out point mark is one frame longer than i want…can i fix?

[Eric Susch]

The horror! It’s my number one complaint about FCP. As far as I know there’s no way to change it and make it correct. But… I actually didn’t investigate this when FCP 5 came out so I guess there’s hope that they put in a user selection. If you find one, let me know.

The best work-around I

[Kevin Monahan]

I believe the CTI has to be a full frame in length and most NLEs operate with a playhead like this (Media 100, Avid, etc.). In other words, and as I understand it – it’s not a bug – it’s just how things are with frame based editing.

I believe in Avid, you could change the playhead to snap to the last frame of the out – but didn’t that make you mark a frame in early on the in? I forget how that feature worked. Time to get out the old manuals.

Kevin Monahan
Take My FCP Master’s Seminar!
fcpworld.com

[Eric Susch]

The problem isn’t where the playhead goes but where the outpoint is placed. I’m not sure how it works in Avid but in discreet edit (which Bob and I both used previously) and liner video editing before that the cut always happened at the beginning of the frame.

The bottom line is that if the cut happens on the beginning of the frame at the in and at the end of the frame at the out you get all kinds of wacky situations and crazy one frame math errors especially with your durations. I understand that this may be the way it works in Avid and that the Apple programmers may have designed it to work similar in FCP but it’s really not a good idea. The cut point needs to be standardized at the beginning of the frame just like it was in the old liner days. If the cut is always at the beginning and the cursor always tabs to the beginning of the frame, everything becomes much, much simpler and the editor can concentrate more on the actual story.

[Tom Wolsky]

This comes up once every six months or so. The Out point is always after the frame you’re looking at. It will not change. A feature request to make this a preference may be possible, though I don’t know what it would do to the calculations of everything else in the application. I dread to thing what it would do to media manager, which is just starting to surface as a useable part of the application.

It raises all sorts of problems within features in the application. How do you play In to Out? Does playback stop on the last frame, or does it stop on the frame after the Out point as you suggest? That would be crippling to try to see where the shot actually ends, let alone for trying to listen to audio cuts.

All the best,

Tom

Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 2 Editing Workshop” Class on Demand “Complete Training for FCP5” DVD

[Tom Wolsky]

P.S. I don’t see any point in trying to make the application work like obsolete linear systems.

All the best,

Tom

Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 2 Editing Workshop” Class on Demand “Complete Training for FCP5” DVD

[Bob Flood]

hey tom

thanx for your reply

all the questions you asked were addressd by edit succesfully, the in point was the frame you (the CTI) were on, the out point was one frame LESS than the frame you were on, except when it was the last frame of the sequence, then it was the frame you were on. when you played in to out it stopped on the last frame, but when you parked the cursor at the end of a clip, you saw the next shots first frame

BTW the linear systems also marked out One Frame Less than shown, they just called it the same number as the next edits inpoint to make it easy to see where you were. Which is How d-Vision treated it for the ease of editora makeing the transition from linear to NLE, which they then carried over to edit. which is why edit was so easy to use

Avid had a preference for which frame your outpoint was,but i never saw it set to anything other than one frame less than your mark out.

so apple should make it a preference as well

[Bret Williams]

I think the whole problem is not with how it handles the out frame. No system is stoping a frame before or after. It’s how they define the out point. LInear systems, which I started on, defined the out point as the first frame that you are “out.” More like a live switcher. And we are “out” when we press the button, defining a different shot or camera angle.

However, a nle still calls it out, but every system I’ve worked on defined the out point as more of the “end.” Much like defining a space on the timeline.

So, having worked in the linear and non-linear world extensively you’d think it messed with my head, but both methods make sense to me in each’s situation. When sitting in front of a computer monitor it seems natural to mark the start and end of a clip. A chunk if you will. While editng on linear systems the word out to me simply meant that you were out on that frame. Meaning somewhere else.

[Kevin Monahan]

I’d say leave it like it is as Tom mentions some frightening scenarios with frame calculation.
BTW, I looked around in my old Avid manuals and could not find the section for making the playhead on mark out mark the last frame. Was it in the 201 class?

The only thing I could find was that if you wanted to use the playhead to mark out you OPT + CMD + Click the edit point. That seems to be a good compromise. I know recall doing this quite a bit.

Kevin Monahan
Take My FCP Master’s Seminar!
fcpworld.com

[Eric Susch]

[Tom Wolsky] “This comes up once every six months or so.”

If it keeps coming up all the time then maybe it’s a serious problem that needs to be addressed.

Your arguments against changing it seem to all revolve around programming issues instead of making the software work simply and elegantly. All the Apple people I

[Eric Susch]

Linear systems are obsolete because of the need for tape and multiple decks, not because they got the math right 😉

FCP needs to have linear features (like 3 point editing) just as it needs to deal with the way Avid works so all professional editors can be comfortable.