The Webinar was recorded, so if you missed it you can now watch it online. It’s almost 2 hours long and contains what I hope is a lot of useful information including what you need, exposure and how to get the footage in to FCP-X. I tried to structure the FCP-X part presentation in such a way that those that don’t normally use FCP-X (like me) will be able to get started quickly and understand what is going on under the hood.

Watch the full 2 hour webinar here:

http://www.visuals.co.uk/Webinars/How%20to%20use%20ProRes%20Raw%20with%20Alister%20Chapman.mp4?_=1

From everything I’ve seen, ProRes Raw appears to be a worthy successor to the existing codec…

…From everything I’ve seen, ProRes Raw appears to be a worthy successor to the existing codec. Being able to capture, control and manipulate the native aspects being output from any camera only increases a filmmakers capabilities. I expect that ProRes Raw will be the native codec for at least one camera manufacturer within a year or so, and that will hopefully open up a wider market for other companies and products.

As for Final Cut Pro X, the jury remains out. There are a large number of editors that enjoy working with FCPX and more will learn as Apple pushes back against NLEs like Adobe Premiere and BlackMagicDesign’s DaVinci Resolve. Something Avid learned the hard way is that it’s really, really hard to climb your way back up the mountain once you’ve been knocked off, no matter how powerful your toolset. FCPX left a bad taste in many editor’s mouths, so it’s going to take more than ProRes Raw to bring people back en-masse….READ MORE

From NewShooter.com

Seven years ago today, Apple unveiled FCP X, the successor to Final Cut Pro 7. FCP X was billed as being a revolutionary new version of the world’s most popular Pro video editing software which completely reinvents video editing with a Magnetic Timeline that lets you edit on a flexible, trackless canvas….

….Despite its incredibly rocky beginnings, FCP X has evolved to the point where it is now arguably just as good, if not better than other competing NLE systems. You may love or loathe FCP X and perhaps you are still wishing you were editing on Final Cut Pro 7, but the program has come a long way from being the butt of late-night TV jokes.

Apple has stuck to their guns with FCP X and appeased the angry mob (even though it took some time). In 2018 the villagers have put down their torches and returned to their homes, no longer wanting to burn down Cupertino. It’s hard for me to imagine what would have happened if Apple had of caved in to public pressure and dumped FCP X altogether. Who knows, maybe if they had we may not even have any iteration of Final Cut Pro today. Has FCP X gone from zero to hero? I don’t know about hero, but it’s certainly no longer that kid nobody wants to pick when you are choosing teams….READ MORE

Apple’s commitment to professionals was impressively underscored at NAB18 with the reveal of ProRes RAW and yet another significant (and free) update of FCPX. That said, Apple’s future direction has become much more uncertain with official-seeming leaks about a switch to ARM, a rethink of the iOS / Mac divide and more.

Pro Workflow Group

Let’s begin with TechCrunch’s Matthew Panzarino being invited back to Cupertino with senior Apple executives including John Ternus, Vice President of Hardware Engineering and leads for professional video and music marketing. This was effectively an update of the April 2017 mea culpa to professionals.

The first point to be made was that while Apple had never promised the Mac Pro for 2018, the fact was it was now clear it would be a 2019 product. The delay was disappointing, but out of respect for the time-lines on which professional purchases are planned, Apple wanted to clear away any ambiguity. Anyone needing a new professional product before 2019 should be looking at the all-new iMac Pros rather than scouring forums for Mac Pro hints.

In the past such product delays have been read as Apple simply not caring all that much about the professional market. Panzarino’s visit was designed to show that simply wasn’t the case.

The new Mac Pro is now part of a much broader initiative within Apple to better understand and serve professional customers, so much so that the company has hired on permanent and contract basis a range of award-winning professionals to work on site, side-by-side with the hardware and software engineers.

“We’ve been focusing on visual effects and video editing and 3D animation and music production as well,” commented Ternus.

The idea is not simply to enable new features and higher system performance, but to achieve a smoother workflow rhythm and eliminate any disruptive bottlenecks. An example called out was a pop-up window for fine tweaks in a 3D animation program that might take 6-10 seconds due to lack of optimisation rather than lack of processing power. It’s the entire stack of hardware and software, with Ternus noting this work includes third-party software as well as Apple’s….read more

RAW, a new format from Apple that combines the incredible performance of ProRes with the flexibility of RAW video. The ProRes RAW update will be available free for the Atomos Shogun Inferno and Sumo 19 devices.

Atomos devices are the only monitor recorders to offer ProRes RAW, with realtime recording from the pristine sensor output of Panasonic, Sony and Canon cameras. Atomos CEO Jeromy Young said: “We are incredibly proud to be the first ProRes RAW enabled product in the market and it’s free for our customers. The performance and flexibility of ProRes RAW means a huge leap forward for video production.”

Camera to Timeline – enabled by Atomos

The new upgrade brings ProRes RAW and ProRes RAW HQ recording, monitoring, playback and tag editing to all owners of an Atomos Shogun Inferno or Sumo19 devices. Once installed, it will allow the capture of RAW images in up to 12-bit RGB — direct from many of the world’s most advanced cameras onto affordable SSD media. ProRes RAW files can be imported directly into Final Cut Pro 10.4.1 for high performance editing, color grading, and finishing on Mac laptop and desktop systems.

Supported Cameras

Eight of the most popular cine cameras with a RAW output, including the Panasonic AUEVA1, Varicam LT, Sony FS5/FS7 and Canon C300mkII/C500, will be supported with more to follow.

Stunningly Beautiful, Simply Efficient

Top cinematographers have long known that the secret to creativity is RAW processing — traditionally complex and expensive, huge data rates and proprietary formats and media have made RAW slow, cumbersome and expensive. The efficient nature of ProRes RAW recorded to standard SSD drives in Atomos devices removes these limitations. Now filmmakers can work easily with RAW – whether they are shooting episodic TV, commercials, documentaries, indie films or social events.

Image Preservation for HDR

Shooting ProRes RAW preserves maximum dynamic range, with a 12-bit depth and wide color gamut – essential for HDR finishing. The new format, which is available in two compression levels — ProRes RAW and ProRes RAW HQ — preserves image quality with flow date rates and file sizes much smaller than uncompressed RAW.

Slow Motion and 5.7K

Atomos recorders through ProRes RAW allow for increased flexibility in captured frame rates and resolutions. Atomos can record ProRes RAW up to 2K at 240 frames a second, or 4K at up to 120 frames per second. Higher resolutions such as 5.7K from the Panasonic AUEVA1
are also supported.

Portable ProRes RAW in AtomOS 9

Atomos’ intuitive Operating System AtomOS 9 gives you all the filming tools to work efficiently and creatively with ProRes RAW in a portable device. Fast connections in and out and advanced HDR screen processing means every pixel is accurately and instantly available for on-set creative playback and review. Pull the SSD out and dock to your Mac over Thunderbolt 3 or USB-C 3.1 for immediate super fast post production. Atomos and ProRes RAW together are the most affordable production-to-finishing solution available today.

Availability

Download the AtomOS 9 update for Shogun Inferno and Sumo 19 here:  www.atomos.com/firmware

ProRes RAW is a new format from Apple that offers the quality and workflow advantages of RAW with the stunning performance of ProRes. With ProRes RAW, editors can import, edit and grade pristine footage with RAW data from the camera sensor, providing ultimate flexibility when adjusting highlights and shadows — ideal for HDR workflows. And with performance optimized for macOS, editors can play full-quality 4K ProRes RAW files on MacBook Pro and iMac systems in real time without rendering. ProRes RAW files are even smaller than ProRes 4444 files, allowing editors to make better use of storage while providing an excellent format for archiving.

Final Cut Pro editors can work natively with ProRes RAW and ProRes RAW HQ files created by Atomos recorders. The format will be available as a free update for owners of Atomos Sumo 19 and Shogun Inferno devices. The format will also be available as part of a forthcoming upgrade package to users of the DJI Inspire 2 drone and Zenmuse X7 Super 35mm camera system designed for aerial cinematography.

As closed captioning becomes increasingly important around the world, Final Cut Pro now includes powerful closed captioning tools for professional filmmakers, YouTubers and students looking to add captions to their projects without the need for expensive third-party software or services. Users can import closed caption files directly into their project or create them from scratch. Captions appear in the viewer during playback and can be attached to video or audio clips in the timeline, so they automatically move with the clips to which they’re connected. An all-new captions inspector makes it simple to adjust caption text, color, alignment, location and more. Users can even create captions in multiple languages within the same timeline and easily share captioned videos to YouTube and Vimeo. And in the share window, a new Roles tab displays titles, video and audio roles in a single consolidated interface, making it easy to configure roles and closed captions when sharing.

Motion 5.4.1 and ProRes RAW enable motion graphics artists to take full advantage of RAW image quality with superb performance and flexibility when designing graphics and effects. Compressor 4.4.1 gains support for closed captioning with comprehensive controls to view, adjust and deliver captions as part of a batch or iTunes Store package.

Click here to read more…

Click here to watch the video on YouTube.

From FCP.CO

The release of Final Cut Pro X back in July 21st 2011 certainly polarised the post production industry. Now a feature length documentary from Brad Olsen tells the story of how the world’s favourite NLE changed overnight and how the industry did or didn’t accept the new version.

I’ve been looking forward to Brad’s trial for a while. Slightly shocked that I’m first up, but I’m glad to be involved with such an exciting project. I’ll let Brad take up the story:

Off the Tracks is a documentary about how Final Cut Pro X has been disrupting the professional video industry. There are a lot of strong feelings about Apple’s pro editor and where you have controversy there’s a story to tell. Why did Apple stop making their popular professional video editing software in 2011 in favor of this radically changed application? Who is using Final Cut X today? Can we trust Apple to do the right thing for creative professionals in the future? These are the kinds of questions we’re addressing in this project.

Watch the trailer

This was an experiment, but it highlights that Apple are very close to enabling a collaborative workflow between Final Cut Pro X users. I’m no programmer, but having proved the concept can work with the existing version of FCPX, surely an ‘Event publish and subscribe’ feature wouldn’t be too hard to engineer for an update.

Avid has true collaborative workflow with bin locking, as we all know that’s expensive and the company has rocky financials. Premeire’s Media Browser browsing of projects is clumsy and won’t update once imported. Their Team Projects is in beta and (no surprise) requires more monthly fees. DaVinci Resolve’s project sharing requires a server to move databases, but it does look promising.

Apple have a huge opportunity here to jump ahead of the competition. With no configuration and no remote databases to set up and maintain, this could become the killer feature for Final Cut Pro X.

Imagine an assistant editor loading up an event with new logged footage. Or maybe (in my case) watching a growing file having marked ranges added by a logger. Or, as ChronoSync supports remote copying over the internet, waking up to find your FCPX Library populated with all the clips now sorted, rejected and favourited.

Very interesting times, over to you Apple.

Click here to watch the video on YouTube

Click here to read the full article on FCP.co

Opinion: Final Cut Pro X might have driven swarms of editors into the arms of Apple’s rivals, but with FCPX 10.3 Apple finally delivered on the promise of the software and, if you edit, you owe it to yourself to leave your preconceptions at the door and check it out. By Khaled Spiewak.

So once upon a time, FCPX was released and, like most of you, I hated it. Spat the dummy and thew all the toys out the pram. What was this? I thought. Why is my timeline constantly moving? What’s this Fischer Price effects on my side?! Away back to iMovie, with you! I’m a pro here.

It wasn’t a happy time. My humble beginnings of video editing dated back to 2003 using Final Cut Express all the way through to the mighty FCP7. I spent thousands of man hours trying to master my craft with the tools presented. I made a commitment. These were my tools for story telling and for what? Apple dragged it’s heels like a crazed grinning Jack Torrance wielding an axe and destroyed all that was beautiful and took seven years of MY experience with them. I felt betrayed….[continue reading]