[Alban Egger]

For me it is very responsive with big projects now.

I have an event with 5500 clips right now on my hard drive which I used recently on my Macbook. It worked (Macbook 2011, 16GB RAM), but it ways´t too happy in the event. Editing worked, but switching keyword-selections wash´t snappy at all. On my MacPro this was not so much an issue.

In 10.0.4 I can go through the KeywordSelections just as I can with aonly a few clips. The database is definitely cleaned up and selecting and skimming clips is a breeze even with thousands of items.

[Alban Egger]

Audio is indeed the last problem IF your client demands OMF.
Other than that I see no more reason to open FCP7 anymore.

[Alban Egger]

We use it on 4 machines pretty much exclusively now. There is one last machine that has FCP legacy installed, but it is collecting dust, unless I have to 7toX some project, which worked fine so far.

FCPX has been used here on several documentaries (up to 52-minutes, 7000 clips), global commercial-campaigns, cinema commercials, corporate, short-films, and even as a LIVE-text-tool …you name it. It is more efficient and fun to work with.

Although it is not finished yet (e.g. HDSDI preview missing) we find the advantages it has in mediamanagement and editing beat the missing features easily. FCP7 is simply not an alternative, maybe PP or Avid.

We also use Motion90% as our compositing/effects-tool. AE hardly gets opened, basically only when we

[Alban Egger]

[Neil Goodman] “No 3 point editing into anything other than the primary = lame”

Well and you are apparently one of those who played 10 minutes with it and then gave up. Of course you can 3-point edit into the primary or as a connected clip.
Yes, there is quite some “mousing over” with skimming , but it beats the double-clicking of FCP7 easily.
There are a few audio-quirks still, but other than that it works great in all productions we do.

@Sean: We made a 52-documentary with version 10.0.0 in summer already. In 10.0.3 it would be a lot easier! I did almost everything you ask for: but only 8 tracks audio and export to XDCam MXF instead of tape, but that would have been one more button.
We didn´t survive QC but we aced it! We actually got a call that it was one of the best out-of-house QC of the year! You can imagine we were extra careful, too 😉

The only problem we had with 10.0.0 was the OMF export. But we managed and it took not long to export our Audiotracks to FCP7 to fill in the missing export options in that old version.

Overall it beats FCP legacy in speed (media management and of course editing) and color-accuracy (when you not only export for one channel, but deliver parts or versions to different ones in different codecs and media: MPEGs, MXFs, h.264 etc).

In the new version everything is different than in summer. XML works, re-linking works, a lot of the initial bugs are ironed out…it is growing up. It might not be ready for your tape-workflow, but once you moved on FCPX will have moved ahead of you also.

[Alban Egger]

I just a shoot with different cams shooting a mix of i and p.
Just create your 1080p timeline ad throw the i footage in.
FCPX will do its magic. You don´t need to de-interlace, anyway I didn´t have to and my show was already through broadcast QC.
If you do see any problems or if some cams shoot different frame rates then try the “Conform” tool in FCPX first.
There are de-interlace (free) filters out as a last resort, I don´t think there is one included in FCPX.

[Alban Egger]

We use HVXs and FCPX.
Import is smooth and native: you don´t need to wait for the ingest, just point at the directory, press “import all” and you are done. You can edit instantly without waiting for any transcode or rewrapping!

I have sometimes an issue with clips. they turn up in the event with a camera-icon on it. I didn´t figure out the problem on those yet (I´d say one of every 200 clips behaves like that). The solution is to set ins and outs in the import window for those clips.

[Alban Egger]

Hi Claude,
we edit a lot of sports. From free-ski events to football games.

FCPX is about 2-3 times faster than FCP7.

first of all i recommend to change some shortcuts. I have “Trim to Start”, “Trim to end” and “Trim to selection” as keyboard shortcuts “1”, “2”, “3”
second I recommend to shoot the time as timecode and have someone writing down the scenes that are important. that helps to cut down a football game (2,5 hours) in about 20 minutes.

if you have no written script:
If you are in one-cam-mode just lay your shots down and skim through the timeline. you can either hit “1” and “2” to shorten the clips or even better select the good pieces (selection-tool “R”) and hit “3” to trim the rest of the clips away.

clips with no content can be deleted by hitting “c” (selects clip without clicking on it) and then delete.
with the magnetic timeline the clips will fall in place and with little practice you will skim through a game very fast for the first rough.
then lay down your voiceover and fine-tune again.

In football for example you select with “R” from the snap to the catch then hit 3.

[Alban Egger]

[Lance Bachelder]

3. Favorites! Need to see the name I give a favorite in the various windows including the timeline! What’s the use of creating a bunch of specific names if you can’t see them easily. In thumbnail view you can’t see Favorite names at all 🙁

4. Really would like to go back to tracks – forget this story thing and give us tracks!

5. Project Library. I know there is a 3rd party program to turn projects on and off but it would be cool if there was a simple dialog window upon launch like Avid or PPro to specify which projects I want open and viewable in the Library.

ad 3) In the timeline (beware: it is called sequence now!) open the itemlist on the left and you have the keywords there and you can jump to keywords in the timeline by selecting them.

ad 4) disagree. But if they made it optoional it wouldn´t hurt me…..

ad 5) I make 3 directories in every Project: FCPEparked, FCPPparked and FCPTemplates. In there I store the Events, Projects and MotionTemplates that belong to a client or project. In the Finder it takes mere seconds to move the Events.
But what does bug me is the inability to eject drives from within FCPX. Whenever I attach a drive with Events on it they come up in FCPX. No problem until you want that drive out again. You have to close FCPX for that. Silly.

[Alban Egger]

[Jeremy Garchow] “Or use XfcpX”

huh? but XfcpX only rewraps the codec, it doesn´t transcode, so it basically does the same than the plugin: make FCPX understand the wrapper.

Transcoding any material into HQ won´t make the material better as long as there are no effects involved. And for that FCPX gives the option to work in HQ as render format. But it doesn´t make sense to transcode the original footage just for the sake of transcoding.

[Alban Egger]

16GB RAM seems for me to be a must.

And I also played with media on an SSD and suddenly FW800-Raid0-RAIDs seem so slow…