Final Cut Pro X Receives Minor Update With Performance Improvements, Bug Fixes

Track based editing and analog support are the two things that always held me back and also the two things they are never going to get.

I was a lover for FCP 7 but X just doesn't feel like a pro editing suite. The power is there but everything about it feels like it's aimed at amateurs.

Got used to Media Composer while working for a post studio and don't ever plan to go back. There are some things about avid that annoy me and always will but I feel at least Avid can do everything I need it to do.

I was once like you.

Then I decided to take the time and put in the effort to learn FCP X, with it's magnetic, single storyline with attached clips approach and worked through the frustrations that came with expecting it to be the thing and the way I was used to for years and years and... it turns out it's freaking amazing.

I go back to FCP 7 for old projects with clients from time to time and it feels like I'm editing with a stone tablet. Everything is so rigid and unresponsive and takes so many steps. I can edit SO much faster in X, which frees me up to be more creative and get more done in my day.

Track based editing served its purpose but it's an old fashioned way of doing things that is holding great editors who are afraid of change back. Take the next step and give FCP X an honest try. It won't be easy at first but it will be so much better in the long run.

Not sure how accurate this is...

I'm going to qualify myself as being a complete n00b in video editing as it's not what I "do". I am, however, a civil engineer with a long history in engineering and analytical statistics with a focus on statistical modeling. The "unstated" quantities of that "survey" and resulting "graph" is, quite simply, the sample size. That linked-to post/article reeks and smacks of BS. For instance:

* "On the plus side, Avid is cited for its power, reliability, work flow, features and linking." Cited? By who(m) - there aren't any citations listed. If the source was actually creating the "sample", they would have certainly cited their source. Not one of the "citations" are listed or, um, cited.

* What is their sample size? It's not listed, which would scare me off as a client. Early in the post/article the "48% of respondents" bit would seem, to me, to be a joke. Having been in the marketing/statistical analysis game for almost 30 years, I look for numbers they're quoting. For example, think of "7s" - 1428578, which repeats endlessly. Any time I see a number like "43%" of respondents I think that something like "3 out of 7 people said". In 1994 I was hired to help with planning a light rail project that was intended to go to a public vote, and 85% of polled meeting members voted against extending the LRT project into **** County; I looked at the data and it turned out that the same 50-odd people were going to all of the public meetings - about 50 people killed a $4B project. The survey left out too much source data to be of real use - a sample size and number of respondents should have been included in their "report" to have any real meaning in the real world IMHO; leave out key data as to sample size and your "report" means pretty much the paper it's printed on. Paper's cheap, FWIW.

* My additional counter? The thousands of FCPX users that are happy and making money are too happy making money or too busy working to bother with responding to an idiotic survey from a source they'd never heard of.

There's more that I could offer to punch mountain-sized holes in this "survey" (and, yes, I'm embellishing), but we all have other tasks we'd rather be doing.
The only other "thing" that's missing? A statement that reads something like this:
"Production Technology Survey, 2015", Sponsored by Adobe."

Disclosure: I use and subscribe to Adobe CC and also have purchased FCPX. I also printed out that Production Technology Survey, 2015 story and used it for toilet paper.

I don't get the dislike. I LOVE FCPX and what it's become. Every time I use Premiere Pro I miss doing things the FCPX way. They have fixed most of my complaints about gaping holes when it first debuted.

Haha, basically.
Not sure how accurate this is as people who voted were anyone that considers themselves an 'editor' and open to all professions and hobbyists:
http://www.televisual.com/read-reports-surveys/42/296/Editing-The-most-popular-systems.html

That is almost exactly what I am seeing - Apple really doesn't get what 'professionals' in the business do.

One thing SONY was smart to do was to split their business - they have a pro division that just concentrated on that segment and was the most R&D intensive. Then they let that high end tech filter down to the consumer level over time.

Apple could do it, but I fear they are becoming a 'fashion tech' company. Being fashionable is dangerous as you rely on emotional attachments, which can change.

Track based editing and analog support are the two things that always held me back and also the two things they are never going to get.

I was a lover for FCP 7 but X just doesn't feel like a pro editing suite. The power is there but everything about it feels like it's aimed at amateurs.

Got used to Media Composer while working for a post studio and don't ever plan to go back. There are some things about avid that annoy me and always will but I feel at least Avid can do everything I need it to do.

We only use FCPX in the studio for all our work. It's absolutely blazing fast when compared to Premiere. We literally just dump our 6k Dragon .R3D's straight from the RedMag into the timeline on our 5k iMacs (which are basically laptop internals with large screens, nothing serious is required like 12 core Xeons or anything) and edit natively in a 4K timeline with zero hiccups or stutter at full resolution and full raw setting support. It's just stupid easy.

If we have major color correction we export out a tiny XML from fcpx and boom, our entire edit loads natively in Davinci and then export an XML back out and switch back to FCPX and everything updates instantly.

Same exact process for sound suitening in Logic for audio.

And we pay for CC for every single employee in the office and tried Premiere and it was just simply not the fastest or easiest to work with.

And while this wasn't a factor with our decision, one of my video guys sent me this article a month or so ago and made me feel comfortable with our decision for our clients: http://nofilmschool.com/2014/09/massive-difference-export-quality-fcpx-and-premiere-pro

But alas... Just my humble experience, not to say Premiere isn't more than a solid choice and competent editor. It's functions just like FCP 7 did (the cream of the crop for years) so obviously it's good, it just wasn't AS good or fast with our workflow...

Hello? Is anyone here?

Seems like everyone jumped to CC.

I was using FCP since version 1. When X came out, I gave it a try at the Apple store and just wasn't impressed. Told myself I'd wait it out to see how it'd progress. In that time, I migrated to Premiere. Being a heavy user of After Effects and Cinema 4D, the integration and dynamic links are unparalleled to what FCP X could ever offer in its current form.

That's not accurate. The current form of Final Cut Pro X / Motion is much more powerful than Premiere /After Effects.

Both allow you to create motion graphics in AE or Motion and then bring them into the video editor without rendering. FCP X has always been able to do that with Motion. But there is much more integration than that.

For example, Adobe has Live Text templates so you can edit the animated text from AE right inside Premiere Pro. FCP X / Motion are able to do that, but much more. You can edit the font of the text, the color of the text, the drop shadow, any parameter you want right in FCP X. And you can set up rigging for anything in Motion to edit right in FCP X. Check out "rigging and publishing" in Motion. It's MUCH more powerful than AE. So, for example, if you create an animated lower third in Motion and the color of a rectangle the text is on top of is blue, you can set up your rig to be able to select Blue, Red, Green, Yellow right inside Final Cut Pro X. It's very easy, but powerful.

I used After Effects from 1994 when it was CoSa After Effects till today. Motion's keyframe-less system is superior, IMHO. I can do things much, much faster in Motion than AE, and because it's using dynamic behaviors instead of key frames, it's so much faster to move things around and edit. Motion has full integration with Cinema 4D too.

Motion doesn't require multiple timelines with Pre-comps like AE does. It doesn't require I manually go in and click on stop watch icons to create key frames.

Motion has a Layers palette, just like Photoshop does. This is really awesome. You can group objects easily in this palette and then just select the group and animate it. Want something in one group to go to another group, just drag and drop it like you would in Photoshop. No multiple timelines to dig in to, no pre-comps.

So if I want to animate the moon orbiting the earth and then have the earth go across the screen, this is what I'd do in Motion:

1. Put the earth and moon images on the stage. They are now in my Layer palette.
2. Drag and drop the "Orbit" behavior onto the moon.
3. Select "Earth" from the pop-up parameter in the Orbit behavior to tell Motion what you want the moon to orbit the earth object
5. A circle path automatically appears. If you press the space bar, Motion will animate it all in REAL TIME, looped, and as you drag that circle path in and out, it expands and contracts the orbit the moon is making around the earth. You can also drag the speed parameter, the direction parameter, all in REAL TIME as it animates in a loop on your screen. You are watching the moon orbit the earth with literally 2 clicks of your mouse.
6. Group the moon and earth and now you have a folder in your Layers palette. You want to see them separately? Just like Photoshop, just click on the arrow icon to the left of the folder and it reveals everything inside.
7. Drag and drop the "Throw" behavior onto the group you created. Throw is the behavior that moves objects in a direction at a speed.
8. Again, press the space bar to animate it in real time and click and drag the arrow artwork for the speed and direction of the Throw behavior.

Done. You now have the moon orbiting the earth and both of them moving across the screen without creating a single key frame. The power of not having key frames is I can drag this whole thing and move it where I want without worrying about screwing up key frames, nor do I have to deal with multiple timelines.

There are lots of amazing behaviors including gravity, wind, etc. PLUS, the parameter behaviors are fantastic. For example, if I want to add some random to the speed of the Throw on the whole group, I just drag the Random paramater behavior and select the Throw speed parameter. It has oscillate, etc.

Very powerful stuff. Way beyond AE's ability.

Motion does have traditional key frame capabilities, though, with a very powerful key frame editor palette for changing the bezier curve, etc.

This real time animation capability of Motion blows AE out of the water. There is very little need to render a RAM preview in Motion. Apple was way ahead of Adobe in using the GPUs to accelerate their software, plus Adobe AE still doesn't use hardware acceleration in Mercury with Radeon cards, only nVidia.

In regards to FCP X, I prefer the magnetic timeline paradigm over the traditional tracks. I never accidentally create gaps in my timeline. It's impossible. It's so much faster to edit with this system than traditional tracks. Everything is pinned so when you make one clip shorter, everything past that moves into the exact places it should be.

FCP X has many things since version 10.0 that Premiere has been catching up to. For example, auto syncing your secondary audio with your video clips. It's been in FCP X since day 1. It's fantastic. You do it right in the bin, not in the timeline. Just select the audio clip and video clip for "scene 1 take 2" and right-click and select Syncrhonize and it does it automatically.

The multicam is superior in FCP X too with a lot more angles and you don't have to flatten it at all like you do in Premiere Pro. Doing music videos is a breeze in FCP X. This is another catch-up for Premiere Pro and the performance of the multicam is superior in FCP X without flattening.

The media management in FCP X is also superior IMHO. The key word system is just fantastic coupled with the Timeline Index. It will analyze your video clips and tag them with key words like "One person" " Two person" "Group" "Close Up Shot" "Medium Shot", etc. When I import RED rd3 footage, Premiere creates multiple folders and brings in duplicates. With FCP X, I can just select "Day 1" folder and it will only bring in the video clips in all the sub folders and no duplicates. It tags based on the folder names too.

Then when you add FCP X's "Roles" feature, you have a fantastic way to manage a huge amount of assets. Editing a feature film is a breeze in FCP X.

BTW, the speed of FCP X is fantastic. On the same Mac Pro system, FCP X flies with native RED rd3 footage at 3:1 compression 5K and I play it in real time and scrub in real time with my house cursor with the video at 100% resolution on a 4K monitor. I have CC 2015 and Premiere Pro on the same system requires it to be at 1/4 resolution to be able to play it without rendering.

Everyone should use what they prefer, obviously, but I find most people who bash FCP X just don't know what they are talking about.

The ignorance from the FCPX bashers here amazes me. FCPX is used by millions of people worldwide. It has consistently been one of Apple's top grossing apps. I've been a professional editor for nearly 10 years and I've used Avid, Premiere, and old FCP. Trust me, nothing else comes close to matching the speed and efficiency of FCPX. This is not an opinion, this is a fact that's been proven over and over again, check out fcp.co if you don't believe me.

Out of interest, what is keeping the fcp7 users from switching to fcpx? What is still missing?

Dunno, maybe the whole Pro look and feel and input options and settings and decades spent learning and fine tuning the interface and preferences and not releasing a half arsed iMovie Pro and dumping the actual pro app that thousands of businesses and major broadcasters and production companies were using?
Maybe not shooting yourself in both feet repeatedly by abandoning a suite of pro apps that companies had spent huge resources and time developing and learning?
I'm not saying FCPX is bad, there's just no way it was the next step in Final Cut, especially when it was released. Abandoning customers that invested (very) substantially in FCP while possibly (not likely though) a sensible financial move, was an insane PR and mindshare disaster.

Out of interest, what is keeping the fcp7 users from switching to fcpx? What is still missing?

In constrast to other posters, I'm a hobby editor. And even I dream of purchasing something else. The only reason I bought FCPX was because it was the cheapest option and I do not have money for more nor is it really that important as I only do small edits. However, I do have special projects where I would really like to have some pro editing tools at hand. But there, FCPX does not deliver.

The UI becomes very laggy very quickly and changes focus too often, finding myself zooming the picture instead of the timeline 50% of the time, as well as changing playback position and audio volume accidentally. Little annoyances but ones which want you to smash your fist into the screen. Additionally, with the laggy UI, you often make mistakes, accidentally deleting or moving whole parts of complex edits. This in conjunction with auto-save killed I-dont-know-how-many-hours of work already. I am forced to manually export project backups and organize my raw material in a way I don't want and need and constantly need to clean up all temp folders to keep it simple. The magnetic timeline is just not how my ideas transfer to the screen. Again, lost many hours just because complex edits were attached as a magnetic timeline to a part which I deleted at some pointe without noticing the consequences. The lack of native output options in the base version and the insane rendering time was a downer.

Many problems can probably be solved by spending more money on the hardware. But as I said, this is a hobby.

I once had a student project where we used Primere. Learned, used, and completed the project within one day. After one and a half year using FCPX, I still feel behind compared to what I did back then.