I’m trying to make Quicktime 7 EOL in my workflows and this is really the only thing left that I’m still using Quicktime 7 for.
Anyone out there know of anything that can do this?
If Edit Ready from Divergent Media did it, I’d just break down and get it already as it seems like a really useful piece of software that I can’t quite convince myself to buy yet (I already own Compressor that does most of what it does), even with the recently added MXF functionality. Ironically, Divergent Media has another piece of software called ClipWrap that will “wrap” other codecs, but it doesn’t look like there’s anything like that for Image Sequences.
Anyway, if anyone knows a good way to do this on a non-extinct piece of software, please let me know in the comments. Thanks!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sam Mestman, FCPWORKS.
This blog post contains the personal musings of FCPWORKS’ Workflow Architect, Sam Mestman. Sam’s also a regular writer for fcp.co and MovieMaker Magazine, teaches post workflow at RED’s REDucation classes, and is the founder and CEO of We Make Movies, a film collective in Los Angeles and Toronto which is dedicated to making the movie industry not suck. If you’ve got any FCP X questions or need some help putting together a system, drop him an email at workflow@fcpworks.com and you can follow him on Facebook or Twitter at @FCPWORKS.
Yet another reason to get a Tangent Element. A long running problem has been the bizarre mapping of the Tangent Element buttons with Resolve and how you couldn’t modify any of it. This was the Resolve team’s fault, and was a continuous source of angry forum threads and conspiracy theories.
Anyway, they finally gave the Element Mapping a once over and some much needed love with the 11.1 release of Resolve and it’s a HUGE improvement. Some of my major gripes have been addressed, like being able to now quickly switch from the Primary to Log tabs right from the Element. It’s a pretty big timesaver.
While I still really wish Resolve allowed for custom mapping… the latest update fills in a ton of holes and was much needed.
When you throw this in with the fact that the Element also supports FCPX and Premiere mappings now (but not sliders and color wheels), if you’re an editor looking to buy a control surface, it’s clearly the one to own (BTW, shameless plug, but FCPWORKS is a reseller for all Tangent and Blackmagic Design products… and buying them through us helps keep the lights on and these fingers typing… and gets your support questions answered).
On a side note, I just did a custom element mapping for Motion as well, and I’m getting ready to update the FCPX one for the element. If you get your element/have purchased your element through us, I’ll send those your way. More details on that custom mapping over at FCP.CO.
I can speak from experience… having a control surface with mappings for all your commonly used commands is a huge timesaver with the only real drawback being if you’re stuck on a machine that doesn’t have a control surface… you really start to miss it.
Anyway, thanks Blackmagic. The 11.1 Resolve release made me really happy.
So, looks like the BMD guys with the latest Resolve update have filled in some MAJOR holes in the FCPX-Resolve workflow and it is now approaching “I’m not really too worried about it” roundtrip status which, I think, as a colorist, I don’t think I’ve ever said out loud about any 3rd party color roundtrip workflow.
We’re almost there with FCPX-Resolve now, so hats off to the BMD team. It’s kind of awesome what they’ve been able to do.
With the Resolve 11 Beta, I wrote a revised list of what was/wasn’t working on FCPX-Resolve roundtrip here:
The basic takeaway was that things were getting really close, and I was pretty blown away with how much work they’d been able to do with speed changes… and my only real major complaints were with synchronized clips.
Anyway, I just ran those exact same XML’s through the same roundtrip in Resolve 11.1 and everything worked pretty much perfectly (except for the usual suspects that have never worked like color and Ken Burns).
Synchronized and multicam clips came in without issue. Sync N Link clips came through fine once I added the media into the media pool directly. Even the Speed changes that I was having difficulty with previously imported without issue (although I did need to fix a few things on roundtrip).
The point is that my ins and outs for everything came in correctly, and I didn’t was able to get all of my footage from FCPX to Resolve with all kinds of effects and craziness largely without a problem.
I’ve been a colorist doing this stuff since FCP7 was in its heyday, and I’ve never been able to get a timeline in and out of an application with such a small amount of conforming.
This is a pretty huge accomplishment by the Resolve team. On behalf of editors/colorists everywhere – thank you. You’ve made our lives easier.
A couple quick workarounds that may help you if you run into problems:
Detach audio from your FCPX sequence – Resolve still doesn’t do the audio thing so well. When you have a locked FCPX cut, duplicate your project (you should already be doing this anyway), then in the one set to go to Resolve, select all your video clips, detach audio, and then delete all the audio out of your timeline (you can also just disable all the audio from your clips in the patch panel from the inspector).
For Sync N Link Clips – If you find they aren’t coming in correctly through direct XML import, add the original video media into a bin in the media pool directly and things should reconnect in Resolve automatically.
Speed Change Roundtripping – If you see a speed change roundtrip into FCPX as a still frame… something weird happened, but your clip should actually be fine. In your roundtripped FCPX timeline, simply select the clip that is appearing as a still image and matchframe it. Your ins and outs should still be correct for the overall clips. Cut it back into your sequence, and just reapply your speed change, and things should be fine now (at least they were for me).
Just send your video and don’t expect your effects to work – Expect to do some copy pasting of titles and paste attributes for effects when you roundtrip (although you might get lucky which is sort of awesome).
Double check spatial conform settings on roundtrip – If you did some spatial conform work, double check stuff, especially when it comes to Sync and Multicam clips when you roundtrip. You may find that a clip may come back in incorrectly on roundtrip, but if you adjust the spatial conform setting, it will fix the problem.
Bottom line – This workflow is now rock solid and in my opinion is the best roundtrip workflow for any NLE-Color Software I’ve seen (even better than FCP7-Color roundtrip).
Things are really starting to come together in post, and it’s nice to see companies actively working together and improving things for the end user.
Add tracking markers to moving green screen footage
…would be towards the top.
Bottom line is that, you know, we’re all on the same team, guys. We all want our projects to look good. If one of the departments on a project is out of sync with another, the overall project is going to suffer, and our clients will be less happy with us… and when that happens, it makes the whole reason we’re doing the shoot pointless. And while sometimes this is due to hurrying too much or just basic apathy, it’s also a lot of times due to not being in communication between production and post to confirm the needs.
I was lucky enough to be invited back and got to talk with Mark Spencer, Steve Martin, Alex Lindsay, Mike Matzdorff and Bill Davis, all of whom are smarter than me.
Anyway, a big thank you especially to Alex Lindsay and Pixelcorps who are doing some really amazing things with Live Streaming on that show. They know their stuff, and I think the format for it is pretty fantastic.
As far as I’m concerned it’s kind of the model on how to do a user group right… was a total pleasure to be a part of it. Also profiled over on FCP.CO.
Anyway, hope you guys like it as much as I liked being there… and let me know if you need any clarity on anything we discussed in the comments.
I’m noticing RED proxies may no longer be needed in FCPX. So… way back when 10.1 got released there was a little feature in the release notes that’s actually a big deal, but no one really talks about… and I’m not ever sure anyone really noticed it:
If you have transcoded RED RAW files to ProRes through a third-party application, you can relink to the original RED files within Final Cut Pro.
For me the Proxy workflow with RED stuff always worked fine… but last week, I did a little test. Basically, I brought some RED files into FCPX, did a quick batch rename, some prep, etc. Then, I went and transcoded out a 1:1 5k prores LT file from the Epic footage in REDcine-X. I went back into FCPX to relink from the R3D to the RCX prores file… relinked with no problem.
It would seem that you don’t need proxies anymore to be offline/online with RED footage… you can import your RED files right into FCPX, get prepped, etc… in the meantime, you can be trancoding that same footage through RCX to whatever codec you want (I’d typically recommend Prores LT for offline)… and then when you’re done transcoding, just relink to your to your transcodes, edit away, and when you’re done, relink back to your RED files and then finish. There should be no downtime and your relink should be almost as fast as flipping from proxy, except that you won’t be stuck with the prores proxy codec for your offline, and you can work with other non-RED formats in the same timeline in optimized/original mode largely without issue. Kind of awesome.
One small caveat – when you’re transcoding your RED footage, make sure your timecode setting matches the timecode displayed in FCPX. I did a test that had the timecode set to Edgecode for some reason, and it caused some relink issues until I noticed that my timecodes for the Prores transcodes weren’t matching the timecodes for the RED files in FCPX. Once I was on the right timecode setting, I was able to relink without issue.
Anyway, for smaller RED only projects, I’m still going to use the Proxy workflow, only because it’s so easy and I can transcode in the background right in FCPX, and flip modes as necessary… however, for longer form work where I know I’ll be working offline for an extended period of time, the flexibility of being able to easily relink to RCX transcodes is great.
Now… here’s the million dollar question that I haven’t tried… will this relinking business work with non-RED formats? If anyone has a chance to check, let me know in the comments…
While I’d love it if it supported full 4K DCI (4096×2160), this is still a big step in the right direction for them.
What’s really nice about this is that’s it’s going to shoot out Prores, and not some ridiculous, impractical RAW format that’s going to be hard to work with… although it seems from the diagram like they’re not quite supporting Prores XQ, which is a bit of a drag. That’s the capture format I’d love to see for feature/high end work.
Regardless, a huge step in the right direction.
Whether you all like the way the ARRI Amira is set up or not… you need to start thinking about how you’re going to shoot and master in 4K. It’s going to become the new standard.
So… I know we’re all excited about the Apple Keynote today and of course IBC…. but in other news…. I just wanted to let you know I’m going to be hanging out with a bunch of really smart people on Wednesday September 10th, 2014 and we’re going to be talking FCPX workflow:
On the show are going to be the usual suspects Steve Martin, Mark Spencer, and Alex Lindsay as well as Mike Matzdorff and Bill Davis, who are both doing some awesome things with FCPX.
Show’s going to be starting at 1pm PDT, and if you tune in live, you can ask us all some questions that hopefully we’ll be able to answer.
The show has a really innovative format where all of the guests are sitting around a roundtable that has 6 screens all connected up automagically to the same footage and computer. I have no idea how they set it up this way, but it makes for a really collaborative, free flowing show that’s a lot different and I think more interesting than what you might see from a typical user group/workflow presentation.
If you missed the first two, they were kind of awesome and you should check them out here:
So… just in case you hate being locked into a subscription/rental model, here’s a list of alternatives to Creative Cloud apps you can use to move away if you find that you want to.
For the record, from the list of the Apps in the chart below, the ones I use in my day to day are: FCPX ($299.99), Motion ($49.99), Compressor ($49.99), Davinci Resolve (free for lite/$1000 for paid), Pixelmator ($29.99), and Logic Pro X ($199.99). All are available on the Mac App Store.
A late addition to the list but still something we love for quick and awesome looking design is Canva.
For the high end jobs I do, when I send off an edit for sound design or VFX, the pros I’m collaborating with are typically using Nuke or Pro Tools… However, I’m not going to count those in the following price comparison, as I don’t use them in my day-to-day and have never needed to buy them.
Anyway, here’s the total cost to buy the Apps I use in my day to day as an editor/colorist (using the Lite Version of Resolve):
About $630
Number of computers I can install these Apps onto from the same Apple ID:
Unlimited
Total cost to rent the Cloud for 3 years, which is what I would consider the typical paid upgrade cycle for software to be:
About $1800
Number of Computers I can install the Creative Cloud on before I have to start deactivating machines:
2
Not only that, but even if I count updating to the paid version of Resolve ($1000), things would still be cheaper than they would be with a paid license from the Cloud over that 3 year cycle.
In my humble opinion, one system feels like it’s providing a lot more value and flexibility than the other. With the Apps I’m using (all of which are on the App Store), I’ve never had to pay for an upgrade since I bought them, and I’ve never had a problem with a download or had my access to an App I’ve already installed affected by a cloud service outage or for not making a payment (as many Creative Cloud users have experienced).
Also, I’m only paying for Apps I use, whereas with the Cloud model, I’m either locked into single App rental pricing (which at $9.99 for Photoshop or $19.99/month for other Apps is still going to be more expensive over three years than the most expensive App I’ve listed), or I’m going to have to get the whole suite of Apps, most of which aren’t going to be my first choice for the work that i do.
"For an editor/colorist like me, especially one who is not a After Effects/motion GFX centric user, I simply just don’t have a need for the cloud at all."Sam Mestman
In fact, out of the whole suite of what I consider to be the “creative apps”, I’d only really rate After Effects, Illustrator, and Photoshop/Lightroom as the industry leaders in their respective categories… and for most editors, Motion and Pixelmator are more than suitable replacements for the type of things they’re typically asked to do by clients. For an editor/colorist like me, especially one who is not a After Effects/motion GFX centric user, I simply just don’t have a need for the cloud at all.
I’m not writing this to get anyone upset or to attack the Adobe suite of products. I actually happen to like a lot of what they’re doing and would be a Premiere user if I wasn’t cutting with FCPX… but I’m not a fan of the Cloud model, and I don’t think it offers a lot of value for users, in general.
So… without further ado, please take a look at the chart below if you’ve been looking for alternatives to Creative Cloud Apps, and let me know in the comments if you think I’m missing anything or there are other apps you’d recommend over the ones I’ve listed:
Most of the vector graphics on this site, including the FCPWORKS logo were created with iDraw. It’s a legit alternative and less complicated app than Illustrator.
I love Pixelmator. By nearly all accounts, it would seem that with the latest update, it’s now a pretty suitable replacement to Photoshop for what 95% of editors do.
If you’re doing High end visual effects work, Nuke is generally perceived as the best there is. It’s not cheap, though. I think After Effects would still win based on price vs. performance.
I’m a Motion user and I love it. For most motion graphics tasks that FCPX editors need, Motion is fantastic. For more specialized tasks, After Effects is the way to go… until you graduate to something like Nuke. But if you just need to make some nice looking Motion Graphics stuff quickly, Motion is the fastest, most intuitive thing out there because of how closely it integrates with FCPX.
By everyone I’ve spoken to who has used it, Smoke is extremely powerful and is a full fledged editor/finishing station. It’s great for the graphics/effects centric editor, and lots of people love it. There’s a pretty steep learning curve with it though.
Not a huge fan, mostly because it doesn’t play well with any other Apps outside the Avid ecosystem (something Adobe Apps do really well). However, for high end studio/union editors, Avid is without a doubt the industry standard, even though the code/ interface/ workflow/ business model is archaic and outdated.
Resolve is now pretty much the industry standard… that’s really all there is to say about it. Pretty soon, it could also be a legitimate NLE competitor to the big three (Apple, Adobe, Avid)… but right now, it just happens to be the best color correction software on the planet in terms of price/performance.
Pro Tools is the industry standard for Sound editing for movies. I really wish it had more competition because I think it would be good for the industry, but there really isn’t much. When it comes to doing heavy sound editing for picture, Pro Tools is currently the best there is and it’s not much of a debate.
Personally, I don’t think Logic is great for film/video sound design/editing, but it is fantastic for scoring/ mixing/ music creation/ podcasts, which is typically how I’m using Logic… although i’ve got a long way to go before I really become competent with it.
So… while that comparison article I listed is a deep dive… the bottom line is that both programs work just fine for what you’ll likely need to do with them.
FCPX’s metadata workflow once you combine it with tools like Shot Notes X and Lumberjack, is light years better than anything you can do with Prelude. You can do metadata entry very easily in Resolve as well.
Maybe I’m missing something, but outside of RED RAW workflows where you can actually import that RAW footage natively into your NLE and work with it easily (and get real time playback), I literally don’t see any advantage to using a camera codec that isn’t ProRes in this day and age.
It made sense when the onboard processors and memory capacities were low enough to require codecs optimized for compression speed and image quality but not so much for playback and editorial. Nowadays, that’s just not the case. If something is a RAW format, I don’t want to mess with it if it takes up endless amounts of disk space and it won’t import natively/play back in my NLE.
The image flexibility that RAW provides on the finishing end becomes counterproductive if I’ve got to go through an elaborate conform/maintain a gigantic archive. It’s just not practical. Digging into the RAW is mostly for sending to VFX and to correct mistakes. It shouldn’t be necessary on a fundamental level. I’d rather have properly exposed, correctly lit ProRes XQ masters. Those are more than enough for color correction, VFX, or keying.
XDCAM, AVCHD, and all the other formats are certainly not better for editing than ProRes is, and it gets really annoying that you need a special plugin or application to unwrap video you’ve shot so you can watch it. At the very least, if you’re going to design a codec, don’t make playing it back a difficult thing for the average person. You should be able to just hit the space bar from the finder and watch your clip.
AJA Cion Camera with ProRes
I realize I’m howling at the moon… but the truth is that when it comes to editing, there isn’t a better, more versatile codec than ProRes. It would be nice if I could just start with those files. ARRI, AJA, and BMD have the right idea with their cameras (all can record natively to ProRes)… would be nice to see the other camera manufacturers follow suit… or at least come up with a coherent explanation as to why they insist on their proprietary codecs that don’t in any way help the end user.
In my humble opinion, one system feels like it’s providing a lot more value and flexibility than the other. With the Apps I’m using (all of which are on the App Store), I’ve never had to pay for an upgrade since I bought them, and I’ve never had a problem with a download or had my access to an App I’ve already installed affected by a cloud service outage or for not making a payment (as many Creative Cloud users have experienced). 
