-
Stirring the pot…
-
Apple’s good at layouts. Wouldn’t mind them giving you a bunch of presets with the ability to tweak them or create your own. I’d also like the active window to be a little more obvious and by default if i just E, W, or Q-ed an edit that the timeline become active. sure there are times I’m putting a bunch of clips on the timeline from the browser but as soon as you click on the next clip to select it or trim it in the browser, the browser is active. The number of times I assume the clip will play on the timeline and I go “what? oh yeah command 2…” too many.
Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.
-
[Oliver Peters] “Well, you can sort of do this now.
“True, in a way it’s like Pr workspaces a la carte 🙂 I just wish that I could resize the windows… Tiny timeline, giant viewer, small effects browser, whatever, then hit a key combo and have it snap back to the original saved layout like FCP 7. (This is true in both X and Pr btw) The built in default layout isn’t what I want.
————————————————————-
~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~\”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.\”~
~I still need to play Track Tetris sometimes. An old game that you can never win~
~\”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented\”~ -
Two problems for me – I’m not a full time editor and a lot of the ones that apple has already to toggle specific windows on and off is hard to remember and more importantly its not just turning on one window or another. It’s a specific set of windows resized a specific way given the monitor you are on. legacy let you decide on a size and configuration for each window for each lay out.
Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.
-
[Craig Alan] ” its not just turning on one window or another. It’s a specific set of windows resized a specific way given the monitor you are on”
I totally get that. I have a number of saved custom workspace layout when I work in Premiere.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Even if you forget the short cut its so nice to have the layout that works for you.
Again Apple did a nice job in the browser to give you different looks. and little radio buttons with a short cut reminders if you prefer it that way. The different looks do not resize anything which also would be nice. Then again they also expect me to type with my thumbs on little digital keyboards that three year olds seem to have no trouble doing.
Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.
-
[Oliver Peters] ” I have a number of saved custom workspace layout when I work in Premiere.
“I do like that, but it has the same annoying issue as X in that if you’re in a workspace, and resize a window/panel, then that becomes the workspace layout. There’s no way to just snap to your original. You can (and I do) have a bunch of different workspaces, but to save every possible layout that I might want is, to me, unnecessarily complicated. Let me save a layout, and let me get back to that even if I change the layout while I’m in the layout. Like FCP 7. Sure, there were only 2, but the original saved state was always available, and only changed if you re-saved it.
————————————————————-
~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~\”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.\”~
~I still need to play Track Tetris sometimes. An old game that you can never win~
~\”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented\”~ -
[Charlie Austin] “Like FCP 7. Sure, there were only 2, but the original saved state was always available, and only changed if you re-saved it.
“It’s been too long, but I remembered being able to save more than 2 layouts. Of course, maybe I just did these manually.
https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2010/06/18/better-editing-with-custom-screen-layouts/
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “It’s been too long, but I remembered being able to save more than 2 layouts. Of course, maybe I just did these manually.
“Nope, you’re right… There were only 2 “default” layouts you could set and use a 2 key keystroke, but you could (wait, I mean you still can! Lol) make and save as many others as you want. Totally forgot about that.
Point is, they would open in the original state you had saved them, and the saved state would be the same even if you moved things around when in a particular layout…
Pr has it half right, and X should get on board and do it all the way right. FCP 7, still the gold standard! Lol 😉
————————————————————-
~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~\”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.\”~
~I still need to play Track Tetris sometimes. An old game that you can never win~
~\”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented\”~ -
took some experimenting but i remember being about to toggle between my preferred lay outs for 3 or 4 stages of the edit. mostly assembly, audio, color correction. I also remember using the spreadsheet in the browser to sort by various metadata and creating sub-clips in the browser.
So I don’t consider FCP X revolutionary in terms of this but it is far more advanced and
nicely designed.I also remember getting the audio out of sync far too often and really struggling to get it back in sync and feeling like I was an idiot. I also remember hooking up firewire cables to ingest in real time and sometimes the camera or VTR would get seen by FC and sometimes not. Just getting the footage into the program was a major step. And then having to use compressor to get it back out in a form that was good for distribution or playback on different devices was another time consuming stage.
Sometimes I think people think that FCP X is so much faster because media itself is so much faster. The sync issue was end user error and I watched the pros touch type through their edits and get things back in sync with a couple of keyboard strokes. There are times the same applies to FCP X edits but not nearly as much. And the google searchers bring up solutions much more readily.
It’s all a wash for me now. I’m as advanced in X as I was in 7 and I do like a lot of its features though would like others to improve. What I don’t want is to have them improve, my skills to get more fluid, and then suddenly it’s EOL and I have to learn a new program. I’d much rather evolve as a film maker than learn a new interface which accomplishes 95% of the same stuff.
Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.
-
[Craig Alan] “Sometimes I think people think that FCP X is so much faster because media itself is so much faster. “
Or it’s that some of us who have spent decades editing one way – and now are editing another way – are actually getting more work done in less time and understand precisely why.
If it was just the processor speed, we’d know that. We’d be doing the same functions faster. But an experienced X editor doesn’t necessarily do the same functions in the same way.
And of course, some editors could care less about getting done faster. They’re content to shift any time savings to more iterations, idea testing, and staring into space actually thinking about the real challenges of making their work come alive.
There’s nothing stopping any editor from editing in X more or less the way they edited in Legacy. (I’ve seen plenty of X newbies try to do just that!) Import only from finder folders after dragging clips around manually. Use the event browser exclusively to store whole clips. Reject or Favorite nothing. Keyword nothing. Build a dozen string outs as projects and cut and paste from them onto a “Master” timeline. Pay no attention to the used clip indicators. Do all your work in a single huge library with one global event. Ignore the timeline index. Use “position mode” and the tilde key as much as you can. Stay away from Roles. Ignore the custom file naming generator. Ignore the Share system and instead use it exclusively to plop every saved “master” onto your desktop and then launch another program to burn that master file onto a DVD and put it into the mail! That will ALL get the job done. And it’s all possible in X right now.
There’s no FCP X police that will call anyone out for a workflow like that.
But please stop telling me that editing in X is really no different than how I used to edit. Because that’s what I used to do – and you’re wrong. It is. For me, it’s better. Consistently and measurably.
It’s an excellent editing tool right now – and I’ve been completely and utterly convinced it will continue to improve in the future.
but the reality is that I still hear voices from the two fringe poles. That either A) Apple ruined it with the total re-write and all the new ideas – or; B) it’s really largely just the same as all its competitors, no better or worse. These are mutually exclusive concepts, and both wrong IMO.
Apple changed it hugely, and in doing so, made it functionally BETTER in lots and lots of Both massive and tiny ways.
The proof is pretty obvious from how much its competitors are hurrying to adopt functions it pioneered.
(It’s as crazy as maybe Apple introducing a sleek new all glass buttonless phone at some point – then over the next decade ALL the smart phones ending up looking EXACTLY like that one – while their manufacturers are endlessly on TV bragging about how their phones are all so innovative and superior..
To my thinking, innovative means taking chances. Taking leaps. Taking a risk.
Are there features in other NLEs you folks see as evidence that other companies are taking big risks like that? The few brief glimpses of Resolve 12+ I’ve had kinda look like X with tracks to me. Is there serious innovation hiding there?
Lumetri? Not the NLE per se, but Premiere drivers seem to love it. Did it break new ground in CC?
What about AVID and Lightworks and Vegas? Are exciting new ideas coming from there?Just curious.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up