10.0.3 DISASTEROUS

Pancenter wrote:

This is nothing like the backlash against Premiere Pro 1.x, not even comparable.

Yeah, other than both Adobe and Apple took an old, legacy application and threw it out the window and released a completely new version using new technology that wasn't backward compatible, and both had negative reactions from their customer base, it's not even comparable. 😉

This is Apple releasing alpha/beta software on a loyal customer base, listing a minimum spec that would make any user frustrated.

No way! The minimum specs for the software doesn't give you performance you would deem acceptable? Shut the front door! 🙂 Seriously, how long have you been using software and computers? Everyone knows that the "Minimum Requirements" listed on any application or OS is a laugh. Let's fire up Windows with the minimum RAM, shall we? Or Photoshop? Give me a break.

Apple is using inefficient software to sell new hardware.

Right, and what is Adobe doing with CUDA that requires an nVidia card? Are they trying to sell new hardware, or are they taking advantage of new technology, thus you need the new technology to use the new feature?

FCP X is like CUDA (but FCP X is more advanced) and like Motion, in that it relies mostly on the GPU, not the CPU. So you can take an old Mac Pro and install a good video card and FCP X will perform much better. I've been using Motion since 1.0 and this has been the case with it - same computer, different video card makes a huge difference.

The whole reason I can take Red One 4K footage in FCP X (as ProRes 422 HQ) and watch it play back in real time with filters (just skimming the filter and it shows me in real time!) is because it's using the GPU. Apple does this because it's an awesome feature, not because they want to sell you a new computer.

CoreImage and CoreAnimation and all of these GPU-accelerated APIs in OS X are there for a reason. The GPU can do certain things much, much faster than any CPU. They've been talking about this for years now. Steve Jobs did a demo during a keynote discussing this, years ago.

For the first 7 months FCPX would not reliably auto-save your work with no obvious option of a user "save" or "save as" command.

You can't tell me this software can't be programmed to run more efficiently. 30 minute projects with quite a few edits/transitions + photos can quickly bog down a MacPro dual quad with 16GB RAM.

I'm sure one day it will be great, I see the potential... but for Apple to release such an incomplete application should be unacceptable by any user.. unless you're a die-hard fanboy and give Apple a pass an anything they do.

Well, go click on my profile and read my past posts and you'll see I'm now fanboy. I'm very critical of Apple. However, I'm critical of Adobe too. I've been using this software with Macs and PCs since 1986 (Amiga and Atari for a bit too) and I've been furious at ALL OF THE ABOVE for putting out shoddy software. I refused to pay for Adobe software upgrades because they carried over known existing bugs. Look at Adobe software quality since they purchased Macromedia.

The idea that a completely new architecture in software is ever a smooth transition is a myth. Look at OS 9 to OS X. Look at Windows 98 to XP to Vista. Look at any software. Maybe there are a lot of video editors out there who are inexperienced with software and so they act like children on threads.

You'll see me complaining about Apple Motion in my comment archives for the same thing. I've said Apple is more interested in selling iPhones and iPads than putting out quality pro software. So you don't need to try to diminish my comment by questioning my objectivity.

In this thread, I responded to an article written and the link was posted in this thread by the OP. Did you read it? The summary of that article was that he wondered if FCP X will ever get away from the negative reaction it had when it launched. When did it launch? Was that 7.5 months ago?! Like I said, go back and read the user comments about Premiere Pro 7.5 months after it launched. People were furious. I remember, I lived through it.

I've cut a 13-minute 1080p short film in FCP X. I have an 2008 Mac Pro with 10 gigs RAM, but the most important spec is the video card. I have a Radeon 5770 with 1 gig. I have a few other projects in FCP X that were shorter. The only issue I have had so far is the beach ball of death that is, apparently, caused by Lion not releasing RAM that is not used. I learned about a command that you can paste into Terminal that will force Lion to release the unused RAM. That worked for me. I have no clue if 10.0.3 fixes this issue.

That is the only issue I've had.

I'm not a fanboy who is excusing Apple. FCP X had/has too many bugs. My post in this thread was a response to an article the OP posted. My point is Apple will make FCP X solid and, like Premiere Pro, people will have forgotten about the nightmare at the beginning. Premiere Pro 1.0 was released almost 9 years ago.

Go look at the Premiere Pro CS5.5 thread right now and you'll see people who are experiencing CS5.5 crashing on startup, crashing when they do a specific effect, error messeages, syncing problems, etc. I have a friend who tried to edit his 20-minute short film on a PC in CS5.5 and it crashed every time he rendered the project.

Am I excusing Apple? No, I'm not. My only point is I've experienced pains through major transitions many times over the years and this one will be no different.

montster wrote:

Hi Scot,

I'm one of those few "pros" who love this new app - from day one release. Everything about it is the way of the future and I use it for everything possible. Otherwise the old faithful legacy.

All this has nothing to do with plugins nor liking or not liking the UI. Its the differences between one update to the other for some, depending on complexity of project. I did a speed test of both updates on clean bare-bone systems running native projects on another thread. The results were/are astonishing. I have 7 machines total. 2 identical MBP's (latest versions) running the two native apps and native projects - big speed/stability difference -for the worse - on the new update. On short, OR less complex timelines, the difference is barely noticeable. On longer and very complex timelines, the results are dramatic.

Change is good. Progress is good. No one disputes that (I hope).

Thanks for sharing.

I experienced that with Motion where a new version was actually 20% slower than the previous version. Motion 3 was much slower than Motion 2, for example. It was infuriating.

Scot Walker wrote:

I experienced that with Motion where a new version was actually 20% slower than the previous version. Motion 3 was much slower than Motion 2, for example. It was infuriating.

What exactly is slower ?

There are two aspects of speed in Motion (and FCP X): "real time playback" of the timeline, and rendering. Motion 3 was slower in both of those areas than Motion 2, significantly slower. We are at version 5 now and I don't know if it went back to the snappiness of Motion 2 or if the graphics cards got faster so nobody notices the difference.

But I did the same test Montster did where I tested the speed of the same project, even rebuilding it natively, on the same hardware and Motion 3 was slower.

One cool feature of Motion is it tells you how many FPS you are getting as you play the timeline live, meaning you haven't rendered a preview. So benchmarking that is you load a template that came with Notion and you press the space bar and see what the FPS is.

Apple inspectors are pretty good at keepiing discussions clean and lean I see---- but they seem to be a slight bit opinionated - might I add.....

This FCP X forum. Period.

you think? that is interesting, because the root casue in any of this is Apple - they should be just helping. Ok, there are lots of work arounds - the software is starting to work a lot better for me after this thread, but hey I guess they know what they are doing just look at their balance sheets.

A lot of what is said here is true..on both sides. I tried to go to Premiere 5.5 for MAC and I tried and tried to use it and it simply crashed every time I droped in an image and tried to animate it...just locked right up!

FCPX is very buggy and needs a lot more refinement but it at least works, or let me say, it worked better before the update. Quickly, how is that something like iMovie is so freaking stable and FCPX is not? Jut thought I'd throw that out there.

What I did find out after a little testy conversation with one of the tech guys at Apple is that the update is a total re-write and that any projects would not be compatible with version 10.02 of FCPX. So even if you could get the previous version, you would need to re-build them. He also said that he was getting no complaints and wanted to take me through as far as completly cleaning my system and re-installing the program. But I asked how that could make any sense when I went form everything being fine to not being fine after the install. He wanted me to send him footage to see if they could re-produce it and all kind of stuff. My iMac is pretty much tricked out and I know its not the machine. What he did say was the best way for things to get done is send feedback via the link out of FCPX. SO everyone....do this if you havn't. The new version is unquestionabloy not as stable as the last for some reason. But I agree, Apple should send out more info on these new versions and givet the editior an option to obtain previous versions.

The Apple guy said 10.0.3 is "a total rewrite"? Seriously? Sigh.

Seriously now, I've been through a great ordeal with FCPX.2 and with .3. HOWEVER, and I repeat however, I just finished deleting every program that I dont need from my system followed by finding, investigating, and deleting any and all processes in the Activity monitor that I didn't need and ((viola)) my FXPX 10.0.3 is really, really smooth. Smooth as it has ever been

I also have nothing from 10.0.2, and use no plugins from 10.0.2, and no plugins developed prior .3.

Disconnected all external hardrives!

and Cleaned up the event browser,

and cleaned up my project files and preferences.

So I freed up memory and hard drive space. My next step is to completely format my baby and do a clean install of FCPX with a fresh SSD - Im waiting for the wires.

Now, just to note the only difference I see is the aforementioned "re-rendering" which was solved if you read the thread.

Please note that these things helped drastically. Do them!

ohh and monster i understand you - again - im just portraying my experience

That's great, Bill.

I haven't had any issues with 10.0.3 at all so far - go figure. Knock on wood.

Thanks Monster! It really was surreal hearing him asking stuff that just did not make any sense. But he did say that it was a total re-write and that projects created in V. .02 had to be re-coded for V. .03 and would not be able to used by the previous version. I was like...WOW...in my own head. Which explained how one of my Projects audio was now distorted during playback. It added new code and or other stuff beyond my knowlege base to everyone of my existing projects. Oh and get this....(if Apple doesn't pull this post) I told him that I was looking at Apple's forum page and even read about some of the other problems folks were having and he told me that it was a public forum where anyone could write anything and that it was seperate from Apple's Support System!!

It may not have been said verbattum like that, but in essence that's what he said and dismissed the Data that could be extracted from such posts.

This is a serious problem for Apple if they don't have someone mining these posts for helpful info that could help find what the problem is.