Axis lets you add text, lighting, 3D cameras, plus adjust surface properties and surface deformations. Once you enter any of the effects editors, the mode changes and you are in a new user interface specific to the context of that effect. The controls flow left to right and change options according to the selections made. For instance, picking “object” within the Axis effect editor gives you controls to adjust the scale, position and rotation of the clip. Pick “lights” and the control parameters change to those appropriate for lighting.

The third way to build an effect is to select ConnectFX. This brings you into Smoke’s world of node-based composting, where you are presented with a flow chart schematic, a viewer and a set of filter tools. An effect like Color Correction may be applied directly to the timeline as a single filter or as a filter within a ConnectFX build. It’s entirely up to the comfort level of the editor and how many additional effects will be applied to that clip for the final look.

One of available tools within the set is Action, which is a separate compositing method. It forms the fourth way to build effects. You can composite multiple media clips in an Action node, such as a title over a background. Once you step into an Action node, you are presented with its own schematic. Instead of a flowchart, the Action schematic shows parent-child links between layers of the composite, such as a light that is attached to a media clip. Action is where you would make adjustments in 3D camera space. Some tools, like the 3D lens flare effect are only available in Action.

Smoke detractors make a big deal out of the need to render everything. While this is true, I found that a single effect applied from the FX “ribbon” menu to a clip on the timeline will play in real time. If you’ve applied more than one effect to a clip, then usually the last one in this string will be displayed live during playback. When rendering is required, the processing speed is pretty quick. If you export a sequence with unrendered effects, then all effects are first processed (rendered) before the finished, flattened master file is exported.

Conclusion

Smoke 2013 is likely to be one of the deepest, but powerful, editing applications you will ever encounter. It’s deceptively simple to start, but takes a concentrated effort to master the inner workings of its integrated, node-based compositors. Nevertheless, you can start to be productive without having to tackle those until you are ready. In an editing world that’s gravitating towards an ever-growing number of canned, one-button preset effects, Smoke 2013 unabashedly gives you the building blocks needed for that last 5% of finesse, not available from a preset effect. You can even build your own complex presets to be applied on future projects. That takes time and talent to master. Fortunately Autodesk has gone the extra mile with good tutorials available on their Area community site and the Smoke Learning Channel on YouTube.

Smoke is ideal as a finishing tool in a multi-suite facility, the main system in a creative media shop or the go-to system for broadcast promotion production. It is designed to fulfill the “hero” role and is targeted squarely at the Adobe suite of tools. The sales pitch is to stay within Smoke’s integrated environment rather than bounce among several applications. While Smoke 2013 largely meets that objective, it still gets down to personal preferences – compositing in nodes versus a track-based tool like After Effects.

Installation is easier than it was, but I’d still like to see Autodesk improve on the activation process – especially for those interested in using more than one machine. Smoke uses a Unix-style file structure, so project files (other than media index and render files) are hidden from the user. This makes it difficult to move projects from one computer to the next. Smoke 2013 lives up to the commitment made at NAB 2012, but now that it’s a released product, Autodesk has a chance to hone the tool to be more in line with the needs of the target user.

Originally written for Digital Video magazine

©2013 Oliver Peters

Road Warrior Bags

I usually don’t write these types of product reviews. Most of my entries focus on post production software and techniques, but in a way this is related. As more and more editors ply their trade with the aid of portable devices, such as laptops, an important tool is your backpack or laptop bag. I generally freelance at other facilities; but, I have done the occasional on-site editing gig, too. Airline travel and stowing extras like headphones, small speakers and i/o devices are considerations. There are plenty of options on the market, but one company that was recently brought to my attention was ECBC, a vendor for backpacks, messenger bags, tote bags and notebook sleeves.

I have my share of NLE manufacturers’ swag bags from meetings, conferences and conventions. It just so happened that my favorite bag was giving out at about the time that ECBC’s rep contacted me about testing out their new K7 line. This gave me a chance to check out both the K7 Zeus messenger bag and K7 Hercules laptop backpack.

The K7 line is made from Kodra Nylon, which is lightweight material designed to be abrasion and water resistant. It’s a bit more like cloth than a standard ballistic nylon, such as they use in their B7 line. This makes the bags more lightweight. Secondly, the K7 series comes in smaller sizes, which befits the popularity of 13” and 15” MacBook Pros, small Windows laptops and tablets like Surface and the iPad. Both the backpacks and messenger bags use a spacer in the laptop compartment, so the same bag will fit 13” and 15” laptops, simply by using or removing the spacer.

I tend to run around town these days with only my iPad, which I use to surf the web, write, check e-mail and keep track of the calendar and contacts. I tested the Zeus messenger bag, which was perfect for the iPad, along with a collection of USB sticks, keys, umbrella and other run-around necessities. If I need the laptop for on-site, local production, then there’s plenty of room for the 15” MacBook Pro plus the iPad if I want to bring both. Traveling out of town? That’s where the Hercules backpack is just right.

Overall, I liked the construction quality of these bags. They use YKK zippers for a nice type fit and the front compartment zippers are specially designed to be more water resistant. Compartments are well designed and sewn in, with extra pockets for water bottles and all the organizational areas you need. The interior is nicely lined with padded nylon and the laptop compartments use a felt liner to “baby” your computer. That’s a cut above most cheaper bags. For example, my previous swag bag had a plastic inner liner, which started to crack and flake with age. That would never happen with the ECBC liner material.

An interesting feature on the backpacks is what is called a TSA-Compliant compartment. ECBC calls this their FastPass system. The laptop compartment of the backpack is the entire back panel of the bag. It zips completely open so that the laptop compartment lays flat going through the X-ray machine without the need to remove the laptop itself from the backpack. With a MacBook Pro in the back panel, you still have plenty of interior bag room for power supply, headphones, external drives and more. One last nice touch to point out is that the handles are padded. That doesn’t seem like a big deal, but if you’ve hauled around a heavy bag with just a thin nylon handle to hold it, you’ll appreciate the padding. This prevents the cloth of the handle from cutting into your fingers.

My only quibble is that the messenger bag does not have a zipper to seal across the top the interior compartment. I presume that’s so you can easily remove a laptop and quickly go through security. It’s unlikely that you’d lose anything. The internal pockets are tight and closed. The top flap, which covers this access, closes snugly with heavy-duty plastic clasps and some of the most robust Velcro you’ve ever seen.

While there are plenty of top notch bags and packs on the market, the ones that ECBC sent for my review are worthy of the editor turned road warrior. Top flight construction that will protect your gear on the road. Not much more you can ask from a bag or backpack.

©2013 Oliver Peters

Noise Industries FxFactory 4

Noise Industries was one of the first plug-in developers to leverage the power of the GPU by tapping into the core image component of Mac OS X. This approach took off when Apple added the FxPlug architecture to Final Cut Pro. From this start, Noise Industries has been able to develop its FxFactory product into both a powerful filter package and a platform to add filters from other partner companies. FxFactory 4.0.2 now supports Final Cut Pro 7 and X, Motion 4 and 5, After Effects and Premiere Pro (CS6). Although After Effects has been supported for a few versions, the upgrade to 4.0 extended support to Premiere Pro CS6. (FxFactory Pro 4.0.2 is a free upgrade for owners of FxFactory Pro 3.x versions.)

When editors install the free FxFactory application, it functions as a central control point to purchase, install, license and manage all of the filters. Most of the plug-in installers are included with the package and are available as trial versions, plus there are links to tutorials for each effect. FxFactory enables users to activate or deactivate products based on preference.

If you purchase Noise Industries’ FxFactory Pro filter set, then this adds 176 filters, generators and transitions for Final Cut Pro 7, Motion, Premiere Pro and After Effects, and 160 effects for Final Cut Pro X. If you only purchased FxFactory Pro, you would have a well-rounded set of filters to tackle many creative challenges; however, the beauty of the FxFactory platform is in its extension through partner companies, whose plug-ins tie into this application.

Current partners include Yanobox, Ripple Training, Stupid Raisins, Squid FX, Tokyo Productions, Luca Visual FX, idustrial revolution, Nattress, Boinx Software, SUGARfx, PHYX, Cineflare, Dashwood, Sheffield Softworks, DV Shade, Crumplepop, Futurismo, Aquafades and nVeil. Depending on the company, some or all of their products are available though FxFactory and supported hosts vary with each product. Some of the newest additions that are built as Motion templates are only available within Final Cut Pro X. Purchasing FxFactory Pro and augmenting it with a number of these add-ins gives you a very powerful set of filters. On the other hand, if you only wanted to use Ripple Tools, Yanobox Moods or Luca VFX Lo-Fi Look, then simply purchase the individual filters you need and run them under the free version of FxFactory. This way you can grow your inventory of effects as budgets permit.

FxFactory developers have been rapidly adding to the options, due in part to the ability to create FCP X effects as Motion templates, along with an increased user demand for Premiere Pro plug-ins. Noise Industries has brought on board some of the popular plug-ins from the old FxScript days of Final Cut. These include Nattress and Sheffield with updated versions of their looks and grading tools. New developers, not previously known as plug-in creators, have joined the fold to offer FCP X-specific effects. These include Ripple, Tokyo, Squid FX, Stupid Raisins and others. Some of the long-time FxFactory partner developers, like Luca, Yanobox and idustrial revolution are bringing out new products, as well.

As a whole, this group represents one of the most eclectic set of filters and transitions available anywhere. Because these products are not developed by a single team of programmers, you get different styles that don’t all look like they came from one company. It would be very difficult, within a reasonable amount of time, for a talented editor to re-create from scratch the sort of transitions you get from packages like XEffects, Slide Pop, FxTiles or Punchline -  even using a powerful NLE like Smoke or a compositor like After Effects.

As a working editor who uses these products, I appreciate that Noise Industries spends a lot of time making sure their tools work with the changes Apple brings about. They are fast with fixes and I’ve found that their filters tend to be more stable than some other packages as NLE or OS updates come down the line. This is especially true with Final Cut Pro X, which is still a moving target, as Apple tweaks AV Foundations with each update. FxFactory Pro and partner filters run well within the application and provide reasonable real-time performance when left unrendered. If you are running variations of Final Cut, Motion, Premiere Pro and After Effects, then one price covers the plug-in installation for all of these hosts.

Originally written for Digital Video magazine.

©2013 Oliver Peters

Final Cut Pro X versus Premiere Pro CS6

The struggle within most shops that invested in Apple’s Final Cut Pro is whether to stay put a while longer, adopt Final Cut Pro X or cut the cord and move on. For many this means shifting to the Adobe Production Premium bundle – part of Creative Suite. Most of the editors and facilities in my sphere are doing just that. I’m one of only two local editors that I know of, who is actually using FCP X professionally. The rest are in the process of shifting to Premiere Pro, while maintaining some continued use of FCP “legacy”. This post is not intended as a “shoot out” or to say one is better than the other. Both are good tools and much of the choice gets down to personal preference. Instead, my goal is to lay out some random considerations in making the move.

Cross-platform / performance

Premiere Pro runs on Mac OS X and Windows workstations and laptops, while Final Cut Pro X is a Mac-only product. The biggest consideration is that by having the tool available to Windows, you open your access to the fastest machines and GPU cards. Premiere on a PC can tap into the faster NVIDIA CUDA-enabled cards, which is not an option for either Premiere or FCP X on the Mac. Although Premiere runs with both CUDA and non-CUDA cards on Macs, the selection is limited.

Adobe’s standalone software must be purchased with either a Mac or Windows license and switching platforms requires cross-grading the license. Unlike Avid, you cannot simply go from a PC workstation at a facility to a MacBook Pro at home with a simple de-activation/re-activation process. The exception is the Creative Cloud subscription, with permits access to both Mac and Windows licenses on up to two machines, as long as they aren’t used at the same time.

Naturally, if you opt for Final Cut Pro X, you have software that has been tweaked for the most current Apple hardware. We can argue the merits of CUDA, OpenGL and OpenCL acceleration, but it’s pretty clear that FCP X running on a decked-out iMac outperforms the application on a Mac Pro tower.

Suite versus “suite”

Premiere Pro is generally purchased as part of the Production Premium or Master Collection software bundles – or as part of a Creative Cloud subscription. Final Cut Pro X is only available as standalone software through the Mac App Store. The beauty of the Adobe software is its integration, with direct links between Premiere Pro and After Effects, Prelude, Audition or SpeedGrade. These aren’t all fully developed yet, but it’s a key reason some editors prefer Premiere Pro.

On the other hand, there’s a large ecosystem growing up around Final Cut Pro X that constitutes much of the same. It’s not an official “suite” of software and interoperability is limited to translations of FCPXML. For similar dollars, you get similar capabilities – only with the added ability to pick and choose what’s right for your workflow.

Plug-ins

The plug-in architecture for Premiere Pro has historically been weak. Many of the third-party After Effects plug-ins show up and work within Premiere Pro, but some don’t. If you edit in Premiere, you are best off doing your effects in After Effects. Lately, developers have been tweaking their filters to make them work – or work better – inside Premiere.

To compare, Final Cut has no plug-in architecture. Instead third-party plug-ins use FxPlug through Motion and then show up inside FCP X as a Motion template, rather than a traditional plug-in. This allows developers to not only create updated plug-ins for Motion and FCP X, but also add new and unique effects and transitions built strictly as Motion projects. These in turn are published to FCP X as effects. Since this latter approach requires less programming skill, the market for low-cost (and even free) FCP X plug-ins has exploded. Not to mention, there are effects and transitions for FCP X that simply don’t exist – or can’t easily be re-created - for any other NLE.

Organizational tools

All NLEs are giant databases tracking information. Final Cut Pro X takes this to a new level and uses ratings, keywords and smart collections as a means for fast and automatic organization of your media. Plus a considerable amount of camera and textual metadata is tracked in the background. This doesn’t mean that Premiere Pro doesn’t track a lot of data, as well. Open the metadata display window and you find plenty of fields that are assignable to each clip. Bins can be filtered by a search field, which will reduce the amount of clips displayed according to the search criteria being typed in.

User interface configurations

Final Cut Pro X’s interface design is based on panels and windows that can be opened and closed as needed. It is arranged well for single and dual-screen layouts, though you have very few options to move any of these windows around and create custom screen layouts. Premiere Pro uses a system of dockable tabs common across several of Adobe’s applications, including After Effects and Photoshop. Re-arrange these as you see fit and save custom workspace layouts.

Tracks versus trackless

Premiere Pro uses the “traditional” track-based timeline structure, where audio and video is separated into tracks and clips are positioned on the timeline based on a reference to absolute time. Final Cut Pro X’s timeline does not use tracks, but instead lays out clips according to storylines and connected clips. These are linked to each other in a parent-child relationship. This allows groups of clips to be moved, by simply moving the clip on the storyline to which the others are attached. There is no vertical hierarchy to audio and video content as tracks. Although video is displayed to the viewer from the top down, audio and video connected clips can be linked above or below the central primary storyline.

Project and clip management

Premiere Pro creates a single, self-contained data file for every edit project. This file contains the links to all media on your hard drives and the edited sequences created from these. Final Cut Pro X divides its structure into Events (source media) and Projects (edited sequences). These correspond to separate folders on your hard drive as well as divisions within the FCP X interface. Event folders can contain either actual source media content – or alias files pointing to other locations on your hard drives for that source media.

Media management

At the end of a production, many editors like to organize the final edited sequence and the clips used within it into a single “consolidated” project. This means the source clips have been trimmed to only the portions used, plus a few seconds of “handles” on the ends of the trimmed clips. Premiere Pro allows you to do this via its Project Manager tool. FCP X currently does not allow any clip trimming. You can copy a Project (edited sequence) with its used clips to a new Event, but then it requires a second step to organize the media. That step copies the media itself for all used clips into the new Event that was created.

Multiple editor interaction

Right now, neither tool is very good for collaborative editing. Final Cut Pro X works best to have all Event and Project folders at the root level of drives and only one editor can access those at a time. There is an “add SAN location” feature for shared storage environments, but it doesn’t appear to work with all SANs. The best method is to have media on a SAN, but keep the Event and Project files local to each system, with the media linked to these. If one or more editors is working on the same production, then each can have local, “mirrored” versions of the Event folders. To exchange edited sequences, simply copy and transfer the Project files that you’d like to share.

In the case of Premiere Pro, the current workflow is similar to that of FCP 7. It will likely change after NAB, where Adobe is expected to show Adobe Anywhere as a real product and its entry into collaborative editing. Currently, if multiple editors work on the same Premiere-based production, media can be on a SAN, but the project files should be on local drives. Unfortunately, you cannot open multiple project files at once. When you import another editor’s sequence into your project, it annoyingly imports all the associated master clips, even through they may already exist within your project. These cannot be removed, otherwise clips in your imported sequence will go offline.

[EDIT - My Premiere Pro import issues were challenged by a reader, so I went back and did some testing. It appears that if two editors create two unique projects, but using the same media (like in a shared storage facility), then duplicate master clips are created upon import. However, if the second project is created using a "save as" command, then sequences imported from it back into the original project do not create duplicate master clips.]

List interchange

Final Cut Pro X only interchanges data with external applications using the FCPXML data format. This is different than other versions of XML, which means you have to use translation to get from FCP X to FCP 7, for example. Premiere Pro supports XML, EDL, OMF and AAF (limited).

Tape handling (or not)

Neither application is great for videotape-based workflows. Premiere Pro has capture-from-tape and output modules, but it’s not as solid as FCP 7 and definitely not as good as Avid Media Composer. On the other hand, FCP X’s is non-existent. There is limited support for Firewire-enabled videotape decks, like HDV, but you really end up using the capture/output utilities of the third-party hardware cards (AJA, Blackmagic Design, Matrox, MOTU).

The Cold Mountain moment

Feature film editors’ use of specific NLEs does not amount to a large market segment for either of these manufacturers (nor Avid, for that matter, either). But the association with a Hollywood blockbuster fuels aspirational marketing in other sectors. It wasn’t until Walter Murch cut Cold Mountain – along with the Coen Brothers’ use of FCP – that Final Cut started to get noticed by a large portion of the professional editing community as a viable tool. Neither Apple nor Adobe have had that yet with Premiere Pro or FCP X. There has not been a major feature film cut with either.

Adobe is a bit closer in that many films have touched on Premiere Pro as a conduit to get into After Effects or handling some conforming tasks. Naturally, Adobe is more than happy to let the lines be blurred through omission between these roles and doing an actual creative edit of a film. That is likely to change this year. This is purely a guess, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a studio film being cut on FCP X or Premiere Pro at some point during 2013.

Pricing and openness

For now, when you compare cost, FCP X is the better deal. Even when you add more applications and utilities to fill in the gaps, the cost is lower than Premiere Pro. Add to that the fact that Mac App Store purchases can run on multiple machines under a single Apple ID, thus bringing the cost per machine even lower. Adobe is in the process of changing its sales and licensing structure through the Creative Cloud mechanism, but the limit is typically two machines. The beauty here is that you have access to the whole host of Adobe creative applications for video, photography, web and design as part of a monthly subscription model.

Over the course of the first year on one machine, cost is probably going to be similar for most users. If you use multiple machines, own the software for several years or use more than the average number of applications, then the scale will tip in favor of one company or the other. Both the Mac App Store and Creative Cloud models allow for more rapid updating of software than in previous years.

Openness and company response may also be a factor in your purchasing decisions. Apple is secretive about new product development. They do listen to customer feedback, but they don’t show it publicly. Adobe has tried to be very proactive in their outreach to the professional creative community. In the end, the net result may be the same in how it translates into new features that you can use.

Interesting tools

Both NLEs offer tools beyond just media organization and editing. For instance, both include stabilization, but Premiere Pro includes extra touches to fix rolling shutter artifacts. FCP X includes optical flow processing for high-quality variable speed effects. Final Cut features a number of non-destructive “automatics” for image and sound analysis on ingest and shape/shot recognition. Premiere Pro offers speech-to-text analysis. A lot of these tools fall into the “nice to have, but I never use it” category for me. Still, if these are worthwhile for you, then take a closer look.

Batch exports

Neither tool offers good batch export tools like I’m used to with FCP 7, however, each offers queued exporting functions of edited sequences. In Premiere Pro, if I want to export multiple sequences, or the same sequence as multiple deliverables, then all I need to do is set up a queue in Adobe Media Encoder. With Final Cut Pro X, I can use the Share menu to export straight from the timeline or send Projects to Compressor. Unfortunately neither one lets me export a QuickTime reference file that can be used in other encoders. You first have to export a self-contained master file if you intend to use it with other software.

Responsiveness

This is a big one for me and a good place to end this list. In its current form, FCP X feels a tad buggy to me. Response is generally better on an iMac. I’m mainly on Mac Pros, so playback often just doesn’t look smooth. It’s definitely not dropping frames, but looks like the graphics card (usually an ATI 5870) simply isn’t refreshing as well as it should. The interface also tends to feel “sticky” as I’m going between windows. It “forgets” where it is during skimming when switching between a clip in the Event browser and the timeline. Then it takes a bit of clicking around in the interface to get it to “wake up”.

There seems to be some type of RAM leak issue,too. The longer I work on it in a day with large Events (bins), the more sluggish it becomes. This requires me to close and relaunch the application to get peppier performance.

I don’t see any of this with Premiere Pro. I do miss the skimming features of FCP X (no, hover scrub is NOT the same), but otherwise, the Premiere Pro user interface interaction seems to be better for now. I’d say for me, this is an annoyance and not a deal-breaker, but it definitely needs to be addressed by Apple.

©2013 Oliver Peters

Boris Continuum Complete 8 for Final Cut Pro X

Boris Continuum Complete 8 from Boris FX has finally made it to Apple Final Cut Pro X and Motion 5. Customers purchasing BCC 8 will receive installers for both new and old versions of Final Cut and Motion. FCP X users will install the new 64-bit version designed for the updated FxPlug architecture – bringing to FCP X one of the most comprehensive plug-in sets available.

Third-party filters, transitions, titles and generators for Final Cut Pro X are built as Motion templates. This has made it a particular challenge to create an FCP X version of BCC 8 with the same controls, plus look and feel of the Continuum set. Yet changes are inevitable. According to Boris FX founder Boris Yamnitsky, “Since FCP X is a new platform unrelated to FCP 7, there is no need to maintain compatibility with BCC 7. This frees our hand to remove older filters, re-work some of the existing filters and make new filters best suited for the FCP X host. It is a very exciting project. We plan to release more templates as we get more feedback from our early adopters. We will be posting them for free as we go. For example, we are working on Materials and Transitions now.”

Around 200 filters install into Motion 5, but of these, a smaller subset of 94 effects filters and 11 transitions (in the current build) show up inside of Final Cut Pro X. Last year, I highlighted the new BCC 8 package for After Effects, which introduced new effects, like film glow and particles, as well as general improvements across the board. The same is true of this newest member of the BCC 8 product line. The Continuum filters are all high quality effects, but with modifications to make them work within FCP X. Some filters don’t show up in Final Cut, such as 3D lens flares, the 3-way grade filter and artist’s posterization, but you still have a variety of flare and art effects, including water color. All are there in Motion. Some of those in Motion have been modified to fit within the parameters of the Motion user interface. For instance, the 3-way grade filter uses color wheels in After Effects, but sliders and a floating “heads up display” panel in Motion.

The over 100 effects and transitions inside Final Cut Pro X work in a familiar fashion to other versions of Boris Continuum Complete. There’s a wealth of slider controls on all of the filters to fine tune each effect. Many include built-in masking (the Boris Pixel Chooser), motion tracking (a first for FCP X filters) and/or beat reactor. The latter will pulse or vary an effect based on the amplitude of a linked audio track. Certain Boris FX hallmarks, like high-quality extruded, shaded 3D text, are also part of this package.

All complex effects installed in the Final Cut Pro X host are somewhat slow to react as you adjust them. They do not play smoothly without dropping frames, until they are rendered. This is true for BCC 8, but also true for packages from Magic Bullet, Digital Film Tools, Tiffen and GenArts. If I compare similar Boris FX filters within different hosts, but applied to the same footage and using the same workstation, then BCC 8 in Premiere Pro CS6 outperforms Final Cut Pro X for real-time playback (when left unrendered). In general, user interaction is faster in After Effects, but rendering is often faster in Final Cut Pro X. As with most things related to FCP X, performance on the newest iMacs and MacBook Pros will be better than older Mac Pros. Yamnitsky adds this, “Because FCP X is a very different host, all traditional assumptions about visual effects will be reconsidered. For example, where in other hosts we rely on presets to deliver new looks, in FCP X we can simply export new Motion 5 templates, exposing just enough parameters to make the new look customizable. This approach allows us to avoid complex contextual controls and long parameter stacks.”

Boris Continuum Complete 8 for Final Cut Pro X and Motion 5 is the most complete package of effects for this combo to date. Quite a few effects, like caustics, 3D text and various distortion effects aren’t available in competing filter packages. Of particular interest is anything involving 3D rendering and shading. When you compare the quality of the BCC lens flares that are done in 3D space or the quality of shaded, extruded text, it’s clear to see that their quality exceeds similar effects available for other plug-in packages. BCC 8 isn’t cheap, but does offer a lot of value. Talk with any professional editor familiar with the BCC set and you’ll find out how important the BCC effects become to solving routine creative challenges.

Originally written for Digital Video magazine / Creative Planet Network.

©2013 Oliver Peters