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MillimeterFCPX: What It Might Mean
Apr 20, 2011 3:01 PM, By Ned Soltz
I've just returned from the tenth anniversary Final Cut Pro Supermeet, that raucous, always entertaining and informative gathering of Final Cut Pro users held as an evening event during NAB. This year, in front of some 1400 attendees, Apple chose to announce its forthcoming update, Final Cut Pro X. Billed as a "sneak peek," this hour-long demo began with the obligatory history of FCP, its ground-breaking features and impressive list of users in every production realm from documentary to indie to feature film--and more.
Richard Townsend of Apple introduced the evening rather unceremoniously and came right to the point. FCP X is rebuilt from the ground up as a 64-bit application that will leverage all available RAM and all available processor cores. It is built atop Snow Leopard with its utilization of CoreGraphics and OpenGL.
FCP X is billed to stress three core elements: image quality, organization and editing all within a redesigned user interface and look. So let's just cut right to those points both as discussed as well as demonstrated by Randy Ubilos, Apple's head of video products development and the architect of the earliest version of FCP.
To view a video of the Supermeet, click here: http://vimeo.com/22404844.
The display in FCP X is fully color-managed based upon color sync. It has floating point rendering and resolution independent playback from SD to 4K and everything in between. Rendering will be practically a thing of the past as the app will employ unused processor cycles to render constantly in the background.
Ingestion of media is also to be a background activity with various automatic analyses taking place during ingest. Footage will be analyzed in the background for stabilization. Audio will be analyzed with the option to repair clicks, pops, phase and other audio defects. During ingest, shots will be detected as medium, wide or close along with detection of the number of people within the shot. Finally there will be automatic non-destructive color balance during ingest.
That leads to the next point--organization.
The browser is much more dynamic and relies upon metadata, in particular user-generated metadata. You can assign keywords and multiple criteria to clips, then tag those clips and return when needed. Smart Collections is a dynamic means of organizing material based upon multiple criteria. You can view in clip view, view by criteria, or view in filmstrip mode to find a specific shot.
It is in the timeline that even more significant changes are seen.
Clip Connections is a term to signify primary audio and video locked together with secondary audio. When the clip is moved, all media associated with the clip is moved. That leads to the Magnetic Timeline feature. If a clip or group of clips is moved and collides with another clip, the clip to the right is moved up a track. Want to reduce the clutter on a timeline? Create a Compound Clip that collapses everything into one single clip, which then can be edited or moved. Double-click the compound clip to edit its components. It is a much more dynamic extension of the "nest" or "pre-comp" depending upon your background terminology.
One of the most unique features is Auditioning. Arrange several versions of a sequence for client or director review. Then, play them all out one at a time. When you or your director or client decide upon the version for the edit, just a keystroke will change the timeline.
Continue the discussion on “Crosstalk” the Millimeter Forum.
