Positive

A positive way forwards to would be to come up with that piece of documentation Apple have neglected to write - the FCP->FCPX transition guide. It could be part of a FAQX that answers the "how do I do.... in FCPX" type question?

I'm going to be travelling a few days, but I'll be trying to read up on the manual in the meantime.

Graeme

Some positive things.

I like the scopes. Very pretty.

Importing from H.264 and Mp4 is seamless and you can work instantly. Not sure what happens if you're not done transcoding in the background before you're done editing, but there is no waiting up front.

Some nice new trim tools. From what I can tell there is STILL no audio while you trim, which is ridiculous, how can you trim dialogue without audio, but the way it works is really nice.

Metadata would be useful over time, if you worked in the sort of environment where you had the time to stop and do that. A lot of places I work at don't even have time to change the clip names during ingest. There's a lot of pressure to get work done fast these days in a lot of shops. But if there WAS time, and you had permission from all your clients to cross purpose footage shot for them, this would be a great way to build a stock library.

I'll have to get back with more.

I'm finally comfortable with thumbnail editing.

Jude Cotter Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Some positive things.
>
> Metadata would be useful over time, if you worked
> in the sort of environment where you had the time
> to stop and do that. A lot of places I work at
> don't even have time to change the clip names
> during ingest. There's a lot of pressure to get
> work done fast these days in a lot of shops. But
> if there WAS time, and you had permission from all
> your clients to cross purpose footage shot for
> them, this would be a great way to build a stock
> library.

Don't you then love that it detects One, Two, Group shots and CU, Medium, Wide on import.

I did try an ECU shot (forehead to chin) with my webcam and it didn't detect that it was a person when I imported the clip. Must be something about my face.

Also if you're importing an editing clip that has different numbers of people in different shots, it only tags based on the first human shot it sees. I could see this being an issue if people are walking in and of scenes in a single take.

As more video cameras add GPS to their metadata I can imagine it'll be able to tag by location as well.

If you select a bunch of Connected Clips and Convert to Storyline you can edit/transition/etc, between clips as if it were a V2 Track. So track like editing is not completely dead. You can do that optionally as needed. It's Clip/Create Storyline or Command G.

chad haberstroh Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm finally comfortable with thumbnail editing.

Combined with skimming it's very powerful. I noticed in Ripple Training's tutorials Steve Martin is mostly in list view. If you're comfortable working that way and have long duration clips, skimming might be imprecise.

I have dual monitor setup and have the Event Viewer in my second monitor. I select my clip in List View, Toggle to Filmstrip View and the clip remains selected. Make sure that view is in 1/2s (half second display). You'll have thumbnails every half second of video. If the footage has some diversity you can scroll to the thumbnails that get you close to what you want and the skimmer has very fine control. Of course if 1/2s gives you too many thumbnails you can do something like 1m (one minute) and a 60 minute clip will give you 60 thumbnails, not as daunting. Note that the skimmer immediately becomes a playhead if you use the arrow keys to jog frame by frame. If you like working with audio off when skimming, when it goes into jog mode you'll immediately get audio.

What I'd like to see is a keyboard command to go from list to filmstrip mode as well as a keyboard method to control filmstrip duration mode as well. FYI filmstrips increments are ALL (all clips are single thumbnail) 30m, 10m, 5m, 2m, 1m, 30s, 10s, 5s, 2s, 1s. That slider is very small though so it's hard to get it to degree of detail you need with a mouse.

Skimming with audio is actually playing back more than one frame. It much more useful than the single frame blast you'd get with a playhead. This feature reminds me of what Avid has (had? I haven't used one in nearly 10 years although in a past life I trained people) in which you could set the duration of the sound played when you moved the playhead. I'm wondering if FCPX should have an adjustment to the amount played in preferences as well . . . and maybe allow the playhead to do that as well as the skimmer.

Thank you Craig for lessening the noise in this forum

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

iMovie import. It very much jives with the DVCreator article by Josh Mellicker in which it is mentioned that Randy Ubillos wanted to call what is known as iMovie, First Cut.
[www.dvcreators.net]

With iMovie, my clients now have a way to make selects or rough cuts and hand me a project rather than a sheet of paper with numbers on it, and I can import the project. I've had enough clients who want to work that way to make iMovie import an important feature. Had iMovie been called First Cut maybe wouldn't have this "branding" issue as FCPX would have the "Pro" GUI related to First Cut instead of iMovie.

I hope I'm not the only one old enough to remember when clients when bring me their time code rough cuts on Umatic and sometimes VHS or timecode select lists on paper.

iMovie Import is really the file equivalent to client offline to editor online.

Can we start with saying how "Storyline, Event, etc." relate to "project, timeline" - even that's got me confused :-)

Graeme

Synchronize clips detects the audio of multiple clips and syncs them as a Compound Clip. Great for dual system sound. Sort of like PluralEyes. Supposedly this feature can also work with timecode. It hints at possible future multicam support IMHO.

Graeme Nattress Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Can we start with saying how "Storyline, Event,
> etc." relate to "project, timeline" - even that's
> got me confused :-)
>
> Graeme

It's confusing because in some cases there aren't' directly analogous to current "project" structures. Part of the issue is that FCPX is more database oriented in its organizing plus it accommodates some of the file structure needs of AV Foundation.

I'm treading carefully here since I'm still exploring this because I'm not sure if all the relationships are as the appear or are "locked" in such relationships.

Event is closest to what used to be called a "project" in legacy FCP. An Event is formed through metadata though so it seems but you can add anything to it. It's more like a database though.

Events contain organization elements. Folders, Smart Collections of search results for example, Keyword Collections which are a group of clips with a common keyword. A single media file, depending on its keywords and whether its part of search criteria, can exist in multiple Keyword and Smart Collections at the same time. This is truly a powerful way of organizing. John Doe might be in One Person, Medium Shot, Interviews, Doe Family Members, all at the same time. FCPX

Events also contain the media files.

Projects contain Storylines. It contains a record of your Editing Decisions and media used. Projects don't seem to be locked to Events. In fact, if you on the Project Library (film icon on the bottom right of FCPX screen, you'll find you can open any project regardless of what Event you're using. When you create a New Project you can select an Event for it but its by no means limited to that. If you want to save versions of your Edit Decisions, just duplicate the Project. It's like duplicating a sequence in FCP7.

Timeline is where you make your edits as part of a Project. The Timeline contains the Storylines. There is a Primary Storyline but it can also contain Secondary Storylines. Secondary Storylines act as tracks (yes, something like tracks still exists. Secondary Storylines are created by linking Connected Clips.

You'll notice that there's an Event Library (Upper Left) and a Project Library (clicking on that lower left film reel icon). Basically any project which has a timeline which has Primary and possibly Secondary Storylines can open in any event.

IMHO all this points to what I think will be an eventual Final Cut Server Shared Storage solution. I really think Apple's heading to an integrated solution where the FCPX seat access information directly from the server. That's why they completely tossed the old Project, Media, Bin methodology. What they are created is a complex database using metadata that's become available in file based media. Note that I mention elsewhere I have to believe that as Video Cameras (media) start storing GPS data, shoot location will enter in to this database as well.

Sorry to go off on some tangents. The above might result in more questions than it answers but it's important to understand the organizational underpinnings. It's unfortunate that they couldn't find another word for "Project' but it has an entirely different meaning in FCPX.
_____
Projects contain a Timeline which has Primary and possibly Secondary Storylines. An FCPX Project is not tied to an Event but can be used to create edit decisions from the media in an Event.

"Synchronize clips detects the audio of multiple clips and syncs them as a Compound Clip. Great for dual system sound. Sort of like PluralEyes. Supposedly this feature can also work with timecode. It hints at possible future multicam support IMHO"

yes the whole idea of a "Compound Clip" strongly suggests Multicam.
looking forward to seeing how they implement that.
(maybe we'll get a "viewer" window back)


nick

Michael Horton

"Thank you Craig for lessening the noise in this forum"

Seconded. I'm really enjoying going through Steve Martin's excellent tutorials. If more of the naysayers did the same, they too would find much to be excited about in X. I predict that that within 18 months this app blows the competition out the door. Hopefully sooner.

It would be nice if they could get both GPS locations on the cameras and map out the camera directions to indicate points of convergence in the shoot. This can help syncing up multi angle reality shows. The technology is not new. iPhones use it along with GPS and compass apps to map directions. Cameras equipped with GPS can provide not only coordinates, but also shooting directions. All you need is focal distance, zoom factor and lens distortion to calculate exact points of convergence, but that part can easily be done by eye.



www.strypesinpost.com

Realtime effects Preview.
When in the Effects Browser, use the skimmer over the effects icon and it'll preview it over the clip you have selected in the Timeline. This works with the compatible Noise Industry effects as well. This is especially useful when one feels plugin names or even icons don't really suggest what the results might look like.

Interesting (and heartening) post about all the positive "pro" audio changes in FCPX

[danrubottom.com]

It certainly does sound like multicam. Another locked feature?

qeditor Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It certainly does sound like multicam. Another
> locked feature?

I suspect they're working out the GUI portion since clip synching is obviously already there. I suspect the challenge is that in a single viewer app one must be able to see all the cameras and yet know what the edited timeline looks like as well. They may have to go with a 2 up for this.

Wow. The audio manipulations in FCPX are INSANE (jump to the second half to see bezier audio graphing, etc.) Awesome. Makes the audio handling in FCP seem like a toy...

[library.creativecow.net]


Aaaagh! Why couldn't they have just added this stuff to FCP7 and not f--- the rest of it up...