Hello,

I want to check if I'm doing something wrong, forgetting a step somewhere, or if my suspicion is correct:

I loaded in an XDCAM HD Quicktime in FCP X. I just wanted to do a quick export without audio.
I set the project settings on 'First Video Clip', and just dropped the clip integral in the timeline. Just a 5 minute clip.

When I exported, I just went for Export Media, and I choose Export Video Only and Current Settings.
In my logic, this would be XDCAM HD. Why? I picked the project setting based on the first clip (which is XDCAM HD) and in the export I choose 'CURRENT setting'.

This would take me 10 seconds to export in FCP 7, because it would just copy the media (If you're not having color correction, just some cuts or dissolves). In FCP X this process took 7 minutes, and afterwards I had a Prores File. So the export converted everything to Prores.
So next to the fact that my export took a WHOLE lot longer then in FCP 7, it also gave me a file 3 times as big.

Now, this is my suspicion, but someone please correct me if I'm wrong:
- if you choose the setting in the project, it's only about frame size and framerate... not codec
- your render settings are only Prores and Uncompressed. You don't have any other option.
- In the export you only have Prores or Quicktime to choose from, and considering the fact that following all 'current settings' options in FCP X STILL made the program convert everything to another codec, is proof that FCP X can NOT really output in the 'current settings' in the same way FCP 7 did. You can render out to Compressor, but it's a work around, and not always fail proof.

Is my suspicion correct, or did I make a mistake somewhere?

Because if I'm correct, it would be a big blow to using FCP X in my facility.
We often do congresses where you have 10 hour days filled with 8-minute presentations. Workflow now is importing footage (hour by hour, while the congress is going, often with XDCAM discs coming in), cutting in FCP 7 (just cuts and dissolves/fades), export (which happens very quickly), and then we do batch renders trough Compressor with a Matrox MXO2, to deliver presentations in H.264 around 2 hours after the presentation was made.
And we have to do this a lot (10 hour congress day divided by 8 minute presentations... do the math ). But exporting in FCP 7 only takes 10 seconds or something. It just copies the media, and adds fades, and maybe some audio volume changes.
So if in this scenario, FCP X is only able to output quickly (Export Media is still the quickest) to Prores or Uncompressed instead of following the video codec of the Project (in this case XDCAM HD), then we cannot use it.

In the scenario described above (delivering H.264 2 hours after presentation), we cannot have waiting real time for our HD-export (8 minutes instead of 10 seconds) and having discs fill up with file sizes 3 times as big as if we would just keep the export in XDCAM HD (like we do now).

Am I wrong or correct?
FCP X can not output to XDCAM HD, except maybe going through Compressor?
Choosing Export Media to export your HD master is only Prores or Uncompressed, no matter what 99 percent of the codec in your timeline is?
And, following that, there is no real 'current setting', because that only sets a base for frame size and frame rate?

Kind regards,

Works just fine here.

But XD Cam is really an acquisition format, not an edit format.
If you turn off rendering in FCP X then you should just be editing natively.
Remember also that FCP X is waaaaaay faster than FCP 7.
So maybe adjusting you're workflow to export from FCP X as H.264 will be the way to go.

Current settings are the render settings. XDCAM is not an option.

@Seanus: XDCAM isn't a bad format to work in. FCP 7 can do it without a problem.
I wouldn't finish a feature film on it, but for work without color correction it's not a problem.
It gives good quality and is small enough so we can fit 3 days of congress and the edits on a RAID1 1TB.

Yes, I remember that FCP X is waayyy faster then FCP7, this is why this hurts so much. Yes, I have this program that edits great (once you get used to it), and can use all the computer power, but if you are stuck suddenly with transcoding everything you export to Prores or Uncompressed, instead of just your original video codec (letting the NLE copy big parts of the image) I'm getting an export that's maybe 10 times as long as in FCP 7.
You can argue that FCP X is way faster (it is, in a lot of things), but suddenly a simple 'cuts and output' operation got 10 times slower.

I appreciate the response, though!

@Tom: thanks for the confirmation. That's really bad news though. If FCP X itself can output only Prores and Uncompressed.

If the project is not set to auto render and then you go to output to XD Cam shouldn't that negate any conversion to Pro Res? Remember Apple actually recommends that some codecs are edited natively.

www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/news/839-apple-...a-in-final-cut-pro-x

And no no you are not transcoding everything to ProRes. I'm doing a job right now that is going to cinema and it's all native Canon XF.

I edit native and export my 4 minute preview segments straight to H.264 in about 6 minutes.

Yes, I've read that, that's what makes it all the stranger. I'll try again, and check off background render and also see if I make a setting in Compressor that I use in FCP, if it does a 'normal' export. But probably it will recompress everything.

Hopefully not. Good luck.

Okay, so I did this test (and they confirmed what I feared) to compare. (MBP 13" 8GB RAM)

I took the 5 minute source XDCAM HD file.
I put background rendering off. Made a new Event, put it in there, not working with proxy media or anything.
I made 3 new projects, all with the same presets, namely: video properties following the first clip in the timeline.
I cut 2 times a 1 minute clip from the source file, and put it in the timeline, getting a timeline that's exactly 2 minutes long.

Those 3 projects I exported from FCP X using 3 settings:

- CURRENT SETTINGS in FCP X.
This gave me a Prores File, even though I picked current settings AND picked video properties of the first clip. Export time: 2 minutes and 21 seconds.

- EXPORT MEDIA XDCAM HD 35Mbps
I hadn't seen this option before, but checking the Video Codec in the Export window, next to Current Settings and Prores I also had some DVC PRO HD and XDCAM HD etc. options. So I could see XDCAM HD 35Mbps in the Export Media. I don't know if this is standard, or it's because of an XDCAM plugin installation in FCPX, but considering that my original source media is the same format, I decided to pick this.
Export time: 3 minutes and 27 seconds. So it re-compressed everything.

- EXPORT USING COMPRESSOR SETTINGS
I dropped my source media in the Compressor 4 Settings windows, saving it as a preset, insuring that I had a preset that had EXACT the same settings as my source media. When exporting in FCP X I choose: Export using Compressor Settings, and choose that one.
Export time: 2 minutes and 51 seconds.


Now the kicker:

- EXPORT USING FCP 7 - EXPORT QUICKTIME MOVIE - CURRENT SETTINGS:
I did the same in FCP 7. Dropped in the source media, and took the exact same 2 clips of 1 minute and dropped them in the timeline. Let the timeline take over the settings of the clip, like it asks automatically.
I then did an Export Quicktime Movie, using Current Settings.
Export Time: 35.9 seconds.

So even the fastest FCP X export time was 5 times as long as old FCP 7 on the same hardware.
This is a really serious issue. This implies that FCP X ALWAYS recompresses on output, while FCP 7 would just copy your media if you did straight cuts and exported using the same video codec.

I would have thought the test should go.

Ingest into FCP 7 edit, export, convert to H.264

Ingest into FCP X, edit, export straight to H.264

I sill don't understand why you want to keep master files in long GOP format.

Anyway it's up to you.

Ingesting for both is the same, going trough XDCAM TRANSFER to have it Quicktime wrapped.

FCPX Will have native MXF support later this year, but not yet.

If we have our master files in XDCAM HD, we have them in the same format as the original acquisition format.

Rendering to h.264 Goes fast in FCPX, but we use compressor with hardware acceleration from Matrox MXO2 with MAX technology.

Ow, and BenB, I don't know why you keep sayingm that I'm not right that fcp7 can simply copy media during export so here you go, straight from the Apple fcp7 documentation:

documentation.apple.com/en/finalcutpro/u...ion-44035QTM-1008905

HI sidderke,

Here is my 2 cents. I did some quick tests on my end as we shoot HDV (like your XDCAM) and Canon h264 mostly and like you said FCP X has to transcode (render) anything that is not ProRes during export. It's very quick (real time on my system) but nothing like the few seconds needed for FCP 7 to export. I was actually surprised by this as my perception has been that FCP X has been faster.

In FCP X every timeline is some flavor of ProRes period. FCP7 on the ether hand can make sequence settings any codec. So FCP7 is not transcoding on export while FCPX is.

So if you workflow is cuts only (no color correction, or titles etc.) and you need to export back to a MPEG2 format then FCP 7 (possible Premier, I don't' now) is going to be much faster than FCP X. I would stick with FCP 7. It works great for what you need.

I realized that things were faster for me in FCP X because I do color correct all my HDV footage. In that case FCP X is faster when exporting back to HDV (or ProRes). I did a quick test clip in 7 and X and 7 took 3 minutes to render during export while X took a little over 2 minutes (just a 95 second timeline). I'm on a MacPro 2006 so things are a bit slower for me.

Sorry for the bad news about FCP X. But if you need start color correcting or adding titles then FCP X will be the way to go.

Optimizing on import makes export fly way faster than FCP 7.

Ben - Indeed. However XDCAM and HDV are considered optimized already and cannot be transcoded to anything but Proxy in FCP X.

Right, forgot about that. I never use those formats, so I keep forgetting Apple stupidly decided to make us use them natively. On or after Import, is the Optimize option disabled for those formats? Is it "forced" on us?

Hi Ben,

Yes. Optimze is greyed out.

It is really not a problem at all during editing, just export.

And if you're trying to do a 4 camera multicam edit on a laptop with a FW800 drive.

Good point. Of course you wouldn't transcode and work in proxy if that was the case.

Actually I have been transcoding to proxy for my HDV stuff. Purely out of habit.

"In FCP X every timeline is some flavor of ProRes period."

Not sure if this is correctly categorized. An FCPX timeline is whatever clips are in it. Only rendering is in a specific codec. If you're working XDCAM, you can export XDCAM. The media in the timeline is XDCAM or H.264 or HDV or whatever, and is not automatically made into ProRes.

I stand corrected. Graciously corrected in fact.

I was trying to get the point across that there is no codec setup for a timeline like there is in FCP 7. I think it would be best to describe a FCP X timeline as independent of a specific codec, if it can play back something on the timeline it just does.

However, exporting is a different story. If you have HDV on our timeline and then export HDV, it appears that FCP X is in fact transcoding from HDV to 'internal codec" to HDV, just from the time it takes to to do it.

Does that make sense?