are the any just simple improvements in FCP6?

[Richard Martz]

Yes I know what you mean. I asked about a better / improved text generator and everyone thought I was asking for the moon.

Richard Martz
MagicMartz Media

Final Cut Pro HD
Kona LH
After Effects
PhotoShop
Illustrator
Lots of other Fun Stuff!

[Alan Lacey]

Yes, I saw that Richard – my sympathies.

I started NLE with Fast 601 and that had the worst ever CG app I’ve ever encountered.

Alan

[Mark Maness]

To answer all of your questions….

Yes, to most of your questions.

But I have to ask, why would you want to reorder your tracks? And track naming…. this could get confusing. Simple V1, V2, V3, A1, A2, etc. seems to be the best solution for everyone.

As for the DVE…. Its called Motion 3D. Slomo uses part of Shake optical flow technology for smoother slomo, according to Apple.

Just take a real close look at Apple’s website about FCS2, I’m sure you’ll be as excited as I am about this update – its a MAJOR improvement!

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com

[Joe Murray]

Yes, it’s a major improvement. Yes I will buy upgrades for all three of my licenses of FCP. Color alone is worth the price. BUT –

The problem is that all these separate apps have to work together the same way from one version to the next. I’ve been burned several times by trying to migrate an old project from version 4.5 to version 5.x only to have FCP deal with various elements (Motion elements, Soundtrack projects, etc.) in a different way, causing the project to go haywire and requiring a lot of work to get things back in order. This is the main problem of not having some of these features built-in. If FCP gets an update and the other “integrated” apps do not, keep a lookout for problems like this.

Joe Murray

[Lance Bachelder]

We are doing a high profile animated series and being able to name tracks and reorder them would be HUGE! Nearly every other NLE and sound app allows at least track naming… c’mon Apple.

Lance Bachelder
Southern California

[David Roth weiss]

Lance,

I completely and utterly reject the quote in your profile in which you wrote, “You become what you think about most of the time.” Not a chance… The change of me ever becoming a beautiful busty blond babe are zero…

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Post-production Supervisor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

[Ben Holmes]

Alan

I have some sympathy with what you are asking for, but:

[Alan Lacey] “Reorderable track positions,”

Reorderable? To what purpose? The track orders determine the layering for compositing. How would being able to reorder them help? Interested to hear how this works for you.

[Alan Lacey] “Track naming”

I couldn’t really pin down how this would help me, although it definitely falls into the ‘why can’t I alter EVERYTHING on this GUI’ complaint. Again, love to hear the reasoning, as I have never seen it used.

[Alan Lacey] “Import image sequences,”

This can be achieved very easily in Quick Time player, although I’m sure having it within FCP would be a little nicer.

[Alan Lacey] “Reliable media management,
Sensible slomo implementation (maybe even optical flow),”

Well, we got FCServer, remains to be seen if the weak media manager is improved, but it seems very likely it has in some way. Optical flow is given specific mention within FCS – so we’re getting there.

Not sure what you mean by ‘individual track capabilities’ but I totally agree about the 3d DVE. Sure, Motion does it, but I prefer to stay in the app for some tasks, including this one.

Still, surely we all got most of what we wanted, didn’t we?

Ben

Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd

EVS & FCP specialists for live OB operations.

New HD edit/slomo truck on the road this month. Dual FCP systems/6 slomo positions.

[Lance Bachelder]

Not my quote – Earl Nightingale many decades ago in The Strangest Secret – he also mentioned it may not pertain to teenage boys – who would of course become teenage girls. Though not sure it ever wears off… even in my 40’s.

Lance Bachelder
Southern California

[Andy Mees]

a poster by th ename of Paul from Apple was kind enough to post the following over on the LAFCPUG forum:

[from Paul on the LAFCPUG Forum]
There are many smaller enhancements to FCP that weren’t covered in depth at NAB. Some of them are covered on our web-site, and others are found in the “What’s new” documentation that you’ll get with the software. For the most part, trimming hasn’t changed too much. There are a bunch of really nice smaller additions that we were demonstrating at NAB too:

– Rename clips in bins to match files on disk. Or rename files on disk to match clips in bins.
– Normalize & Gain for audio
– Brightness controls in scopes
– HDV > standard def video output over FireWire (DV)
– Automatically set up sequence to match the first clip dropped in
– Easy setup filtering so you only see the setups you want
– Clips automatically scale to fit a sequence (SD to HD, HD to SD, etc)
– SmoothCam
– Log & Transfer interface
– Improved broadcast safe filter and new RGB limit filter
– Improved video and still gamma handling
– New FxPlugs
– OMF export with level and pan settings
– Surround 5.1 monitoring
– Speed changes preserved when sending to Motion
– SmoothCam properties preserved when sending to Motion
– Open format timeline (mixed) clips preserve aspect ratios and scale when sending to Motion
– Use ProRes 422 for rendering HDV and XDCAM HD sequences
– Enhanced render status bar tooltips

[Chris Poisson]

Am I missing something or are a couple of the MOST BASIC functionalities still ignored?

Those are, keyframing that really works and background rendering. I’m extremely dissapointed these have not been addressed instead of all the cosmetic glitz. Give me what I NEED and not what you THINK I want.