Best replacement for FCP

I'd be grateful for advice. Stupidly made the fatal error of upgrading to High Sierra and can't downgrade.

Need to find a good editor, but can't seem to get on with FCP X. Many seem to have many bells and whistles, but I can't find one that has the trim facility of FCP - playing through an edit and trimming it while it plays.

Does any other (not outrageously priced) editor have anything like it?

Thanks in advance.

Avid has a fantastic trim window, better than FCP's but my guess is you are talking about timing in the timeline.
My disinter memory or Lightworks was that it's trimming was extremely versatile

i wish i could help, but i haven't used many other apps!

Premiere is supposed to be a lot like FCP. wether it has that same facility i don't know.
Resolve is free, so it would definitely fit your not-outrageously priced requirement!
(although "free" is pretty outrageously priced in the other direction)

i guess you'll l have to try them all, or get better help...
please write back with your findings


nick

What Nick says.

I can add that, after an entire 4 months using Premiere Pro CC in the real world, it's extraordinarily flexible, and yes, it does feature dynamic trim, multicam editing, and nonstandard video exports. My museum assignment required not only standard HD but also video wall sectional exports and very large vertical screens at high bandwidth using the new HEVC (H.265)- which is part of Premiere's kit.

I was nervous about how well Premiere would consolidate a project.
It went like butter.

The only hassles I had (other than how to best export HD sections for a 2 X 3 video array) were PPro's occasional crash due to linking and relinking issues. This could easily have been operator error.

As I've remarked elsewhere, it really is the closest product to FCP8. You just need US$600/year to enjoy it along with every other product Adobe offers. I still think we need a focused video bundle, say PPro, AE, PS, and Audition, for half that price. That should go like hotcakes!

Adobe bundles an FCP 7 key command set with PPro CC which meets your expectations about halfway. I filled the rest with lesser known actual or near equivalents, and it's about 85% of the feel of FCP7.

I'm happy to announce (shameless plug) I will by year's end be fashioning a Pro CC Keyguide especially for FCP7 veterans making the transition. A download of the Adobe keyset reflected in the guide will be part of the price.

My old website needs a relocation so it'll be direct purchase to me via PayPal and through LACPUG if Michael wants it in the tools section.

Best, as always.
Loren S. Miller
neotron@mindspring.com

Is DaVinci Reslove 14 a possibility?

Sure it is. The Editor is similar to FCP 7 so easy to migrate too.

Mike

Michael Horton
-------------------

I have been away from editing for a while but starting to think about updating some videos I produced in FCP 7. At the same time I bought a new iMac with High Sierra already installed. After doing the migration from my old Mac Pro to the iMac, I discovered that my FCP suite was all disabled. I saw on Larry Jordan's newsletter the other day that "Apple is telling its developers that future versions of the macOS will not support 32-bit applications." It looks like we're there already, unless there is another reason FCP 7 won't work.

I have a laptop with El Capitan and the FCP suite seems to run OK there. Questions: which OS version broke FCP? Is there any workaround for me with High Sierra to make them work again? I can use my laptop, or I can continue my migration to Premier Pro, but I really wanted to be able to update my old projects in very familiar FCP, on my iMac. Any great ideas?

'Twas High Sierra broke your FCP7. See this August 2017 strand: [www.lafcpug.org]. FCP7 works, although imperfectly, on Sierra.

Apple still provides an installer for Sierra: [support.apple.com].
Consider downgrading your iMac to Sierra, or dividing the disk to include a Sierra volume. You must check whether your iMac's firmware allows installation of Sierra. Apple warns that the firmware won't allow it:

Quote
The version of macOS that came with your Mac is the earliest version compatible with that Mac.

But this quote isn't necessarily true. I'm running Snow Leopard on a Mac Pro that shipped with Mountain Lion; I'm running Mountain Lion on a MacBook Pro that shipped with Yosemite.

Firmware that blocks installation of a certain earlier operating system need not block running of that operating system if the installation is done with another machine, and the volume copied to the restrictive machine.

Don't let the Apple eat You!

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany

Thanks, Dennis, for your detailed, though unwelcome, information. I was going to upgrade my El Capitan laptop to High Sierra just to be current, but I believe I will stay with Yosemite on it so I can continue to use the FCP suite for a while. Meantime, I will try to get more comfortable with Premiere Pro.

I would be happy to migrate completely to Premiere except for all the FCP projects I have. I know Premiere has made great efforts to be "friendly" to FCP users; will Premier open an FCP project as-is? Will FCP plugins I've used in a project (filters, transitions) continue to work in and FCP project opened in Premiere? I am a Creative Cloud subscriber so my PP would always be current (a two-edged sword as we've seen).

Scott-

Sorry for the delay.

Occurred to me I never tested this, so I did. The procedure is this:

1) Open each FCP project you will want to work on in Premiere Pro.

2)File>Export menu> XML, use Version 5, the most recent.

3) Quit FCP

4) Open Premiere Pro with a New Project.

5) File>Import... should show you the XML file in the folder you exported to.

6) Select the file and look in your Project Browser.

Best, as always.
Loren

Loren, thanks very much for this. That procedure rings a bell, and I guess it accomplishes the best I could hope for. But I know there are limitations to what will carry over - transitions, effects, etc. Are there any rules of thumb about what translates and what doesn't? I use lots of built-in FCP effects, but also a fair number of 3rd party.

Scott-

What Dennis said-- definitely keep El Cap on the laptop, that's where my FCP suite was just installed for a video transfer I'm trying to solve. Seems to work smoothly.

You can expect to import cut sequences and captured but offline clips, which you'll need to Reconnect.

I would not expect much in the way of effects translation other than fades/dissolves. I would test it. You might see dissolves, audio gain come over. Premiere certainly support a basic transfer. I don't see anything from Automatic Duck available for this particular xfer but lots of tutorials on the web.

Best, as always.
Loren S. Miller

Hey Scott (and everyone else, long time no type )

I've been on Premiere for many years now - and it's very much like what FCP should have become IMHO. Once you get going you'll find it's really not much different to what you're used to, with a lot of new updated perks.

I think the things that will translate from your old projects will be very simple things that are cross platform, like dissolves and so on. The rest will probably be lost, because they are things that are unique to your old system. However, what it will do is give you a chance to figure out how to recreate all the stuff you want to do in Premiere - if you choose that path.

I did transfer a three episode fishing show from legacy FCP to Premiere about five years ago and it gave me enough to rebuild the shows without too much drama, but it wasn't especially effects heavy.

As others have said you can set up the keyboard to run the FCP shortcuts, and add any of your own that you like. Almost everyone i know who is on Premiere has their own custom set of keys that work for them. You can just add them to a dropdown menu, and even upload them to the cloud so you can run them on any system anywhere. Mine is a combination of old FCP keys and some cool new things I like such as g to access the gain menu, and q and w to ripple trim the heads and tails of clips.

I've been delivering worldwide broadcast on it since about 2014, so I can guarantee it's got the chops to do pretty well anything you need.

Hey Jude, nice to hear from you. My problem is that I'm very rusty, even with FCP, so it's going to be a re-learning curve no matter what I use! I used to be able to edit "in my sleep" so to speak, I'll have to stay alert for a while to recover some expertise. None of this is for production other than family use, so I can go slow.

BTW (Jude), Makayla spent last summer in Athens, Paris and New Delhi, I guess she's gotten over her trepidations about international travel. She is, as we speak, in England until July. One of these days she may decide that Perth isn't so scary after all.

Scott