Long-term FCPX user, but still have 5 newbie questions.

[Bret Williams]

1- it used to work this way. In more situations than not, it was not the desired behavior. I guess ya had to be there.

2- those are universal controls for all clips. It would be quite annoying if you had to add these as fx and/or activate them before adjusting. Look at After Effects or other NLEs. Transform controls are just part of the clip because of their frequent use. In legacy, you could reset them, but not turn them off. X is a definite improvement here. I’m not sure why color is there. Probably because it’s always on. IOW you can so a primary grade without affecting playback rt performance? Not sure.

3- make them a compound clip or place an adjustment layer matte above. Or work in a compound clip of that dimension, then drop it into the sequence size you need for output.

4- when you experimented, you left it there for a reason no? Perhaps you’d be even more ticked if it pasted and deleted your hard work. I think they err on the side of caution. Experiment away, but turn off experimental effects. Make. Request to Apple to bring back remove attributes command.

5- cmd 7 is undo. Not ctrl Z.

[Steve Mullen]

Premiere years ago let you double-click a clip and Effects control would open automatically. Then they adopted the FCP 7 system. I keep thinking there must be a way to get the Skimmer and Playhead to auto-sync.

Speaking of Premiere, I found I can play 4K XAVC smoothly without rendering a Proxy by simply setting Viewers to 1/4 resolution. I was also surprised that FCP X made a FHD Proxy. I was also surprised that when I Exported as UHD unless I set Playback to Original it used the Proxy and upscaled it to UHD.

Usually I forgot the experimental FX. It would be nice if one could press Option to force a Replace an existing FX.

The Inspector isn’t tall enough to see all the FX so it’s easy to miss an old one. That’s why the appearance of FX one has never used is so annoying as they take up vertical space — not like any other Effects Editor.

Sorry, I meant CMD+Z. When did an OS X UNDO become CMD +7? Maybe I can assign in to CMD+ Z.

Best Regards,

Steve Mullen

Digital Video Consulting–Las Vegas

http://www.mindspring.com/~d-v-c

==========================

“Sony V1 and FX7 HANDBOOK” at http://www.knowledge-download.com/V1-FX7

“Sony HVR-Z1 and HDR-FX1 HANDBOOK” at: http://www.knowledge-download.com/SonyHDV

“EDITION 2: JVC GY-HD100 HANDBOOK” at: http://www.knowledge-download.com/JVCHDV

[Bret Williams]

Definitely X could use some space management. For all the panels you can hide away it sure eats up space compared to others. I mean, what’s with all the space between layers in the timeline? Why do I need space between layers? And if they just defaulted those transform, color, distort, etc. panels to closed, well, pretty much problem solved there. If you close them, they stay closed until you restart I think. Just make it a habit I guess. But it’d drive me nuts because I’m constantly going to stabilization, or the transform or even distort tools. I already find it a nuisance that many of the tools in the text panel are closed by default like face color for one. You’d think that’d be open by default.

There are a lot of interface gotchas compared to 7, but the capability of the app itself, when you don’t include it’s somewhat inability to play nice with others) is far beyond legacy.

[Steve Mullen]

I wouldn’t go back to to 7 — but there is alway Premiere which until a 4K test I haven’t used in years.

Best Regards,

Steve Mullen

Digital Video Consulting–Las Vegas

http://www.mindspring.com/~d-v-c

==========================

“Sony V1 and FX7 HANDBOOK” at http://www.knowledge-download.com/V1-FX7

“Sony HVR-Z1 and HDR-FX1 HANDBOOK” at: http://www.knowledge-download.com/SonyHDV

“EDITION 2: JVC GY-HD100 HANDBOOK” at: http://www.knowledge-download.com/JVCHDV

[Bret Williams]

[Steve Mullen] “When did an OS X UNDO become CMD +7?”

Doh! I meant cmd+7 too. Late night.

[Steve Mullen]

Still one question open.

3) I’m trying to create a Widescreen look (2.34:1) and have cropped each clip. Then I’ve slid the wide image up/down to keep action within the wide frame. But, how do I get all crops to line-up in the vertical center of the 16:9 frame for a Project?

Best Regards,

Steve Mullen

Digital Video Consulting–Las Vegas

http://www.mindspring.com/~d-v-c

==========================

“Sony V1 and FX7 HANDBOOK” at http://www.knowledge-download.com/V1-FX7

“Sony HVR-Z1 and HDR-FX1 HANDBOOK” at: http://www.knowledge-download.com/SonyHDV

“EDITION 2: JVC GY-HD100 HANDBOOK” at: http://www.knowledge-download.com/JVCHDV

[Nick Toth]

[Steve Mullen] “1) When I click on a clip with an FX it highlights the clip and I can see one frame from a clip in the Viewer. The Playhead doesn’t, however, move to this point so when I move pointer to the Inspector controls the Viewer reverts to the frame where the Playhead is. So the correct clip is highlighted and the Inspector has its controls, yet one is not looking at this clip.”

Option click on the clip.

[Steve Mullen] “2) I’ve always wondered why Color, Correction 1, Transform, Crop have blue squares (Active) before I even apply any of these kinds of FX. In fact, why are they even listed in the Inspector because I haven’t applied any of these FX? Seeing the blue makes me think that I’ve applied an FX I don’t remember I’ve applied. Solution?”

They are all active but with default settings.

[Steve Mullen] “3) I’m trying to create a Widescreen look (2.34:1) and have cropped each clip. Then I’ve slid the wide image up/down to keep action within the wide frame. But, how do I get all crops to line-up in the vertical center of the 16:9 frame for a Project?”

Overlay color solids cropped to the look you want and move the clips behind them. Make it a compound clip and you can use it in multiple projects.

anickt

[Nick Toth]

PS – make the cropped solids a comp. not everything.

anickt

[Steve Mullen]

Overlay color solids cropped to the look you want and move the clips behind them. Make it a compound clip and you can use it in multiple projects.

I’ve got a series of clips cropped to 2.34:1 and each crop has been moved up/down so the desired content is within the crop window. That’s been done.

I can create in the Timeline a 2.34:1 crop and center it in the 16:9 window on a solid black matte. But after pressing Done, I’ve got nothing useful–so I assume I’m not doing what you suggest.

I would guess I need to create a 2.34:1 transparent window and center it in the 16:9 window. But, it would be created in the Timeline and I would think I want it in the Event Browser. So do you mean create an image in Photoshop with an alpha window of 2.34:1?

But I also don’t understand HOW one can “… move the clips behind them” because moving the crop on existing cropped video changes what’s visible.

Moreover, doing this clip by clip seems way too slow. It would seem that somehow this should be a Project level operation.

Best Regards,

Steve Mullen

Digital Video Consulting–Las Vegas

http://www.mindspring.com/~d-v-c

==========================

“Sony V1 and FX7 HANDBOOK” at http://www.knowledge-download.com/V1-FX7

“Sony HVR-Z1 and HDR-FX1 HANDBOOK” at: http://www.knowledge-download.com/SonyHDV

“EDITION 2: JVC GY-HD100 HANDBOOK” at: http://www.knowledge-download.com/JVCHDV

[Don Smith]

To make the playhead follow your selection hold Option when you select the clip. Otherwise the playhead stays where it is. This is a good thing. You choose either action (to hold Option or not to hold Option) and you’ll find that MOST OFTEN you do NOT want the playhead to follow. Originally the playhead always followed the selection and it drove me MAD!

It was already suggested by another poster here but let me expand on cropping all clips the same using an Adjustment Layer. X does not ship with an Adjustment Layer but you can make your own in under a minute. Launch Motion. Create a new Final Cut Title. Delete the text layer (the layer that says ‘Type Text Here’). Save with the name ‘Adjustment Layer’. The Adjustment Layer appears in the Titles section of your Effects in X.

Put this layer above all video you want affected by anything you do to the Adjustment Layer. In your case, 2.34:1 (assuming you have 1920 pixel wide video) would give you a vertical size of 820 pixels. That’s 260 pixels less than 1080 so just select the Adjustment Layer and crop it up from the bottom by half of 260 (130 pixels) and down from the top by 130 pixels. Now you have 2.34:1 video applied to all clips under the Adjustment Layer. And, all clips will be perfectly centered vertically.

In the future you can calculate how many pixels to crop by taking the wide pixel count (that’s the ‘1’ in the aspect ratio) and divide it by the ratio (2.34 in this case). That gives you the vertical size of the video frame you want. Subtract that number from the vertical frame (1080 in this case) then divide that difference by 2 to equally distribute the letterbox above and below the video using the Crop controls.

Extra Credit: You can make a custom Adjustment Layer to do this same crop for you whenever you need it. While creating the Adjustment Layer in Motion, crop the Title Background layer with the cropping that gives you a 2.34:1 mask and save it with a name like ‘2.34:1 Mask’ instead of saving it with the Adjustment Layer name.

As to duplicate effects let me say you want that. There are circumstances where you’ll use the same effect more than once and you don’t want the software deciding for you automatically that you can’t do that. This is a case where you as the editor will want to decide which effect can stay and you can just just click on clip after clip and check the Inspector to see if it has dupes you don’t want and delete them. No need for the playhead to follow and unless you want that by holding Option with each clip selection.

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