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FCP X can’t do “pro” is officially vaporized.
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Yeah, me too. FCPX has a lot of do’s and don’ts, many little pitfalls you have to avoid. And with this huge knowledge base of experienced editors helps one learn about this little things. They can help prevent a lot of trouble.
Of course, I wish things would just WORK without having to avoid all these little pitfalls, but I am grateful to all the helpful advice.
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[Ronny Courtens] “The projects you describe are relatively simple compared with what they do at RTS, or even what we do on a daily basis. And we don’t see any of the issues you describe. So either you are using a completely different FCP X than the rest of us, or there is something wrong with your setup or your workflows.”
I can only second that whole-heartedly. I work near exclusively in PAL and in fact am currently working on near 30 hrs. of material with all of that even TRIPLED. The original 2K Cineform, optimized, AND proxy. 52 individually edited scenes, all with a minimum of three versions of the edit. And… all that on a 2012 MBP with a TBo RAID. I don’t see any of what Mike describes. Not on any of the many systems I otherwise work on either. Will it slow down every once in a while if it’s been open all day? Sure, sometimes. But a simple restart of FCP will always return it to its full performance. A matter of maybe 20 seconds.
The part I by far get the least is the thing about the AAFs being bad??! I have used X2Pro countless times and have even heard here and there that the audio guy wishes he could ALWAYS get such clean timelines. Something that is in fact mirrored in the article also:
“Our audio people say that, if Roles are applied correctly, the AAF that comes from FCP X via X2Pro is cleaner than any other AAF because all the audio tracks are clearly organized based on the Roles that were applied to them in FCP X.”
Could it be that you’re not familiar with the point (and importance!) of ROLES, Mike? Are you ignoring them altogether? Because that’s the only possible reason I can think of why your AAFs shouldn’t in fact be more than perfect.
– RK
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Deutsch? Hier gibt es ein umfassendes FCP X Training für dich! -
[Andrew Kimery] “In a previous post you mentioned you hadn’t touched MC since v6, is the lab question on v6? That might account for some of the issues (Avid changed a lot in 6 but seemed to get everything much more solid in 6.5). It’s neither here nor there but I’m just curious.”
No, Andrew, I said I hadn’t USED it (as in “in production”) and that I was guessing it may have been v6 that (last) time. Could’ve been v7. But since the Avids were moved in the school, they finally dared to update them more often and AFAIK are v8.x, where it now ends. Especially since, as I mentioned, we shoot in 4, 5 and even some occasional 6K, in which case they’re useless for the latter, no matter which version.
[Andrew Kimery] “Just change “X” to “Avid” and you came up with the solution for Robin Kurz’s problem too!”
Yeah. Somehow I knew that was going to be used as an excuse, since I don’t see how that (with or without the token smily) can be interpreted as anything but “PEBCAK!”. Easy explanation when you have no clue who the sys admins are (in that case not me) and whom they spoke with for hours on the phone and in person to get things resolved but couldn’t. Sure. Avid is rock-solid and bug-free! Only incompetence can take it down. Well known fact.
Never mind that Avid themselves recommended the move in the end, too, after apparently running out of options. Go figure.
– RK
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Deutsch? Hier gibt es ein umfassendes FCP X Training für dich! -
[Robin S. Kurz] “No, Andrew, I said I hadn’t USED it (as in “in production”) and that I was guessing it may have been v6 that (last) time.”
Which is why I asked for clarification.
[Robin S. Kurz] “Yeah. Somehow I knew that was going to be used as an excuse, “
What excuse? My post was making fun of Bill, not advice for you. If I wanted to berate you w/a condescending post I would’ve done it many posts ago as opposed to trying to learn more about your situation. You had problems with Avid, you moved on to something you like better. Awesome. I really don’t care what NLE people use as long as it works for them. I don’t work for any of these companies or sell plug-ins or teach classes or anything else that would give me a vested interest in pushing one over the other.
Funny how you and Bill both reacted similarly to Mike’s situation, yet when the same ‘advice’ is pointed in your direction you go off the deep end.
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Clearly you missed that neither were they my systems, nor was it my decision to move away from them. Sorry, no ulterior motive to be found.
[Andrew Kimery] “… you go off the deep end.”
Huh? Your reading interpretation skills are… interesting. Feel free to quote exactly where I “went off the deep end”. 😀
– RK
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Deutsch? Hier gibt es ein umfassendes FCP X Training für dich! -
Mike,
I hear you.
And I appreciate that what you DON”T want is to have to keep putting on your system integrators hat when all you really want is to EDIT.
It’s got to be terribly frustrating. And I feel for you.
But that doesn’t change the fact that tons of people here get superb results with X running systems just like, or even less powerful, than yours.
So there has to be something happening that’s gumming up your works.
Ronny is one of the best in the business at sussing out problems. I’d take him up on his generous offer to help you figure out what’s wrong. Because something clearly IS wrong.
Maybe its how the files are configured, maybe some hardware glitch, perhaps some workflow process that’s configured in a way that’s slowing things down…
I have the distinct feeling X could be a GREAT NLE for you. But it will never be until you can get these issues resolved and experience it the way the rest of us are.
My hope is that that happens sooner rather than later for you.
Good luck.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[Robin S. Kurz] “Clearly you missed that neither were they my systems, nor was it my decision to move away from them. Sorry, no ulterior motive to be found.”
You’re right, I should have said the Avids at your school. From how matter-of-factly you spoke about the situation I thought you were more closely involved than you actually were.
[Robin S. Kurz] “Feel free to quote exactly where I “went off the deep end”. 😀
“Okay. See below.
[Robin S. Kurz] “Yeah. Somehow I knew that was going to be used as an excuse, since I don’t see how that (with or without the token smily) can be interpreted as anything but “PEBCAK!”. Easy explanation when you have no clue who the sys admins are (in that case not me) and whom they spoke with for hours on the phone and in person to get things resolved but couldn’t. Sure. Avid is rock-solid and bug-free! Only incompetence can take it down. Well known fact.”
My joke was poking fun at Bill, it wasn’t a machiavellian dig aimed at the Avid problem you were describing.
What excuses did I make in favor of Avid? Where did I accuse anyone of being incompetent? Your school had atypical problems with their Avids. They weren’t able to resolve said problems even with Avid’s help. They moved on to a different solution. Problem solved. If I actually thought the sys admins involved were incompetent I would have said so. But I don’t so I didn’t.
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Thanks for the tips Tony.
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Well, sound editors often show me what they get. And mostly it’s a big mess. Someone must be doing something wrong, no doubt. But often they’re getting somewhere between 36 and 96 tracks, where 14 should be sufficient. And they use the roles, that kind of works, but the amount of tracks and the organisation is often still messy. Compared to an AVID AFF, where the sound editors only get what was used.
Partly that may have to do with the workflow. A lot of television director precut their shows, add their own music etc. And they forget to add roles for instance. Which means changing them in the timeline. We’ve discussed this before, but I find it strange that if you change the roles in the source clip, it doesn’t change it in timeline.
And… same thing happens when some people import MP3 music (44 Khz). When they use X2PRo all that music ends up being 44 KHz in a 48 KHz show. Now, of course, people should first convert the audio, track by track before importing it. But you know how it goes.
The thing is: you don’t notice it in the timeline that the frequency is different (only in Inspector but you’d have to check every used clip, one by one). If you don’t leave FCPX it’s never a problem. But it’s strange that in a 48KHz project or library the audio doesn’t get converted upon import. Or that FCPX doesn’t convert it either. Plus, to change the frequency, you have to import new tracks and put them all back by hand. I wish you could just replace them (like you could in FCP7).
So for me, that’s major difference between AVID and FCP7. In FCPX you have to do a lot of thinking yourself on stuff like codec, audio frequencies. In AVID and FCP7 you have specs on the project and the application converts everything to the specs of that project. Which is, if you ask me, a much more convenient way of working if you’re editing, adding footage, music, stills etc. while you’re on the go. I mean, that’s what machines are for, right? To do the heavy lifting.
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Well, Bill, you’re absolutely right. I just want to edit and not fidget around. And to be honest, it’s me that has the slightest problems. Unless I have to battle all the weird audio synching issues (which is often unexplained and causing slowness in the system).
It’s a lot of editors finalising my projects and running into very similar problems (and not just on my projects).
But I did take up Ronny’s generous offer. I hope to figure out how to up the performance. But as you point out: “Maybe its how the files are configured, maybe some hardware glitch, perhaps some workflow process that’s configured in a way that’s slowing things down…” , that is basically my main frustration. We often can’t figure out what’s causing the weirdness. As I said before: it feels like an NLE with so many little pitfalls that I never know what’s next.
And I keep repeating it, similar issues are (on the exact same set and configuration) in AVID are almost absent. It has it quirks an quips, but it’s always stable. And the settings of the project dictate what happens to all the media, how it’s configured and how the project performs. And that is what’s does it for me.
But… I have a lot projects that have to be cut and finished in FCPX. So, yeah… hopefully Ronny’s advice will help me out.
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