[Adam White]

I have a much weedier Mac than you (still rocking my 2009 iMac – if it ain’t broke…) and had the exact same issues trying to AMA with 5D files for a fast turnaround edit. Not an experience I wan’t to repeat – pretty damn nasty, actually.

I’m surprised that on your machine you are having the same issues though, I just put it down to my ageing hardware.

If you don’t have time to transcode the rushes initially, something I can suggest is transcoding your TIMELINE to DNXHD once you’ve assembled it. This at least made the back-end of the process more manageable for me when it came to exporting/compressing etc and also made changes in the timeline far less painful. It cut my exports time at least 3-fold.

Maybe another option would be to make a string of selects with the raw 5D files, then transcode just your selects to DNXHD (hopefully saving you a fair amount of time that would otherwise be spent transcoding material you’re never going to use) and then just work with those files for speedy performance.

Out of interest – does MC 7 offer background transcoding, or does it still tie up the system?

[Adam White]

Thankyou both for your responses – it’s helped clear this up for me and is much appreciated.

On James’ advice I’ve tried out the Automatic Duck MediaCopy tool. I love the Automatic Duck products, and have used them to interchange between Avid and After Effects many times so it’s great to know they have created a tool to help with this task as well.

It’s doing it’s thing now, so hopefully everything should be fairly straight forward from here.

Thanks for clarifying how the Media Tool in Avid works though, Jeff, always good to know a couple ways of doing something I always find and I’m sure at some point in the future I’ll be in a scenario where the Automatic Duck route isn’t available!

Thanks again,
Adam

[Adam White]

Thanks for the advice guys, I will try out your suggestions and see if they help any. Much appreciated.

[Adam White]

This may or may not be the way you like to work, or are used to, but in any scenario where there is lots of footage I generally find that some simple log notes are invaluable. They can be added to any clips of particular interest quite quickly as you take your initial scrub through all the rushes.

In an ideal world, when I feel that I have a good ammount of time on a project, I add a log note to pretty much everything. Where the project isn’t going to afford me the luxury of plenty of time, I tend to be a bit more selective and add simple notes to any shot that has something of particular interest that I have a good feeling will be needed later.

The reason I think these simple log notes can be so invaluable is that the Search tool in Final Cut is an incredibly fast and quite powerful way of immediately finding exactly what you need. Say that you know, for example, there was a B-Roll shot of something relevant to a sound byte you’ve used, and you need it to illustrate what’s being spoken about – you could just bring up the search tool, punch in a descriptive word that you used for the log note, and any relevant shots will appear in a new tab for you. Likewise, you can also order the log note column alphabetically as another quick way to get the project browser in a coherent order so you can quickly see what you need. For best results with the search tool, it’s a good idea to keep your log notes simple and where you have multiple shots of the same thing(s), use the exact same keyword on each clip so that when you search ALL the relevant clips appear.

The only obvious caveat to the log notes is that it’s a bit of a front loaded task that requires a bit of time up front (but to be honest, if you add them as you do your initial pass + keep them simple they don’t have to take too long) – but I would say they nearly always save you time later when trying to find material. At least, that’s always been my experience and now I cannot live without them.

As has already been noted, sub-clips are a really great way to immediately start whittling down the material and begin making choices. A little side note with sub-clips, any log notes you add to a master clip will carry over on to any sub-clips you make from it.

Log notes work great for me as I like to work more within the browser and viewer as opposed to timelines, but I know many editors who don’t particularly like working this way so it’s just whatever works for you.

[Adam White]

I’ve had the same issue several times myself – it has happened to me even when the timeline settings and audio file settings match. It’s a bug that sometimes just happens.

Obviously you’ve done the right thing in changing the settings of your audio files, but if you have the issue again and you have all the same settings there are a couple quick workarounds. If you match-frame the audio clip that’s causing you problems within the timeline, you should find that when it loads in the viewer the in and out point are still actually in the correct place that you wanted – insert the media back into the timeline, copy and pasting any audio filters/attributes you may have had, remove the ”faulty” clip leaving just what you replaced it with. What’s in your timeline should now be the portions of the media you actually wanted.

Another method would be to trash any audio render files associated with your project, and re-render. However, I’ve usually found that the method of re-inserting the media works best.

[Adam White]

Thanks for the replies guys, much appreciated. I guess the best bet is to continue running clips through Cinema Tools for now until a better solution comes along.

[Adam White]

Alex,

Thankyou for explaining that so clearly – and apologies my thanks are so late (I have to chalk that up to just being insanely busy)

I feel better about the multiple editors situation. Its clearly very flawed (duplicated master clips) and needs to be addressed ASAP, but I guess I can see how one might manage it. Its not a deal breaker for me.

[Adam White]

Thanks all for taking the time to respond – this kind of first hand experience is invaluable to me right now and it all really helps.

The effect shortcomings, as I thought, but I guess there are some OK ones to buy. As Shane said, its irritating to start from scratch as I have so many great ones for FCP. Oh well. Im glad to hear the linking with AE works well, maybe this is the most sensible way forward; I’ll have to test it out.

I gotta say, this stuff about collaborative editing is really sounding like a major headache. To clarify, does PP actually make duplicates of the files themselves, on the hard drive/san for each copy of a project, or does it just give you duplicates of the same files within the project browser? Both are a problem, but doubling up on the actual source files themselves would be worse.

[Adam White]

I really agree with alot of what you’re saying, Marvin.

Technology has and continues to do amazing things, and certainly the advancements of the last decade have opened doors for me personally that would have remained firmly shut before.

But, I get very frustrated and quite frankly exhausted with the agressive and at times downright hostile tone of techies and software developers. FCPX is a case in point. I dont believe the editing community is made up of reluctant dinosaurs but it is made up of people who have a respect for established paradigms and workflows because they have stood the test of time and in many cases enhance, not stifle, creativity. A software designers idea of elegance may very well be an editors idea of hell.

Once again we have an article by someone espousing this supposed revolution, agressively so, who by the looks of things knows precious little and looks to have next to no respect for the editing process. All this stuff about being ‘stuck in the past’ if your not already praising the wisdom of Saint Ubillos of Apple is such utter clap trap I can barely stomach any more of it. Just because someone wants a viewer and tracks they are antiquated and need to be put out of their misery? Please – these are talented people who will continue to do great work.

This sort of divisive nonsense is perhaps what I dislike about FCPX most of all. These kind of proponents do the software no favours amongst the people that need to be convinced, IMHO.

[Adam White]

These are still valid questions, and you know what I really hate most of all about FCPX is how divisive it has become. I genuinely hate to see editors tearing into each other over this piece of software. And I find it really distasteful that talented people are being labelled “out of date” and “stuck in the past” because they want a damn viewer back! I mean, seriously, is that really so much to ask and is it really a sign that they need to be put out to pasture?

The whole notion that Apple knows best, that they’ve seen something lowly editors haven’t yet, and that we should all just shut up and learn to love it – I am still deeply uncomfortable with that. I think some people may very well like this new way of working – but others wont and for very legitimate reasons; it has nothing to do with being too attached to the past or not having any vision.

As for the original question, I would be pleased to see these things re-introduced. Along with removing the magnetic timeline (I know, never going to happen), its the kind of design decision that would allow me to reconsider FCPX as a viable option. Adding features back is not the issue for me personally, and whilst I think its great for people using X that Apple are updating it, for me it makes no real difference to my view of the software because those central design decisions I was always unhappy with are unchanged.