Official Final Cut X topic, moving to ARM and vlogging

THX1965

@oneday - you can do a lot with keyboard shortcuts in FCP X. Even more than in FCP 7. You will still need to use the mouse (and yes a Wacom tablet is way, way better!) - as you did in FCP 7.

I am a professional (high-end) editor and I have been using FCP (4-7) for the past 8 years. I really like X, even though I continue to use 7 for my daily editorial job. For anything else - especially for cutting DSLR footage - FCP X is a dream come true.

Apple will not abandon the "pro" community. It'll take a few more updates to give us most of what we need (how about "copy/paste attributes"?!?!?!?!) - but the foundation is great and @5thwall is absolutely right - people with little to no editing experience pick up FCP X in no time. It's a huge learning curve for us long-time NLE users. How do you make the transition to something like X in a high-stress environment, when lots of people collaborate on different projects on tight deadlines? That's going to be the biggest challenge for Apple.

5thwall

@arvidtp yes, it defaults to linear. but try doing a linear move. it still does it as ease-in ease-out. at least it did for me. curious to hear how it works for you.

arvidtp

What i really like so far about FCP X is the imported media management. It will generate all the transcoded files, proxy, analysis and render files or whatever, and when you're done with the project you can just dump them. If you ever need to work on the project again, it will automatically recreate them, no questions asked.

Speaking of which, i've written a simple automator action to exclude said directories from Time Machine backup, because if something happened those files could just be recreated. It's pretty simple but I'll share it if anyone's interested.

arvidtp

@ahbleza dunno. I just reveal in finder then open with quicktime player 7.

@5thwall except for X-Y motion, where they seem to default to linear despite the fact that that is where i usually WANT them to ease in and out.

5thwall

@alcomposer i think the irony with fcpx is that it's easier for people who have little editing experience than it is for those of us who have used fcp7 for 10 years. we are pretty much trained in the pavlovian sense. i equate using it to standing on my head and editing with my left hand (whereas i'm a righty). it's performs counter to what i think i want to do. i'm so fast in fcp7, i can think and do at the same time. not so much with x. but i can say the same thing about premiere and avid in that i have to think before i do.

that said, i did a test of driftwood's latest settings yesterday afternoon. i decided to use x because it was going to be the fastest tool i had to get the job done. and you know what, now that i know x enough to be "dangerous," it was very useful in easily brining in an sd card. working with the footage literally immediately. quickly skimming footage for selects. dumping them in the timeline (to music!) and then worrying about the rest later.

editing the footage was not hard, but not necessarily easy either. a lot of turning on and off skim mode, which can get in the way a lot.

honestly my biggest gripe in the timeline right now (ok, i have a hundred biggest gripes ;-) is that slipping a clip on the primary storyline causes a connected clip to slide. this is very counter-intuitive and I actually think just plain wrong. especially when you're cutting a connected clip to music.

ahbleza

@arvidtp Thanks mate! Any idea on finding out the bitrate of clips inside FCPX?

5thwall

@oneday i have used a wacom tablet for years. i highly highly highly recommend them if you have RSI. also, the pen has helped made me an insanely fast editor in the programs.

@arvidtp i've given up on keyframing until they fix the bugs. keyframes always default to ease-in, ease-out even if you have them set to constant. supposedly, there's some way to add additional constant keyframes and then delete them that will fix the problem. but still... grrr...

arvidtp

@ahbleza for 1080i => 1080p PsF, select clip(s), then go to the inspector's info tab and choose the "settings view" from the pop-up menu at the bottom of the inspector. Several very well hidden settings will show up, including the ability to force a clip to be treated as progressive. This way you can just use FCP X to import your video and not worry about clipwrap or anything. The footage will claim to want to be rendered i think on the timeline I think, but that's less and less of an issue these days.

My main gripe with FCP X right now is inadequate keyframing for motion of video clips. Alex4d has some nice plugins on his site for that, some of which i've tried and are very helpful, but still not the ideal, fully integrated solution. Also keyframing color correction would be much appreciated. Oh, and OMF export now that they broke Automatic Duck.

oneday

the bad thing with the FCX is that you must work with mouse, and that thing I hate most, I already have RSI on my right hand that I use mouse, for the people that work daily editing it is the basic need, who knows if we will gonna work on large touchscreens in few years it will be nice, but this shit is very good written, it drains the power from anything (finally use of multicore)... I hope that apple will not gonna leave the pro users, and turn out to be only iShit company from wich they get most of the money

finally got it X is for Xpress so its a Final Cut Pro Xpress

sohus

This is how FCPX started:

Listen to the words from Steve Jobs.

Everyone can resist but Apple got it right. Others will follow eventually once they see how fast the FCPX generation can work with media. It will take some time but the foundation (and the vision) is there (as you see since 2008). DAM (digital asset management) is the future and once you give over control and thrust the system, it is heaven.

People are always complaining about Apple but they have proven time after time that they are able to visualize the future and turn that into products and software. I think FCPX was designed with camera's like the iPhone in mind, that have all the media, metadata, location info stored in the metadata. Combine that with powerful analysis tools (i am sure speech analysis is coming with all the siri stuff going on) and a keyword engine and you have a very powerful asset management tool. Version 10.0.3 is already very good and it will only get better from here, as are the cameras and the thunderbolt devices. That's what Apple had in mind.

alcomposer

@5thwall, you are correct,.. that is the app! "Prelude",...

BTW: I don't get why people believe that FCPX is 'easier'... Sure its easy on the surface, but with that ease is 'lots' of power. You almost have to re-learn editing completely in a trackless timeline. I would say that ironically it is closer to the 'language' of editing...

YMMV

5thwall

@alcomposer it's also known that they have shown an app that's very much like fcpx, called prelude. but it's meant for logging and adding metadata. i think that was the original concept for fcpx - it was called "first cut," but the story goes that jobs liked it so much he had ubilos develop it into x.

alcomposer

Everybody here realizes that Adobe has 'already' shown off a FCPX video style lightroom app? Yes? I am quite sure that CS6 will be more than a hint of FCPX...

5thwall

@Bueller a friend of mine is doing some beta testing. I haven't seen it or really know any details. He did say that he generally likes it and that it seems very stable. A positive review coming from an excellent editor whose opinion I take very seriously.

ahbleza

Anyone know how to inspect and/or modify the bit rate of transcoded media inside FCPX? Usually I start MPEG Streamclip and use its inspector, but would prefer to do it in Final Cut.

Also, what's the best FCPX tool for handling GH2 footage that is 1080p masquerading as 1080i? Is Clipwrap the only option?

Bueller

Of course this is the FCPX thread but I must admit I am very interested in seeing what CS6 will bring us

oneday

@sohus I am a child, always will be (I hope), but if every editing software shares the simplicity of the FCX than there will no be expert editors or anyone that is reached some other level of editing capabilities, the simplicity means that there is no workaround, not that many possibilities,... and as soon as you turn around to take a coffe the director will gonna be sitting in your seat making edits on his own, I do not know who made this, but I am sure that iMovie made this happend, I will gonna buy this software, its a workhorse for low paid projects, and sure it takes the full power from my mac tower, but those CC algorithms are joke,...

and please can you give me a clue how did Avid followed the FCP, maybe I missed something

driftwood

@sohus I'm with you on this one. FCPX is already going someway towards what we all want, simplicity, backround multitasking and rendering, and multicam, plus lots more. Each quarter it gets better and better.

sohus

@oneday you are a child. FCPX is in many ways far more pro than Avid or Adobe. Avid and Adobe have been following Final Cut Pro for ages and now Apple changes... what are they going to do? You need a vision to make something better. I believe in Apple's vision. The guy who made FCPX happens to be the guy who designed Premiere and most of the FCP versions. Obviously, this guy knows how to work this shit.

Also if you follow twitter... you see that the attitude is changing already.

Pick the tool you like but don't make a fool of yourself. FCPX is a professional tool.

oneday

just tried the trial of fcpx, this shit is so funny, its like editor for the kids, everything is so simple, I do not get it, why is there so many tutorials on the net reminds me when I open the premiere first version back in the 90s, like one way street.... just st8 ahead it has a nice performance on the mac pro 8core, but they need to remove the PRO from the name, it is so funny

mickos

Anyone using Motion 5: there's a beta app now available for exporting clips to Motion 5 from fcp x, it's at http://www.alexnking.com/2012/02/20/fcpx-send-to-motion-app/

alcomposer

Good luck with your PBS news story! Sent PM...

5thwall

@alcomposer i read somewhere best not to double up nvidia and ati cards in the mac. no reasons given. but still, very curious to see how it works for you!

btw - cutting my first piece-for-pay in x in the next couple of weeks. standard pbs news story. low pressure. good place to start.

alcomposer

@5thwall, Well I have yet to receive the extra power cable for the 8800GT...

But I do have to say that the 5770 is light years ahead of the 8800GT. As for render times its almost the same really. (which was very fast for me anyway). On another note- 5dtorgb ran super fast for some reason on the 5770...

I will check out using the 8800GT as well when my power cable arrives...

5thwall

@alcomposer did you install the two different video cards?

I moved my 5770 from my older system to my 2008 and upgraded to 16gb ram. noticing much faster response in the timeline. but wondering how it would have been with just the 8800gt and the ram upgrade only. Now, I don't get any CUDA for Premiere.

However, render times can be very slow. Are you noticing that?

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories

Tags in Topic

Top Posters