fcp won’t stop playback at the exact frame i hit the key

[Seawild]

Jens
Ah yeah… kind of annoying huh? Sort of like anti-lock brakes on a race car.
I think we’re stuck with that one buddy.
Chris

[Walter Biscardi]

[jens] “i don’t want to sound like a diva, but that is annoying as hell.
does anyone know how to get rid of the delay?”

That’s pretty much the way FCP has been from the beginning. The Marker key works very well though to put a mark on the exact frame you hit.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Now in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

Now editing “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

G5 Dual 2.0, AJA Kona 2, Medea FCR2X

[John Pale]

FWIW the delay seems to be worse on Avid MC Adrenaline. I think all of us will remember the good old days when an NLE would stop on a dime.

[Steve Wargo]

simply hit the spacebar three frames earlier.

sw

[Jens]

thanks for that idea. 😉

so fcp actually can’t do it. what a bummer. does anyone know if the latest avid xpress pro on the mac does it correctly? i’m doing mostly offline editing for commercials where literally every frame counts. this issue is really important to me because a lot of my everyday workflow depends on it.

thanks for all of your answers.

jens

[Bouncing Account needs new email address]

[jens] ” i’m doing mostly offline editing for commercials where literally every frame counts.”

Unlike the rest of us here who just “play around” with editing and those silly frame-thingies just don’t matter.

Well, you started it 😉

Anyway, FCP will stop much faster (almost immediately) if you turn off the “External Frames” playback for this purpose and just view on the Canvas window on the computer monitor.

[Walter Biscardi]

[jens] “i’m doing mostly offline editing for commercials where literally every frame counts. this issue is really important to me because a lot of my everyday workflow depends on it.”

Do what I did, pick up a Bella Pro Keyboard. It features a jog / shuttle wheel so scrolling back and forth is no big deal. Stop playback and scrub back a few frames, no big deal.

Frame accuracy is extremely important in our day to day work here at our shop and FCP hasn’t been a problem with it.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Now in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

Now editing “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

G5 Dual 2.0, AJA Kona 2, Medea FCR2X

[Filip Vandoorne]

try working in DV – as you are offlining. FCP will work much faster than in 10bit. if you are working with the decklink card, upgrade to tiger and fcp5 + 5.1 drivers, or in the aja, also the latested drivers. You can also gain some response time by using only the canvas window and make sure to set it on image only, not image + wireframe. Also full screen desktop preview is mostly faster than viewing the canvas over a decklink, aja or firewire.You can even try to set in systemprefs the effecthandling all realtime off, which in earlier versions of FCP gave you faster response time. Make also sure that your system has enough ram = more 2Gb, also set waveforms off
Anyhow all systems will show some delay, only the delay should be less than 4 frames: in my opinion the system is ok if you can stop easily 3 times in a row on the same frame.

[Francois Stark]

There are two ways I get FCP to be where I want it to be:
– use a marker (m key) like Walter suggested
– add a cut while playing – even multiple cuts.

The one key I map in my keyboard is the b key – the default is blade mode. I change it to “add cut” which does an immediate cut on all enabled layers – while scrubbing or playing.

Using this, I can do multiple cuts on the beat of the music while playing, and it’s pretty accurate – it only leaves markers while the timeline plays, and as soon as you stop, it cuts enabled tracks up at the precise timepoints. It’s similar to using markers, but for editing it cuts out a few steps – pardon the pun.

Regards
Francois