FCPX Screams of pain
by Rick Wise on Jun 29, 2011 at 6:27:35 pm
Since Apple released FCP X and no longer sells FCP 7, a large number of the professional FCP editors have been screaming in pain about what's not there in the new app. A large number of posters on the Cow's FCP X forum speak of moving to Premier or Avid. On a CML post forum I found one mention of the free, open-source, PC-based NLE, Lightworks. No one, not a single one, mentions Vegas.
I've been a Vegas user since version 3. I love it. But I never, ever find job postings for a Vegas editor. It's always FCP.
Which is why I am now seriously thinking of moving to FCP X. But it's the hardware, stupid, or rather the cost of the hardware: That's the obstacle.
I would think Sony could take advantage of the current Apple uproar to gain some ground. Perhaps getting out version 11 (?) would be a way to do so.
Rick Wise
director of photography
San Francisco Bay Area
part-time instructor lighting/camera
Academy of Art University/Film and Video (grad school) http://www.RickWiseDP.com
Re: FCPX Screams of pain by Thomas Roberts on Jun 29, 2011 at 7:15:32 pm
well said Rick. I'm frustrated that SVP Pro does not integrate with any of the RED GIANT Suite of software. I'm going to be forced to switch soon. I need to stay competitive. I've loved using Sony Pro, but I gotta make some hard decisions soon
Re: FCPX Screams of pain by John Rofrano on Jun 29, 2011 at 9:27:38 pm
[Thomas Roberts]" I'm frustrated that SVP Pro does not integrate with any of the RED GIANT Suite of software."
I believe you have that backwards. It's Red Giant that needs to integrate with Vegas Pro and they've decided not to. This was based on sales figures so the only conclusion you can draw is that Vegas editors DO NOT NEED their plug-ins since they didn't buy enough of them.
[Thomas Roberts]"I'm going to be forced to switch soon. I need to stay competitive."
Can you explain how not having one plug-in means you are not competitive?
While major plug-in providers like GenArts and Boris FX are flocking to Sony Vegas Pro you've got to ask yourself if Red Giant pulled out too soon? Not having one Red Giant plug-in in Vegas (that apparently no one bought) has not impacted my competitiveness at all. In fact, plug-ins like Boris Continuum Complete 7 have increased my productivity and production value a whole lot more.
BTW, if you jump to FCP X you'll need to also buy Motion and Compressor to approach the functionality that Vegas Pro already has built in. So I don't understand this whole argument. You could always buy After Effects and keep using Vegas Pro on your PC if you need Red Giant plug-ins that badly.
Re: FCPX Screams of pain by Steve Rhoden on Jun 30, 2011 at 12:25:51 am
Switch from what Thomas?. So what if Red Giant doesn't support
Vegas. If one wants to use Red Giant plugin line, simply get
After Effects, thats what i do. Every editor needs a compositor
in their workflow.
Steve Rhoden (Cow Leader)
Film Maker Filmex Creative Media. 1-876-832-4956
Re: FCPX Screams of pain by John Rofrano on Jun 29, 2011 at 9:08:00 pm
[Rick Wise]"A large number of posters on the Cow's FCP X forum speak of moving to Premier or Avid."
I find it ironic that FCP editors are jumping ship to Avid and Adobe and you want to jump onto the sinking FCP X ship. (I guess there will be lots of room on deck with everyone jumping) ;-)
I watched the FCP X demos and it finally has features that have been in Vegas since Vegas Video 3. It's obvious that FCP developers spent a lot of time with Vegas Pro to get it to behave that close. I'd rather be using the real thing than a wanna-be (FCP X). It just confirms that Sony had it right all along.
[Rick Wise]"No one, not a single one, mentions Vegas"
I'm not sure what forums you're reading but the Apple FCPX - Final Cut Pro X mentions Vegas a LOT!
[Rick Wise]"But it's the hardware, stupid, or rather the cost of the hardware: That's the obstacle. "
Yea, the $2400 FCP X dongle (called a Mac) is what puts a lot of people off. I'm sure if Vegas were available on the Mac, FCP users would be jumping to Vegas but unfortunately, Sony put all it's eggs in the Windows basket and that's a big barrier to attracting FCP editors.
Re: FCPX Screams of pain by mike calla on Jun 30, 2011 at 4:38:33 am
Yep, vegas is a great program. BUT if you are a freelance editor you'd better learn FCP & MAC OS, AVID and possibly PPro - Sorry, it's just the way it is. Or you build your own business around Vegas. Its a shame though
FCP and Edius are the only ones i haven't really used and i lose work because of it.
I learned AVID pretty well. It's got some things Vegas doesn't (every NLE is like that anyway) but Vegas its a lot quicker to work with, much much more flexible in working style. Things that would take a few key strokes in AVID, are one in Vegas.
Version 7, 9/64 and 10/64 have been rock solid for me. Huge time lines, complex time lines. I render out to AE using uncompressed AVI and cineform, no problem.
There is a HUGE lack of third party hardware and software with Vegas but it's not Vegas's fault.
What is vegas's fault is Sony; A huge VIDEO hardware company(HELLO!!!!), can't get their heads out of the corporate world where different divisions do not communicate with each other. They could make their own I/O boards, work surfaces, audio hardware..etc.
Re: FCPX Screams of pain by mike calla on Jun 30, 2011 at 5:34:33 am
I use the AJA LHe boards. I bought them so i could work with cineform and have trouble-free-colour-space-HD-output. It doesn't have HDMI, but i use the HD component outputs to go to Panasonic industrial plasma display and simultaneously to SD CRT broadcast monitors. I've never used the SDI i/o...ever...don't think i ever will.
You know, I have nVidia cards with HDMI and even HD component outs but i can't find clear answers as to whether there would be colour space issues?
I know a lot of people use Vegas/Windows secondary display but i was never sure if it introduces a whole new set of colour space problems.
If i could get a clear answer "Yes, nVidia, HD-Out has no colour space issues" That'd be great!
Re: FCPX Screams of pain by John Rofrano on Jun 30, 2011 at 5:54:53 pm
[mike calla]"If i could get a clear answer "Yes, nVidia, HD-Out has no colour space issues" That'd be great!"
I'm using an NVIDIA Quadro 4000 with two ASUS ProArt PA246Q monitors that are calibrated with a Spyder 3 Elite and I don't have any color space issues with HD. I set the Vegas Secondary Display to use the Syper 3 profiles and also tell Vegas to use Studio RGB (16 - 235) and everything comes out color accurate. That is why Sony added the Secondary Display option. You have to make sure you calibrate your monitors but there are no color space issues.
Re: FCPX Screams of pain by John Rofrano on Jul 3, 2011 at 5:13:03 pm
[mike calla]"1. Would this apply to windows secondary display via a graphics card HDMI / Component out to an HDTV monitor as well?"
I'm not sure. I've never used that configuration. I wouldn't use an HDTV as a monitor for color correcting because the manufacturers play all sorts of games to make their TV's look good and you can't really tell if your video looks good, or if the TV has applied some filter to make it look good.
[mike calla]"2. Is the dependent on the fact that you have a "Quadro" card?"
No. This works with any graphics card that has dual outputs.
Re: FCPX Screams of pain by mike calla on Jul 4, 2011 at 12:21:53 pm
Thanks John,
Right now my AJA's go in to Panny TH-42PH10s, and JVC broadcast CRTs; definitely NOT your parents TV:) The Pannys i bought a while back on the advice of your Creative Cow cohort, Bob Zelin. I've never had the pleasure of seeing an eCinema or even a Flanders display, i'm sure they are beautiful to gawk at but the pannys are consistent, i use them for broadcast and they've never failed me.
In the future if i get another seat here i'll pick up another Panny TH-42PH10; - The reason i asked about the vid card output is because there is the another model in this line with HDMI in,(can't remember the model#, doesn't matter), and using the video card hdmi or even component out would negate the purchase of another AJA board.
Come to think of it, they have DVI inputs as well, hmmmmmmmm!?
Re: FCPX Screams of pain by John Rofrano on Jun 30, 2011 at 1:05:19 pm
[Thomas Roberts]"Would love to know what features SVP has had that FCPX now has built in..."
I was watching Apple demo it and they dragged the edge of a clip to make a fade and the audience cheered. Then they right-clicked that fade to see the fade types and I think a few FCP editors might have fainted. ;-) It was hilarious. The most basic editing features that we Vegas editors take for granted are like magic to FCP editors. Watch this video and see:
Speaking of hardware, wouldn't a nicely laid out Hackintosh with separate partitions for MacOS, Windows 7 (and even Linux) solve the that particular problem? Or could that be disastrous at some point?
Re: FCPX Screams of pain by John Rofrano on Jun 30, 2011 at 5:56:41 pm
[Guðmundur Erlingsson]"Speaking of hardware, wouldn't a nicely laid out Hackintosh with separate partitions for MacOS, Windows 7 (and even Linux) solve the that particular problem? Or could that be disastrous at some point?"
I thought that there were issues with applying updates with a Hackintosh. If not, that would be a good solution.
Re: FCPX Screams of pain by Jeff Schroeder on Jun 30, 2011 at 5:02:19 pm
Wow, audio automagically moves with the video, sample accurate resolution for aligning audio, drag tansitions and fades, right-click selecting fade velocity. The L&J cut section would have been really cool if this was 1996. I can't believe this impresses them so much.
Re: FCPX Screams of pain by Jeff Schroeder on Jul 1, 2011 at 4:31:55 pm
Thomas,
Is this some kind of elaborate hoax? I find it very hard to believe that FCP survived until now without this basic functionality. This, in combination with what was revealed in the video describes an NLE that, prior to this release, was not very intuitive or productive. How then could FCP editors be in such demand?
Maybe Sony Creative Software needs to fire a few programmers and steal away some of Apples marketing gurus.
Re: FCPX Screams of pain by John Rofrano on Jul 2, 2011 at 1:27:30 pm
[Jeff Schroeder]"Is this some kind of elaborate hoax? I find it very hard to believe that FCP survived until now without this basic functionality."
It's not that the functionality wasn't there... it's that it was probably locked up in menus and dialog boxes and took three steps to do a simple task which is the problem with Avid and Premiere and FCP. They took this outdated "razor blade" concept of editing tape to the computer instead of introducing a new faster workflow that was better adapted for the computer like Vegas did.
If the Avid/Premiere/FCP developers were designing a word processor, the computer would ring a bell when you reach the 72nd character of a line and you'd have to press return before character 80! (i.e., making a computer act like a typewriter is a very bad idea but that's essentially what they did with video editing)
Re: FCPX Screams of pain by Rick Wise on Jul 2, 2011 at 5:32:20 pm
John, great analogy. The mystery remains: why oh why did FCP become ubiquitous and Vegas lives to this day in the margins?
I am guessing the answer lies with marketing, good on the part of Apple and lousy on the part of Sony. It's similar to the triumph of VHS over beta. Betas was way better but lost the market to VHS.
It would be wonderful for we who use Vegas if Sony capitalized on the FCP mess, as Adobe is doing. (Adobe is offering 50% off Premium for both FCP and Avid Media Composer users.) But expecting Sony to seize this marketing advantage must be akin to waiting for pigs to fly. There are also platform issues (FCP entirely on Macs, though on my MacBook Pro I run Vegas in Bootcamp, no problemo.)
Rick Wise
director of photography
San Francisco Bay Area
part-time instructor lighting/camera
Academy of Art University/Film and Video (grad school) http://www.RickWiseDP.com
Re: FCPX Screams of pain by David Johnson on Jul 2, 2011 at 6:01:13 pm
Rick, I think you're right that the answer lies partially with Apple's marketing savvy versus Sony's clumsy marketing, but I also think the answer lies partially with timing ... as with Premiere and most other NLE software, by the time most matured enough to be comparable to or even better than FCP, FCP had already locked down a huge portion of the available market share so the combined disruption and expense of switching was often a deal breaker ... even when the switch would've been to a better product.
[Rick Wise] "It's similar to the triumph of VHS over beta. Betas was way better but lost the market to VHS."
In my opinion, similar, but also different ... personally, I saw VHS winning the consumer market to be more about costs than marketing savvy or product quality. By the standards of that time, VHS was good enough for the consumer market, but not good enough for the pro market so, for the consumer market, VHS offered a better balance between the cost and quality trade off. In other words, I ask myself whether movie rentals or the proliferation of home camcorders and VCRs (and, thus, the format used for each) would have taken off the way they did if consumers were expected to pay $20 instead of $5 for each movie rental at Blockbuster, $2000 instead of $500 for a camcorder and $1000 instead of $250 for a VCR? Probably not.
Re: FCPX Screams of pain by Rick Wise on Jul 2, 2011 at 6:41:14 pm
John, if memory serves me (which it does not always do accurately) Vegas from the very start was ahead of FCP. And it stayed that way right up to today. So I don't see "timing" as much of a factor, while marketing was.
Back then, Vegas was a small company run by some dedicated folk who probably thought they would make things better both for themselves and their NLE by selling to Sony. I'm not so sure that was a good decision. Any more than FCP being bought by Apple was good for FCP.
Rick Wise
director of photography
San Francisco Bay Area
part-time instructor lighting/camera
Academy of Art University/Film and Video (grad school) http://www.RickWiseDP.com
Re: FCPX Screams of pain by David Johnson on Jul 2, 2011 at 9:31:56 pm
You're probably right, Rick ... I don't know Vegas' full history and also don't have the best memory in the world so I guess my theory was based on when I first became aware of and tried Vegas, rather than when it first became available.
Re: FCPX Screams of pain by John Rofrano on Jul 3, 2011 at 12:22:39 am
[David Johnson]"VHS was good enough for the consumer market, but not good enough for the pro market so, for the consumer market, VHS offered a better balance between the cost and quality trade off."
One might say that this is exactly what Apple is doing. FCPX is "good enough" for the consumer market and there is far more money to be made selling 100,000 copies to consumers for $299 than 10,000 copies to pros at $999. ;-)
Re: FCPX Screams of pain by Aaron Berg on Jul 1, 2011 at 8:48:38 am
In order to do that they need to fix the 64 bit issues that are creeping up. At least with me.
I have been an editor for 19 years and cut on just about everything.
I was very happy with Sony Vegas since Version 5 for speed and good results.
I recently switched to Sony Vegas Pro 10d 64 bit and Windows 7 Professional 64 bit to take advantage of the additional RAM and faster render times. However, Sony Vegas Pro 10d 64 bit ALWAYS locks and stops responding when working on the timeline. If I wait 5 minutes it comes back only to do it again.
I have NEVER had this issue with my Windows XP Pro SP3 32 Bit Version. All the same exact hardware. XP runs smooth as butter and no issues.
I'm running all new Intel I-5 CPU, Nvidia GTX560 GPU, 8GB of RipJaws Ram, 1TB System Drive, 1TB G-RAID Video capture drive with firewire 800, and 4 additional drives for media and temp files.
It all runs PERFECT under XP. But I can't edit longer than 1 minute under Windows 7 64.
And yes, it's all a full clean install with everything updated and patched. No idea what it is. But the amount of money I spent building this system I could have gotten into a MAC with FCP. Or even an entry level AVID.
Re: FCPX Screams of pain by John Rofrano on Jul 3, 2011 at 4:57:39 pm
[Aaron Berg]"1TB G-RAID Video capture drive with firewire 800,"
Have you tried editing with a hard drive that is internal to your PC on the SATA bus? Does it still lock up? It looks like you are editing on an external drive via firewire. This might be a possible bottleneck. At a minimum, I would use eSATA if my drives had to be external.
Re: FCPX Screams of pain by Aaron Berg on Jul 7, 2011 at 7:42:49 am
I tried what you suggested and it still stutters but doesn't completely hang now. Seems a little faster speed and it's able to recover from whatever the issue is. But still is having an issue.
UPDATE! Sony Vegas Releases the 10.0 E PATCH!
I had high hopes this new patch would fix my problems. I shouldn't have been so gullible. Now, just dragging an SD .AVI file onto the time line CASHES Sony Vegas "Pro" 10.e
At this point I'm afraid Sony has lost me. I hung in there for 5 years with them but it's time to part ways.
I can't run a professional business with tight deadlines and paying clients on software that crashes more than a drunk teenager in his dad's Ferrari.
Sorry Sony, I'm a business. I need truly professional software that gives me dependability and stability. You are NOT.
I'll be looking into other NLE's at this point, but I have invested thousands of dollars to get a Sony Vegas Editing system. I have over $7,000 dollars worth of work sitting here not getting done because I choose Sony Vegas. PRO you are NOT.
Re: FCPX Screams of pain by John Rofrano on Jul 7, 2011 at 11:06:27 am
[Aaron Berg]"I'll be looking into other NLE's at this point, but I have invested thousands of dollars to get a Sony Vegas Editing system. I have over $7,000 dollars worth of work sitting here not getting done because I choose Sony Vegas. PRO you are NOT."
You need to realize that your problems are unique to your PC. Do you think any of us would be using Vegas Pro if dropping a DV AVI file crashed the program? I have no crashes like this at all and I would bet that whatever is causing DV media to crash Vegas might cause any NLE you install to crash as well because it's not the NLE's fault. I'm dragging and dropping DV AVI media into Vegas Pro 10.0e right now and it plays fine. No crashes. You really need to figure out what's wrong with your PC.
Something you installed is causing the instability because no one else is having problems with DV AVI files. Do you use Nero? This is famous for messing up DV AVI processing in other applications. I would never allow that software on one of my workstations because I've experienced it myself. I'm guessing that some application has registered it's own DV filter and it doesn't work with Vegas Pro. You need to figure out what's going on.
If you built your own PC, it could be an incompatibility between parts. Did your memory manufacturer test with your particular motherboard and certify that it works? Just mixing and matching components by specs is not enough. There are lots of incompatibilities between components that "should" work but don't. I would never buy parts that the manufacturer didn't certify as working together. So it could be lots of things... but if you think another NLE is the answer, then so be it. You just have to ask yourself, "why am I having all these problems when others are not?". I'm not saying that Vegas Pro never crashes, but I get a lot of productive work done every day with the tool.
Re: FCPX Screams of pain by Jeff Schroeder on Jul 7, 2011 at 1:51:49 pm
I had crash issues with Vegas 9. I did a clean install of Win7, disabled automatic updates, stopped connecting to the internet, and voila, no crashes. Get another computer for surfing and junkware, it's worth it!
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