Final Cut Pro X is the video editor that I’ve been dreaming about. The Move Towards Video Over the last few years we’ve seen a sharp increase in the amount of bloggers who are using video to not only present information in a new way to their readers, but also to do a better job of building relationships and selling a message. There’s no word when this extended free period will end, so you should download your copies of Final Cut Pro X and Logic Pro X and install them before this three-month trial disappears. Final Cut Pro Final Cut Pro is a huge leap forward for professional video editing. Powerful media organization features let you quickly browse, tag, and filter your files. The Magnetic Timeline offers customizable layouts and innovative editing tools that are designed for today’s all-digital workflows. To get a signal through the broadcast output of Final Cut Pro X, you have to have the A/V Output toggled on. If you look in the FCPX Playback preferences, it will tell you the signal format that FCPX will send out of the I/O box. This normally feeds a broadcast monitor for example or connects you into a larger system via an HD-SDI matrix. Though it is paid software, a 30 days free trial version of Final Cut Pro X is available for download on macOS 10.14.6 and later versions. Before purchasing the software, you can download this trial version to know the features and get the interface and the working of the software.
- Should I Get Final Cut Pro X For Windows
- How To Use Final Cut Pro
- Download Final Cut Pro Free
- Should I Get Final Cut Pro X Download Free
Recently, David asked:
“When exporting media, would ProRes 422 have a speed advantage over ProRes 422 LT?”
I was fascinated by this question, because I haven’t look at the speed differences between different versions of ProRes before.
However, I need to break this into two parts:
- Do different versions of ProRes render faster?
- What should we use for master file output?
THOUGHTS ON OUTPUT
Where possible, I always recommend exporting a master file at the highest quality possible. It is easy to convert a high-quality file into something smaller. It is impossible to convert a small file into high-quality.
- If you are working with RAW, HDR or Log files, export ProRes 4444
- If you are working with files created on the computer, i.e. After Effects or Motion, export ProRes 4444 with alpha
- If you are working with SD or HD media, export ProRes 422
The only exception to this rule is when getting a clip posted quickly is more important than quality. In which case, export a compressed file – H.264 or HEVC – and post that. However, as soon as possible after you get your story posted, go back and export a high-quality master file and save that for the future. Just in case…
Even though using a lower quality codec as the final export of a master file doesn’t make sense, there’s still a great deal of value in David’s question!
Since we can change render settings at any time, wouldn’t it be cool if we could choose a codec that renders faster for initial editing, then switch to a high-quality codec just before final output?
So, for this article, I wanted to see what the speed differences were between the different ProRes render options in Apple Final Cut Pro X. And, truthfully, the results surprised me!
A SIDE NOTE ON ADOBE PREMIERE PRO CC 2019
I originally planned to compare render speeds between FCP X and Premiere. But, as I got into my tests, I realized that would be like comparing oranges to ducks. They each approach rendering from a different point of view.
- Final Cut renders everything that doesn’t match the project settings, regardless of whether the computer can play the clips natively or not. This allows slower machines to handle larger, more complex files and edits, but at the cost of more storage space and time spent rendering. This additional time is hidden by FCP rendering in the background.
- Premiere doesn’t render unless it is unable to play a sequence. This means that you need a beefier system for Premiere than for Final Cut, but Premiere doesn’t require extra storage space for render files. It also means that exports take longer because rendering occurs during export.
![Cut Cut](https://usermanual.wiki/adobe/robohelp2015ugen.1891727298-User-Guide-Page-1.png)
There’s no “right” approach – but it is important to know the differences.
NOTE: Here’s an article comparing export speeds using different ProRes codecs in Premiere.
SOME BACKGROUND
Before we launch into the tests, let’s define a few terms:
- Render. This calculates a new video (or audio) clip from an existing clip, or clips, based upon the effects, transitions or titles applied to it. Rendering creates new video to match the project settings, not the settings of the source clip.
- Final Cut only renders when it needs to. If you don’t apply any effects, titles or transitions to a clip AND the project settings match the clip settings, no rendering occurs.
- A render file includes all clips and effects for each frame in the timeline into a single clip. In other words, multiple files are combined into a single, rendered file.
- Most importantly, FCP X renders in the background. This allows you to edit while rendering is going on. However, this also means that render times will vary depending upon other work your computer is doing. (We’ll see the ramifications of this in our tests below.)
By default, render files are stored in the Library, though you can change their storage location using Library > Properties.
NOTE: Here’s a video that explains how.
Faster CPUs and/or multiple cores will render faster. Faster GPUs may render faster, depending upon the codec; ProRes takes advantage of the GPU. However, faster CPUs or GPUs don’t achieve greater quality, just greater speed.
SPEED TESTS
For these tests, I’m using a 2017 27″ iMac. Different computers will render at different speeds, so, in these tests, look at the relationships between render speeds, not the actual speed itself.
All files were stored to the internal SSD, here’s the speed of my storage. (As you’ll discover, rendering does not max out the speed available from the SSD, which means that this storage bandwidth is more than sufficient.)
Should I Get Final Cut Pro X For Windows
For a source file, I took one of my recent webinar masters:
- ProRes 4444 (source)
- 1280 x 720 at 30 frames per second
- And edited it to be precisely 45 minutes in the timeline
To this I applied a single effect: scaling the entire image 50%. This forced FCP X to render the project. All tests were run with the same file, with the same effect. I deleted render files between tests.
NOTE: Applying more, or different, effects will require different render times. Scaling renders reasonably quickly, which is why I picked it.
One last note. Render speeds slow down when FCP X is not the foreground application or when the computer is doing other work. For these tests, I left FCP X as the foreground application and avoided doing other work with the computer. (I, ah, read a book…)
Here are the results:
NOTES
- All times are expressed as minutes:seconds.
- All media and render files were stored on the internal SSD.
- Timed with a stop watch, as determined by watching the Background Tasks window.
- I ran four tests of ProRes 422 LT just to see if any two render times matched. They didn’t. So I only ran three tests for the remaining versions.
SYSTEM PERFORMANCE
RAM
This computer only had 8 GB of RAM, however during rendering for ALL versions of ProRes, rendering was easily handled within 8 GB of RAM.
- Cache is the amount of memory dedicated to holding frequently used files.
- Swap is when RAM is insufficient and the computer needs to temporarily shuffle data out of RAM and onto the SSD. While this expands the total amount of storage, swapping also slows things down. No version of ProRes required swapping to the hard disk.
CPU
The CPU was fully occupied.
- System refers to operations controlled by the operating system.
- User refers to operations – such as FCP X – controlled by the user
You never want the CPU to be 100% occupied, some reserve is necessary to respond to mouse and keyboard actions.
GPU
The GPU was fully involved most of the time. Note the fall-off at the end, we’ll talk more about this below.
STORAGE
Final Cut transferred data from storage between 125 – 150 MB/second. Because it needed to process (i.e. calculate) the data in the file, it transfers data more slowly than if it were simply copying the file. In this screen shot, it is reading ProRes 4444 source files and created ProRes 422 LT.
WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?
Final Cut supports these codecs for rendering. I thought that the more compressed files – such as ProRes 422 LT – would render more quickly than larger formats.
But, as you can see from my tests, that really isn’t the case. In fact, every time I ran these tests, rendering took a different amount of time! This points out a key fact: render speed is dependent on what else your computer is doing at the time. While I tried to not run any other applications, the computer is ALWAYS doing something in the background.
There really isn’t a whole lot of difference between the three ProRes 422 codecs. The first time I ran this test, they were within eight seconds of each other.
ProRes 4444 takes roughly 17% longer to render than any of the three ProRes 422 codecs, I found this longer time to be consistent between tests.
Another trait I noticed in EVERY test was that as Final Cut got within 85% of completion, it slowed down. Rendering from 45-50% took 20 seconds. Rendering from 95-100% took 45 seconds. You can clearly see the slowdown in the GPU chart above, it started right at 85%. It is also visible in the CPU chart, though I don’t have a screen shot of it.
NOTE: While ProRes 422 LT, 422 and 4444 all slowed at 85%, ProRes 422 HQ consistently slowed at 70%. I don’t know why.
Also, while the three ProRes 422 codecs maxed out the CPU at 95-97%, rendering ProRes 4444 only pushed the CPU to 75% of capacity. Mcedit latest version. Again, I don’t know why.
SUMMARY
So, what can we learn from this?
- First, ProRes 422 codecs seem to render faster than ProRes 4444.
- Second, while you are doing your rough cuts, switch to a smaller codec – ProRes 422 or ProRes 422 LT – not for speed, but to save storage space.
- Third, FCP X retains all render files, even if you are not using them. This means if you experiment with different render settings, all your earlier files are still stored on your hard disk unless you purposefully get rid of them.
- You can always switch to a higher-quality codec for final output. If the files don’t exist, FCP X will create them during the export itself. There’s no loss in quality if you switch render codecs.
NOTE: To get rid of unneeded render files, select the Project or Event you want to clean up, then choose File > Delete Generated Event Files. Then, choose Delete Render Files. If you delete the wrong files, don’t panic. FCP will simply recreate them.
I found this exercise fascinating, because the results were not what I expected. If you have plenty of storage space, render in whatever codec you prefer. If storage space is tight, render in ProRes 422 or 422 LT.
But, in practical terms, there won’t be any significant difference in speed.
![Get Get](https://www.dpreview.com/files/p/articles/1570016706/FCPX_2.jpeg)
If you’ve been paying any attention to the tech world lately you’ve probably heard about the debacle that is Final Cut Pro X. For those of you who don’t know, FCP has been the defacto standard for professional video editors over the last few years, and Apple just released the newest version of it.
The reactions weren’t just bad, they were scathing. The editors of the Conan show even made a video about it.
I’ll say right now, these bad reviews from the pros are completely justified. I’m not sure how Apple could release a “professional” level application that won’t allow you to import old FCP projects, but will allow you to import iMovie projects.
That said, most of the features that have been left out will really be irrelvent to you unless you’re a professional.
So now that we’ve established that this program totally sucks in that regard, I want to say this:
Final Cut Pro X is the video editor that I’ve been dreaming about.
The Move Towards Video
Over the last few years we’ve seen a sharp increase in the amount of bloggers who are using video to not only present information in a new way to their readers, but also to do a better job of building relationships and selling a message.
For a long time I was reluctant to do much video on Location 180. I had a PC, and the editing options I had were either way too limited, or had too steep a learning curve for me to want to put much effort in to it. I also didn’t have a camera that shot high enough quality footage to make it worth my time.
Well things have changed. I’ve got a Mac now, and iMovie could not have made video editing more simple. I’ve also got a decent HD camera, so the quality is there.
Bottom line, these days I actually have a nice setup to capture and edit useful, high quality videos.
Over the next few years I think the bloggers who will be most successful are the ones who embrace a variety of different media channels to get their message across. Whether it’s video, audio, photography etc., everyone learns and prefers to take in information in different ways. Whether it’s through real or perceived value, the more you options you can give your readers, the better.
Due to this, I’ve been ramping up my video. It’s something I’ve always liked doing, but I’m just now finding how worth it is to brush up on my movie making chops and do things a bit different.
iMovie Was Great, and Now It’s Not
How To Use Final Cut Pro
When I first got my Mac and started playing around with iMovie, I couldn’t get over how great it was. Not only was it the easiest video editor I’ve ever used, but it was free. I got to the point where I could put together something decent in just a few minutes, and that program alone got me re-motivated to embrace video.
Well now it’s 6 months later and things are a little bit different. I’m expanding my abilities and the things I want to do, and unfortunately iMovie can’t quite keep up. Simple things like taking a mono audio track and expanding it to stereo so that the audio comes in both left and right channels is way more difficult than it should be. Actually, anything using audio in general with iMovie totally sucks.
Titles and captions in iMovie, while very easy to do have now become way too overused, and there is little flexibility to do anything different. Due to this, you can tell when something has been made by iMovie, because it all looks the same!
However, these issues pale in comparison to my biggest issue, which is importing video. I use a camera that shoots in what must be the most unfriendly video format known to man, AVCHD. While the video quality is excellent, it seems that for some reason it’s taken years for major software programs to come around to embracing the format.
iMovie can do nothing with this. Nothing.
So I have to use Adobe Media Encoder to encode it to something else, and with hundreds of options with very subtle differences, I never know what I’m going to get.
As you can tell, I’ve been waiting for an update to iMovie or something similar that keeps it’s ease of use while still giving me professional level tools.
Introducing iMovie Pro (ahem, Final Cut Pro X)
Some members of the media have not-so-affectionately referred to the latest FCP as “iMovie Pro”. I’d refer to it as the same thing, the difference is that I’m ecstatic about it, whereas they’ve made it a derogatory term.
There’s a reason for this though, FCP X looks and feels exactly like a better iMovie.
I’ve gone back and forth on the prospect of learning how to use previous versions of Final Cut. However, it isn’t cheap and there’s a relatively steep learning curve. I opened up FCP X for the first time and immediately was able to start editing. As mentioned above, I was even able to import old iMovie projects.
This version of FCP is exactly what I’d hoped a newer iMovie would be, but I never expected this program to have the Final Cut Pro name on it. Does that matter to me? Absolutely not. Should it matter to you? Chances are, absolutely not.
So what are some of the features that I’m most excited about? And how does this help me as a blogger?
- Improved audio capabilities – I recently purchased a sweet lavalier mic off Amazon that’s perfect for shooting interviews or doing videos in places where there’s normally a lot of background noise. The problem is that it’s a mono mic, so if left alone, sound will only come from one channel. For some crazy reason iMovie has no way to deal with this aside from exporting it into a sound editing program and changing it that way. If you’re going to embrace video, it’s small investments like this that will make a world of difference, and FCP X will make your life a thousand times easier.
- Native Support for AVCHD – This alone was worth it for me. I took my memory card, put it in my computer, hit import, and immediately it recognized my files. You have no idea how excited I was the first time I did this. This is saving me hours of work, and ultimately giving me much higher quality video.
- Ability to Set In/Out Points – iMovie was made simple on purpose, but due to this, it became too simple. Things like trimming a clip or selecting pieces of a clip to use were kind of a pain due to their simplicity. Not anymore. FCP X has all of the features like this that a video editor should have, while still maintaining ease of use.
- Greater Flexibility With Effects and Titles – My movies don’t have to look like they were done in iMovie anymore. Sure many of the same features are there, and it’s still just as easy to add them, but now there are many more options which are more customizable that allow me to be much more creative with my work.
I could go on, but you can see all of the features here
I’m Not a Professional
If by some chance you happen to be a professional video editor and you’re reading, you’re probably shaking your head in disgust as I write this. I (admittedly) don’t really know much about video editing. The things that excite me are probably the most basic of features, but you know what? I’m ok with that.
I really believe that if you have a blog, and you want to see significant growth over the next few years, you’ll be at a huge advantage if you learn how to utilize video in one way or another. As technology and bandwidth improve, it’s only going to get easier to add video, and the demand will just keep rising.
Download Final Cut Pro Free
If you decide to take this seriously iMovie will very quickly leave you limited in what you can do. FCP 7, Adobe Premiere and Avid will take more time than you’re probably willing to commit to become proficient at. FCP X is the perfect balance between profesional and amateur and is without a doubt the best video editor I’ve ever used for my own, non-professional purposes.
If you do anything with video right now and use iMovie, spend the $300 and upgrade to Final Cut Pro X, I promise the quality of your videos will improve dramatically.
NOTE: There are no affiliate links or anything of the sort in this post, I just really feel FCP is that good for amateur videographers.
Should I Get Final Cut Pro X Download Free
Today I’ve also released the final video in the 4 part Location Rebel video series. It’s called Job Security 2.0 and Happiness. If you haven’t checked out Location Rebel, now would be an awesome time to do so.
In the coming week there will be a lot more information released on the program itself, as well as an introduction to our three case studies that we’ll be following along with.