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CS5 Can of Worms: Opened

Apologies in advance for this potential blasphemy.

I just finished watching this:
http://vimeo.com/groups/5dmkii/videos/11369451

Wow. As someone who shoots with everything from Flip to 5D - sometimes combining them into a single project - CS5's ability to just drop footage into the timeline without transcoding looks pretty attractive.

How far away is FCP from this capability?

Can someone give me some solid reasons to stick with FCP (well, besides the fact that I already know how to use it -- and of course a great user community)?

I've already decided that learning After Effects is my software goal for 2011. Seems like maybe I should purchase it bundled with Premiere.

Somebody talk me down.

Many, Mac OS X (10.6.5)

Posted on Jan 20, 2011 9:11 AM

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Posted on Jan 20, 2011 9:15 AM

For cuda acceleration in CS5, you need a cuda enabled video card from nvidia.

They run $1200 and up and there are two.

Also 64-bit OS installed (SL) and a multithreaded Mac.

If have these and can deal with what I see has a clunky interface and sometimes buggy Premiere CS5, it's your ticket.

As to how far away is this for FCP, only Apple knows.
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Jan 20, 2011 9:15 AM in response to Eric Bolt

For cuda acceleration in CS5, you need a cuda enabled video card from nvidia.

They run $1200 and up and there are two.

Also 64-bit OS installed (SL) and a multithreaded Mac.

If have these and can deal with what I see has a clunky interface and sometimes buggy Premiere CS5, it's your ticket.

As to how far away is this for FCP, only Apple knows.

Jan 20, 2011 9:28 AM in response to David S.

I'll need to read up on cuda acceleration. I'm currently using an ATI Radeon HD4870. Are you saying cuda acceleration is required to drop varied flavors of footage into Premiere's timeline?

Looks like my dual Intel Xeon 8-core is up to running 64-bit.

Obviously, my first choice would be for Apple to update FCP with this capability. It really ***** a lot of time out of my day when I have to run my footage through Compressor before it's ready to edit.

Jan 20, 2011 10:53 AM in response to Eric Bolt

We're all hoping for great things in the next rev of FCP. No one knows when that will be.
The Macintosh OS is obviously capable of much more realtime image processing than FCP is currently using.

However, there are really good reasons--not necessarily associated with the actual editing--to convert widely disparate video formats into a single format.

bogiesan

Jan 20, 2011 11:27 AM in response to Eric Bolt

ME: *However, there are really good reasons--not necessarily associated with the actual editing--to convert widely disparate video formats into a single format.*

You:
Eric Bolt wrote:
Well this is probably stupid - but why?
Let's say I'm combining AVCHD, H.264 and HDV into a single program. Wouldn't I retain the maximum quality as captured by each camera by NOT converting to an intermediate format before I edit?


The output format is the only thing that matters in that case and everything will be transcoded to the sequence setting. That's what happens in Premiere, too; the movie that Premiere spits out does not switch between codecs. If you transcode the files before editing you have total control over each clip and its codec's features and abilities. If you let the timeline do the transcoding, you accept the defaults of a rendering operation, which is much different from transcoding, and, if you're applying effects, you're not only rendering, you're transcoding before the render can take place.

But I was addressing non-editing issues. The most important function of transcoding is archiving your footage for retrieval later. This is not the same as storing your original footage. The analogy is your family's photo albums. Regardless of the type of film (color or mono, 35mm or 4x6cm) or camera (Brownie, Hasselblad, or Canon), the important stuff all exists as prints and you can see them whenever you want to. (Any analogy has limits; you can't get too picky here by arguing about prints from slides or who has the negatives.)

In our digital asset management system, Cumulus really doesn't really care what format the files are in. But being able to play the files quickly is more important than maintaining the originals. Although most of the originals are stored elsewhere. tons of our historical footage is on 3/4" that can no longer be played because the oxide is falling off the base. I'm really glad most of it was copied to VHS, it's not as good as the original (odd to hear me say that these days) but that it exists at all is a blessing. Copying the VHS to DVD (or in many cases digitizing to DV) has been an interesting exercise but I wonder about the long term viability. VHS has been around for 30 years and still has legs.

Ooops, sorry, got off on a tangent.

bogiesan

Jan 20, 2011 11:33 AM in response to Eric Bolt

Every one of those formats uses differing frame sizes, audio sampling rates and compression strategies. No matter what you may think, NONE of this stuff stays in its native format when you mix it on a timeline. If it has to be converted to an intermediate format, why wouldn't you want to take control over that?

When I have to deal with this kind of mess, I'll bring the stuff into Compressor, apply one of my custom presets to get it all to a particular flavor of ProRes (usually LT for the formats you mentioned) and let the box run all night in batch mode using the networked clusters to do the heavy lifting. I waste no time during the day and I have the benefit of everything in the same format, color depth, audio sample rates etc for editing. I can send it to Color, Motion, Soundtrack Pro/Logic or whatever seamlessly. This saves a great deal of grief.

x

Jan 20, 2011 11:42 AM in response to David Bogie Chq-1

I hear what you're saying about archiving. I have a lot of old Kodak digital photos that I can't find any modern tools to open.

But in my little dream world, I can take any kind of footage, drop it into a timeline, edit, filter, etc., then have my NLE transcode and squirt out whatever format I want to deliver.

Seems like Premiere Pro is closer to that than Final Cut right now.

Here's to hoping Apple is listening in on this.

Jan 20, 2011 12:43 PM in response to Eric Bolt

Get Premiere. It does what you want. That's the driving force behind purchases. "Does this do what I need to get done?" If yes, get it. If FCP doesn't do what you want, limits you, then don't use it. The beauty of the post world is that you can choose what NLE you want to use. Avid...Premiere...FCP...Edius...Vegas...iMovie.

This isn't limited to post. Camera operators have options too. Varicam, F900, Red, XDCAM, P2, DSLRs, shoulder mounted cameras, small camcorders...TONS of options. Not every tool is well suited to every shooting situation. You get the camera that is best for the production you are doing. That might be RED for one project, HPX-170 for another, EX3 for another...DSLR...etc.

The same with post. I use Avid and FCP. If I have a certain project come my way, I'll see which editing application will better handle what I need to do. Then choose that and run with it.

If Premiere does what you want. Get it. Complaining that FCP doesn't do X, and WHY doesn't it do X, and Premiere does X so much better....then use Premiere.

Shane

User uploaded file

Jan 20, 2011 12:56 PM in response to Shane Ross

Hi -
I would agree with Mr. Ross. It's an easy call - if Premiere does what you want, faster and it is a cost effective purchase for you, which is easily determined by the formula: {(money made using + time saved allowing you to do more projects) - cost of implementation = greater profit then by staying with FCP} then what are waiting for?

MtD

Jan 20, 2011 2:53 PM in response to Eric Bolt

It's funny... I remember when editing with FCP had a social stigma...

Like you weren't a real editor unless you were using an Avid.

I'd used an Avid for years, but when FCP 3 came along, I was ready to embrace it. Still had to twist my executive producer's arm to go that route instead of leasing more Avids.

"What will people think" she said...

Patrick

User uploaded file

Jan 21, 2011 11:56 AM in response to Eric Bolt

I have been using Final Cut Pro for a variety of editing projects for over 3 years. I like the program, find it to be rock stable and can do most of what I want without too much hassle. However, a recent 3 camera shoot involving different formats finally pushed me over the edge with the multiclip limitations and required transcoding to edit in FCP. I had purchased CS5 Production Premium when it came out, but I had not given Premiere Pro CS5 much more than a glance. I purchased an over-clocked nVidia GTX285 video card ($449) off of e-Bay, installed it in my 2008 Mac Pro, and I took some time to get up to speed with PP and then began this one hour 3-camera project. The difference in speed between PP and FCP was substantial. I also never had one single crash of PP during my entire two weeks of editing this project. It is a pleasure to see all 8-cores light up to the max when working in PP or using Adobe's Media Encoder. Render times with Adobe's Media Encoder were a fraction of the time required to render the same footage in Compressor even though Compressor is also 64-bit. It was a delight to playback multiple streams of high definition video in multiple formats in the PP timeline with multiple effects and never have to render to get good playback.

There is a misconception that to really get any benefit out of the Mercury Playback Engine of PP CS5, one has to purchase an expensive nVidia card. This is simply not the case. The fact that PP is takes full advantage of 64-bit architecture (allowing all of the RAM in your Mac Pro to be used) and contains numerous other software driven improvements gives it a substantial advantage in speed and flexibility over FCP even without a CUDA capable video card. In fact, the latter is only used for real-time playback of effects and filters and is not used in rendering at all.

Finally, I chose to move to PP because the CS5 Production Premium package includes After Effects and Encore CS5 which allows full authoring of Blu-ray DVD's -- something that Apple in FCP supports only in a most abbreviated form. I have found that all of these Adobe software packages are very stable and give excellent results. I simply grew tired of waiting for FCP to catch up to Adobe, and I have no regrets in moving to PP as my main editing software. And, no, I am not an Adobe employee -- just a satisfied user.

Tom

CS5 Can of Worms: Opened

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