What is Your Editing Drug of Choice?....for the 5D

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Bill Davis

...more editing is done on Apple/FCP than any other editing system in the world.

Given the cost of a machine to do editing, and the cost of FCP, I would bet REAL money this is not the case. A bit of research into those statistics has sussed out some very interesting metrics, but I won't argue that FCP remains a very popular editing system. And knowing how to use it, Avid, and Premiere will go a long way toward making one a marketable entity in the editing field.

[Tim Kolb]

Originally Posted by Bill Davis

...Working on 2 million paid seats out there - Final Cut Pro is hands down the most used editing software system in the world right now.
.

While I'd agree that FCP has a huge marketshare, the videoguys blog from October, 2009 notes:

"Apple claims 1.3 million licensed Final Cut users, however, this figure includes all Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Express and Final Cut Studio licenses since day one, excluding upgrades."

link: Videoguys Blog - Final Cut vs. Avid Redux

If Apple's "claim" is 1.3M including all those versions and caveats, I'd say that 2 million "paid" seats is likely an over-estimate.


Since this isn't an NLE religion discussion (though I agree that whether or not to standardize your gear to the industry is a worthwhile consideration), these types of statements are probably unnecessary as they tend to be what takes these discussions way off topic.

I would say that I'm more interested in opinions on Edius and Vegas and other NLE systems from those who actually work with them, as they know what's possible and what's not through actual experience.

[William Japhet]

Now, the best editor choice for me. It can edit 5D files, or everything Quicktime read, WITHOUT CONVERSION (Direct link the files or folder) with AMA system. Without conversion = without lost of quality and you don't have to wait to edit...

I have (with Sony EX1 and 3) edited lot of documentaries and TV programs with this AMA system, that works perfectly if your folders organization is simple and clear.

With the #5, Avid is now universal.

William.

[Noa Put]

Thanks for the clarification Bill but I think it doesn't help the topic starter much, his question was if the type of software dictate the quality of the video when handling dslr footage.
if he refers to output quality I think that his 100 dollar pinnacle software can output in practically the same quality as any NLE out there, if his pc is fast enough to handle 2 streams of mpeg4 and if studio 14 allow him to make and deliver his weddings/events without any headache and if that makes him happy then I don't see a reason to upgrade.
if his question would be what NLE will give him the best realtime performance with dslr footage when applying colorcorrection and effects, then studio 14 is not good enough anymore and you need an NLE that like adobe can utilize the hardware in a very good way without transcoding to achieve realtime performance or you need an NLE that uses intermediate codecs that take the compression out of mpeg4 like Canopus, fcp do or with almost any other NLE using cineforms codecs.

[Mike Watson]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

if he refers to output quality I think that his 100 dollar pinnacle software can output in practically the same quality as any NLE out there, if his pc is fast enough to handle 2 streams of mpeg4 and if studio 14 allow him to make and deliver his weddings/events without any headache and if that makes him happy then I don't see a reason to upgrade.

I agree that the Pinnacle software outputs video of just as good quality as any other NLE out there. 95% of what I do is cuts and dissolves, and I bet Pinnacle does cuts and dissolves just as easy (perhaps easier) than any other NLE on the market.

Furthermore I find that indy guys that use obscure editing software typically learned to shoot/edit using that software and have never used anything else. These are typically older guys and it is difficult/impossible for them to move over to another software, ESPECIALLY a jump like pinnacle (point -> click) to AVID or FCP (which are infinitely powerful and more complicated). Folks who learned on FCP / AVID / Newscutter can pick up Vegas or even Pinnacle in ten minutes and be proficient (although repeatedly hitting the wrong hotkeys!), but the guys who learned on Video Toaster and have been using it for ten years might try for a year to learn FCP and just never be as good.

In short, if you're using it now, it does what you want, you know how to use it, and you work for yourself... I can't think of a reason to upgrade.

[Jon Fairhurst]

My editing drug of choice?

Coffee. Lots and lots of coffee... (As to the NLE, Vegas and Cineform with a pinch of After Effects.)

Personally, I'm surprised that the word "grading" hasn't come up in the conversation. To me, that's what separates the tools from the toys.

As to one's choice of NLE, everything does cuts. And everything does HD these days. And maybe you can scrub h.264 on the latest CS5 machine which is nice for fast turnaround, but once you start doing grading and effects, you don't want your CPU bogged down with decoding. So get a good, fast, 10-bit 4:2:2 (or better) codec, whatever the brand. With Cineform available for about $100, it's a no brainer (unless you use ProRes.)

Then there's the platform, built-in effects, ease of use, and cost, but that gets into NLE religion and lore. If your NLE is comfortable to use and meets your needs here, be happy and use it.

Now, to grading. Step 1 is to decode the MOV files properly. Many NLEs use Quicktime to decode the 5D files and it screws up the gamma. What's worse is that by messing with the gamma in the 8-bit domain, it leaves gaps in the levels and will mash some of the color tones together.

Vegas uses Quicktime by default, and I would guess that most others do as well. Cineform fixes the problem. And it provides a 10-bit, 4:2:2 result. So if you use Vegas or any other NLE that uses Quicktime for decoding the MOV files, Cineform is pretty much a "must buy" item.

Stu Maschwitz recommends applying noise reduction as the first step in the grading chain - even if it's used at a super light setting. Why? Because it will create values that are "in between" the 8-bit values that you get out of the camera. If your project is in 4:4:4, it can also fill in those spatial areas with "in between" values. Overall, you can arrive at a silky smooth image that will avoid contours down the road. The Neat Video plugin is a good, inexpensive choice.

And here's where the right choice of NLE comes in... Does your NLE support more than 8-bit processing? Does it support better than 4:2:0? If not, you will almost always get contour lines in your final grade.

Vegas allows a 32-bit float processing mode. Stick with 8-bits for faster, creative editing, but render in 32-bit mode. With a 32-bit render, those 8-bit contour lines will likely not appear.

And, of course, you want good grading tools. Vegas' color correction isn't bad. You can add plugins, though not all plugin makers support Vegas. And there's always After Effects. Pretty much all the plugin makers support AE.

Don't ask me which NLEs support more than 8-bit processing. I have no idea. The market changes quickly. But I know that Vegas and AE do. And the results look silky smooth - even with an 8-bit h.264 DvSLR recording as the original source.

[Bill Davis]

[QUOTE=Tim Kolb;1541581]While I'd agree that FCP has a huge marketshare, the videoguys blog from October, 2009 notes:

"Apple claims 1.3 million licensed Final Cut users, however, this figure includes all Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Express and Final Cut Studio licenses since day one, excluding upgrades."

link: Videoguys Blog - Final Cut vs. Avid Redux

If Apple's "claim" is 1.3M including all those versions and caveats, I'd say that 2 million "paid" seats is likely an over-estimate.

SNIP

I'd agree that it's not religion. Just market surveying - which most businesses have learned is a useful tool for determining which brands/tools are likely to stand the test of time.

As to the numbers above, "Final Cut Pro" and "Final Cut Studio" are the SAME product. FCP was sold as a standalone once upon a time. Today it's sold as part of a "Studio" package - but the software is ONE thing. As to Final Cut Express - I'm sure there are some folks out there using it happily. But I can't believe it's skewing the numbers very much since it's a home user stand-alone product that's never, for example, been BUNDLED with systems - the type of practice that tends to artificially enhance user numbers with some low priced editing software products.

The number of FCP seats I was quoting came from the last NAB in April 2010 where the "approaching 2 million paid seats" factoid was widely quoted.

The point is NOT to suggest that there aren't other perfectly excellent software packages out there that do what FCP does. It's simply to indicate that when you see ads for editors these days - you'll nearly exclusively see AVID and FCP mentioned. I have never seen an ad asking for a Premier, or Vegas specific editor - understanding that this IN NO WAY indicates the quality of the solution. Just the job market as it stands today.

CS5 is making a huge bid right now to change those statistics. It's recent refresh has put it's features ahead of FCP in many users minds. The market is wating for Apple to respond. FCP is clearly quite long in the tooth in terms of a major rev.

We've all likely seen the Steve Jobs quote about how Apple is firmly behind FCP and is working on some form of top secret "killer" upgrade. Smoke and mirrors? Or a glimpse into the future? Only time will tell.

But if you're going to tie your ability to earn a living over your lifetime to an industry as fickle as video production - it makes sense to seek out accurate info as to what tools are out there - which tend to be most popular - and how those choices might affect what you spend your time working on.

YMMV.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Bill Davis

I'd agree that it's not religion. Just market surveying - which most businesses have learned is a useful tool for determining which brands/tools are likely to stand the test of time.

The number of FCP seats I was quoting came from the last NAB in April 2010 where the "approaching 2 million paid seats" factoid was widely quoted.

But if you're going to tie your ability to earn a living over your lifetime to an industry as fickle as video production - it makes sense to seek out accurate info as to what tools are out there - which tend to be most popular - and how those choices might affect what you spend your time working on.

YMMV.

I am glad we're successfully skirting the NLE religion wars here. Fact is, at this level of the game, if your $1k+ NLE isn't VERY good, you will soon be out of the business. These apps are ALL very good.


But here's what's troubling to me about the numbers. Especially in the context you are highlighting about making your living with an app.

Nearly 2 million paid seats. Think about that for a moment. It has been reported more than once that these figures are derived from the sales of Final Cut. Not just FCP or FCS. But ANY Final Cut. Let's put that aside for moment though at take the numbers on their face.

Two million. That's a STAGGERING number.

Detroit has a population of just over 900,000 residents
Dallas, 1.2 Million
Philly, 1.5 Million
Houston, 2.2 Million

You'll forgive me, but I find it nearly impossible to fathom that there are nearly as many FCP users are there are people in Dallas and Detroit combined.

When you look at Apple's numbers regarding how small a financial footprint Apple Pro Apps is, and then you work the math of 2 Million people using a $1k professional editing application... That's a 2 BILLION dollar userbase. Nevermind the $2500 computer underneath that application.

Let's back up even further. Let's assume that Apple is absolutely DESTROYING the PC in terms of market penetration. Maybe 80% of the market. Is that fair? And in that relatively slim 20%, there is room for Avid, Premiere Pro, Vegas, and Edius to all manage a healthy and brisk business. None of them seem to be faltering, and most have new products within the past 12 months.

How big must the market be then? Are we talking 5 Million seats combined? If we take the numbers at face value we would be talking 5-10 MILLION professional editing seats out there. Imagine it. The equivalent to the population of LA or NYC all with a professional editing application on their high end computer.

Now clearly, we are going to see 5-20 seat post houses and that will account for some. But how many 20 seat post houses are there in the world? 100? 1000? Even if there were a thousand of them, that would still be a tiny fraction of the estimated seats. We add in broadcast TV. Avid's pretty strong there still. So what are we talking, maybe 8-10k stations arround the world with a dozen licenses each? That's just a crazy guess. I really have no idea. I just can't for the life of me, wrap my head around the idea that there are nearly 2 million FCP editors in the world.

Final Cut was introduced in 1999. And I don't think it's a secret to anyone that they didn't garner much market penetration until version 2 was introduced 2 years later. So in that 9-11 years they managed to sell nearly 2 million copies. Avid started some 11 years sooner and basically had no real competition for a lot of that time. I wonder if Avid counted their seats from the dawn of their existence, how many seats they would have....

Anyway, Those are just my miscellaneous ramblings on this baffling number I keep hearing getting tossed around. I never do hear any breakdown of the number though. How many working pros that number encompasses. How many kids in the basement. How many of those seats are academic freebies or heavily discounted copies.

If we are going to use numbers to assess the working professional market, it would make sense to count the seats being used by working professional editors. At least to my mind, that's how it should be.

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Perrone Ford

Nigel,

While I agree, there are two instances where I find doing basic editing with these native codecs very valuable.

The first is in quick-turnaround work. This could be broadcast news with things coming in from the field. Or it could be wedding stuff with a Same Day Edit. In both cases, doing a traditional import, cut, export is REALLY tough.

We are really searching for an editor that would ease the pain of doing this sort of work which is why I have been considering CS5 & MC5 on Mac & even EDIUS V5.5 on Windows. I got the trial of CS5 but after I had waited for 1.9GB to download I discovered that what Adobe don't tell you about the trial is that it doesn't support editing Canon 5D Mk II H.264 MPEG4 files natively so it's impossible for me to evaluate whether it would suit our purposes. I don't know if there is a similar restriction with the trial of Avid MC5 but the evidently the minimum specifications for running MC5 are an Nvidia GeForce graphics card but our Mac Pros have ATI cards so I am not sure whether it is worth downloading the trial as without a $400 graphics card upgrade I cannot properly evaluate MC5.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Nigel Barker

We are really searching for an editor that would ease the pain of doing this sort of work which is why I have been considering CS5 & MC5 on Mac & even EDIUS V5.5 on Windows. I got the trial of CS5 but after I had waited for 1.9GB to download I discovered that what Adobe don't tell you about the trial is that it doesn't support editing Canon 5D Mk II H.264 MPEG4 files natively so it's impossible for me to evaluate whether it would suit our purposes. I don't know if there is a similar restriction with the trial of Avid MC5 but the evidently the minimum specifications for running MC5 are an Nvidia GeForce graphics card but our Mac Pros have ATI cards so I am not sure whether it is worth downloading the trial as without a $400 graphics card upgrade I cannot properly evaluate MC5.

MC5 trial is fully functional. As was MC4. I produced real work in both of them! The graphics card for Avid is a big deal because Avid uses the CUDA engine to accelerate it's work. The trial will still run, and you'll still be able to try out your 5D files, but you won't get the performance boost you would be, if you were using a CUDA card. And you may have some screen overlay issue. Honestly, that kind of thing should really be expected.

That said, I've tried working with 5D files via AMA in the Avid. It's not zippy on my 2 machines, but I with an i7 it should be smooth. I don't know what kind of machine you have. I don't know if Edius brings a better experience to the table or not. It says it accelerates AVCHD, but the 5D files are NOT AVCHD.

Honestly, nothing out there is really ready to do these 5D/7D files smoothly. If you can live with that, you should be in business. Like I said, I know it works in Avid MC5 because I've done it.

[Noa Put]

It says it accelerates AVCHD, but the 5D files are NOT AVCHD

I can edit my 550d footage natively without the image stuttering on a Q6600 pc, have only tried one stream so far but am not expecting it to handle 2 streams as I experienced stuttering of the 550d audio, don't know if that was soft- or hardware related. As all my other M2T files don't have that problem I"m guessing my Q6600 is running against it's limits when it comes to handling the 550d footage.

[Bill Davis]

Originally Posted by Perrone Ford

SNIP

Nearly 2 million paid seats. Think about that for a moment. It has been reported more than once that these figures are derived from the sales of Final Cut. Not just FCP or FCS. But ANY Final Cut. Let's put that aside for moment though at take the numbers on their face.

Two million. That's a STAGGERING number.

Detroit has a population of just over 900,000 residents
Dallas, 1.2 Million
Philly, 1.5 Million
Houston, 2.2 Million

SNIP

be.

Perrone,

It's only a "staggering" number if you limit your thinking to the US.

These are WORLDWIDE numbers.

FCP has been localized, just like the Mac OS, to work all over the world.

So the cat working at an FCP seat in Spain, or in Italy, or in the UK counts equally. As would someone working an AVID seat.

Also, just as food for thought, I don't know a single Advertising Agency I've been in in the last 5 years, nor a single Corporate art/marketing department that wasn't running Macs for their in-house graphics stuff. And I suspect that those machines are also nearly ALL configured with FCP for in-house client presentations and the like.

Add that to the worldwide thing and I don't think theres any real compelling reason to doubt Apple's statistics.

For what it's worth.

[Bill Davis]

Originally Posted by Perrone Ford

MC5 trial is fully functional. As was MC4. I produced real work in both of SNIP

Honestly, nothing out there is really ready to do these 5D/7D files smoothly. If you can live with that, you should be in business. Like I said, I know it works in Avid MC5 because I've done it.

Sorry, to take issue Perrone, but I'm here to tell you that while I agree nothing currently out there will edit NATIVE 5d H264 files smoothly, the automatic Pro Rez 422 downconvert now built directly into the Canon EOS Utility produces 1920 x 1080 Pro Rez 422 files that edit PERFECTLY SMOOTHLY on even a modestly configured machine like mine (Intel MacPro Dual Core 4 processor 266 Xenon) running a pretty stock ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT.

I've been doing 5d work for about a year now, and while it was a bit bumpy at the start - today it's nearly as smooth as editing DV material. (So long as you don't stack up half a dozen HD tracks and expect the computer to zip through them all!)

The biggest problem I currently face is that FCP still gets confused a bit if you switch back and forth between HD and SD projects too often.

Trashing prefs usually fixes things - but I think the current version of the program is happier if you pick a workflow - configure for that - and stick with it - rather than trying to re-clock everything to handle different frame rates and raster sizes every hour or so.

My experience, anyway.

YMMV.

[Perrone Ford]

Yea, I was thinking worldwide. That's still a LOT of seats man... 200k a year.

If that number is really accurate, and FCP/FCS alone accounts for $2Bln dollars in revenue for Apple, it's just astounding that they have coddled that market more than they have.

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Bill Davis

but I'm here to tell you that while I agree nothing currently out there will edit NATIVE 5d H264 files smoothly

If you would be doing a lot of CC and effects yes but for straight edits? Even my pc can handle one stream almost natively, the video looks realtime but you can hear by the audio that the pc has problems keeping up. On a modern I7 you could easily edit at least 2 streams of native dslr footage.