the return of the Invisible Frame

[Shane Ross]

Man, I have never seen someone have as much trouble editing as you. There must be something that you are just not letting go of with your old NLE cutting style and not grasping with this new one. I am not trying to be harsh here. Tough not to come across that way in print. I am an Avid convert and it took me a while to get used to how FCP did things. And you really have to do it the way FCP wants to, not the way you are used to.

[Bob Flood] “jog your cursor one frame back from the out, and mark out. now your outpoint should be one frame short of the dissolve
overwrite the first clip with another
delete the dissolve
and now try and put another dissolve there, one that starts at cut”

This is your issue. DELETE THE DISSOLVE FIRST, then cut in the clip. The dissolve is holding onto the last few frames of the clip you are overwriting. In later versions of Avid, we could mark an IN and OUT on a clip where there was a dissolve and drop in a new clip and keep the dissolves. You can’t do that yet with FCP. So I have to go about how FCP does it.

Shane

Alokut Productions
http://www.lfhd.net

[Bob Flood]

Shane

Thanx!

I realize that it seems i may not be getting it, but i actually am. The problem is i never got trained, and i really see now that fcp is not a program you can just pick up and go, and that you have to have someone train you. which is really too bad as i believe software should always be more intuitive than that. especially when it comes to basics like cuts and dissolves

yeah i would delete the dissolve first, but i am really writing about the bug that the frame gets lost.

“In later versions of Avid, we could mark an IN and OUT on a clip where there was a dissolve and drop in a new clip and keep the dissolves. You can’t do that yet with FCP.”

yeah, that goes to show prioritys, lets put a zillion useless filters in the thing, but g*d forbid it should handle transistions like everything else out there.

anyway, Thanx again and i would like to know if anyone else is seeing this bug
and i really am sorry about all my learning curve bs, but i am stuck here.

“I like video because its so fast!”

Bob Flood
Greer & Associates, Inc.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Shane Ross] “In later versions of Avid, we could mark an IN and OUT on a clip where there was a dissolve and drop in a new clip and keep the dissolves. You can’t do that yet with FCP.”

Well, this isn’t entirely and completely true. you can use the replace feature (f11) that will keep a dissolve in it’s place and replace the shot before or after the dissolve, but the problem with it is that you have to find the magic in point which is usually a frame or two after the dissolve starts for it to work like you think it should. And also with the replace feature you don’t use in and out points, you use the timeline markers in the both the browser and timeline as in points. You set the timeline marker in the browser where you want your clip to start. Then in the timeline, put the timeline marker on the beginning of the clip that you want to replace. Now drag the clip into the viewer and instead of choosing assemble or insert, choose replace. Or you can simply hit f11. Check it out, Bob I bet it’d help you.

And Bob, Shane is correct, the problems you post seem to be very counter intuitive. I don’t want to sound harsh either, but I think it’s time you invested in either an FCP book, training DVD, or sign up for an Apple Class. There’s plenty of cost effective ways to learn the little ins and outs of FCP. Picking up the manual is also a good place to start. Reading it, you will glean much information about the types of problems you seem to seek. As far as software being intuitive, I’d like to see someone pick up Filemaker Pro and make a complicated database without knowing anything on how FileMaker Pro works under the hood, or someone with no Excel experience try and make an equation that adds up column c & e, but not d. We are talking about FCP here, not MacPaint. FCP is an awesome tool, but as with any tool you have to learn how to use it before you hurt yourself. Perhaps you feel FCP is poorly designed, or it sucks, or whatever. I don’t feel it’s prefect (what is?), but man it’s done me extremely well.

FCP handles transitions differently than other editing platforms and I agree that it could be better, but it’s just the way it is. You have to learn how it works instead of forcing it to mess up for you.

Jeremy

[Bob Flood]

jeremy et al

forget how i discoverdd the bug…yeah apple needs to fix the dissolve thing, and i should delete em before re editing shots ok ok

BUT

Does Anyone ELse Get The Bug Of The Invisible FRame?

if so i will report it to apple.

“I like video because its so fast!”

Bob Flood
Greer & Associates, Inc.

[Eric Susch]

Oh the humanity….

I just jumped into this thread from the Premiere Pro discussion over on the discrete edit forum. What a difference! I hope someday we can have a similar discussion about FCP over there. I’d be nice to have a spirited and honest discussion of FCP

[Tom Wolsky]

“take 2 clips and cut them into a timline
put a dissolve between them, making sure to “start at cut”
mark the firsl clip
try and overwrite with a third clip, you should get the cannot split transtions error message”

I’m not seeing this behavior in 5.1. No matter how the transition is placed, marking the first clip with the X key always includes the media that’s part of the transition and will execute an overwrite over the whole length of that media for both video and audio.

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]

Tom

so after you apply the transition between the first and second clip, then you use the X key to mark the first clip, then you load a new shot in the viewer and press f10 you can succesfully overwrite the clip? you do not get a message saying “this edit cannot be done because a transition would be cut ….”?

waht happens to the transition? does it get shorter? go away? or does it stay?

cuz in 5.0.4 I have to delete the trasnisiton befor i overwrite the clip

bee eph

“I like video because its so fast!”

Bob Flood
Greer & Associates, Inc.

[Bob Flood]

eric

lets make sure we are talking about the same thing. cuz i get this invisible frame with picons on

if i use x to mark my clip i get the error message “this edit cannot be done becasue a transition would be splt yahda yahda yahda..”

so i apple arrow my cursor to the marked out point, and jog back one frame. or i shift o my cursor to the marked outpoint and jog back one frame and re mark

i then use f10 to overwrite a new shot. Now my dissolve is still there but its from the wrong frame ie its from the previous shot

sooooo i delet my transition

NOW here is waht i see as the issue: the one frame i had left over from the previous shot is not visible. it appears as if my new shot1 and my shot2 butt together clean. even if i zoom my timeline way in i still only see 2 shots

in order to make my invisible frame visible, i have to drag away the head of my shot2, or delete my shot2 then try to drag out the tail of my shot1. when i drag out the tail of my shot1, am actully draggin out the tail of the original shot1 NOT the tail of the overwrite.

ok? ok!

and thanx for chiming in, i really do know what i am doing, and i would rather be on something else, im just trying to get by.

we edit*ors have to stick together, as some of these fcp folks have never used edit* and do not not what a real editor works like. thats not a dig or a burn, its just fact

bee eph

“I like video because its so fast!”

Bob Flood
Greer & Associates, Inc.

[Bob Flood]

man i must be going nuts

i just tried to recreate this issue, and now i cant get it to happen!

now when i mark a clip my outpoint is AFTER the dissolve, not before!

and as eric said, i have to joh back 2 frames from the start of the transition to succesfully overwrite the outgoing shot, and the remnant video is clearly visible

I think one of the problems with FCP is that its on a mac, and therefore subject to the oddities inherent in the apple os, hence the need to trash prefs etc i say this cuz i bet restarting fcp varied the circumstances in ways i cannot tell at this time

when i can succesfully recreate the issue AND find out why i cant now i will repost

until then, thanx for the help.

bee eph

“I like video because its so fast!”

Bob Flood
Greer & Associates, Inc.

[Eric Susch]

[Bob Flood] “if i use x to mark my clip i get the error message “this edit cannot be done becasue a transition would be splt yahda yahda yahda..””

I don’t. When I use “X” it includes the entire dissolve and replaces the shot and dissolve with the new shot. (I’m not sure why you would want to do that when the original cut was at the head of the dissolve but that’s the way it works. I think FCP “forgets” where the original cut was after the dissolve is placed.)

I think you may be right about the re-boot thing you mentioned in a later post. Or maybe there’s another random element in the procedure. I wouldn’t worry about it too much unless the problem pops up again.

I do, however think that the zoom/display issue for one and two frame shots I mentioned above is something that should be looked at. 99.9% of the time a shot like that is a mistake by the editor and I’d like to have a big red flag pointing that out to me on the timeline before I print to tape with a crazy flash frame.