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Some brilliance can be found alright
The “index” feature of FCPX is to say the least brilliant. Doing some simple quality control / version verifications of masters going out it’s quite nice having an index of clocks, program starts and what not. The scopes are also very nice – given I’m not sure how accurate they are or the fact you can only have 1 up at a time.
Sadly a few places where FCPX falls short is handling of media in the timeline. It’s quite a “suborn child” if you may when you want to work frame accurate with TC in mind. The timeline might be “magic” sometimes but if you only have a primary story line and one wants to move each block of media to start on an even minute that’s not easy. It’s far more complex than in FCP7 or PrPCS6. It seem impossible to select an item with out the playhead also moving.
I hope Apple looks into the whole handling of timecode. It’s quite lacking form what I can see in FCPX. It’s sad seeing how brilliant the index-feature is. Also, for us to be able to use FCPX efficiently some kind of batch output is required. Be it you can export multiple projects at the same time or place multiple i/o points in the timeline this is a feature that kills FCPX for mastery and deliveries.
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1 Reply
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[Erik Lindahl] “The “index” feature of FCPX is to say the least brilliant. Doing some simple quality control / version verifications of masters going out it’s quite nice having an index of clocks, program starts and what not.”
It is features like this that keep me interested.
[Erik Lindahl] “if you may when you want to work frame accurate with TC in mind.”
It certainly could be better. If you turn on clip skimming, though, you can see the individual tc of each clip by skimming within it. More of an “at-a-glance” HUD would be nice.
[Erik Lindahl] “The timeline might be “magic” sometimes but if you only have a primary story line and one wants to move each block of media to start on an even minute that’s not easy.”
Are you saying you are stringing out programs/spots to start on the minute mark? If so, using the position tool makes this as easy as any other application. If I have misunderstood, please let me know what you’re trying to do. Moving big groups of clips around in FCPX in a cake walk once you get used to it.
[Erik Lindahl] ” It seem impossible to select an item with out the playhead also moving.”
There’s two playheads, the skimmer and the playhead. You can always toggle the skimmer on and off with ‘s’. The skimmer takes priority over the playhead in terms of positioning. While skimming, clicking anywhere will bring the playhead to the skimmer position (which is maybe what you are running in to). Also, an easy way to select something is to hover over a clip and press ‘c’.
Click/drag (or marquee selection) typically does not move the playhead.
Yes, this could be better.
Jeremy
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