Neat Video & Neat Image community

Dear forum members,

If you are interested in using Neat Video in the new version of Apple FCP - FCP X, you may want to try this new build (v3.1.3 Release Candidate 3) of Neat Video plug-in for FCP, which adds initial support for FCP X.

What you will need:

• 1. FCP X 10.0.4 (if you have an older build of FCP X, please update to 10.0.4);
  
  2. A current v3 license for Neat Video Home or Pro plug-in for FCP;
  (if you don't have a v3 license, please contact support [at] neatvideo.com; if you want to try the Demo version, please also contact us by e-mail)
  
  3. Preferably non-production Mac machine that you can afford to use for testing without risk to your current projects.

How to test this new build:

• 1. Please use your v3 license for Neat Video Home or Pro plug-in for FCP to log on to the corresponding download area: v3 Home or v3 Pro in the logon page;
  
  2. In the download area, download and install the new build marked as v3.1.3 Release Candidate 3; Please make sure you read the notes in the download area
  
  3. Start FCP X and find Neat Video in it. Try to use it as you would normally use Neat Video in older versions of FCP, taking into account the difference:
  use the "Options window" popup to open the main window of the plug-in (in older applications that is done via the "Options" button);
  
  4. If you discover any abnormalities, crashes, hangs, etc., please describe them here in this thread, fill out the bug report form or send e-mail to support [at] neatvideo.com. We will then try to find solutions to any newly discovered problems as soon as possible.

Thank you very much,
Vlad

Working fine so far. There doesn't seem to be any performance boost in FCP X, but this was the only plug-in keeping me from switching to an all FCP X workflow. Very happy now!

I am glad it works for you!

The performance should be about the same in FCP X as in FCP7/6. A few percent increase due to 64-bit code is possible, but that would not be very visible outside of benchmarks.

Vlad

Not sure if this is a known issue, but once a clip with the filter applied is rendered, simply trimming the beginning or end of the clip causes the remaining footage to become unrendered again.

Seems to be happening with other plug-ins too, must be an FCP X own issue.

Vlad

I will be downloading this and testing it on a shoot I just did today!

It seems that Final Cut Pro X forgets all clips with neat video on them when it renders. I have a realy huge project in front of me and just yesterday I exported it and it runs as fast like a leopard.
Now, with some clips filtered by Neat Video directly in the timeline the rendering/exporting process takes much longer and it just went slower just in that moment the bar hits the filtered neat-clips.

I've also got the feeling that the whole performance of FCPX goes down when working with Neat clips.

Thanks.

Are you saying that if a clip with NV has already been rendered directly in the timeline then export will still slow down on that clip, although you would expect it to be faster (because the clip has already been rendered in the timeline)?

Does it look like FCPX and NV simply redo the same clip during export or they become even slower than a simple re-rendering would be?

Thank you,
Vlad

The clips were all rendered directly in the timeline. I exported my project after everything was rendered completely!

So what seems abnormal is that during export FCPX re-renders the clips that were already rendered in timeline? Is that correct?

You expected that FCPX would not re-render, but it still does. Do I understand the problem correctly?

Vlad

Yes! Totally right!

Good. Then we will try to reproduce the issue and will check if that is caused by Neat Video itself.

Thank you,
Vlad

We couldn't reproduce the problem yet.

We tried on a small test project with a short clip and NV added to it. We waited for background render to finish (shows 100% then) and then exported the project. FCPX did not re-render it in this case. If we didn't let the background render to complete then the export had to re-render the missing parts.

Perhaps the clips with NV in your project were not fully rendered before exporting?

Another possibility would be that the export parameters (like frame size) were different than the project parameters.

Could you test this on a new small test project with one short clip?

Thank you,
Vlad

Everything was completely rendered before I exported the whole movie.
The export movie size is exactly the same as the project size.

I did a new test with 2 non-processed clips and 2 processed clips:
Export speed was normal. Hm...
But in my huge project the export bar starts to slow down dramatically when it hits the point in time where my Neat clips are. The CPU load goes down to 8% and my graphics card starts to make noise. There are no other clips with a plugin applied in this point of time.
I've exported this project several times in the last days when the Neat Video plugin wasn't installed on my Mac and the export process was just smooth. But just in time I've installed the new beta plugin the export process starts to struggle exactly at this point in time the filter is applied to the clips.

And BTW, the overall performance of FCPX when Neat Video ist applied to any clip is horrible! Since the new plugin is installed I have some issues with playback my timeline. But only at this point where the first clip with Neat Video applied is set. But everything's rendered completely!

Anyone?

valleo wrote:The export movie size is exactly the same as the project size.

How large is it?

valleo wrote:The CPU load goes down to 8% and my graphics card starts to make noise.

What card model is it? Is it recognized and enabled in Neat Video Preferences or it is being used by FCPX itself?

8% doesn't sound like Neat Video. Neat Video would normally use much more CPU..

valleo wrote:And BTW, the overall performance of FCPX when Neat Video ist applied to any clip is horrible!

FCPX does a lot of background rendering and when it involves Neat Video, it takes a lot of computing power to process each frame, which makes FCPX slower overall. We wrote about that:

Neat Video wrote:FCP X with enabled skimming and background rendering may be slower to respond to user actions when a computationally-intensive filter (such as Neat Video) is added to the project. Please consider disabling skimming and/or background rendering in FCP X Preferences or temporarily disabling Neat Video (in the panel Inspector > Video > Effects > Reduce Noise) when not adjusting Neat Video's settings.

We are also looking into additional ways to make Neat Video and FCPX works smoother.

Thank you,
Vlad