Three choices

We now know where the four “A”s are headed. With the dust settling just a little, picking your favored approach to post is shaping up into three choices: the software suite, the all-in-one and the toolkit. That’s not to say you can’t mix these options up a bit, but let me outline each approach.

A. The Software Suite

If you wanted to build your facility around a complementary suite of applications as I outlined in this previous post, then Apple Final Cut Studio had been the dominant option. With Apple’s changes, Adobe becomes the logical successor. The new Creative Suite 6 offerings provide many of the advances that Final Cut users had expected in a hypothetical Final Cut Pro 8 or Final Cut Studio 4. If you are looking for a package that can cover all the bases – including logging/ingest, editing, audio mixing, color grading and encoding/authoring – then Adobe CS6 Production Premium is the place to go.

Most Adobe applications may be purchased as standalone applications, as part of a suite or through a Creative Cloud subscription. If you are buying a site license as a multi-seat user, then you’ll likely go with perpetual licenses (the software has no time limit) rather than the Creative Cloud. (Adobe does plan to offer “Team” subscriptions later in the year.) Understand that if you are purchasing Adobe software with the intent of running different applications on different workstations, you will still have to purchase the appropriate suite (or a Cloud subscription) for each workstation. You cannot buy one software bundle license and then pick and choose specific applications to install and authorize on numerous computers for simultaneous operation. For that, you’d need a volume, or multi-seat license. It allows you to deploy bundles like Production Premium onto multiple workstations, using a common license number.

Granted, any FCP/Color editor moving to Premiere Pro or SpeedGrade is probably going to miss a few of their favorite features, but once comfortable with the differences, will find a very comprehensive package. One that lets you do everything you need for creative cutting and finishing – all within the Adobe family. There are links between Premiere Pro and Audition or After Effects or SpeedGrade, so it’s pretty easy to start in Premiere Pro (or even Prelude for ingest/transcode/logging) and then move to After Effects for vfx/motion graphics, Audition for the mix and SpeedGrade for the final grading pass.

Right now, the least-integrated application is SpeedGrade, which was acquired by Adobe only last September. Only the “send to” half of the roundtrip with Premiere Pro is in place. You can’t monitor broadcast output on any card except an NVIDIA with SDI, which most video editors don’t own and which doesn’t work on the Mac. You can, however, view a full screen signal on a second display that’s connected via DVI or DisplayPort. This is likely to change pretty quickly under Adobe control, but if you can work within the current constraints, SpeedGrade is a powerful color correction tool on par with Color or Resolve.

The intent of this post is not to go into depth about the pros and cons of any individual software application, so I’ll leave a discussion of Premiere Pro’s strengths or weaknesses as an editor for another time. Suffice it to say that if you want a powerful and comprehensive set of tools from a single vendor, who has made interoperability a priority, then Adobe is the best option today.

B. The All-In-One Editor

The editor who prefers to have everything at his or her fingertips inside of a single application is going to have to stick with Avid. The best bang-for-the-buck until mid-June is the Avid Symphony cross-grade promotion for FCP “legacy” owners. For $999 you get Symphony, AvidFX (Boris RED integrated into Symphony), the Boris Continuum Complete filter set, Sorenson Squeeze and Avid DVD (PC only). The advantage of Symphony over Media Composer includes advanced color correction tools and the bundling of the BCC filters. Both are cross-platform and work with the full range of third-party i/o hardware.

Naturally Autodesk Smoke and Avid DS editors might consider their favored NLE as more deserving of the all-in-one label, but I see the strengths of these systems in finishing and not offline or creative editing tasks. DS does offer many of those tools (though is typically not considered the first choice for such tasks), but Smoke doesn’t. In other words, if you want a system that can tackle any task from film editing to finishing, Symphony and Media Composer definitely fit the bill. The weaknesses are that you are limited to a maximum of HD-sized frames, the effects modules need a lot of improvement and the color correction tools are also long-in-the-tooth. Nevertheless, in the hands of an experienced editor, 80-90% of all editing and finishing challenges can be tackled inside of Symphony. This includes creative cutting, mixing, finishing and color grading – all accomplished without ever leaving the Avid editing interface.

C. The Toolkit

This is where I see Apple Final Cut X fitting. FCP X by itself is not a complete NLE for advanced work and needs to be augmented with many other tools. When I say this, I’m focusing on the small shop, multi-suite user, not the individual videographer or editor who needs to bang out spots and corporate videos on his home or portable system. The work that many editors do requires collaboration with other editors, mixers and colorists. FCP X lacks those tools internally and instead leans on third-party utilities. The mix that seems to work best is some combination of FCP X (creative editing), DaVinci Resolve (advanced color grading) and Autodesk Smoke (visual effects and finishing).

As I watch the rapid expansion of the FCP X-based ecosystem, it’s becoming clear that what appears to be a lack of features is, in fact, spawning innovation to complement FCP X. As a result, the application is becoming more of a platform than the previous version or other editing software. Final Cut Pro X becomes the editing hub that is augmented by other applications and utilities based on your individual workflow needs.

Naturally any purchase of FCP X would be incomplete without Motion 5 and Compressor 4, not to mention that essential media management and interchange tools include Event Manager X, Xto7 for Final Cut Pro, 7toX for Final Cut Pro and X2Pro Audio Convert. I also find that it’s very hard to get through most complex productions without some fallback to the “legacy” Final Cut Studio suite. For example, if you need to generate EDLs or OMF files or prefer Color to other grading tools, then FC Studio (assuming you already own a copy anyway) is the best choice. In fact, you can still buy a Final Cut Pro Studio license from Apple’s 800-number business sales operation. Adobe CS6 Production Premium can also fulfill many of these same functions and there’s no reason not to own both CS6 and FCP X. For the sake of this post, I’m presenting Choice C as a non-Avid, non-Adobe alternative.

Advanced post functions in the toolkit include grading, audio mixing and advanced finishing. There are plenty of options for audio, including Apple’s own Logic and Soundtrack Pro. There’s no clear path from FCP X to either of these, yet. You can export audio streams as Roles, but those are “flattened” tracks without handles. Best to bounce over to FCP 7 and then to STP or Logic. Other solutions include ProTools, Audition and Nuendo. Marquis Broadcast’s X2Pro is designed to send FCP X audio tracks to Pro Tools in the AAF format, but not OMF, so it’s not compatible with some of the other DAW software options, like Logic.

Blackmagic Design has done a good job of integrating FCP X’s XML into DaVinci Resolve, so even the free LITE version works well as a grading companion to FCP X. Resolve can easily be installed on any workstation in the facility and if you want a dedicated grading room, then it’s worth the investment in a proper monitor, scopes and a control surface. Likewise, if you invest in Autodesk Smoke, it is probably with the intent to make this a client-supervised “hero” room. Yes, all of these applications can reside on a single workstation, but that doesn’t make the best business sense.

Another thing to consider is i/o hardware. Final Cut Pro X works with most of the PCIe and Thunderbolt capture/output cards and devices, but Resolve only works with Blackmagic Design’s own hardware. Conversely, Smoke requires an AJA KONA 3G or IoXT. For a facility owner, having dedicated Smoke and Resolve suites makes sense and, therefore, it’s OK to have different cards in different workstations. This does mean you will have to do a bit of planning to best manage your configuration.

This also brings to mind shared storage. FCP X is still evolving in that regard and currently works with Xsan. You can use it with volume-level SANs, but the “Add SAN Location” feature may or may not work at your site. For instance, it doesn’t work with Command Soft FibreJet. You’ll be fine with shared media, as long as your Final Cut Events and Final Cut Projects folders are on locally-controlled volumes, where the FCP X workstation has write permission to that volume or drive.

Last but not least is Adobe Photoshop, which I find essential for all sessions. Other editors disagree and prefer to avoid Photoshop – either for reasons of need or cost. So, alternatives to Photoshop include Corel Painter, Photoshop Elements or Pixelmator.

In closing, remember this is just a simple way to present the options. There’s nothing that says you can’t mix and match After Effects and/or Pro Tools with EDIUS, Media Composer, Vegas, Media 100 or any other variation. My world is headed primarily to an Apple/Adobe witches brew of applications. I hope my little overview makes some sense out of the confusing NLE landscape. It’s still very fluid and will likely continue to change over the coming year. The key is to pick a direction and stick to it. You don’t have to know everything, but pick the right tools for your clients and workload. Learn to use them well and dive in!

© 2012 Oliver Peters

NAB 2012 – Adobe CS6, Smoke 2013, Thunderbolt and more

Get some coffee, sit back and take your time reading this post. I apologize for its length in advance, but there’s a lot of new hardware and software to talk about. I’m going to cover my impressions of NAB along with some “first looks” at Adobe Creative Suite 6, Smoke 2013 and Thunderbolt i/o devices. There’s even some FCP X news!

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Impressions of NAB 2012

I thought this year was going to be quiet and laid back. Boy, was I wrong! Once again Blackmagic Design stole the spotlight with democratized products. This year the buzz had to be the Blackmagic Cinema Camera. It delivers on the objective of the original RED Scarlet idea. It’s a $3K camera with 2.5K of resolution and 13 stops. I’ll leave the camera discussions to the camera guys, but suffice it to say that this camera was thought up with post in mind. That is – no new, proprietary codec. It uses ProRes, DNxHD or Cinema DNG (the Adobe raw format). It also includes a copy of Resolve and UltraScope with the purchase.

Along with that news was Blackmagic’s re-introduction of the Teranex processors. Prior to that company’s acquisition by Blackmagic Design, the top-of-the-line Teranex image processor loaded with options was around $90K. Now that Grant Petty’s wizards have had a go at it, the newest versions in a nicely re-designed form factor are $2K for 2D and $4K for 3D. Sweet. And if you think free (or close to it) stifles R&D, take a look at the new, cleaned-up DaVinci Resolve 9.0 interface. Great to see that the development continues.

You’ll note that there was a lot of buzz about 4K camera, but did you notice you need to record that image to something? Enter AJA – not with a camera – but, with the KiPro Mini Quad. That’s right – a 4K version of the Mini already designed with Canon’s C500 4K camera in mind. It records 4K ProRes 4444 files. AJA is also building its Thunderbolt portfolio with T-Tap, a monitoring-only Thunderbolt-to-SDI/HDMI output adapter under $250. More on Thunderbolt devices later in this post.

The NLE news was dominated by Adobe’s reveal of Creative Suite 6 (with Premiere Pro CS6) and Autodesk’s re-designed Smoke 2013. Avid’s news was mainly broadcast and storage-related, since Media Composer version 6 had been launched months before. Although that was old news to the post crowd, it was the first showing for the software at NAB. Nevertheless, to guarantee some buzz, Avid announced a short-term Symphony cross-grade deal that lasts into June. FCP (excluding X), Media Composer and Xpress Pro owners can move into Symphony for $999. If you are an Avid fan, this is a great deal and is probably the best bang-for-the-buck NLE available if you take advantage of the cross-grade.

An interesting sidebar is that both FilmLight and EyeOn are developing plug-in products for Avid software. FilmLight builds the Baselight color correction system, which was shown and recently released in plug-in form for FCP 7. Now they are expanding that to other hosts, including Nuke and Media Composer under the product name of Baselight Editions. EyeOn’s Fusion software is probably the best and fastest, feature film-grade compositor available on Windows. EyeOn is using Connection (a software bridge) to send Media Composer/Symphony or DS timeline clips to Fusion, which permits both applications to stay open. In theory, if you bought Symphony and added Baselight and Fusion, the combination becomes one of the most powerful NLEs on the market. All at under $5K with the current cross-grade!

Autodesk has been quite busy redesigning its Smoke NLE for the Mac platform. Smoke 2013 features a complete Mac-centric overhaul to turn it into an all-in-one “super editor” that still feels comfortable for editors coming from an FCP or Media Composer background. See my “first look” section below.

Quantel, who often gets lost in these desktop NLE discussions showed the software-only version of Pablo running on a tweaked PC. It uses four high-end NVIDIA cards for performance and there’s also a new, smaller Neo Nano control surface. Although pricing is lower, at $50K for the software alone, it’s still the premium brand.

There’s been plenty of talk about “editing in the cloud”, but in my opinion, there were three companies at the show with viable cloud solutions for post: Avid, Quantel and Aframe. In 2010 Avid presented a main stage technology preview that this year has started to come to fruition as Interplay Sphere. The user in the field is connected to his or her home base storage and servers over various public networks. The edit software is a version of the NewsCutter/Media Composer interface that can mix local full-res media with proxy media linked to full-res media at the remote site. When the edit is done, the sequence list is “published” to the server and local, full-res media uploaded back to the home base (trimmed clips only). The piece is conformed and rendered by the server at home. Seems like the branding line should be Replace your microwave truck with a Starbucks!

The company with a year of real experience “in the cloud” at the enterprise level is Quantel with Qtube. It’s a similar concept to Avid’s, but has the advantage of tying in multiple locations remotely. Media at the home base can also be searched and retrieved in formats that work for other NLEs, including Media Composer and Final Cut.

An exciting newcomer is Aframe. They are a British company founded by the former owner of Unit, one of Europe’s largest professional post facilities built around FCP and Xsan. Aframe is geared toward the needs of shows and production companies more so than broadcast infrastructures. The concept uses a “private cloud” (i.e. not Amazon servers) with an interface and user controls that feel a lot like a mash-up between Vimeo and Xprove. Full-res media can be uploaded in several ways, including via regional service centers located around the US. There’s full metadata support and the option to use Aframe’s contracted logging vendor if you don’t want to create metadata yourself. Editors cut with proxy media and then the full-res files are conformed via EDLs and downloaded when ready. Pricing plans are an attractive per-seat, monthly structure that start with a free, single seat account.

Apple doesn’t officially do trade shows anymore, but they were at NAB, flying under the radar. In a series of small, private meetings with professional customers and media, Apple was making their case for Final Cut Pro X. Rome wasn’t built in a day and the same can be said for re-building a dominant editing application from the ground up. Rather than simply put in the same features as the competition, Apple opted to take a fresh look, which has created much “Sturm und Drang” in the industry. Nevertheless, Apple was interested in pointing out the adoption by professional users and the fact that it has held an above-50% market share with new NLE seats sold to professional users during 2011. You can parse those numbers anyway you like, but they point to two facts: a) people aren’t changing systems as quickly as many vocal forum posts imply, and b) many users are buying FCP X and seeing if and how it might work in some or all of their operation.

FCP X has already enjoyed several quick updates in less than a year, thanks to the App Store mechanism. There’s a robust third-party developer community building around X. In fact, walking around the NAB floor, I saw at least a dozen or more booths that displayed FCP X in some fashion to demonstrate their own product or use it as an example of interoperability between their product and X. Off the top of my head, I saw or heard about FCP X at Autodesk, Quantel, AJA, Blackmagic Design, Matrox, MOTU, Tools On Air, Dashwood and SONY – not to mention others, like resellers and storage vendors. SONY has announced the new XDCAM plug-ins for X and compatibility of its XDCAM Browser software. Dashwood Cinema Solutions was showing the only stereo3D package that’s ready for Final Cut Pro X. And of course, we can’t live without EDLs, so developer XMiL Workflow Tools (who wasn’t exhibiting at NAB) has also announced EDL-X, an FCP XML-to-EDL translator, expected to be in the App Store by May.

On the Apple front, the biggest news was another peek behind the curtain at some of the features to be included in the next FCP X update, coming later this year. These include multichannel audio editing tools, dual viewers, MXF plug-in support and RED camera support. There are no details beyond these bullet points, but you can expect a lot of other minor enhancements as part of this update.

“Dual viewers” may be thought of as “source/record” monitors – added by Apple, thanks to user feedback. Apple was careful to point out to me that they intended to do a bit more than just that with the concept. “RED support” also wasn’t defined, but my guess would be that it’s based on the current Import From Camera routine. I would imagine something like FCP 7’s native support of RED media through Log and Transfer, except better options for bringing in camera raw color metadata. Of course, that’s purely speculation on my part.

Now, sit back and we’ll run through some “first looks”.

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Adobe Creative Suite 6 – A First Look

Adobe charged into 2012 with a tailwind of two solid years of growth on the Mac platform and heavy customer anticipation for what it plans to offer in Creative Suite 6. The release of CS5 and CS5.5 were each strong in their own right and introduced such technologies as the Mercury Playback Engine for better real-time performance, but in 2011 Adobe clearly ramped up its focus on video professionals. They acquired the IRIDAS SpeedGrade technology and brought the developers of Automatic Duck on board. There have been a few sneak peeks on the web including a popular video posted by Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco editors, but the wait for CS6 ended with this year’s NAB.

Production Premium

Adobe’s video content creation tools may be purchased individually, through a Creative Cloud subscription or as part of the Master Collection and Production Premium bundles. Most editors will be interested in CS6 Production Premium, which includes Prelude, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop Extended, SpeedGrade, Audition, Encore, Adobe Media Encoder, Illustrator, Bridge and Flash Professional. Each of these applications has received an impressive list of new features and it would be impossible to touch on every one here, so look for a more in-depth review at a future date. I’ll quickly cover some of the highlights.

Prelude

As part of CS6, Adobe is introducing Prelude, a brand new product designed for footage acquisition, ingest/transcode, organization, review and metadata tagging. It’s intended to be used by production assistants or producers as an application to prepare the footage for an editor. Both Prelude and Premiere Pro now feature “hover scrubbing”, which is the ability to scan through footage quickly by moving the mouse over the clip thumbnail, which can be expanded as large as a mini-viewer. Clips can be marked, metadata added and rough cuts assembled, which in turn are sent to Premiere Pro. There is a dynamic reading of metadata between Prelude and Premiere Pro. Clip metadata changes made in one application are updated in the other, since the information is embedded into the clip itself. Although Prelude is included with the software collection for single users, it can be separately purchased in volume by enterprise customers, such as broadcasters and news organizations.

Premiere Pro

A lot of effort was put into the redesign of Premiere Pro. The user interface has been streamlined and commands and icons were adjusted to be more consistent with both Apple Final Cut Pro (“legacy” versions) and Avid Media Composer. Adobe took input from users who have come from both backgrounds and wanted to alter the UI in a way that was reasonably familiar. The new CS6 keyboard shortcuts borrow from each, but there are also full FCP and full MC preset options. Workspaces have been redesigned, but an editor can still call up CS5.5 workspace layouts with existing projects to ease the transition. A dockable timecode window has been added and Adobe has integrated a dynamic trimming function similar to that of Media Composer.

The changes are definitely more than cosmetic, though, as Adobe has set out to design a UI that never forces you to stop. This means you can now do live updates to effects and even open other applications without the timeline playback ever stopping. They added Mercury Playback acceleration support for some OpenCL cards and there’s a new Mercury Transmit feature for better third-party hardware i/o support across all of the video applications. Many new tools have been added, including a new multi-camera editor with an unlimited number of camera angles. Some more features have been brought over from After Effects, including adjustment layers and the Warp Stabilizer that was introduced with CS5.5. This year they’ve broken out the rolling shutter repair function as a separate tool. Use it for quick HDSLR camera correction without the need to engage the full Warp Stabilizer.

SpeedGrade

By adding a highly-regarded and established color grading tool, Adobe has strengthened the position of Production Premium as the primary application suite for video professionals. The current level of integration is a starting point, given the short development time that was possible since last September. Expect this to expand in future versions.

SpeedGrade works as both a standalone grading application, as well as a companion to the other applications. There’s a new “Send to SpeedGrade” timeline export operation in Premiere Pro. When you go into SpeedGrade this way, an intermediate set of uncompressed DPX files is first rendered as the source media to be used by SpeedGrade. Both applications support a wide range of native formats, but they aren’t all the same, so this approach offers the fewest issues for now, when working with mixed formats in a Premiere sequence. In addition, SpeedGrade can also import EDLs and relink media, which offers a second path from Premiere Pro into SpeedGrade. Finished, rendered media returns to Premiere as a single, flattened file with baked-in corrections.

As a color correction tool, SpeedGrade presents an easy workflow – enabling you to stack layers of grading onto a single clip, as well as across the entire timeline. There are dozens of included LUTs and looks presets, which may be used for creative grading or to correct various camera profiles. An added bonus is that both After Effects and Photoshop now support SpeedGrade Look files.

Audition

With CS5.5, Adobe traded out Soundbooth for a cross-platform version of Audition, Adobe’s full-featured DAW software. In CS6, that integration has been greatly improved. Audition now sports an interface more consistent with After Effects and Premiere, newly added Mackie and Avid Eucon control surface protocol support and mixing automation. The biggest feature demoed in the sneak peeks has been the new Automatic Speech Alignment tool. You can take overdubbed ADR lines and automatically align them for near-perfect sync to replace the on-camera dialogue. All of this is thanks to the technology behind Audition’s new real-time, high-quality audio stretching engine.

Audition also gains a number of functions specific to audio professionals. Audio CD mastering has been added back into the program and there’s a new pitch control spectral display. This can be used to alter the pitch of a singer, as well as a new way to create custom sound design. Buying Production Premium gives you access to 20GB of downloadable audio media (sound effects and music scores) formerly available only via the online link to Adobe’s Resource Central.

After Effects

Needless to say, After Effects is the Swiss Army knife of video post. From motion graphics to visual effects to simple format conversation, there’s very little that After Effects isn’t called upon to do. Naturally there’s plenty new in CS6. The buzz feature is a new 3D camera tracker, which uses a point cloud to tightly track an object that exhibits size, position, rotation and perspective changes. These are often very hard for traditional 2D point trackers to follow. For example, the hood of a car moving towards the camera at an angle.

Now for the first time in After Effects, you can build extruded 3D text and vector shapes using built-in tools. This includes surface material options and a full 3D ray tracer. In general, performance has been greatly improved through a better hand-off between RAM cache and disk cache. As with Premiere Pro, rolling shutter repair is now also available as a separate tool in After Effects.

Photoshop

Photoshop has probably had the most online sneak peeks of any of the new Adobe apps. It has been available as a public beta since mid-March. Photoshop, too, sports a new interface, but that’s probably the least noteworthy of the new features. These include impressive new content-aware fill functions, 3D LUT support (including SpeedGrade Look files) and better auto-correction. There’s better use of GPU horsepower, which means common tasks like Liquefy are accelerated.

Photoshop has offered the ability to work with video as a single file for several versions. With CS6 it gains expanded video editing capabilities, enabled by a new layer structure akin to that used in After Effects. Although Premiere Pro or After Effects users probably won’t do much with it, Adobe is quite cognizant that many of its photography customers are increasingly asked to deal with video – thanks, of course, to the HD-video-enabled DSLRs, like the Canon EOS series. By integrating video editing and layering tools into Photoshop, it allows these customers to deliver a basic video project while working inside an application environment where they are the most comfortable. Video editors gain the benefit of having it there if they want to use it. Some may, in fact, develop their own innovative techniques once they investigate what it can do for them.

Adobe Creative Suite 6 offers a wealth of new features, expanded technologies and a set of brand new tools. It’s one of Adobe’s largest releases ever and promises to attract new interest from video professionals.

Click here for updated price and availability information.

Click here for videos that explain CS6 features.

Plus, a nice set of tutorial videos here.

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Autodesk Smoke 2013 – A First Look

Thanks to the common Unix underpinnings of Linux and Mac OS X, Autodesk Media & Entertainment was able to bring its advanced Smoke editor to the Mac platform in December of 2009 as an unbundled software product. The $15K price tag was a huge drop from that of their standard, turnkey Linux Smoke workstations, but still hefty for the casual user. Nevertheless, thanks to an aggressive trial and academic policy, Autodesk was very successful in getting plenty of potential new users to download and test the product. In the time since the launch on the Mac, Autodesk has had a chance to learn what Mac-oriented editors want and adjust to the feedback from these early adopters.

Taking that user input to heart, Autodesk introduced the new Smoke 2013 at NAB. This is an improved version that is much more “Mac-like”. Best of all it’s now available for $3,495 plus an optional annual subscription fee for support and software updates. Although this is an even bigger price reduction, it places Smoke in line with Autodesk’s animation product family (Maya, Softimage, etc.) and in keeping with what most Mac users feel is reasonable for a premium post production tool. Smoke 2013 will ship in fall, but the new price took effect at NAB. Any new and existing customers on subscription will receive the update as part of their support. Tutorials and trial versions of Smoke 2013 are expected to be available over the summer.

More Mac-like

Autodesk was successful in attracting a lot of trial downloads, but realized that the biggest hurdle was the steep learning curve even expert Final Cut and Media Composer editors encountered. Previous Mac versions of Smoke featured a user interface and commands inherited from the Linux versions of Smoke and Flame, which were completely different from any Mac editing application. Just getting media into the system baffled many. With Smoke 2013, Autodesk has specifically targeted editors who come from an Apple Final Cut Pro and/or Avid Media Composer background. The interface uses a standard, track-based editing workflow to maintain the NLE environment that editors are comfortable with. There’s a familiar Mac OS X menu bar at the top and the application has adopted most of the common OS commands. In short, it’s been redesigned – but not “re-imagined” – to act like a Mac application is supposed to.

Smoke now features a tab structure to quickly switch between modes, like media access, editing, etc. The biggest new tool is the Media Hub. This is an intelligent media browser that lets you easily access any compatible media on any of your hard drives. It recognizes native media formats, as opposed to simply browsing all files in the Finder. Media support includes RED, ARRIRAW, ProRes, DNxHD, H.264, XDCAM, image sequences, LUTs and more. Media Hub is the place to locate and import files, including the ability to drag-and-drop media directly into your Smoke library, as well as from the Finder into Smoke. Settings for formats like RED (debayer, color, etc.) are maintained even when you drag from the Finder. Since Smoke is designed as a finishing tool, you can also import AAF, XML (FCP 7, FCP X, Premiere Pro) and EDL lists generated by offline editors.

ConnectFX

Beyond familiar commands and the Media Hub, the editing interface has been redesigned to be more visually appealing and for the easier application of effects. ConnectFX is a method to quickly apply and modify effects right in the timeline. Tabbed buttons let you change between modes, such as resizing, time warps, Sparks filter effects and color correction. When you choose to edit effects parameters, the interface opens a ribbon above the timeline where you can alter numerical settings or enter a more advanced effects editing interface. If you need more sophistication, then move to nodes using ConnectFX. Smoke is the only editor with a node-based compositor that works in 3D space. You get many of the tools that have been the hallmark of the premium Autodesk system products, such as effects process nodes, the Colour Warper, relighting, 3D tracking and more.

Smoke 2013 is positioned as an integrated editing and effects tool. According to Autodesk’s research, editors who use a mixture of several different tools to get the job done – from editing to effects to grading – often use up to seven different software applications. Smoke is intended as a “super editor” that places all of these tools and tasks into a single, comprehensive application with a cohesive interface. The design is intended to maximize the workflow as an editor moves from editing into finishing.

Lighter system requirements

Apple is changing the technology landscape with more powerful personal workstations, like the iMac, which doesn’t fit the traditional tower design. Thunderbolt adds advanced, high-bandwidth connectivity for i/o and storage in a single cable connection.

To take advantage of these changes, Smoke 2013 has been designed to run on this new breed of system. For example, it will work on a newer MacBook Pro or iMac, connected to fast Thunderbolt storage, like a Promise Pegasus RAID array. A key change has been in the render format used by Smoke. Up until now, intermediate renders have been to uncompressed RGB 4:4:4 DPX image sequence files. While this maintains maximum quality, it quickly eats storage space and is taxing on less powerful machines. Rendering to an uncompressed RGB format is generally overkill if your camera originals started as some highly-compressed format like XDCAM or H.264. Now Smoke 2013 offers the option to render to compressed formats, such as one of the Apple ProRes codecs.

Another welcomed change is the ability to use some of the newer Thunderbolt i/o devices. Smoke on a Mac Pro tower has been able to work with AJA KONA 3G cards, but with Smoke 2013, AJA’s new Io XT has been added to the mix. The Io XT is an external unit with most of the features and power of the KONA card. It connects in the Thunderbolt chain with storage and/or a secondary display and is the only current Thunderbolt i/o device with a loop-through connection. Thus it isn’t limited to being at the end of the chain.

While at NAB, I took a few minutes to see how comfortable this new version felt. I’ve been testing Smoke 2012 at home and quite frankly had some of the same issues other FCP and Media Composer editors have had. It has been a very deep program that required a lot of relearning before you could feel comfortable. When I sat down in front of Smoke 2013 in the NAB pod, I was able to quickly work through some effects without any assistance, primarily based on what seemed logical to me in a “standard” NLE approach. I’m not going to kid you, though. To do advanced effects still requires a learning curve, but editors do plenty of in-timeline effects that never require extensive compositing. When I compare doing this type of work in Smoke 2013 versus 2012, I’d say that the learning requirements have been cut by 60% to 75% with this new version. That’s how much the redesign improves things for beginners.

You can start from scratch editing a project strictly on Smoke 2013, but in case you are wondering, this really shouldn’t be viewed as a complete replacement for FCP 7. Instead, it’s the advanced product used to add the polish. As such, it becomes an ideal companion for a fast application used for creative cutting, like Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro or Media Composer.

Apple’s launch of Final Cut Pro X was a disruptive event that challenged conventional thinking. Autodesk Media & Entertainment’s launch of Smoke 2013 might not cause the same sort of uproar, but it brings a world-class finishing application to the Mac at a price that is attractive to many individual users and small boutiques.

Click here for videos and tutorials about Smoke.

Click here for Autodesk’s NAB videos.

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Thunderbolt I/O Devices – A First Look

Over the years media pros have seen data protocols come and go. Some, like Fibre Channel, are still current fixtures, while others, such as SCSI, have bitten the dust. The most exciting new technology is Thunderbolt, which is a merger of PCI Express and DisplayPort technologies co-developed by Intel and Apple. Started under the code name of Light Peak, the current implementation of Thunderbolt is a bi-directional protocol that passes power, video display signals and data transfer at up to 10Gbps of throughput in both directions. According to Apple, that’s up to twelve times faster than FireWire 800. It’s also faster than Fibre Channel, which tends to be the protocol of choice in larger facilities. Peripherals can access ten watts of power through Thunderbolt, too. Like SCSI and FireWire, Thunderbolt devices can be daisy-chained with special cables. Up to six devices can be connected in series, but certain devices have to be at the end of the chain. This is typically true when a PCIe-to-Thunderbolt adapter is used.

A single signal path can connect the computer to external storage, displays and capture devices, which provides editors with a powerful data protocol in a very small footprint. Thunderbolt technology is currently available in Apple iMac, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and Mini computers and is starting to become available on some Windows systems. It is not currently available as a built-in technology on Mac Pros, but you can bet that if there’s a replacement tower, Thunderbolt will be a key part of the engineering design.

By its nature, Thunderbolt dictates that peripheral devices are external units. All of the processing horsepower of a PCIe card, such as a KONA or Decklink, is built into the circuitry of an external device, which is connected via the Thunderbolt cable to the host computer. I tested three Thunderbolt capture/output devices for this review: AJA Io XT, Blackmagic Design UltraStudio 3D and Matrox MXO2 LE MAX. AJA added the monitoring-only T-Tap at NAB to join the Io XT in AJA’s Thunderbolt line-up. Blackmagic Design has developed four Thunderbolt units at difference price tiers. For smaller installations or mobile environments, the UltraStudio Express, Intensity Shuttle Thunderbolt or Intensity Extreme are viable solutions.

Matrox has taken a different approach by using an adapter. Any of its four MXO2 products – the standard MXO2, Mini, LE or Rack – can be used with either Thunderbolt or non-Thunderbolt workstations. Simply purchase the unit with a Thunderbolt adapter, PCIe card and/or Express 34 slot laptop card. The MXO2 product is the same and only the connection method differs for maximum flexibility. The fourth company making Thunderbolt capture devices is MOTU. Their HDX-SDI was not available in time for this review, but I did have a chance to play with one briefly on the NAB show floor.

Differentiating features

All three of the tested units include up/down/cross-conversion between SD and HD formats and perform in the same fashion as their non-Thunderbolt siblings. Each has pros and cons that will appeal to various users with differing needs. For instance, the AJA Io XT is the only device with a Thunderbolt pass-through connector. The other units have to be placed at the end of a Thunderbolt path. They all support SDI and HDMI capture and output, as well as RS-422 VTR control. Both the AJA and Blackmagic units support dual-link SDI for RGB 4:4:4 image capture and output. The Matrox and AJA units use a power supply connected via a four-pin XLR, which makes it possible to operate them in the field on battery power.

The need to work with legacy analog formats or monitoring could determine your choice. This capability represents the biggest practical difference among the three. Both the MXO2 LE and UltraStudio 3D support analog capture and output, while there’s only analog output from the Io XT. The MXO2 LE uses standard BNC and XLR analog connectors (two audio channels on the LE, but more with the MXO2 or Rack), but the other two require a cable harness with a myriad of small connectors. That harness is included with the Blackmagic unit, but with AJA, you need to purchase an optional DB-25 Tascam-style cable snake for up to eight channels of balanced analog audio.

One unique benefit of the Matrox products is the optional MAX chip for accelerated H.264 processing. In my case, I tested the MXO2 LE MAX, which includes the embedded chip. When this unit is connected to a Mac computer, Apple Compressor, Adobe Media Encoder, Avid Media Composer, Telestream Episode and QuickTime perform hardware-accelerated encodes of H.264 files using the Matrox presets.

Fitting into your layout

I ran the Io XT, UltraStudio 3D and MXO2 LE through their paces connected to a friend’s new, top-of-the-line Apple iMac. All three deliver uncompressed SD or HD video over the Thunderbolt cable to the workstation. Processing to convert this signal to an encoded ProRes or DNxHD format will depend on the CPU. In short, recording a codec like ProRes4444 will require a fast machine and drives. I haven’t specifically tested it, but I presume this task would definitely challenge a Mac Mini using only internal drives!

The test-bed iMac workstation was configured with a Promise Pegasus 6-drive RAID array. The iMac includes two Thunderbolt ports and the Pegasus array offers a pass-through, so I was able to test these units both directly connected to the iMac, as well as daisy-chained onto the Promise array. This system would still allow the connection of more Thunderbolt storage and/or a secondary computer monitor, such as Apple’s 27″ Thunderbolt Display. Most peripheral manufacturers do not automatically supply cables, so plan on purchasing extra Thunderbolt cables ($49 for a six-foot cable from Apple).

These units work with most of the current crop of Mac OS X-based NLEs; however, you may need to choose a specific driver or software set to match the NLE you plan to operate. For instance, AJA requires a separate additional driver to be installed for Premiere Pro or Media Composer, which is provided for maximum functionality with those applications. The same is true for Matrox and Media Composer. I ran tests with Final Cut Pro 7, X and Premiere Pro CS 5.5, but not Media Composer 6, although they do work fine with that application. Only the Blackmagic Design products, like the UltraStudio 3D, will work with DaVinci Resolve. In addition to drivers, the software installation includes application presets and utility applications. Each build includes a capture/output application, which lets you ingest and lay off files through the device, independent of any editing application.

Broadcast monitoring and FCP X

The biggest wild card right now is performance with Final Cut Pro X. Broadcast monitoring was a beta feature added in the 10.0.3 update. With the release of 10.0.4 and compatible drivers, most performance issues have stabilized and this is no longer considered beta. Separate FCP X-specific drivers may need to be installed depending on the device.

If you intend to work mainly with Final Cut Pro “legacy” or Premiere Pro, then all of these units work well. On the other hand, if you’ve taken the plunge for FCP X, I would recommend the Io XT. I never got the MXO2 LE MAX to work with FCP X (10.0.3) during the testing period and initially the UltraStudio 3D wouldn’t work either, until the later version 9.2 drivers that Blackmagic posted mid-March. Subsequent re-testing with 10.0.4 and checking these units at NAB, indicate that both the Blackmagic and Matrox units work well enough. There are still some issues when you play at fast-forward speeds, where the viewer and external monitor don’t stay in sync with each other. I also checked the MOTU HDX-SDI device with FCP X in their NAB booth. Performance seemed similar to that of Matrox and Blackmagic Design.

The Io XT was very fluid and tracked FCP X quite well as I skimmed through footage. FCP X does not permit control over playback settings, so you have to set that in the control panel application (AJA) or system preference pane (Blackmagic Design and Matrox) and relaunch FCP X after any change. The broadcast monitoring feature in FCP X does not add any new VTR control or ingest capability and it’s unlikely that it ever will. To ingest videotape footage for FCP X using Io XT or UltraStudio, you will have to use the separate installed capture utility (VTR Xchange or Media Express, respectively) and then import those files from the hard drive into FCP X. Going the other direction requires that you export a self-contained movie file and use the same utility to record that file onto tape. The Matrox FCP X drivers and software currently do not include this feature.

Finally, the image to the Panasonic professional monitor I was using in this bay matched the FCP X viewer image on the iMac screen using either the Io XT or UltraStudio 3D. That attests to Apple’s accuracy claims for its ColorSync technology.

Performance with the mainstream NLEs

Ironically the best overall performance was using the end-of-life Final Cut Pro 7. In fact, all three units were incredibly responsive on this iMac/Promise combo. For example, when you use a Mac Pro with any FireWire or PCIe-connected card or device, energetic scrubbing or playing files at fast-forward speeds will result in the screen display and the external output going quickly out of sync with each other. When I performed the same functions on the iMac, the on-screen and external output stayed in sync with each of these three units. No amount of violent scrubbing caused it to lose sync. The faster data throughput and Thunderbolt technology had enabled a more pleasant editing experience.

I ran these tests using both a direct run from the iMac’s second Thunderbolt port, as well as looped from the back of the Promise array. Neither connection seemed to make much difference in performance with ProRes and AVCHD footage. I believe that you get the most data throughput when you are not daisy-chaining devices, however, I doubt you’ll see much difference under standard editing operation.

The best experience with Premiere Pro was using the Matrox MXO2 LE MAX, although the experience with the AJA and Blackmagic Design devices was fine, too. This stands to reason, as Matrox has historically had a strong track record developing for Adobe systems with custom cards, such as the Axio board set. Matrox also installs a high-quality MPEG-2 I-frame codec for use as an intermediate preview codec. This is an alternative to the QuickTime codecs installed on the system.

Portions of this entry originally written for Digital Video Magazine.

©2012 Oliver Peters

FCP X alternatives

Final Cut Pro X has been out in the wild for over a month. Some of the hysteria has died down, but professional editors – those working in film, broadcast and at post facilities – have started to make some decisions regarding their next move. As a 1.0 application, FCP X doesn’t fulfill the needs required in many established workflows.

FCP X is a love-hate relationship. The people who are drawn to it feel that it’s the next revolution in editing technology. The folks ready to switch to something else point to the lack of advanced features, a radical redesign of the editing metaphor and the loss of compatibility with legacy projects. So, what do YOU do?

Click image for an enlarged view of the GUI.

Option 1: Adopt FCP X

I certainly don’t feel that Final Cut Pro X is either “junk” or “useless”. Clearly, if you like it and feel that it works for you, then the answer is to dive in, learn it and develop workflows that utilize it to your advantage. If you don’t like it, that doesn’t mean that it can’t be helpful for some jobs. Even if you don’t want to use it as your primary NLE – or if you just want to hang on and wait to see what improvements Apple has in store – it can be an asset in your current toolkit.

I see several areas where FCP X can augment other NLEs. For example, HDSLR-based projects shot on a Canon 1D/5D/7D. FCP X handles H.264 files extremely well, so use it as a “pre-edit” tool. Ingest the native H.264 camera files, align double-system sound (such as from a Zoom H4n) using built-in synchronization and color-correct/stabilize shots. Once you’ve done that, assemble a loose string of selects (with handles) and export a self-contained ProRes QuickTime file for further editing in the NLE of your choice.

Another type of project where FCP X would shine is one made up entirely of moves on high-res still photos. The built-in Ken Burns effect – coupled with the ability to access iPhoto or Aperture library files – makes FCP X the easiest tool for these projects. Unlike previous versions of Final Cut, start and end key frames are automatically adjusted when transitions are added. Do you shoot with RED and want to edit in 4K? FCP X is well-suited for 4K projects. Simply export 4K ProRes HQ or ProRes 4444 files from Redcine-X and do your cutting and grading on a 4K timeline in FCP X.

Option 2: Staying with FCP 7

Many ask, “Why the rush to abandon FCP 7?” After all, it’s working as well today as it did before the release of “X”, so simply continue editing in FCP 7, until FCP X issues are addressed by Apple. That’s true, but, of course, all development has now stopped on previous versions of Final Cut and related developer product sales have tanked. Apple abruptly pulled FCP 7 off the market, although they did subsequently allow resellers a limited extension to purchase additional licenses for their customers. The unknown is what happens to FCP 7 compatibility with future OS versions (beyond this release of Lion) and Mac hardware.

Many users have been waiting over four years for significant development in the Final Cut Studio suite (discounting the incremental advances in the 2009 version). Receiving an unwanted answer in the form of Final Cut Pro X, they’ve decided to switch solutions. I think that’s quite a reasonable attitude for most facility users, but the truth is that you can certainly “freeze” your current installation in its present state (hardware, software, OS) and be just fine. After all, there are plenty of users working with FCP 6 running on G5 PowerMacs.

The Shake experience is the closest analog we have. It, too, was EOL’ed by Apple, but has continued to work with newer OS versions and Mac hardware and is still a reliable compositor and effects tool for many. My guess is that the current Final Cut Studio suite has at least 1-3 more years of viability. In fact, some elements of the suite, like DVD Studio Pro, Color or Soundtrack Pro will continue to be user favorites, long after those same users have finally moved to FCP X or another choice as their main NLE.

Option 3: Adobe Creative Suite / Production Premium / Premiere Pro

Adobe’s Premiere Pro CS 5.5 is the NLE closest to what many FCP users would have wanted. A hypothetical 64-bit FCP 8 may have been a lot like Premiere Pro, so it’s natural that many disgruntled FCP users have found a new home with Adobe. The commands, workflows and working styles are familiar to Final Cut Pro editors.

If you own a third party capture card (AJA, Blackmagic Design, MOTO, Matrox), then having the right set of drivers means that the same hardware will work with Premiere Pro. Not to mention that basic FCP 7 projects can be imported into Premiere Pro CS 5.5 via XML.

Many FCP editors have realized they already own Premiere Pro if they bought one of Adobe’s bundles to acquire Photoshop or After Effects. Moving to Premiere Pro for many is as simple as clicking that square, purple “Pr” icon that’s been sitting in the Dock all along.

The move to Premiere Pro isn’t going to be flawless. Like any software, there will be quirks and differences. Yet, I can attest to the fact that there has been tangible improvement in Premiere Pro from CS4 to CS5 and to CS5.5. In this present version, Premiere Pro is a 64-bit, cross-platform application that handles more native codecs than FCP X and offers plenty of real-time performance via the Mercury Playback Engine technology. If you are RED user, Premiere Pro is the only NLE is this price range to allow native cutting with the REDCODE codec and frame sizes at up to RED Epic’s 5K format. Of course, integration with After Effects is a huge selling point, but buyers may also be attracted by Adobe’s aggressive cross-grade promotion for users coming from either Apple Final Cut Pro or Avid Media Composer.

Option 4: Avid Media Composer

Many older Final Cut editors started their nonlinear editing careers with Avid Media Composer. Some gravitated to FCP by version 3.0 and, therefore, perceptions of Media Composer are based on the application in 2002 or 2003. Some had less than flattering impressions of the company based on sales interaction during that time, as well.

Time marches on and those who have maintained a knowledge of the software and a relationship with Avid know that both the company and the Media Composer software are vastly different than those of eight or more years ago. Although not quite as cheap as Final Cut Studio or Final Cut Pro X, Media Composer is still extremely affordable in a software-only form. There’s a 30-day trial for tire-kickers, one of the most aggressive pricing policies for students and it’s now doubly attractive to FCP owners with a summertime cross-grade promotion.

Avid Media Composer offers many advanced tools simply not found within other NLEs. These include stereo 3D, AMA for native camera support, optional script/speech-based tools (ScriptScync and PhraseFind) and more. Ironically Avid added many features that are said to be more “FCP-like”, such as in-context timeline editing (Smart Tool) and AMA, which allows users to edit with existing files in place without first transcoding media files. Conversely, Apple adopted many Media Composer traits in its development of FCP X. Of course, earlier FCP projects can be imported into Media Composer using tools from Automatic Duck or Boris FX.

The Media Composer image I posted is of the prototype user interface presented at recent Avid user events, which showcased a technology preview of the next version. Although no specific feature nor even the design is locked in yet (and there is no announced release date), some of the bullet points include 64-bit operation and the ability to integrate an expanded range of third-party hardware.

Interestingly enough, this suggested UI drew some online comments that it copied FCP X. I would offer that those comments are generally uninformed. Enlarge the image and you’ll see most of the familiar Media Composer tools designed into a modern, darker, dockable and tabbed layout. If anything, this UI design resembles Premiere Pro more than FCP X and includes come interesting clues, like tabbed sequences and a mixer panel akin to Pro Tools.

Option 5: Other

I’ve concentrated on these four options, because they are in a similar price range, keep the user on the Mac and are all viable industry leaders. But there are other options, as well. The two Mac solutions I didn’t mention are Autodesk’s Smoke for Mac OS X and Media 100. I doubt most FCP switchers would move to Smoke, because that’s a completely different business model and price structure. However, those needing more advanced finishing tools designed to be integrated with FCP 7 and Media Composer workflows would be happy with Smoke. Media 100 is a step in a different direction. Still one of the easiest NLEs to use, Media 100 has continued to advance with moderate development under Boris FX. It’s a viable editor with good integration for After Effects, Boris Red and even native RED raw files.

Apple’s handling of the FCP X product launch has turned off some users so completely that they are also contemplating a move to Windows. Adobe’s and Avid’s tools are all cross-platform and Windows 7 Professional 64-bit is a very good OS. Other NLE choices are opened with such a move. These include Sony Vegas, EditShare Lightworks, Grass Valley EDIUS and Avid DS.

Whether or not you decide to switch or wait it out, it’s clear that Apple’s launch of Final Cut Pro X has shaken up the landscape. More options – more tools – and no clear market dominance – that’s what the next year seems to hold.

©2011 Oliver Peters

More FCP X thoughts

Thanks for the positive comments on my previous post. As a review of Final Cut Pro X, I wanted it to be even-handed. It was intended to let you know about the program without injecting too many of my own opinions. After all, FCP X does work for many potential users and my goal as a reviewer is to try to determine whether or not a product achieves the objectives its designers set for it. I wanted you to be able to have the basic facts and decide for yourself. This post is different, written from the niche I work in, advanced post-production.

From creative platform to iDevices

FCP X is hard to judge. It is viewed through the lens of twelve years of ever-increasing professional development that culminated with FCP 7 and the 2009 version of Final Cut Studio. In that time Apple, capitalized on the positive marketing vibe generated by the success of prominent users, like A-list editors working on high-visibility projects. In that time Apple also evolved from a niche computer company to the dominant mobile devices company. It seems pretty obvious that the new Apple view of the world is different from that of Final Cut’s biggest champions.

Apple has always been about the user experience. Hiding the technology under the hood and making things easier, more intuitive and more fun. The original acquisition of Final Cut Pro by Apple was intended to keep a QuickTime-based video editing tool on the Mac and to offer a powerful multimedia editor that served a variety of needs. With that purpose in mind, it was OK if certain advanced features and functions were missing. All it needed to be was an 80/20 application that could work with FireWire (then limited to DV) tape and camera sources and other QuickTime files.

Had the story ended there, Final Cut would have never been widely adopted into advanced film, video and broadcast environments. Final Cut up through version 7 evolved into a viable competitor to established NLE companies like Avid, thanks to the ecosystem of third-party hardware and software that had grown up around FCP. If it weren’t for original vendors like Pinnacle, Aurora, Digital Voodoo and others, FCP would have never been used for advanced post.

The attraction at first was price – one that was effectively subsidized by Apple’s hardware sales. FCP X presents a much truer reflective of cost. To equal the features of Final Cut Studio, you have to bundle FCP X, Motion 5, Compressor 4, Automatic Duck Pro Export and DaVinci Resolve for a total of about $1,900. Then you still don’t have advanced DVD/BD authoring or mixing. It’s likely that many of the missing features in FCP X will be augmented by free or paid updates or third-party solutions. If so, the bundle could run more in the range of $3,000 to replace what you now have in Studio for $1,000. Of course, most FCP X users will never need more than what can be done with FCP X at $300. This says to me, that Apple is focusing on the broader potential customer, so those that need the advanced features should be willing to pay for them. Therefore, the third-party developers also profit from the transition. A win-win from Apple’s point-of view.

Many point to the benefits of Apple’s push towards democratization in driving down the price of the NLE. They would argue that without FCP, there would be no improvements nor price reductions in Avid products specifically. To some extent I agree; however, I also feel that’s revisionist history. When FCP came on the scene, there were already other competitors pushing Avid to produce lower cost models. Media Composers of the day were full turnkey units (hardware, software, storage, monitoring) and if you configured a comparable FCP system with an I/O unit like Pinnacle CineWave, the cost really wasn’t that far apart. Yes, FCP was cheaper and pushed software-based models earlier, but Avid was in that game, too, albeit a bit late. One oft-ignored impact of FCP’s rise to dominance in many segments is that it killed off many of the other innovators, like Edit, ImMix, Lightworks (almost), Media 100 (almost) and others.

Time to reboot

Which brings us to the present. Final Cut Pro X is a reboot of sorts. Final Cut before “X” has grown into a very versatile platform that can be used in many enterprise environments. But, that’s really not what FCP was ever intended to be.  Apple doesn’t play well in the enterprise world. When you look at the on-again, off-again interaction with the enterprise user, through tools like Xserve and Final Cut Server, it’s clear that Apple is more interested in the broader base of end users. Apple is more than willing to eliminate under-performing software or replace one product with an updated, but often incompatible rewrite (AppleWorks, Shake, LiveType, Final Cut Express, Final Cut Server, all FCS apps, Dot Mac, MobileMe).

The sort of predictability and access to road maps that an enterprise client can get from Avid, Quantel, Microsoft or HP simply isn’t in Apple’s DNA. This makes it very risky for any customer or partner to put all of their eggs in Apple’s basket, except for a short-term advantage. You’re either on-board for the roller coaster ride or not.

In that context, Final Cut Pro X takes the application back to the essence of what was originally intended for Final Cut. A product that made it easier for both skilled and unskilled editors to achieve professional results with less complexity. It isn’t necessarily intended for the same advanced workflows where FCP has succeeded to date. There’s no need for Apple to do that any longer, since advanced post, albeit a niche, is quite nicely accommodated on the Mac platform by Avid, Adobe, Autodesk and even Media 100. There’s little concern anymore of not having any video editing tool available for the Mac.

It’s very tempting to true to boil this down to a “consumer vs. professional” argument, but I think that’s inaccurate. I’m coming around to the view that for Apple, the moniker of “Pro” isn’t defined by the target user, but rather by the performance capabilities of the software. Compare iPhoto with Aperture or GarageBand with Logic. In both categories, Apple offers two solutions: basic and advanced. The demarcation is in the tools offered and resources required by the application and not who uses it or how it’s used. Podcast producers often rely on GarageBand for recording, editing and mixing. Professional and amateur photographers alike use Aperture. It seems clear than Apple has set up the same pairing with iMovie and Final Cut Pro X. Even in the broadcast space, there’s the possibility of letting a reporter assemble a basic story with iMovie and then send the project to an editor using FCP X for polishing – or at least that’s the vision.

The missing features

Some argue that Apple will quickly add back in the missing features of FCP 7. I’m not so sure. Final Cut development went that route of its own accord over twelve years, but I believe the goals have changed. Apple has been coy about returning specific missing features, but they have promised to release “hooks” that will allow other developers to provide them. In fact, we are already seeing that in some of the free effects presets posted by users. FCP X effects are really Motion projects, so Apple has enabled users to leverage Motion 5 in the same way as was previously done with FxScript. There are already some early FCP X utilities on the market from developers like Assisted Editing and Automatic Duck.

Unfortunately by releasing FCP X in the way it was done, Apple has destroyed the existing ecosystem built around FCP and all developers start at square one again. Some are happy for the new opportunities and others express concern. By ignoring legacy support and releasing a product with many gaps, Apple has alienated many high-end professionals. You can argue all you want that these users constitute an insignificant niche, but for developers, it’s these users who will pay thousands of dollars for capture cards, accessories and plug-in packages.

The danger of re-inventing the wheel

I have nearly four decades of experience in broadcast operations, production and post, with most of it in editing. I’ve gone through numerous transitions and along the way operated, reviewed or been associated with well over two dozen different edit platforms. One of the things I’ve seen in that time is that non-standard workflows and interfaces eventually return to accepted concepts. After all, editing tools are built on over 100 years of post production practices.

For me, FCP X simply is NOT faster nor easier, just DIFFERENT – precisely because Apple has radically changed the way an editor organizes the information and works in the timeline. I will freely admit that my nonlinear days started with Avid and I first disliked moving to FCP. Now, after eight years of mostly non-stop experience with Final Cut Pro/Final Cut Studio, FCP 7 has grown to be my preferred editing tool – warts and all. It’s incredibly versatile, but that level of user control was dropped from FCP X.

I use the timeline as much as a scratch pad as the location for a final assembly. Place multiple clips onto top tracks and preview them as one option versus another. Or build little sub-sequences at the back of the timeline and then copy & paste these into the place I want. Work rough and then clean things up. FCP 7  and Media Composer give me that freedom and precision. FCP X does not. Of course, some of this is handled through Audition clips in FCP X, but that requires that you know and select the possible options first and then combine them into an Audition clip, which can be cut onto the timeline for previewing. To me, this requires more work than I go through in all other NLEs.

My ideal NLE would likely be a mash-up between Final Cut Pro 7 and Avid Media Composer, augmented by the performance features of FCP X and Premiere Pro. It’s difficult to predict the future where Apple is concerned, so I don’t want to discount the possibility of FCP X picking up steam with my customers. If that’s true, then I’ll be there ahead of them; however, today, FCP X is the wrong tool for my projects and those of my clients.

Take the Precision Editor, as an example. This highly-promoted feature is little more than a toy in my view. Trimming in FCP X is much weaker than in FCP 7 and that version wasn’t anywhere close to having the trimming control of Media Composer. Asymmetrical trimming in FCP X is virtually non-existent. The basics, like trimming L-cuts, haven’t been properly implemented. For instance, split edits (L-cuts, J-cuts) are only based on trimming audio track in-points in FCP X, instead of either audio or video as in most other NLEs.

It’s these and many other little things throughout FCP X that will hinder its adoption by the upper tier of users. That has a cascading effect. In a film school, why adopt FCP X for your students, when they’ll encounter Avid Media Composer as the tool of choice out in the “real world”? If you teach a digital media curriculum, whose graduates are destined to work in the corporate and web arena, then isn’t Adobe Create Suite better suited? What Apple has in effect done – by rebooting Final Cut as FCP X – is to pull the rug out from under its own advances earned over twelve years of FCP development. They’ve handed an extraordinary gift to competitors who can better service these smaller, but still important, market segments.

The post production niche

I’m currently cutting a feature film, shot on RED, using FCP 7 for the edit. I’m working with two assistants on a couple of systems plus a second editor. I’ll have multiple FCP 7 projects, scores of bins and probably over 100 sequences when I’m done. Plus it goes through a Pro Tools mix and grading in Color. No way would I ever consider using FCP X for this project. It simply does not work for me or most other film editors.

“Well,” you say, “that’s the exception.” I agree. But now contrast this with a simple story assembly for a corporate marketing video. That would seem ideal for FCP X. You get the cut done and it worked perfectly. The next day the client calls with changes and you realize that you have to reuse some of the elements and sequences from last year’s version, which was cut in FCP 6 or FCP 7. Oops!

In the work I do – ranging from spots to corporate to TV to films – I simply don’t see FCP X version 1.0 as functional for any of my real world workflows. I find that a shame, because there really is a lot there to like. Admittedly, my brain has learned to organize media in a certain way and to think of audio and video as tracks or channels. It’s not just training, but also the most logical way to work.

The analogy has been made to musical instruments. Experienced editors play their system like an instrument. You don’t have to think about how to do things, because your brain and muscle memory instinctively take care of running the system that you know so well.  The proponents of FCP X frequently have difficulty explaining why the new way is better. I understand the how and why, but I just don’t see it as better. I also don’t see it as inevitable that it will succeed, just because it is Apple. I realize “pro” has many different meanings to people, but in my world, “pro” means interacting with other apps, other facilities and other users. FCP X fails on those levels and I don’t see Apple changing that.

©2011 Oliver Peters

Configuring a Mac Pro for Editing

Nearly any modern laptop or desktop computer has enough horsepower to run the leading graphics, editing or encoding applications. The right choice depends on your need for expandability, interconnectivity and/or performance with specific formats.

I do a lot of Apple Final Cut Pro editing, so I stick with Macs. This also equips me for the other possibilities, including Adobe CS5, Avid Media Composer 5, Media 100 or Autodesk Smoke for the Mac. If I opted to set up a Windows partition under Boot Camp, Parallels or VMware Fusion, I could also run other PC-based NLEs like Sony Vegas Pro.

Although this article is going to be Apple-centric, the hardware considerations of how best to configure a Mac Pro are the same for a comparable HP if you are a Windows user. You can run most of the popular desktop editing applications on a MacBook Pro, iMac or Mac Pro, but if you need the most versatility, then the Mac Pro tower is the best option.

CPU/processing cores

Manufacturers hit the wall at around 3GHz of CPU speed. Companies like Intel re-engineered the CPU architecture to build more processing pipelines (cores) into a single chip. Current designs offer two (dual), four (quad) or six (hex) cores. Mac Pros come with either one or two Intel Xeon processors, each with either a quad-core (“Nehalem”) or hex-core (“Westmere”) design. You can configure a Mac Pro with four, six, eight or twelve cores of processing power. In addition, these chips allow for hyper-threading, which effectively doubles the core count, by making each physical core function as two virtual cores. Depending on the software, your eight-core Mac Pro may perform with the processing power of sixteen virtual cores.

The various chips come with different processor speed ratings, currently ranging from 2.4GHz to 3.33 GHz. Since it’s common to see a slower speed in a chip with more cores, the dilemma is whether to buy a machine based on the actual processor speed or the total number of CPU cores. Most NLEs don’t take advantage of all cores. In fact, Adobe CS5 is the first software package that’s starting to tap into the available power of all components.

In my experience, a faster four-core workstation will often equal and sometimes exceed the performance of a slower eight-core machine in real-world, day-to-day editing. Speed still matters. Other apps, like encoders, will often use all available cores, so that gives the edge to having more cores. Last October, I opted for the entry model, eight-core configuration, mainly because the two-CPU design offered the ability to use more RAM than the single-CPU machine. That’s still the case.

Note: The latest Mac Pros are set to launch in the 64-bit mode by default. Since many of your applications will most likely be 32-bit apps, you will want to reset the default to launch in the 32-bit mode, so you can run both types of software. The beauty of “Snow Leopard” is that 32-bit apps will run in a 32-bit mode, while 64-bit apps run as 64-bit, when you boot as 32-bit.

RAM

RAM queues the data feeding the CPU cores. The rule-of-thumb is to install 2GB of RAM per core. If you think of a twelve-core machine as having 24 virtual cores under hyper-threading, that would mean a maximum of 48GB of RAM, which would exceed the 32GB recommended limit of the current machine. A lot of RAM is nice, but again, most applications don’t utilize this effectively. I consider between 8GB and 16GB a practical amount, depending on how you use your machine. I installed 12GB of RAM and that’s been fine for most of my work. You can always add more RAM later from popular suppliers, like  Crucial and Other World Computing (OWC).

GPU/graphics card

When I bought my Mac Pro, Apple offered a choice of several models of NVIDIA and ATI graphics cards. Typically, Apple software, like Color, performs somewhat better with ATI, while Adobe, Avid and Autodesk prefer NVIDIA. In the interim, Adobe released CS5, whose Mercury Playback Engine takes advantage of the CUDA technology used in certain NVIDIA cards. For example, the Quadro FX 4800 offers a significant performance boost not only to Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, but also Autodesk Smoke for Mac OS X.

Apple dropped the NVIDIA options from their store, offering a couple of upgraded ATI Radeon cards instead. Adobe applications will still work fine with these cards, but I don’t know how that impacts Mercury performance. You can purchase and install an NVIDIA card yourself; however, you would have to initially purchase an ATI in the standard Apple configuration. In either case, be mindful of the video RAM installed on the card. 512MB of video RAM is the least you’d want to have, so fortunately all of the current ATI configurations start at 1GB.

Displays

While we are on the subject of graphics, factor in the displays. I like editing with two 20” displays and have been using matte-screen Apple Cinemas. Unfortunately Apple now only offers one model (not including the iMacs) – a 27” glossy screen display. As nice-looking as these displays are, they are very pricey compared to more-than-acceptable choices from Dell, HP, Viewsonic and others.

Connections are a consideration, too. If you get a new Mac Pro with an ATI Radeon HD 5770 or HD 5870card, it will come with two Mini DisplayPort sockets and one dual-link DVI port. That’s fine if you want Apple display; however, if you choose two other brands with DVI connectors, you’ll need to add at least one MDP-to-DVI adapter at about $30. On the other hand, if you opt to swap the graphics card for a different NVIDIA model, it will come with two DVI ports and no Mini DisplayPort. That’s fine for non-Apple displays, however using this card with two Apple 24” or 27” displays means adding two DVI-to-MDP adapters at about $150 each. If the budget is tight, then the most cost-effective option is to keep the ATI card, add the necessary MDP-to-DVI adapters and pick up some nice non-Apple displays.

Storage

Apple’s Mac Pro towers are an engineering tour de force, making do-it-yourself expansion a dream. These towers have room for up to four internal 3.5” eSATA hard drives for as much as 8TB inside.  You don’t have to fill these up when you purchase the machine. I bought my tower with two 640GB drives and later added two 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black drives. The main drive is for applications, project files and documents. The second drive is for software suite and production elements, like sound effects, music libraries and graphic templates. The third and fourth drives are “striped” (RAID-0) as an internal media drive. I have also connected an external FireWire 400 1TB Western Digital drive to be used as the target drive for Time Machine (Apple’s continuous back-up utility).

I stick with 7200RPM drives from manufacturers like Western Digital or Hitachi. The raw Caviar Black drives are available online and at computer retailers and come with a five year warranty. Another new Apple option is SSD (solid state drive) storage. I’m not sold on SSD yet for this application. SSD performance is fast, but the drives are still very expensive. Anecdotal evidence from editors using SSD storage indicates faster application launch times, but not necessarily faster editing performance. Plus, there is no established track record of reliability and data integrity over a longer period of time as compared with spinning drives.

PCI Express

The big complaint most professionals have with Mac Pros is the smaller number of PCI Express slots compared with HP workstations. A Mac Pro comes with three full-length expansion slots (not counting the graphics card slot). You can increase this by adding a third-party expansion chassis, but you don’t gain increased performance. PCI Express is rated in terms of data lanes, which are distributed across the slots. Adding an expansion chassis doesn’t add more data lanes, so the same bandwidth is simply spread out across more cards.

Three card slots provide adequate expandability for most professional users. This would allow you to install a video i/o card, like an AJA KONA 3G, an eSATA controller card for external storage and a third card, such as a RED Rocket or Matrox Compress HD accelerator card. Care does need to be taken in selecting the right graphics card if you plan to swap the included ATI. Some beefier cards are physically taller and can block access to the bottom PCI Express slot. A current Mac Pro also offers ports for four FireWire 800 and five USB 2.0 devices, plus two 1GB Ethernet ports and various analog and optical audio connections.

Software

Whether you buy an editor from Apple, Avid, Adobe or someone else, don’t forget about all the other “routine” software you’ll need to get through the day. Mac Pros come with a nice collection of software in the iLife package. Out of this, there are plenty of professional circumstances to take advantage of iWeb, iDVD, iPhoto and Garageband. But you’re likely to need more.

I generally recommend purchasing additional software for these needs: graphic creation/design/photo manipulation, general office productivity and format conversion/encoding. Adobe CS5 covers you for the first part, but it’s a large budget item if Premiere Pro isn’t also the primary editing tool – especially when you are equipping multiple workstations. Viable alternatives include Adobe Photoshop Elements, Pixelmator and Lemkesoft GraphicConverter.

By office productivity, I mean the need to be able to open scripts, spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations. The basic home version of Microsoft Office, as well as Apple’s iWork, are great solutions; however, there’s also free – as in NeoOffice.

Finally, encoding. If you purchase an Apple, Adobe or Avid bundle, each includes encoding/compression software. Augment this with the best general purpose conversion utility – Squared 5’s free MPEG Streamclip. Remember to install QuickTime Player 7 and purchase the Pro license (automatically included with Final Cut Studio). If you work with MPEG-2 files (like VOB files ripped from a DVD), you’ll also need to purchase the MPEG-2 QuickTime component from Apple.

Note: If you have any Windows applications you need to run, then you’ll also need to purchase a program like Parallels, as well as an installable copy of Windows.

Buying advice

Get the machine that meets your needs today, but don’t overbuy. Pick a basic configuration that can be easily and quickly expanded when the business warrants. That’s what made me pick the somewhat slower eight-core last year. It was fast enough, could be easily expanded and wouldn’t break the bank. Plan on an upgrade every three to four years, if your business supports it. Lastly, invest in the 3-year extended warranty. The same is true for a Dell, HP, Alienware or any other computer. If you lose a motherboard, which can happen, the repair would have easily justified the extended coverage. Lastly, make sure to budget money for plug-ins, professional monitoring, external storage, furniture and a good UPS (uninterruptable power supply).

Written for DV Magazine (NewBay Media LLC).

©2010 Oliver Peters