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Motion TRACKS versus FCP X Trackless
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[Chris Harlan] “I’m still using 4, but when I have time I might gravitate to 5 and use FCPX/Compressor as its i/o.”
I’d highly recommend Compressor 4 (which you can use even without FCPX). Although it’s still a 32 bit app, the 64 bit job controller means that my 8 cores now show up as 16 cores with a virtual cluster, which is a very pretty sight indeed. And I’m getting some very impressive encode times as a result.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Simon Ubsdell] “If the NLE is somehow suggesting, albeit subliminally, that organization is somehow an end in itself or somehow an intrinsic part of the creative process, then that is distorting the picture in a way that I personally fgeel is undesirable. “
As I wrote in my “Didn’t We ask For This?” article. X allows you to be messy or highly organized. It’s the beauty of it, in my opinion.
[Simon Ubsdell] “Organizing your material on the timeline has massive creative benefits as I have mentioned earlier in this thread and I would hate to see this particular editing skill become sidelined in favour of one that promoted Browser-side organization above any other kind.”
But what I like about X is that you can start a compound clip in the Event, then open it like a timeline and do the edits or organizing or form relationships, whatever. Then when going back to the Event this now becomes a scrubbable selects reel, and then there’s the Project timeline. The interaction between the two is very fluid. But not only do you have access to that selects compound clip, you have access to everything else around it. In FCP7, you have to constantly jump between timelines/tabs/bins/borwser to do this, in X you don’t and in practice, it makes a big difference.
[Simon Ubsdell] “Not being able to send a compound clip to the Browser (yes, I know the workarounds), not being able to tab quickly between projects (OK, you can but only sort of), issues with editing with compound clips themselves (the notorious project bloat problem) – all these point to FCPX not being optimised (yet) for the way I like to work, and that I know works best for me, and that I have seen improve the speed and creativity of any number of editors who have adopted it over the years.”
Oh absolutely. There are real performance problems and workflow holes, but these are the types of things that can (and hopefully will) get fixed. FCPX is far from perfect, but the skeletal structure that is being built seems to be a good one, at least I find it more useful than 7. Optimization and stabilization are key, though, you are absolutely correct.
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[Simon Ubsdell] “Oddly, it was actually really good at this.”
It was good at sending. True.
[Simon Ubsdell] “Obviously there is never going to be a way of dynamically linking an entire audio mix (as in the Send to STP Multitrack Project route. you are alwasy going to need to send back a mixed down version of your project, but even that is well handled for speed of use, I always thought.”
Really? have a look at PPro and AE. There’s no new media created and new new render created. There’s no need to “mix down” the Ae sequence to PPro. PPro simply plays back the intent of the AE project.
IF STp could do this inside of FCP, it would be even better. the work that I do changes so much and so fast, I don’t have time to mess around with multiple copies of mixed down STP renders. I need quick accessible toolss that allow me to change. For me (and my needs) the audio filters in FCPX helps me to achieve this in a way that STp never offered. I can then get through the edits and approvals until it’s time to spend time on the finish which comes later. i understand this isn’t the way everyone needs to/should/can work.
Speaking of work…
Jeremy
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Funny, but this is how we worked back in 1996 on every NLE before drive space was so cheap people just started loading whole tapes (and now cards) in without even considering the concept of logging. I’m still occasionally out there on set logging the takes. When I do it this way I don’t even bother with the bad or rejects. It’s keepers and safetys. I’ve never done selects timelines. Occasionally selects bins. The latter becoming more common as producers bring me a terabyte drive full of media instead of logging.
Oddly, FCPs media structure reminds me of my 1993 VideoCube days at GA Tech Athletic Asdiciation. We shot and logged footage without projects in mind. It was just a database of good shots. It had bins you could save anywhere, and sequences you could save anywhere. No project concept at all. When I switched to Media 100 and Avid I found them very limiting in this aspect. But they were better designed to delete used/unused media and consolidate and redigitize, etc. /ramble
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[Chris Harlan] “I too dig STP, and am sorry to see it go. I use/used it a lot,”
Pretty much most mixes I do (when I don’t send to a ProTools mixer) get touched by STP, even if just for some EQ & compression/limiting. In the Adobe world, Premiere Pro + Audition gives you the same functionality (though no SFX and music). In the Media Composer world, you have both clip-based and track-based audio mixing and filtering capabilities.
[Chris Harlan] “I’m still using 4, but when I have time I might gravitate to 5”
On my home machine I have both FCP7/FCS and FCPX/Mtn5/Comp4 installed. The “send to Motion” in FCP 7 now only sends to Motion 5 – no longer Mtn4. BTW – it works pretty well, but I haven’t really tested the trip back into FCP 7 to see if everything is right. I does seem to indicate to me that very little was done with Mtn5, beyond UI skinning and the rigging/publish thing.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Bret Williams] “Funny, but this is how we worked back in 1996 on every NLE before drive space was so cheap people just started loading whole tapes (and now cards) in without even considering the concept of logging.”
I think this really depends on the kind of work you are doing. I don’t think anybody in features or drama generally would be very pleased if somehow material had been preselected out of existence. Here everyone rightly expects all the material (as in every single frame shot without exception) to be available all of the time.
Though your point is still a good one in many cases – overshooting being very much a modern curse.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Simon Ubsdell] “Though your point is still a good one in many cases – overshooting being very much a modern curse.”
And deadlines getting ever tighter.
More footage (usually meaning more cameras) and less time.
It’s a great time to be alive!
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[Jeremy Garchow] “And deadlines getting ever tighter.
More footage (usually meaning more cameras) and less time.
It’s a great time to be alive!”
Hey, living on the edge! Who’d have it any other way!??
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Oliver Peters] “Although, of course, I do try to discourage the natural habit of dragging and dropping to the timeline as their first and only way of editing”
Oliver,
Why would you discourage this? It’s pretty much the only way I get things into the timeline.
Franz.
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Which is why I do like the new media mgmt in X. But it could of course use a thumbnail view that you can freely arrange. In Avid they actually used to train to arrange your selects in thumbnail view (like a storyboard) then drag them all to the timeline. THAT is editing in the bin. I think you try that in FCP 7 it just arranges them in the seq alphabetically. Oops.
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