What's the big deal about FCP?

A little birdie asked me quite recently. "Really, what is the big deal about FCP?" Especially now, with Avid growing in leaps with every new release. So I pondered...

What really is the big deal with FCP? Is there even a big deal in FCP? Sure, here is a bullet point list of the important features that make FCP score over Avid.

Some of these differences may not apply to the absolutely latest Avid ver 5.0. But for most Avid ABVB, Meridien, or even Adrenaline owners, ver 5 is a huge upgrade. So, for them, these still apply.

So,  in India, in 2010, the big deal about FCP is...

Huge format support
Apart from Beta/DigiBeta/DV, FCP can import and edit Red, Canon 5D/7D, XDCamEx, DVCProHD, JVC HDV, P2, NXCam, AVCCam, AVCHD and many more that Avids older than maybe 2009 cannot.

Smoke-Flame quality
FCP uses the same Aja Kona hardware that Smoke, Flame and even Lustre use, so the video quality of FCP is identical to Smoke, Flame and Lustre. No offline-online with FCP, both same same.

Compositing while editing
Any motion graphics kind of stuff - DVD moves, resize, skew, keyframed moves, crops, rotates etc - can be done while editing. Avid can't even rotate a frame.

Import without convert
FCP uses most file formats without creating new media. Avid needs to import everything and create new media.

Multi resolution
FCP has no project setting as such. You can happily mix HD, SD, PAL, 24, 25, NTSC, YouTube movies, MP3 files, CD audio, BWF audio, all in one project. Even place them in one timeline. Avid needs you to make a project of a fixed setting and prohibits you from importing anything of a different setting.

'24-25 thing' easy
In PAL-film land the '24-25 thing' comes back to bites you from time to time. FCP allows you to interchange from 24 to 25 in a flash - picture and sound.

HD without tax

All FCP systems after about 2004 can do HD. In fact almost all FCP capture cards can do HD from about 2006. So, FCP has HD without costly DNExcel cards, HD upgrades, MojoDX boxes that cost lakhs of Rupees for Avid owners.

Easier to use
For the novice, FCP is easier to use. And master.

Scalable over systems
FCP is the same whether on a laptop, an iMac or a desktop MacPro. All that changes is the hardware that's used for capture or monitoring. And that's optional.

XML interchange
FCP sequence information can be exported as XML which carries more info than EDLs do. Letting you carry over multi-track edits to other systems like Smoke, Quantel eQ and others. XML works great for subtitle work too.

Online review and approval with iChat
Edit and show your timeline to someone hundreds of kilometers away whilst still being able to make changes on the fly. With iChat sharing.

Easy speed change tools
Motion effects don't need to make new media. And ramps are easy drag and drop too.

Easier to keep upgraded

FCP has a software update about every year or so. And upgrades cost less that Rs 20,000 mostly. You don't need to buy costly annual maintenance plans to get upgrades. Most Macs support the next version for at least 3 years.
By that time, FCP has made you so much money you can afford a new Mac. Most likely, your cards will work with the new version.

Final Cut Studio
Final Cut Pro is only a part of a suite of products collectively called Final Cut Studio. All bundled with FCP. They are… Motion, Soundtrack Pro, Color, DVD Studio Pro, Compressor, Cinema Tools.

Advanced colour correction in Color
Colour correction that could only be done in million dollar DaVinci and other systems can now be achieved in Apple Color. A good colorist and a 'grading panel' can make this into a full-fledged grading suite.
Sequences can be sent to color and returned without any EDLs. Even DPX, and 4k is possible withinFCP and Color.

Motion graphics in Motion
Easily send your sequence or some clips to Motion and do complex match moves, stabilize, tracking, chroma keying and other advanced 'online' stuff.

Complex title graphics in Motion or LiveType
Amazing title work within Motion or LiveType with older Final Cut versions.

Sound design in Soundtrack Pro
Pro Tools like sound design work is possible within Soundtrack Pro. Even easy Dolby surround work. FCP and Soundtrack automatically synchronize timelines so change the edit in FCP and the sound work changes automatically. Great clean up and noise removal tools too

Royalty free sound samples
Final Cut Studio ships with Gigabytes of free sound. If you know how, you can compose an entire background music, or even song track for a long film too.

DVD/Blu-ray making directly
Make a DVD or Blu-Ray directly within FCP.

DVD authoring in DVD Studio Pro
For advanced authored DVDs with chapters, menus and sub-menus and stuff that's sold in shops, DVD Studio Pro lets you make them. And send them off to a duplicator to make thousands or lakhs.

Media database and film workflow with Cinema Tools
All the 24-25 stuff, telecine logs, cut lists pull lists. Even managing Red and Canon files, is done within Cinema Tools. Frame accurate, perf accurate.

Encoding to various formats with Compressor
After editing one almost always needs to send out stuff to the web - YouTube, Vimeo, H.264, Windows media and many other formats created automatically and in the background.

Disclaimer…
I have only 6 years experience editing on Avid systems on a daily basis. And the rest of the 10 years following, I worked mainly on FCP.

I don't use Avid as extensively as I used to, therefore, maybe newer versions of Avid have addressed some of the inequalities above, which I may not be abreast with.

But you know what? Most Avid owners can not or do not upgrade when a new version is available. Because in Avid land, an upgrade can often mean new hardware even a new PC or Mac. Even two year old Avids used Avid hardware that costed lakhs of Rupees. Which have now been replaced with hardware that costs only tens of thousands.

iPhone in India - first look

The new iPhone 3G has finally been launched in India. I got an SMS from Vodafone asking me to pay Rs 10,000 (US $ 232) as an advance at any Vodafone store. In a few days I would be informed when and where to collect the iPhone.

The cost will be Rs 31,000 (US$ 720) for the 8 Gb model and Rs 36,000 (US$ 837) for the 16 Gb model. Many have complained that this is excessive and they are comparing it to the Rs. 8,600 (US$ 199) price overseas. But that's misleading.

The iPhone 3G will also be available at other stores and Apple stores in India. I want to Croma at Juhu and checked out the iPhone. Here its available for Rs.29,800 (US$ 693) for the 8Gb and Rs 34,500 (US$802) for the 16 Gb.

I stopped and took a look. I asked the the sales person about the plans and whether I would have to get a new connection. he told me I could use my existing Vodafone post-paid card with the new iPhone but I would have to take a new 'package'. But I explained I already had one. Then in that case he said I would have to get a data package.

On whether my number would remain the same he said it would. But then, what would happen to the SIM card inside the iPhone? I asked, and he had no idea. And supposing I popped in y SIM card into the iPhone would it work right away? He said sure I needed to send an SMS.

And what if I had a BPL or an Idea SIM card? He said that would work too. He sid sure it would. Very strange. If this salesman is to be believed, then Apple is officially selling an unlocked iPhone in India. No need to sign up with any particular mobile service.

I don't believe it. I think the salesman was probably living somewhere in the jungles when the iPhone was released last year and all the hoopla about locking/unlocking happened over the past year or so. So he's completely unaware.

The iPhone itself what does it feel like? I held it in my hand. Maybe I was imagining it but it seemed lighter. The back is black and plastic not silver aluminium like the old iPhone. The headphone socket is not recessed so any headphone will work. The silend button is sl=ilver and flatter. And, the sofware is slightly different than the 1.x versions. Apart from these, externally at least, the iPhone 3G is not radicaly different.

Will I rush oiut and buy one? I don't think so. This Rs 30,000 price is a bit much for me. So I'm going to pass on the iPhone 3G for the moment till 3G services start in India.

And for existing iPhone owners, what happens to their iPhone? Does it get a warranty in India now? Will Apple India service the old 'unofficial' iPhone? What happens if an American with a 'legal' iPhone comes to India and has some trouble with it. Will the Apple Authorised Service Centre in India fix it?

Lots of questions still. In the weeks to come we'll have answers, I'm sure.

The Red camera is real

Just back from IBC 2007 at Amsterdam. I saw the Red camera up close.

First, I saw a large screen presentation of 'Crossing the line' a film shot on the Red camera. Directed by Peter Jackson, its a war story. The film was shown in a large theatre - as large as Metro in Mumbai. Really huge screen.

But the 'Red film' was not on film 35 mm. It was a digital 4k screening off the new Sony 4k digital projector. Presumably playing 4k files from a Clipster. It looked great, really good. No grain, no scratches or spots of dust, clean sharp picture, great contrast and saturation. But did it look like film? More on that later in a separate post.

I also went up to the Red stall and saw their presentation on work flow. As well as a small presentation at Apple's stand and Assimilate Scratch.

Here are some work flows...

For now, the camera shoots 4k RAW files to a memory card. later it will shoot to a removable hard disk. So it will shoot to 8 Gb CompactFlash cards. It shoots as RAW images just like Digital SLRs do for still photography. An 8 Gb card is good for 4 mins. I need to re-check at what res its 4 mins.

After the shoot you connect the card via a card reader to FCP and you can 'transfer' not capture these files via a new 'Log and transfer' window. Here you see all your shots as clips. You choose shots even mark in and out, and transfer them to your hard disk. The raw files are transferred and there's a reference Quicktime that opens in FCP as a 2k Quicktime clip.

Then edit away at 2k or even downres to Pro-res, Apple's new nearly lossless codec. After you are done, you can make an EDL and send it to Assimilate Scratch. Scratch, is a grading system running on Windows. Scratch connects your EDL to the original 4k files. And you can then grade 4k.

Once done grading, you can export to dpx, 4k or 2k depending on your film recorder. Then record out to film.

All this is work flow that's here and now and demoed. No one has actually done all this for an entire feature length film, so one doesn't know how it will all hold up to the rigours of a real schedule.

And other manufacturers - DaVinci Resolve, Nucoda Film Master - told me they were in talks with Red to use the Red codec in their app so they too can work with Red RAW files. The months to come will show interesting work flows. Maybe even FCP-Color will show up a complete Red work flow.

Examples of Red images
http://gallery.mac.com/videoresources#100050

Apple Color is now available

Apple Color, that "Colour grading for the rest of us" software with the wrong spelling (Color) is now shipping. And we can probably have a copy here in India next week.

Meanwhile the manual is out for download here...

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/Color_1.0_User_Manual.pdf

And some warnings on broadcast-safe and drop frame TC incompatibilities (finally an issue that does NOT affect PAL users) are also up at

http://www.apple.com/support/releasenotes/en/Color_1.0_rn/

From the manual it seems the DPX workflow is still there. Conform DPX sequences from EDL, convert DPX to Quicktime and back, export file-based EDL etc are described. How reliably they work (if at all) remains to be seen.

Working with Apple Color can also be a somewhat professional colour grading like experience if you add colourist panels like these from JL Cooper

http://www.jlcooper.com/pages/mcsspectrum.html

Or these from Tangent Devices...
http://www.tangentdevices.co.uk/products_cp_200.asp

Mind that these are rather costly. The Cooper is about $ 3000 and the Tangent about $ 5000. And if you add transport control panels and presets panels you're looking at $ 10,000 to $ 15000 just for panels. But if you ant to do this professionally you need panels. If only because 'real' colourists work with panels.

In the next two months or so, one will be able to make a realistic assessment on how well one can finish a full film DI on a Final Cut Studio system.

Final Cut Pro 6

On Sunday a day before NAB 2007 began, Apple announced Final Cut Studio 2 consisting of Final Cut Pro 6, Motion 3, Soundtrack Pro 2, Color, Compressor 3, DVD Studio Pro 4, LiveType 2, and CinemaTools 4.

There aren't shipping immediately, so first-hand details are sketchy. But going by reports, viewing videos and reading up at Apple's Web site here are the highlights.

Final Cut Pro 6

Mix multiple formats and codecs in the same timeline. Yes you do it even now with FCP 5.1 but you need to render. In FCP 6 you can make a new sequence set as Open Format and anything in it will play in real-time. How this impacts clips with filters and transitions, needs to be seen.

ProRes 422. A new codec which gives you great quality at low data rates. Sort of like how DVCProHD or DNxHD on Avid. An new hardware from Aja called IO-HD will be needed to work with this codec efficiently. Blackmagic has also introduced hardware called Multibridge Eclipse that does this acceleration.

But if you have an older BlackMagic or Aja card, or no card, can you still work with ProRes422? Remains to be seen.

Color

In some countries it is spelt colour, but means the same thing.

Some time last year Apple took over a small company called Silicon Color. They used to make a film and video colour grading software called FinalTouch. It sold in 3 versions - FinalTouchSD for $1000, FinalTouchHD for $5000, and FinalTouch2k for $25,000.

With FinalTouch2k you could do colour grading for an entire feature film. Meaning you could do DI. And people bought FinalTouch2k for $ 25,000.

Now Apple is giving away FinalTouch free, meaning part of Final Cut Studio. But whether Color (as FinalTouch is now called) has retained all the fill-blown DI features of the original FinalTouch2k, remains to be seen.

What I'm really keen on finding out is whether Color can work with DPX files and conform them to an EDL. And then exported the graded DPX sequence as Quicktime for use in FCP and do do deliverables like pan and scan etc.

To really grade like a DI suite you need a grading panel. And with Color, the Tangent CP-200 is supported. Check with Tangent www.tangentdevices.co.uk

3D compositing

Motion 3 part of FCS 2 now supports 3D and 32-bit floating point for compositing.There is also bezier masks, tracking, match moving, and stabilization. If you're a compositor, you know how big that is.

I don't use Motion all that much, so maybe I'll do so when I get Motion 3.

Surround mixing

Soundtrack Pro 2 now has surround editing and mixing with an innovative graphical display. And there's autoconform so you can make changes to the original edit in FCP 6, STP will show the changes and even implement them.

Compressor 3

Its become faster for one thing. Has more codecs even supports ProRes. And AutoCluster. meaning you can actually use QMaster now.

CinemaTools 4

Details are sketchy, but the table view is more interactive and in the Open clip window you can now open the next or previous clip in the same window without having to close the earlier one. Clip Analysis shows up in the margin instead of having to open a window.

Costing

Upgrade from any version FCP is $ 700 or about Rs 35,000
Upgrade from any version FCS is $ 500 or about Rs 25,000
A whole new one costs $ 1300 or about Rs 65,000
All these will not be available before May.

Meaning if you spent on an upgrade earlier tis year or late '06, you now have to spend some more. I wonder what happens to people who bought FCS this month.

For the IO-HD or Multibridge Eclipse hardware (either needed for ProRes422 support) you need to shell out $ 3500 or about Rs. 2.2 to 2.5 lakhs. Both these ship in July.

What's not changed

Capture tool still doesn't seem to show a time-code display or audio level meters during capture. So if your VTR is far away you still have no feedback.

Media Manager still looks the same, but if there are improvements I need to wait and report.

Relink even if the clip is not identical to the original. Again don't know if that works like in an Avid.

So basically these are the new things in FCP 2. More as soon as I get my upgrade.

Apple at NAB 2007

What about FinalTouch and Proximity?

The 8-core MacPro announced and shipping. A larger XServeRAID. 4Gb FC cards available. But what about FinalTouch and Proximity both of which are Apple's products now and have been for a few months.

At NAB, there is some likelihood of ...

1. a new DPX based workflow maybe even DPX integration into FCP.
2. something new on the film or HD grading front from FinalTouch even a new Apple FinalTouch.
3. some sort of a shared media workflow borrowing from what's available within FCP/XSan with something from the Proximity acquisition.
4. an asset management software maybe even integration with FCP/Motion and - a long shot - a better Media manager for FCP.

That much i can guess. More as things hot up before NAB.