Some digging into FCPX 10.3 - Import

For starters, importing all kind of footage from my sample footage folder:
- Atomos Ninja Flame
- Canon C300, 5DMKIII
- Panasonic GH4
- Sony A7S, A7RII, F5, FS5, FS7
- DV, DVCPro, DVCAM, HDV
All these guys check, looking good, with proper Timecode, yeah! I notice that the Log setting is available for ALL, even footage that's not Log originated. Interesting.

- Red R3D, nope!
Ah! Need to install RED APPLE WORKFLOW INSTALLER from Red website.
OK, done, and check, all good.

Here is the list of formats officially supported:

Supported media formats

You can import and work with the following video, audio, and still-image formats in Final Cut Pro:

Video formats

• Apple Animation codec
• Apple Intermediate codec
• Apple ProRes (all versions)
• AVCHD (including AVCCAM, AVCHD Lite, and NXCAM)
• AVC-ULTRA (including AVC-LongG, AVC-Intra Class 50/100/200/4:4:4, and AVC-Intra LT)
• DV (including DVCAM, DVCPRO, and DVCPRO50)
• DVCPRO HD
• H.264
• HDV
• iFrame
• Motion JPEG (OpenDML only)
• MPEG IMX (D-10)
• QuickTime formats
• REDCODE RAW (R3D)
• Uncompressed 8-bit 4:2:2
• Uncompressed 10-bit 4:2:2
• XAVC (including XAVC-S)
• XDCAM HD/EX/HD422
• XF-AVC

Audio formats

• AAC
• AIFF
• BWF
• CAF
• MP3
• MP4
• WAV

Still-image formats

• BMP
• GIF
• JPEG
• PNG
• PSD (static and layered)
• RAW
• TGA
• TIFF

Container formats

• 3GP
• AVI
• MOV (QuickTime)
• MP4
• MTS/M2TS
• MXF

Avid Media Composer 8.6.4 needs an updated R3D Plug-in

Looks like I need to update my current R3D Plug-in for MC - R3DSK v4.6, also known as Avid Media Access (AMA) RED R3D Plug-in 1.11.0

- Where to find the old one:
/Library/Application Support/Avid/AVX2_Plug-ins/AMA

It shows as: "MVP_MSP_REDR3D.avx", move it away (I keep my old AMA Plug-ins in an OBSOLETE AMA folder.)


- Where to download the new one from Avid: Red Ama Plug-in

The new one is: v6.2.2, also known as Avid Media Access (AMA) RED MVP & MSP plug-in 1.19.0.10000

Do We Need A Dedicated SSD Device For NLEs Caches? YES! Definitely For Large Projects (Features.)

Are we at a point where we now need a dedicated -fast- device exclusively reserved for Caching?  Will that decrease response time and thus will make our apps more responsive?

-- Bruce Johnson from Provideocoalition says YES! In the case of PCs and Adobe Premiere.

-- Definitely a boost for FCPX as well

-- How about Resolve?

The location of Cache can be set in FCPX in the Library Properties/Storage Location/Modify Settings:

in Premiere under Project Settings:

 AND under Preferences/Media (Previews):

in After Effects under Preferences/Media and Disk Caches:

in Avid MC under Settings/Media Cache:

in Resolve under Project Settings/General Options:

Now, you will notice that these Apps cache different things... Also Caches can grow really big in the case of AE, quickly eating hundred of GB out of your disk.

Adobe explicitly explains in AE that it is best to use a SSD separate from your footage:

So, for the sake of experiment, I will be adding a SSD to my main Mac soon, and I will set the Caches to this dedicated SSD, see if I get improved performances on these apps.

Let me know what kind of results you get with your own experimentation!

Sierra!

Yeah baby, macOs Sierra, 10.12! 

I'm careful, I'm doing a fresh install on a fresh SSD on a MacPro 3.2Ghz quad core.

(I'm still on Yosemite on my other machines, I decided to skip 10.11 El Capitan altogether.)

So far so good, Os installed, Os updated, no problemo. Apple Pro Apps installed: FCPX, Motion, Compressor, all good.

Signed-in and installed Adobe Creative Cloud, PP, AE, PS, AI, AU, AME, all went smoothly, I even installed PP CS6 to have Encore handy, all are launching fine.

I had to migrate my font collection, and had a few red flags from Font Book. Not sure why. I didn't install the flagged fonts to stay safe.

(Note to self: I will try to keep this system drive as light and clean as possible.)

Next, I need to install Avid MC, BMD Desktop Video, Resolve and Fusion. Then ProTools, Waves and other plug-ins.

And then I need to TEST everything out! Will update soon.

---Update 4-17
All is dandy and four months (and a couple Sierra uppdates) later the main Mac is still purring nicely, nothing weird to note. So I will be updating my second machine as soon as I have some time to do so. Then the third machine should follow suit promptly.

FCPX 10.3, Motion 5.3 and Compressor 4.3 are out!

But damn it, they only run on El Capitan OS X 10.11.4 or later - I have to upgrade the OS.

How to prevent iTunes to automatically start when connecting a bluetooth speaker? Yes, how???

I've had it with iTunes automatically starting when I connect my bluetooth speaker. I checked bluetooth preferences, could not find anything there. I checked iTunes preferences, nothing there either.

Finally I removed iTunesHelper from the Login Items in my user account under System Preferences/Users and Groups, and YES! After restarting iTunes stays put when I connect the bluetooth speaker.

If you want to bring it back for some reason, the iTunesHelper.app is inside the iTunes.app package. Right-click onto iTunes.app/Show Package Content, inside MacOS folder you will see the iTunesHelper.app, select it and drag it to the Login Items window, voilà.

---Update

Unfortunately this DOES NOT WORK!  Damned it!

I don't know why iTunes didn't launch last time, now it's just back to its old ways. No matter the iTunesHelper presence, or absence of from the Login Items, as soon as I turn my bluetooth speaker iTunes stubbornly starts... I need a solution to this madness!!!

---Update
I left a message on the iTunes feedback page, please do the same and ask Apple to give us the choice: auto start iTunes when a bluetooth gizmo is connected, or do nothing. I need the later. The more users are requesting this, the better chances are Apple will listen. Thank you!
http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html

Premiere Pro: "This project contained a sequence that could not be opened..."

10:30am

I need to do a quick fix on a short film, I'm launching Premiere to work on the cut, I duplicated the Project file first to work on a new increment.

Adobe flashes a window asking of I want to use the 7 days Demo mode, or if I want to sign-in??? I do sign-in. Premiere then takes a good 3+min. to launch, loading all the components.

Finally it's up, I open my duplicated Project and... Premiere starts with an error:

"This project contained a sequence that could not be opened. No sequence preview preset file or codec could be associated with this sequence type."

Lovely. Don't we all need this level of stress added to our everyday professional life?

Looking for the problem, I find this page:
https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/kb/features-presets-missing-premiere-pro.html

Oh boy... I don't want to spend three hours troubleshooting this damn app. My blood pressure is raising.

I will take it one baby step at a time, I'll quit Premiere and relaunch as starter.

Premiere takes another 3+min. to launch.

I open the Project, and... Yeah! This time it loads just fine. I duplicate my Cut19 Sequence, rename it Cut20, and off I go.

10:45am

So if you get that error message, before jumping the gun and going into full-on troubleshooting mode, just quit and start Premiere again.

Pfff...