Can FCPX easily do this kind of conforming work?

[Chris Harlan]

[Jeremy Garchow] “You must take pleasure in hearing me say this, but hear it is for the fourth time this thread, FCPX is not suitable for this job at this time.
“

Jeremy, I get no pleasure in that. I’d like FCP X to become something that is useable for me. As I go along in my daily workflow, I often think, gee, how would you do something like that in FCP X? So, I asked. I thought there might be a work-around or some clever way of reassigning content at the level of metadata, but apparently there is none. I wasn’t trying to pester you. I’m just trying to understand something fundamental that is beyond my level of experience with FCP X.

This is a major thing. It is not as obvious as no video out, or tracks. But this, alone, will derail FCP X for any industrial scale use. That’s sad.

[Jeremy Garchow]

Sorry, I thought since you understood FCPX’s shortcomings, you were just taunting.

Certainly a direct file replacement conform is not in the cards for FCPx today.

One of the things that it is truly odd to me is that in an effort to make sure that nothing goes offline or gets mislinked, Apple not only made the media management bullet proof, it is buried under 20feet of Earth which is under 100 feet of bedrock, and sometimes can’t support all that pressure and collapses. In an effort to be strong, it crushes itself. There’s no relinking to a different/replacement file, except for still frames, which oddly allow external modification without throwing them off course in FCPX.

Odd.

To me, it appears this is not complete, to others, it will appear as a half assed attempt by Apple to destroy life as we know it.

[Chris Harlan]

[Jeremy Garchow] “Sorry, I thought since you understood FCPX’s shortcomings, you were just taunting.
“

Sorry, man. You should know that despite our rocky introduction to one another, I’ve come to respect your work here. Being a long-time FCP fan, I don’t want to give up on X, but I can’t really use it or play with it much, currently, so I follow along here and try to stay abreast of things. I had some idea that conforming would be a difficulty in FCP X’s current state–because I couldn’t think how to do it–but I was far from sure. I had to allow for the likely possibility that there was something I was missing, which is why I posted the example.

[Steve Connor]

[Chris Harlan] ” had to allow for the likely possibility that there was something I was missing, which is why I posted the example.”

Sadly you’re not and it doesn’t seem to be a feature on the glimpse of a roadmap Apple have offered us.

It would clear a lot of things up if Apple just came clean and told us exactly where they are aiming FCPX.

“My Name is Steve and I’m an FCPX user”

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Chris Harlan] “Sorry, man. You should know that despite our rocky introduction to one another, I’ve come to respect your work here.”

Wow. That means a lot coming from you! Thank you, Chris.

[Chris Harlan] “Being a long-time FCP fan, I don’t want to give up on X, but I can’t really use it or play with it much, currently, so I follow along here and try to stay abreast of things. I had some idea that conforming would be a difficulty in FCP X’s current state–because I couldn’t think how to do it–but I was far from sure. I had to allow for the likely possibility that there was something I was missing, which is why I posted the example.”

Now, I get it and it makes perfect sense. Again, thanks.

Truthfully, in FCPX I see a lot of potential (for our shop’s use), and some of that is just a few tweaks away. A bit more control here, some more user control there, a third party solution up there. I like most of FCPX.

With the absence of no reconnect, for me it really is the most puzzling facet in the whole of FCPX. It is a major part of this new foundation, and it’s about the only thing that isn’t adding up, even with my overbearing optimism.

It won’t allow many work flows of exporting, rewrite and reimporting from other databases/applications. It is one of the very few areas in FCPX where I see a major roadblock, not just feature incompletion blues. In my naïveté, perhaps there’s some other reason for this that isn’t clear to me at the moment. I’m not ready to give up quite yet either.

Thank you (again) for a great case study.

Jeremy

[Ben Scott]

if you are doing this regularly I would suggest you get a copy of catdv, I imagine it will do what you are looking for, but cant be sure

certainly with fcp7 and catdv it would most likely work

get the demo
give it a go

[Chris Harlan]

Ben, while I’m always happy for a suggestion, I cannot see how CatDV would make this particular part of my work flow any easier than it already is in FCP7, which is pretty darn easy. And, I cannot see how it would help at all in FCP X. Perhaps I’m wrong. Could you elucidate?

[Jeremy Garchow]

I’d be willing to try it out.

Chris, give me just a general sense of the files from your example.

The “offline” file is how many audio tracks?

And the “online” file is how many?

And you said tc matches, or actually it doesn’t, right? The final file is longer because of the commercial breaks?

I was actually going to see if this was possible through FCPXML as well, simply reattach the new file to the old timing.

Jeremy

[Chris Harlan]

[Jeremy Garchow] “I’d be willing to try it out.

Chris, give me just a general sense of the files from your example.

The “offline” file is how many audio tracks?

And the “online” file is how many?

And you said tc matches, or actually it doesn’t, right? The final file is longer because of the commercial breaks?

I was actually going to see if this was possible through FCPXML as well, simply reattach the new file to the old timing.”

Now, that’s an interesting thought. Do the exchange outside then program then reimport. I’d find that an acceptable solution.

In the particular example I gave, the temp file is DVCproHD, the finished project is ProRes HQ. Timecode matches, but length does not. Audio-wise, we are only concerned with channels one and two as a stereo SOT track.

I also have the non-matching audio stem, but since I put that in by hand using FCS’s timecode overlay, lets ignore that for now.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Chris Harlan] “Now, that’s an interesting thought. Do the exchange outside then program then reimport. I’d find that an acceptable solution. “

Thanks for the info, Chris. When I get some time, I’ll give it a whirl.

Jeremy