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Ex-Sony Vegas user has questions
Hi everyone,
I’m a fairly new Final Cut Pro user who’s looking for some guidance. I apologise if these questions have been asked before, but I think my way of describing them is not going to be the same as someone else’s, so it’s difficult for me to search.
My background in video editing: I’m an ex-user of Adobe Premiere Pro 2, and more lately, Sony Vegas 8 Pro. I love the latter of these programs, but require a more Mac-centric solution, and moved to Final Cut Studio 2.
Final Cut Pro 2 does not seem to be entirely intuitive in the same way Vegas is. Here are the annoyances I’m running into; I’d really appreciate any insight you could give. I’m sure I can do what I want and it’s just a case of me missing something.
1. “Unable to complete command. A conflict ocurred during a trim operation.” I often get this error when I’m attempting to change the speed of a clip on the timeline and can’t for the life of me understand what is wrong. It’s a world away from Sony Vegas where I simply hold CTRL and drag to define the clip’s new runtime!
2. When I’m rendering a large file out (which takes its sweet time I might add), I’ll sometimes Apple+H to hide FCP. When this happens, I often cannot get FCP to reappear, even after the file has finished rendering. I have to manually kill FCP then load again. Known issue or just me?
3. Exporting to Compressor doesn’t seem to work properly. It seems to take an unfathomably long time to render and will often go around in circles. Rendering to a file then dragging that into Compressor seems to be much faster – is this right?
4. Audio bleeps. Whenever I import new audio, or even do simple things like change the volume, add a fade-in… I have to re-render the audio in order to get a preview of what I just did. Can this possibly be right? Or am I doing something wrong?
5. It’s slow. I’m using a MacBook Pro 2.4Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2gb DDR2 SDRAM. Just dragging clips around the timeline is not as fast as I’m used to. Do I really need a desktop system to overcome this or is it just the way of things?
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4 Replies
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1. Changing the speed of a clip in the timeline will change the duration of the sequence. The conflict occurs when clips move in the timeline and bump against each other preventing the trim from occurring correctly. There are a couple of ways around this. My way is go to the beginning of the clip and use Cmd-Opt-F to match frame to a new copy of the clip from the drive. Mark and In point in the clip and do the speed change. Edit it into the timeline, either replace of some other way, to make the sequence I want.
2. Haven’t come across that one. You might try not hiding the application and using Cmd-tab to move to other applications.
3. Don’t export to Compressor. It does work but it’s really slow. Export a QuickTime Movie, either reference or self-contained, and take that to Compressor.
4. You should make sure all your audio is converted to AIFF 48K before putting it in the timeline. Avoid MP3 and other compressed audio formats.
5. Don’t know what format you’re working in, but I don’t have a problem dragging clips around in the timeline on basically the same computer.
All the best,
Tom
Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop” -
What tom said for 3 and 4. 2 and 5 may be related….bad RAM? I’ve got my Expose’s settings set on my right cmnd, option, and control buttons. one press, and the windows fly out showing desktop or all open windows. No hiding of programs necessary.
there’s a few ways for #1, pick your poison. here’s 2 of mine…
set in and out on clip to be speed adjusted in the viewer window. Set in and out on the timeline for the duration you want to stretch or squeeze. drag clip from viewer window to canvas and drop it onto the “fit to fill” option.
alternatively, figure the time you need on the clip that needs the speed change. place on timeline at end of the sequence. right click, select change speed, enter the time. drag clip to where you need it in the timeline.
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Thanks for the pointers, guys. Looks like it’s just a case of getting used to a few quirks… but no, the RAM in my system is A-OK. Maybe adding some more of it will cure my speed issues.
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OK guys, if you don’t mind, some more questions:
6. I’m editing an interview shot on PAL DV. The files were imported through iMovie (they’re .DV streams) by someone else (their equipment was stolen in case you’re wondering why iMovie is used here!). I brought these into Final Cut.
Whenever I simply resposition the clip in the timeline or make a basic edit, I have to manually re-render the audio to avoid getting bleeps. This surely cannot be right?
7. When I leave Final Cut and refer to a document (a list of Editing Notes), returning to FCP takes a couple of seconds while I have a “Preparing video for display” box on screen. My laptop has 2gb of RAM, with about 500 being reported as free. Is this the problem?
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