[Alban Egger]

FCPX does not offer any print-to-tape functionality!
You could try in iMovie. I think there is a tool for that.

I always use an old Windows laptop with a firewire port. Windows moviemaker does it…….you just need to create a file in FCPX that can be read with Windows. Probably a MPEG program stream.

[Alban Egger]

hmm..I have merged before. The problem is their is no indication what´s going on and how long it will take (e.g. how many percent are done). But eventually usually it works.

Is the event empty? did FCP create new one on another drive?

[Alban Egger]

[Chris Harlan] “Actually, tape is still valuable for archiving, having a long shelf life. Of course, you can only hope there will still be machines to play them down the road.”

Yep, I have a HP tape-backup device here that I used in the 90s when I was still on PC. The device works, the tapes are fine, but I have no Windows machine anymore….never tried if Apple had a driver for that old thing, but probably not…..I wonder of any client will ever need those files 😛

[Alban Egger]

I have a BetaS deck in a closet since 2007…..tape died 5 years ago for me.
Over here DigiBeta and IMX are still in use by some public stations though.

[Alban Egger]

By dragging in a clip you are creating a region already. Did you try to turn skimming off?

[Alban Egger]

Chris,
I think we all here appreciate your always fair tone and expertise. I think what we want to find out in these discussions is exactly what you say: are the new media-managment tools helping, overhyped or crippling us.

I agree it is crippling, if you are not able to export a region of a timeline. I would also welcome a versioning of projects instead of the one and all 15-minute-save. There are obviously features and tools missing still, that have nothing to do with the “paradigm”.

What I meant by “editing is more than the timeline” is this: some people here are true editors…they do nothing else. For those in fact Avid must be the best solution, because as far as I understand Avid thrives on multi-personnel setups, where one guy edits, one does grading, one does sound. It is this work-environment where FCPX is still behind despite XML. Adobe with its linking between apps is also ahead of Apple here. After all we can´t even send a clip to Motion yet (there is a 3rd party app, but it is not from Apple).

[Chris Harlan] ” I also think that some of the media management tools of other NLEs (including FCPL) are too easily dismissed by some few X users whose enthusiasm borders on zealotry. “

I can´t speak for Avid, but what Media Management was there in FCPL? It happens mostly on the Finder level and in the Capture Scratch, which is pretty much the same as the Event-directory.

In FCPX I insert a card into my card reader and Import from there into FCPX.
During the process of copying the clips and optimizing the clips (if needed) I can edit off the card/disk. I am editing while the media is managed for me. I have a copy of my media in the event, it has maybe already metatags added etc and without any waiting I can edit. In fact it is funny that I found you cannot export until the ingest is done. It happens sometimes, that I am ready with the rushes for a TV-news-cut before the ingest is finished and I have to wait for FCPX to allow me to export. So I don´t see any crippling in this part of media-managment.

It is true FCPL could read some metadata: frame size, codec etc. But in FCPX you can now create a smart collection of “all 1080p with 29,97fps from one individual Camera” from a multi day PAL-shoot with 5 cameras – in 10 seconds you have these “slower clips” in one bin. And you can conform them to your 25p timeline with one button instead of going the Cinema Tools way which was tedious and resource taking.
That´s where Media Management shines for me. Like everything this can be done in FCPL also, but it takes more steps and time.

Another experience I had which I am surprised about: since we have this event paradigm I realize how often clients want footage from different shoots, which are now collected in events. They want the sunrise from the educational video and the hiker from the incentive event and the smile from the commercial-shoot. Before you went into your hard drive and picked those clips, which can be a time-consuming task. In FCPX I pull out the client´s drive with their 8 events on it and search for sunset and triple-A-smileshot and skim for a good hiking scene they shot themselves. It is now that I realize who spot on some of these features are for a production like mine that does many different projects for the same client. It won´t help for that one 30-second ad, but it helps for the investor´s-meeting-clip, which is just as important to them 😉

Again…all this can be done in FCPL just as good, although with a little more time needed. But the idea behind FCPX is not as bad as some editors believe. This doesn´t make it a good NLE for dialogues yet. But the foundation that it will become that seems to be there in my opinion.

[Alban Egger]

Chris you didn´t get my sarcasm, as I copied a text and replaced phrase, about them not understanding how to edit.

FCP7 is maybe fluid to work with, but just like FCPX you need to adapt to it or adapt it. That´s what I am trying to say. To me FCP7 feels very clumsy. Maybe I don´t master it like many here, but then at least I have watched “masters” over the shoulder and I didn´t feel like they did treat it much different than me.

Is FCP7 flexible, sure. More flexible than FCPX or others? Hmm…probably depends, because also in FCPX there is often more than 1 way to achieve your result.

What makes FCPX so extremely fluid to me is the skimming, the regional keywords in clips and the magnetic timeline (which can be turned off).
Once you are in the timeline FCP7 is powerful also, sure. But editing nowadays is more than the timeline. It is system-management, media-management, clip/bin-management, editing and output in various formats and versions. The overall experience of FCP7 vs. FCPX in the complete workflow is what makes FCPX more fluid to me.

Of course the disclaimer is still valid, that FCPX is not finished yet and prevents me from abandon FCP7 especially in the output process, if want to work with the current broadcast-world.. There is work to be done, but the overall experience already now shows what potential lies in this software.

[Alban Egger]

[Bill Davis] “And today you have a hundred different kinds of editors.

“Video editing” in the modern era covers a HUGE spectrum of divergent needs. “

Yep, and I think FCPX caters to 90% of them. Maybe they deliberately don´t aim FCPX at the Hollywood Movie/Avid market, because that would mean the millions of others would´t be getting the best tool for their job? And how many big gigs did FCP7 get really? I mean blockbuster gigs. Not many, really.

Who says nowadays which NLE-style and paradigm is objectively the right one? When Apple came out with a one-button gadget-phone it was a toy. and Blackberry was the tool for professionals with buttons and superior e-mail services. Now the iPhone does pretty much everything a Blackberry does (though not the same way) and a whole lot more. So for button-phoners the Blackberry is still THE phone; it is maybe a better phone in its core functionality. But the iPhone and iOs and App-Store are built to do more.
I feel the FCPX story is similar. First it looked like a one-button tool, then Apple and 3rd parties filled it and now it is already near where FCP7 was after only 1 year. The iPhone needed 2 or more to allow for exchange servers to be accepted I believe.

Some say they refuse to adapt to an NLE, the NLE should do what they did until now. Well, there are competitors going that way. You might have to stay there. FCPX will not change its paradigm, because Apple is convinced its the right way to tackle the next years of editing.

And in my productions so far I have to agree with them in a lot of their ideas.

[Alban Egger]

David,
what exactly can´t you figure out? I am the one who wrote this Tip. It works great on my side.

You need to set up the command. Then you grade clip A. You go to the next Clip B, select it and hit your shortcut to paste the colourboard information to it. Simple and works for the 3 last clips.

[Alban Egger]

Sounds like a normal procedure in FCPX. You can do both: select the tracks in the Event-Library or when the clip is in the timeline. If you deselect tracks in the event you still carry them into the timeline (but they stay deselected of course) and use them when needed.

And it gets much better than that once you dive into compound clips and clip-skimming…..

If you only deliver in Stereo your explanation would work, but if you want to deliver in 15 stems again you need the help of roles to do that. AFAIK you are not able to give a track within a clip a role, but need to break it apart and might want to collect the tracks in a compound clip.