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what is editing speed ?
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When a have VO’s I can “see” where the breaks in the takes are and it’s faster to skim up to the next take visually.
As I record voice-overs (VOs) on the fly right to the timeline, I tap the F3 key at the beginning and end of each take, double or triple-tapping on restarts. This lays down markers that provide the visual cues I need for each take’s in and out. Unlike markers in FCP7, which are locked to the timeline and don’t change as extraneous material is deleted, or FCPX that provides no real-time marking of VOs at all, Avid’s markers are linked to the clip itself, so that when I eliminate extraneous material, the markers are either eliminated with it, or stay linked to the parts of the clip where I placed them, allowing me to find the next good take.
FCP7’s markers are utterly useless in that regard and, as noted, FCPX doesn’t even offer real-time marking. Using markers in Avid, I can clean up voice tracks extremely quickly without ever once having to look at a waveform.
I also want to see the video thumbnails to quickly see what’s what.
Avid also provides a filmstrip view. I’ve never used it because, again, it affects performance. As someone else noted, a large project in FCPX will also suffer from performance issues having to refresh all those thumbnails and waveforms in real-time, so this is not merely a track-based editing issue.
Those things are more important to me then seeing the length of a source clip when it comes to speed. That blank TL would slow my workflow down.
Different strokes. 😉
Again, I can reveal an insane amount of metadata associated with each clip, including clip frames and a filmstrip view, if I need it. Most of the time I don’t but, on occasion, I do. Being able to customize it for just the information I need when I need it, and then save those views as presets that I can recall with a click – if needed – means I can see what I need to see at the clip level, on the timeline, at a glance. Instant feedback for whatever information I need when I need it.
And yes, any individual track or all of them can be enlarged to accommodate all the extra information.
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[Phil Lowe] “FCPX doesn’t even offer real-time marking. “
Do you mean when recording? Because it certainly does during playback.
[Phil Lowe] “As someone else noted, a large project in FCPX will also suffer from performance issues having to refresh all those thumbnails and waveforms in real-time,”
If you’re speaking about using filmstrip view in the timeline, i agree. But filmstrip view/skimming in the Browser is incredibly useful and, once the thumbs are generated, doesn’t affect performance at all. FWIW. 🙂
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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~ -
[Bill Davis] “An environment with different rules.”
Yes, but if you’re editing the middle section of your video first and need to cut something in at the beginning of your timeline it’s just an insert edit on every NLE.
In FCPX you insert into the primary and by default everything is sync locked to it, so it all moves down.
In Avid/FCP/Premiere you insert onto any track with all sync locks on. You get the exact same result.
The only time this would differ would be if, in FCPX, you had a connected clip that was starting before the first clip in your primary. Then you could insert directly in front of that first primary clip, under the connected clip, and it wouldn’t split it like it would in a tracked NLE. But then again, that’s only if the connect clip was connected to the primary clip and not to a gap clip. So either get your connection set right then insert (FCPX), or insert then fix a split clip (tracked timeline).
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Michael Hancock
Editor -
[Simon Ubsdell] “It is my view that this person’s unwarranted claim seriously overstepped the bounds of professional courtesy. “
Since I am the subject of this (It’s OK by the way to use names here Simon, what’s the point of not when what we write is tagged so clearly?) I feel compelled to respond:
Your sensibilities were pricked when you felt I was wrong and PUSHED at me about it. I did precisely the same.
What, exactly is the difference?
You seem to be implying that YOUR initial personal attack at me was somehow faultless and mine needs to be viewed as spiteful and indecorous?
We did the SAME things. Descended into personal pettiness. You have apologized. As have I.
And yet, now you now feel compelled to come back – yet again – to personally re-insult me. To what purpose I wonder?
Clearly you are still stinging from the thing. I am sorry about that.
You certainly have the right to explain what YOU felt during the exchange and how because of that you feel that you were wronged. Fine.
I will step up and again apologize for whatever I said that pricked you so painfully.
Just understand that I could write in the same aggrieved tone about each and every point you raised against me.
But I’ll not.
It’s a stupid battle like most petty wars. And I’m once again on a deadline.
Merry Christmas.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[Phil Lowe] “Again, a workflow thing. ;)”
Absolutely, and I never argued that at editor can’t work middle out in any NLE. Of course they can. Every day editors insert work along timelines.
All I argued is that the magnetic changes Randy U made in re-imagining the X editing environment have been conducive to how some editors (myself included) tend to work.
Friction has been removed from tasks that used to be more difficult. So they may be more likely to be a “first resort” than they used to be.
That’s what I felt changed for me.
In the old days if I knew another editor was working on a 10 second motion graphics opening segment – I would likely leave a 10 second slug at the beginning of my timeline to note that. It was a convenience of thought.
Nowadays I don’t bother. I just cut what I want – when I want – because there is NO mental penalty to working in discrete sections and concatenating them later. Magnetism in X makes that reflexively easier.
It’s obviously not wrong or worse or inefficient to do what I used to do regularly – it’s the way I used to think because of HOW my software used to work.
And it’s also not wrong or worse or inefficient to do things how I now do them in X (tho with the number or people here trying to dang hard to argue that it IS wrong astonishes me!)
I ENJOY thinking of the Zero point as floating in X. It’s a mental image that makes me MORE likely to consider working UPSTREAM rather than getting stuck always thinking that I’m only making progress when I’m adding to the right.
I require NOBODY else to think this way.
And am genuinely weirded out when people freak out about how I describe it.
In this thread, voices have jumped in to explain how other software does the same – then launch into all the exceptions in thinking needed to DO the same thing.
To me that’s friction.
To a non-magnetic thinking editor, I’m sure how I do it is seen as the same friction.
And I’m sure we’re BOTH correct.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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Do you mean when recording?
Yes, which is when I like to drop markers on takes.
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[Phil Lowe] “FCP7’s markers are utterly useless in that regard and, as noted, FCPX doesn’t even offer real-time marking. “
Again, Phil, you’re trying to drive X like you drove earlier NLEs and it’s NOT designed to work that way.
As a long time VO Guy and Narrator, I’ll tell you that in my professional opinionX has a MUCH more sophsiticated system for doing what it appears you are doing.Search “FCP X Voiceover” – for tutorials. It has a dedicated voice over pop-up module that looks simple at first, but is surprisingly sophisticated particularly since it can directly feed into X’s Auditions functions.
It makes on the fly recording, managing and perfecting audio for video (especially VO and narration) extremely simple and robust right inside the app.
And you don’t have to use a single marker to make it work.
Worth checking out.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[Phil Lowe] “Yes, which is when I like to drop markers on takes.”
Seriously, if you’re going to be doing a lot of “on the fly” VO work in X for your job – you really, really should explore the Voiceover system in X as it’s designed.
It’s really efficient and easy.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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As a long time VO Guy and Narrator, I’ll tell you that in my professional opinionX has a MUCH more sophsiticated system for doing what it appears you are doing.
I’ve used the VO Record tool in X. I don’t really care that it may be more “sophisticated.” For me, marking takes on the fly was incredibly fast and simple, even when I was doing my own voice over work. The fact that X eliminated something even 7 had, as imperfect as it is, hamstrings X and constrains users, again, to working only one way.
In Avid, I can work with the capture tool to record voice tracks and mark them on the fly, or I could work in waveform mode and clean tracks up having never dropped a marker once. The fact that X doesn’t provide that option, to me, is a net minus, not a feature.
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I’d have a hard time arguing against FCPX for voiceover. Cutting VO in FCPX with auditions is just about the most slam-dunk, world-beating use case for the magnetic timeline there is.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn]
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