Now you can transcode to 4K ProRes over 3x faster with FCPX

[Andrew Reid]

I don't use FCPX as my editor, and why should I use it to transcode media when we have Compressor for that?

The answer may surprise you...

Read the full article

 

[Nick Hughes]

I posted this in another thread, but again: 

Instead of batch exporting, I imagine you could just import the MJPEG files into FCPX and select the transcode option. Once it's done, you can just pull the files out of the 'transcoded media' folder for use in premiere or wherever. Or is there something else I'm missing?

 

Edit: nevermind, I saw that you covered this in the article!

 

 

[Andrew Reid]

Yes, it works for 4K. Tried it. Sorry Nick I missed your suggestion. It ended up being suggested on Twitter and I tried it from then on.

Shame to lose LT but 422 will do me... better than silly old MJPEG anyway!!

And 3x faster than Premiere... can't sniff at that. Going to save me HOURS.

[toxotis70]

we do it for years now!

Just import them in background and then drag those files from transcoded media folder.

I use only FCPX , so there is no need for this.... its way better than Premiere, no banding , no anything!

[Andrew Reid]

no anything!

​Yeah. No batch convert!

[Aldrik_]

FFMPEG supports hardware acceleration (GPU) on the decoding side, see the "-hwaccel" option. If your after other options for editors, Lightworks added OSX support not too long ago.

​Yeah. No batch convert!

​Hehe. Rather than a glaring omission, I suspect this is an intentional decision to trap you into using Apples product(s).

[pietz]

yeah fcpx's performance is amazing. i tried so often but i simply cannot get used to this style of editing. a hand full of people fell in love with it, but i cant get it to work for me. everything i do in the timeline feels like a workaround when using fcpx. i dont understand why they dont add a regular timeline to it as an option. cant be that hard...

[JBraddock]

​Hehe. Rather than a glaring omission, I suspect this is an intentional decision to trap you into using Apples product(s).

​Then they better speed up the bloody Compressor. I want to export a project and keep working on another project in FCPX. But you can't do that because when you keep using the FCPX, it stops background tasks! I understand it is not supposed to be a transcoding app but seriously, it seems flawed this way.

[Jason Bowdach]

Have you compared it to divergent media EditReady? It swear its the fastest transcoder yet, but I'd be interested to see a comparison. Unfortunately, I don't have a 1dc so I can't provide any data that could be compatible. 

[Axel]

yeah fcpx's performance is amazing. i tried so often but i simply cannot get used to this style of editing. a hand full of people fell in love with it, but i cant get it to work for me. everything i do in the timeline feels like a workaround when using fcpx. i dont understand why they dont add a regular timeline to it as an option. cant be that hard...

​Here is why: 

Tell me one reason for using independent tracks to arrange clips in the timeline. I asked this a couple of times in other forums. No one had an answer. Finally comes the killer phrase 'it has always been done that way'. There could as well have been a splice tool in all historic NLEs to connect two adjacent clips. Well, at least a splice reminds the old folks of what needed to be done with physical film. Tracks then could origin in classic A/B-editing, where, in order to make crossfades possible, the clips had to overlap on two parallel reels. Who the heck came up with this concept for non-linear editing?

An NLEs GUI doesn't and needn't represent what's actually happening under the hood. It's there for our convenience. Tracks are nothing but inconvenient. They have no equivalent in the real world. If you start arguing with music scores: Are the 'tracks' independent of each other? Do you shove notes haphazardly back and forth?  

Imagine the timeline of NLEs had always had one track, as with film. That you could simply add isolated clips to the integer sequence, vertically as many as you like, either to temporarily change the flow of the narration ('B-roll'), make a composition of two or more images or simply try an alternative. Obvious idea, no? 

Imagine then, some two decades later, someone developed a new kind of NLE: The track based timeline!

Would editors say, why, this is indeed an improvement. Or would they scratch their heads and put that software trial to the trash immediately?

[Alan Halfhill]

Andrew. You have to throw out the 1990's mindset of what an editor should be to understand FCPX. Once I did that I could not go back editing the old way. FCPX is the fastest editor out bar none. It is the best for story telling as well.

[Steve M.]

That's exactly correct. You definitely have to have a different mind set from the traditional track based editing to wrap your head around FCPX. Aside from the GUI looking like imovie, which hopefully we've all gotten over, there is a ton going on under the hood. The implementation of meta-data is unprecedented. Third party Apps, such as Lumber Jack, incredible. The speed at which you can edit is pretty amazing. Built-in Plural Eyes for synching double system sound, the use of roles for exporting stems, the timeline index, which is simply brilliant. Sorry, got carried away there, it's not that I don't like Premiere, it's a great editor, but FCPX is built around a completely different concept in video editing. Not to mention, you're not leasing the software month to month, which has nothing to do with it's editing capability, but Adobe's way is something I want no part of personally.

[Oliver Daniel]

I told you FCPX is a beast! 

I know you mentioned in the article that it's way different than FCP7 and other edit programs, which put you off, but the way it's different is the best thing about it. It's actually modernised where other programs haven't dared to change with the times.

FCPX was an idea ahead of its time on release, and now it's matured into the edit program of the future. In comparison, FCP7 is a rotting old dinosaur... It feels really, really old now. 

You can also work a lot faster on FCPX than other edit programs. The design is so simple and intuitive, making changes is an absolute breeze and you can focus on being creative. On top of that the features are very well done - syncing, multi-cam, media management, transcoding.... And if you don't like the magnetic timeline you can just do it the old boring way. 

Plugin support is also immense. Pixel Film Studios, MotionVFX, Crumplepop, Red Giant... Just to name a few. 

Those who dismiss FCPX need there head feeling. I learnt it in an hour. So can you Andrew. There is no going back.  

[pietz]

hey axel, thanks for the feedback. i appreciate people thinking like you do, but i really did give fcpx a shot. to answer your question, i can think of two things from the top of my head:

1) Editing on music. i sometimes do little documentary pieces where i pick a song i like and fill the visual part with footage. at the very beginning i throw in the song, drop a clip here, drop a clip there and kinda puzzle the entire thing until there re no more blanks. using this workflow fcpx feels horrible! sure its possible, i didnt say otherwise, but everything feels like a workaround. you delete a clip here, oh shit, something was magnetic and filled the gap. everything is off now and you dont notice it until 5min later. i cant simply drag a clip to a new position because its fixed to this other clip. why do i have to attach something to something else? i dont want that. i want them to be completely seperate objects that i can move freely. it doesnt make sense to me to attach a clip to another and letting it sit there, but also being visible over other clips that follow. in a scenario like this, having multiple layers is the only way that makes sense to me.

2) a-roll & b-roll switch. whats my a-roll? the interview? or the footage of the person at work? right now it might be the interview, but 2 hours later i notice "nah that doesnt make sense" and i wanna change it. damn now i have to switch my main story with the little thingies i attached to it. workaround. with layers i dont attach anything to anything, i can move everything freely. attaching a clip to another feels like i bind it there. hell i dont wanna bind it there. right now i wanna see how it looks right there and next i want a completely new structure. and that takes such a long time in fcpx.

i see a use case for people that start their edit in the very beginning and keep going that direction until the credits roll. but i dont edit that way. i switch things around, i put something here, i put it there. i want to move clips freely and not stick anything to anything. seems unnatural to me. when using fcpx it happens so often that i want to place something somewhere and it magically flies to the left or sticks to something.

now i would like to see the other side. where do you see the revolutionary opportunities that this new timeline offers? i like fcpx for two things: only one videoplayer window and hovering over effects to see them apply immidiately. something else i also hate is how little you can change the ui elements.

EDIT: i compared editready to the fcpx transcoding. a 32sec clip took 47sec in editready and 38sec in fcpx.

 

[Steve M.]

Pietz, Everything you described is just done a little different in FCPX. For instance, delete a clip and leave a gap, Shift + Delete. Move clips around without the magnetic TL effect, simply hit the P key, done! I could go on and on, but I won't! 

[Andrew Reid]

With the clip placing tool the magnetic timeline acts like a normal one. Much more sensible now. I'll give it a go.

I need to place clips perfectly in sync to an audio track and the magnetic timeline would knock everything out.

[Andrew Reid]

EditReady is interesting. Faster than all but FCPX it seems. But with the advantage of being able to select the transcoding codec, naturally

[tomekk]

but FCPX is MAC only, just kidding ;).

[Bill Streeter]

FCPX is faster at everything. Maybe you should consider just doing all your work in it rather than just transcoding. 

[Andrew Reid]

Results for 4GB 1 min 1D C 4K...

EditReady - 2m18 (ProRes LT)
FCPX - 1m05 (ProRes 422)

However the EditReady file is 2.77GB vs 3.6GB for the FCPX one and it looks slightly nicer, even with the lower bitrate (350Mbit/s vs 450Mbit/s)

I bought it. I like it.