-
Apple gives up another network client
-
[Herb Sevush] “I don’t think this is hard to understand, I don’t need an NLE to wipe my brow or make me chicken soup but I do need a time code window and the ability to work with multiple audio tracks disconnected from their video sources, and I want to visually organize my work with tracks that stay where I put them.”
I totally get it Herb, and as i said, it just popped into my head when reading your post so it honestly wasn’t directed at you. Hopefully X will get the features you need soon, because I understand your reluctance to move to MC. A while ago, before I discovered that X actually was useable, I grabbed the trials of both Pr and MC just to see where they were at as it’s been a while since I’d used either one. Pr was ok I guess, but MC was still the cluttered, bloated, archaic mess that it had been last time I used it. More so really, since they’ve bolted a slew of new “features” onto it. So… I feel your pain. 😉
I’ll say again though, as an audio guy who started recording stuff on 1/4″ sound on sound machines, and ended up as a post audio mixer here in L.A before I accidently became an editor… working with audio in X is a thousand times better than in 7, or any NLE that I’ve used for that matter. Despite the lack of tracks and “faders”. I’m really looking forward to whats coming next….
————————————————————-
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
-
[Sandeep Sajeev] “So why not move across to Avid? What’s holding you back?”
Historically first cost and then a perceived stodginess in the way the software operates. I tend to like to throw a lot of things at a timeline and see what sticks, Avid always struck me as having a slower more structured approach. But Avid costs have come down and I know I can learn to adapt my style to their interface so at the moment the last factor is the way we record the shows for my main client.
For the last 2 years we have been using KiPros recording ProRes for our multicam studio show. I know that KiPros can also record to DNxHD, but only in a quicktime wrapper. We shoot around 14 Terrabytes worth of material and having to re-wrap that seems a bit much and I’ve been told that cutting purely with quicktime is a major strain on Avid systems. Recently I was told by some of the folks at AJA that they are going to update the KiPros to enable them to record DNxHD in an MXF container. If and when that happens I’m off to Avid land, unless there is a better option.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Charlie Austin] “‘ll say again though, as an audio guy who started recording stuff on 1/4” sound on sound machines, and ended up as a post audio mixer here in L.A before I accidently became an editor… working with audio in X is a thousand times better than in 7, or any NLE that I’ve used for that matter. Despite the lack of tracks and “faders”. I’m really looking forward to whats coming next….”
You keep saying that, Charlie, but I don’t see it. And I’ve got a very similar history to yours, including cutting blocks and razor blades with 1/4″. It may fit your style and approach more neatly, but 1000X better? Audio is currently one of the three major things that is keeping me away from X. You’ve made this claim a number of times, so I’d like you to detail WHY you think it, because I’m just not seeing it. So, maybe you could start a thread “Why FCP X audio is better than its competitors.” I’ll give you a pass on the 1000X. And, hey–I think it would be terrific if you are right. I’m very willing to be schooled and shown the errors of my way. But given what I can see currently, I can only see a case for “Charlie Austin enjoys the FCP X Approach to Audio more than other Approaches,” not “FCP X Audio is WAY better.” So, school me.
-
[Herb Sevush] “Historically first cost and then a perceived stodginess in the way the software operates. I tend to like to throw a lot of things at a timeline and see what sticks, Avid always struck me as having a slower more structured approach.”
Yeah, I’m finding my new adventures in Avidland a mixed bag. I’m still going back and forth between FCP7 and MC6 (and Pr6), and I find I miss a lot of FCPs features. The odd thing is that I now find myself missing some of Avid’s features while back in 7. Keyboard trimming IS better. The utility of the Source monitor is MUCH better. If I could conbine the two, at this stage of my development, I would build all my sellects in Avid, do a cut in FCP7, fine tune with Avid, make revisions with FCP7, and then fine tune again with Avid. Also, I’m not a Colorist, but I like the color tools in Symphony quite a bit.
Pr sits astride these two nicely, btw. Maybe X will too, down the road.
-
[Andrew Kimery] “For example, Hulu, YouTube, Amazon, Netflix and possibly even Microsoft (for Xbox Live) are producing, or looking to produce, their own original TV shows and/or movies. People, consumers, want this style of content they just dislike the rigidity of the traditional old media delivery timetables.”
That’s what I’m seeing as well.
-
[Chris Harlan] ” If I could conbine the two, at this stage of my development, I would build all my sellects in Avid, do a cut in FCP7, fine tune with Avid, make revisions with FCP7, and then fine tune again with Avid. Also, I’m not a Colorist, but I like the color tools in Symphony quite a bit. “
Can’t you do this? Especially for straight cuts, handling projects between FCP 7 and MC/Symphony is pretty smooth. Just a variation on offline and online.
Right? Or am I misunderstanding (again)?
-
[Tim Wilson] “[Chris Harlan] ” If I could conbine the two, at this stage of my development, I would build all my sellects in Avid, do a cut in FCP7, fine tune with Avid, make revisions with FCP7, and then fine tune again with Avid. Also, I’m not a Colorist, but I like the color tools in Symphony quite a bit. ”
Can’t you do this? Especially for straight cuts, handling projects between FCP 7 and MC/Symphony is pretty smooth. Just a variation on offline and online.
“Oh yeah. Certainly. I’ve actually been doing that as part of my re-aquaintanceship with Avid. I’ve been using the Boris translation tools to do so. As a practical sustained procedure, however it has limits. It doesn’t work with AMA, so the time and disk space involved in transcoding becomes an issue. And, once you get involved in plugins there are all kinds of potential translation issues. If you stick with Continuum only, you do pretty well–IF you have the same version installed on each piece of software–but other plugins become an issue.
Still, I have a good time bouncing things around between all three programs, and when I don’t have a looming deadline and its on my dime and not the client’s, I’ll continue to do so.
-
[Aindreas Gallagher] “FCPX, a year and a half in, has all the industry presence of its effects backbone motion. motion that no one ever cared about outside of ripple training.
Which is to say, utterly none.
No clients request it, it appears on no jobs boards, it features in no post houses, in a schrodinger’s cat sense, if it wasn’t discussed to the extent that it is on this forum, it might as well not exist as a means to be paid to edit.
“Aindreas, you keep attacking Motion as if no one ever uses it or cares about it. I’ve just got to disagree with you. Its not AE, but it is a really terrific tool, particularly when combined with FCP6-7. My suggestion is that if you stop seeing it as a competitor to AE and start seeing it as a complex and fairly advanced Titling and masking tool that sits inside FCP 6/7 via round-tripping, you’ll recognize its utility. Avid does something similar with Avid FX. I’ve been grateful to Motion many times.
-
[Chris Harlan] “My suggestion is that if you stop seeing it as a competitor to AE and start seeing it as a complex and fairly advanced Titling and masking tool that sits inside FCP 6/7 via round-tripping, you’ll recognize its utility. Avid does something similar with Avid FX. I’ve been grateful to Motion many times.”
I agree with this but — in another way Motion seems to be an apt parallel for X. When it was introduced by Apple they focused on it’s unique features – the behaviors that required no keyframing – and hyped it as being more advanced than AE. I use it all the time, my compositing needs are modest and AE is a full course meal, but other than fade outs I almost never use the behaviors – like most people I use keyframes because it turns out that this old way of doing things is actually necessary. As a revolutionary compositor Motion is an utter failure, as a simple editor’s compositor, titling and masking tool it’s great.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Chris Harlan] “So, maybe you could start a thread “Why FCP X audio is better than its competitors.” I’ll give you a pass on the 1000X. And, hey–I think it would be terrific if you are right. I’m very willing to be schooled and shown the errors of my way. But given what I can see currently, I can only see a case for “Charlie Austin enjoys the FCP X Approach to Audio more than other Approaches,” not “FCP X Audio is WAY better.” So, school me.”
LOL… I guess I was being a little hyperbolic there. I think your description is more accurate. 🙂 Maybe a separate thread would be good, but here are a few things off the top of my pointy head. 😉 I should start by saying that I almost never used the faders/”automation” in FCP 7. It’ll be nice if/when that comes back, but I don’t miss it at all. YMMV on that one. I should also point out that I don’t use the primary story line at all, and always break the audio off from the video, so my timelines pretty much behave just like they did in 7. What I like about X’s approach is mostly related to editing, and honestly, you can do similar stuff in 7, but it’s way easier in X for me. Anyhoo… what I think is better…
-The clip based paradigm vs. track based. Soloing bits of audio is a pleasure for me. Say I have 2 clips butted up against each other but I just want to hear the first one:
In 7, I move the second clip off the track, follow the track I want to solo all the way back to the beginning of the sequence, solo it, move back to the clip and play it. Then I want to hear the second clip too, so I either un mute the track I moved it to, or move it back to the soloed track and play it. Then maybe I want to hear the FX under those clips too… back to the head, un mute that… etc. click click move click click on and on.
In X, I hover over the clip I want to solo, press C to select it and option-S to solo it. To hear the other clip I right click it and “add to soloed clips”. Same for the FX or anything else. Or just select of bunch of random clips wherever they are relative to other clips and solo ’em. It’s really nice.
Or I can disable clips to mute them which sometimes works for what i want to hear, but In X enabling/disabling a clip only requires one keystroke, V, instead of the CNTRL-B stretch.. faster.
-The Audio filters in X are better, many of the Logic plugins are there in addition to the usual AU stuff. Things I might have had to round trip to STP I can do right in the timeline. Faster.
-The “Audio Enhancements” inspector tab for each clip in X is awesome, especially the “Loudness” settings. I don’t know about you, but in 7 I often have to double/triple/quadruple, or throw the DynamicsProcessor filter on quiet audio clips to get them to the right level for a specific mix. Not in X. Open the tab, make a couple quick adjustments, done. The Hum and BG Noise removal adjustments are nice too. 3 common audio fixes in one place, easy. Also available for compound clips, so you can put all your crappy dialog in one clip and effect it all. Faster.
-In X, you can move audio clips in subframe increments, not just the keyframes, the clips. This makes cheating dialog and cutting music really precise, way better than 7.
-The fade handles on each clip are awesome. While I am used to being able to just throw a dissolve effect between adjacent audio (and video for that matter) – in X you need to create a secondary storyline to do that, which isn’t that big a deal really – grabbing the fade handles is super fast and gives you much finer control than in 7. Just right click to change the fade type.
-Keyframes in audio clips really are 1000 times better than 7. Really easy to grab/select/add/delete and they move where you want them to. They’re way too fiddly in 7 for me.
-related to keyframes… In X you can do range based audio level changes. To dip MX under some DIA in 7, you can switch gears, grab the fader and play through the section and mix it, or you need to either create 4 keyframes and then grab the level bar thing and lower the audio between them, or cut the MX clip on either side of the dialog, add dissolves (or not) and lower the section.
In X, hit R, select the range in the MX clip you want to lower, and CNTL +/- to get the level, it adds the keyframes, which you can of course adjust if you want. faster.
… so, I just previewed this, and it’s a freaking book and I have more to blather about. 😮 I guess I’ll stuff it in a new thread and continue huh? Anyone interested in my blathering? 🙂
————————————————————-
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up