horrible experience with nested items

[Paul Bertham]

the way of making speedchanges in FCP leads to the most idiotic workflows that i’ve ever seen in my life working with professional NLEs.
A way to keep sync in timeline is to use the source clip rather than the original media file and to overwrite the desired edit.

However, the other unfavorable suprise whenever you do speedchanges is the quality of the rendered file. the algorythm is simply inacceptable, even for reverse playback of clips.
I often have to use third party plugins or even leaving the speed-changed clip(s) unrendered when exporting for much better results.

As for the nesting problems described and the solving answers from professionals in here: it makes no sense in any way. somebody suggested the frame offset in the settings, others talk about audio mixdown, others ETT rather than PTT… what the Heck?
Anyone considered Soft- or Hardware Problems?
Anyone considered Final Cu Pro – or lets better say Apple?

AjA, for example, have released now (after a long period) their new Software (v6) for their Videocards.
There have been known issues of a/v-sync problems (and many more) since ages (in an editors term).

Using the word “Professionality” in relation to “Complexity” is far wrong.

why?

Many camera manufacturers – in this case, Sony, Panasonic – are fooling the people with new technologies (CF, SxS, P2) and there is no workflow without flaws, but product manager still lie in our faces how easy everything works.

How many new Codecs and Video formats do we need?

Anyone asking for poor video quality in FCP when working with rectangular pixels instead of square pixels in compositing software?

Anyone thinking about problems with poor graphic-files unless you know about the mass why these problems are caused?

Anyone talking about messed up Quicktime releases?

The more people are accepting those flaws and bugs, the more Hard- and Software manufacturers will never change their minds.
They better should Betatest on their own and not on our Back. We’re the paying consumer/user. We are the customers, and customer is king, not a fool.

regards

[Walter Biscardi]

[Paul Bertham] “somebody suggested the frame offset in the settings, others talk about audio mixdown, others ETT rather than PTT… what the Heck? “

It’s not a frame offset, it’s a Playback Offset. This has nothing to do with actual audio sync, it has to do with the playback offset of keeping your Canvas and external monitor in sync. FCP’s default is 4 frames because of the way that format works, there is a delay in the video hitting the external monitor so the audio is delayed by four frames to make it appear in sync as you edit.

If you have a video card such as the AJA Kona, you set that offset to 0.

Or in the case of 1080i HD to my Panny Pro Plasma I have to set that delay to 2 due to the inherrent delay on the plasma screen.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the audio sync during layback to tape, just to make sure the audio is visually in sync while you’re editing. Playback offset is actually a really nice feature.

[Paul Bertham] “AjA, for example, have released now (after a long period) their new Software (v6) for their Videocards.
There have been known issues of a/v-sync problems (and many more) since ages (in an editors term). “

Not with the AJA video cards. We’ve been using them for almost four years now, they’re rock solid. Where there HAVE been issues is sync and audio issues brought about by Apple’s Quicktime updates.

[Paul Bertham] “I often have to use third party plugins or even leaving the speed-changed clip(s) unrendered when exporting for much better results. “

Have you used Optical Flow in Motion? That’s included with FCP and does a far superior job with Slo Mo as has been stated on this forum many times.

[Paul Bertham] “Many camera manufacturers – in this case, Sony, Panasonic – are fooling the people with new technologies (CF, SxS, P2) and there is no workflow without flaws, but product manager still lie in our faces how easy everything works. “

What problems are you having? P2 is a piece of cake. XDCAM is very simple too. What specific issues are you having?

[Paul Bertham] “Anyone asking for poor video quality in FCP when working with rectangular pixels instead of square pixels in compositing software? “

What issues are you having? We use After Effects on a daily basis with FCP. Just curious what issues you’re having.

[Paul Bertham] “Anyone thinking about problems with poor graphic-files unless you know about the mass why these problems are caused? “

Again, what issues are you having? We also use Photoshop on a daily basis with FCP.

[Paul Bertham] “Anyone talking about messed up Quicktime releases? “

Yep, everytime they’re released we generally find many things broken in FCP due to Quicktime “fixes.” They’re always noted on this forum, just do a search on Quicktime and you’ll probably find hundreds of posts through the years regarding Quicktime breaking FCP.

[Paul Bertham] “They better should Betatest on their own and not on our Back. We’re the paying consumer/user. We are the customers, and customer is king, not a fool. “

Last I heard Apple had less beta testers than you have fingers on your hands. This is COMPLETELY unacceptable and I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. Apple tends to break things more than they fix them because they only have a few beta testers using only a few system configs. So when the software gets released to the 1,000,000+ registered users running probably 50,000 configurations, well things break.

But on the other hand, limitations and all, we’re delivering broadcast masters on a weekly basis both in SD and HD and have been since 2001. The software needs tweaking, but for the most part, it does work well.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
Read my Blog!

[Ben Holmes]

Wow. This thread reminds me why I NEVER use nests (unless I really really have to). I used to get errors and crashes caused by them too, especially whilst laying gfx over the top (a few fcp versions ago) – I also just don’t like not seeing where everything is… Usually nesting=lazy editing, except in the instances Walter mentions.

BTW Shane, as someone who spent a month in Athens in 2004 editing at the Olympics, and spends his life working on big sporting events (just getting my kit flightcased to go to Kentucky next month for the Ryder Cup) I can tell you those big long events are just one long slog. Seeing it on the TV is always more fun…

Night night.

Ben

Edit Out Ltd
—————————-
FCP Editor/Trainer/System Consultant
EVS/VT Supervisor for live broadcast
RED camera transfer/post
Independent Director/Producer

[Paul Bertham]

Hi Walter,
Thank you for reply and sharing your thoughts and opinion with us.
i cannot reply to everything you have replied coz im busy to but here just a few things.

About Graphic Images and FCP:

https://web.mac.com/jb.net/PS-FCP/PixelTests.html

About Quicktime Player and Aperture Interpretation:

It seems that it does not make any sense to discuss about, but just for information – Quicktime player fools us around because of misinterpretation of the aperture. You have Four Modes: Classic, Clean, Production, Encoded Pixels.
Depending on how your Footage is interpreted by QT, quality changes. you mostly can see this in an vertical resolution loss (dirty edges, steps in greenscreen footage, etc.)
Thats why i wrote that you mostly have to work with square pixels in compositing software ans ALWAYS taking care of the interpretation of your footage you’re working on.

For example P2 Workflow 720p50.

FCP Logged P2 Footage is interpreted in quicktime with Aperture “Clean” and with an Pixel Aspect Ratio of 1248×702

Same P2 Footage that has been logged via “Raylight” shows no change in Aperture and a Pixel Aspect of 1280×720

these two differences are emerging drastically whe you work with Hi-res footage. You’ll see the difference if you test it.

Same BS with the correct or better say incorrect gamma interpretation in quicktime.

this in Absolutely inacceptable because my whole work relies to the architecture of quicktime.

As for P2 workflow: maybe in your NTSC world there’ll be less problems with that issue, but over here – if you do not use “Raylight” for transferring your P2 Footage – you’re merely F…ed

XDCAM-Files make troubles too.

Workflows (especially P2) are just complicated – and is frustrating lots of people who have started working with.

So far.
More to come soon.

Regards,
Paul

[Walter Biscardi]

[Ben Holmes] ” (just getting my kit flightcased to go to Kentucky next month for the Ryder Cup)”

Hey Ben! Kentucky is not all that far from Atlanta. If you have any time to stop by, we’re about 45 minutes north of Atlanta. Unfortunately we’re off I-85 and you’ll be up the I-75 corridor towards Kentucky but you never know. We can compare notes on BluRay. 🙂

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
Read my Blog!

[Walter Biscardi]

[Paul Bertham] “It seems that it does not make any sense to discuss about, but just for information – Quicktime player fools us around because of misinterpretation of the aperture. You have Four Modes: Classic, Clean, Production, Encoded Pixels. “

I don’t follow where Quicktime Player has anything to do with FCP. Quicktime Player can have issues with none standard frame sizes such as anamorphic and whatnot, but what does that have to do with playback in FCP?

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
Read my Blog!

[Paul Bertham]

it´s mostly about quality degradation.
if you work in AE and you don´t re-interpret your footage, the quality of your exported footage will change drastically (low).

and

of course Quicktime can screw up your complete Final Cut Suite and as you´ve already said, other Apps too.
Because quicktime is deeply implemented into the OS so it can even screw up your whole system.
I remember that one of the QT releases for exsmple caused Life Type Templates dissappearing magically – everything went f…ed up.

Try screwing around QT system libraries – by accident or not – and wonder if your mac will not boot anymore.

It remebers my somehow on IE and windows. you can´t get rid of it, otherwise throw your system into the trash.

[Walter Biscardi]

[Paul Bertham] “it´s mostly about quality degradation.
if you work in AE and you don´t re-interpret your footage, the quality of your exported footage will change drastically (low). “

Of course you have to interpolate your footage correctly. AE does not do this automatically every time. Especially when it comes to interlacing, sometimes it will correctly interpolate the footage in the correct field order, sometimes it won’t.

If you don’t start with the correct pixel aspect ration and format, then you will absolutely get image degradation in your resulting comps, but this is a responsibility of the artist, not the software. I’ve been using AE since about 1996 and it’s always been that way.

[Paul Bertham] “of course Quicktime can screw up your complete Final Cut Suite and as you´ve already said, other Apps too.
Because quicktime is deeply implemented into the OS so it can even screw up your whole system. “

Just about anything Apple releases can screw up the ProApps because, again, the beta team for Final Cut Studio is incredibly small so they can barely test every scenario. Which is precisely why on this very forum we never recommend anyone allow their system to run in the automatic update mode. You should always wait at least two weeks before installing any updates available and check on this forum and with all the manufacturer forums before you update.

This is not just true for Studio, but any ProApps on a Mac from including Avid and Premiere.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
Read my Blog!

[Paul Bertham]

Thank you Walter again for competent relpy!

as you wrote about the small amount of “Beta Tester” @ Apple we will never find a logic conclusion inbetween the “50k configurations”.

for my opinion: as long APPLE does support those “curlywhirly” format kitchen from developers and, and as long IF THEY (Developers and Manufacturers) are willed to face the truth about confusion about formats, we�ll never agree in this term.

Fact is – there is confusion. AND: it�s all about money.

No, we do not talk about murphys law…

There are just a few small little things to confess about truth and lies!

best regards,
Paul

[Ben Holmes]

Walter

Just checked a few old threads and saw your reply – only got back a couple of days ago. I had no idea you were so close, but I’d never have fitted it into out insane schedule (ie. 34 hours on air in 3 days). Be great to meet at NAB or IBC one of these days – you never know…

Ben

Edit Out Ltd
—————————-
FCP Editor/Trainer/System Consultant
EVS/VT Supervisor for live broadcast
RED camera transfer/post
Independent Director/Producer