[Andreas Kiel]

Hi all,

I hope to have some more time this weekend to work on the next release.

I’ve posted a rough manual for the upcoming version, may be you do have some ideas or suggestions.
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools/MotionTemplateHandler/MTT%20Help%20beta.pdf

Andreas

Spherico
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools

[Andreas Kiel]

you also may use my motion template tool

https://www.spherico.com/filmtools/MTT/index.html

andreas

Spherico
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools

[Andreas Kiel]

[Michael Aranyshev]1. FCPX did not invent metadata
True

[Michael Aranyshev]2. FCP handled real production metadata as well or better than FCPX
Partially true.
With FCP there had been a lot of metadata – more then most of you ever thought – but they had been hidden to the user many times. This was bad – really bad. But using a kind of 3rd app they were visible and editable. Definitively not the best way, but is was possible and doable.
With FCPX there are more limitations at the moment. As there are no real “connections” like detailed XML, 3rd party stuff can’t help at the moment.

– Andreas

Spherico
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools

[Andreas Kiel]

[Michael Aranyshev]How good is FCPX interface for accessing the actually useful metadata, for instance TC, reel, Scene and Take embedded in BWF files from modern production sound recorders? How bad is FCP7?

It’s a kind of “cosi cosa”.
Both of the apps do allow to search for BWAV metadata like TC, rate, Scene, Take and Note, Reel somehow – if they do exist in the source.
With X you can merge mono files into one audio file and you loose the metadata (beside the known bug that in many cases you’ll sync as well). With 7 (or below) the ‘Master Metadata’ – means the metadata of the highest clip – were kept.
But there was a nice feature with 7 – though it was a bit cumbersome and obviously not well known. Merging BWAV and Video did write the BWAV metamadata to the QT metadata as iXML for modern BWAVs. That was cool and perfectly fitted into our worflow. We could import any merged clip from anywhere and automatically got the ‘Scene, Take, Note’ as metadata beside the maybe 2 or 3 TC informations (Source TC, Source Reel; Aux TC, Aux Reel).
As QT is dying and AV Foundation is not really there this is a problem for me/us.
With X you may use the free WaveAgent to merge mono files int a poliphonic files prior to import. This will keep metadata and sync. But you have to take of roles – highly recommended to do that.

Anyway, anybody else may say: it’s not a problem for me.

[Steve]Well I’m a “lover” and I’ve been collaborating with a colour grader using DaVinci and I’ve also just sent out some audio tracks, via roles export, to a sound editor. Early days for this sort of thing and I understand that it absolutely doesn’t fit into most standard collaborative workflows, but it’s getting there slowly.
I think it’s great to have both “Lover”, “Haters” and those in-between (like me) here. This does help everybody to look at whatever thing/feature in a different way.

As I’m mostly involved into workflows I do have a different point of view than most of the others here.

And yes, I do see that with 10.0.3 CC interchange is much better, Audio and Roles had been improved even earlier. That’s great – but doesn’t cover the options (though mostly unknown) from before.

But on the other hand: around 10,000 people use an app of mine which allows (even using the free version) to extract titles with quite a lot of settings from FCP using XML. X doesn’t allow that any more in that way. There was a question on one of the lists whether you could share a project to work with with titles (in a worldwide environment) even if you don’t have the original media. That was easy with 7 – with X no chance.

And look at that kind of professionals who wanted to do a DCP release of their project (that even may be people who just want you go with their documentary to a festival without a real financial kind of interest). These people don’t have the option to get a full release with a few clicks any more – cause QT Codec plugins are not supported any more. New AV Foundation APIs are not available yet.

There are many more examples I can list.
So it’s a strange time.

But at the end it’s still the same as I said before:
No doubt FCPX will involve – but that’s finally true for every app.
In the meantime we can spent/waste time working with the app – and learn.

– Andreas

Spherico
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools

[Andreas Kiel]

[Oliver] … Or if they had released it as an “editing assistant” application? Sort of a good “pre-editor” or maybe even just a “rough cut editor”?
None of that would have made sense. An “editing assistant” or a “pre-editor” implies to have good interfaces, exchange options. This is not given at the current state and hadn’t been there on launch

[Oliver] … FCP X is a good tool for SOME things, but not all. Because it is called Final Cut Pro, I think a lot of us are trying to MAKE it work, when often it isn’t the right choice. Hence, a lot of frustration.
I agree. There are a lot of attempting features in there which can make some productions work like a charm. But there are are other – especially when you need to work in a collaborative environment – which don’t work or are missing and in so far for many people it’s a no go.

[Oliver]Thoughts?
Some.
FCP and FCPX both are data base driven. FCP has a bad interface to access the underlying databases especially using the so called “metadata” (hype word at this time). These metadata always had been there and I don’t understand those people claiming that this is really new.
As always with any NLE you have to know what you do and have to understand the approach of the NLE (which quite often does not match your way of thinking).

Personally I think FCPX was released at a bad point of time and too much focused on a single user.
Maybe it would be interesting to see how many of the “lovers” do work in collaborative environments when creating their projects.

No doubt FCPX will involve – but that’s finally true for every app.
In the meantime we can spent/waste time working with the app – and learn.

– Andreas

Spherico
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools

[Andreas Kiel]

[Simon] … it definitely does look like a bumpy road ahead …

Here from the X-files :):)

Anybody noticed that same time the FCPX stuff somehow started, Apple took the Apple Beatles albums on iTunes?
This implied they got access to the songs from the Beatles. They planned to integrate a start up sound for FCPX like you was able to do in OS 5,6,7 etc. They planned a start up sound that was a portion of the Beatles “The long and winding road”.
Unfortunately there was nobody at Apple who did remember how that was done those times of the old OSs. So the current users only got an app which on start up takes a while to load Compressor Support and Templates.

Andreas 🙂

Spherico
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools

[Andreas Kiel]

Interesting thread.

All good points.

Here some points from me as I am one of those 3rd party guys who fixed some of the lacks of the old versions with some custom tools.
All over the years FCP existed there had been problems, sometimes massive ones, sometimes frustrating one, sometimes missing ones (cause the world changes all time).

Version 4.1 changed the world because of the XML introduction. But it was a really buggy version and XML was very basic. But it opened the app (and interaction with it) to a lot of people/developers around the world.
I had been the first who published a public version of an XML based app.
Because of my work with BWAV files since FCP version 1 which used Batch Lists for metadata (anyone remembers?) or EDLs (what’s that?)and ALEs to import files I was introduced to Helana Ju at Apple. She was head of development for XML all over the years and she was very responsive and a good friend for several of us. That helped the developer community to grow and helped FCP sales to grow as well.
A lot of third party stuff changed the way of communication between apps and collaborative workflows.

Preparing for X there was a more or less different development group who had to follow this new kind of paradigm of X, which was (and still is) a challenge. They are very busy and less responsive therefore.

Even though XML seems to affect only a hand full of users it’s a good example to learn about FCPX’s internal structure and as Simon mentioned it’s damn complicated – far away from the way his Spitfire can be handled.
There is finally a lot of house keeping to be done by the Apple guys to bring the parts together into a working interchange format.

Take an example which was mentioned above by Ben Scott:
subtitling workflow from STL files and improvements

When XML import/export was supported by X it took me 3 days to publish basic solutions for that, they are free because they don’t make sense in a professional way and they can’t make sense until a massive change within the XML handling will happen (or there is an API for the project structure).

I know several developers who gave up for now to create workflow apps – I didn’t, but it’s a kinda frustration here.
Several of the developers complaint about missing Apple Events which formerly made their apps working seamless with FCP. This doesn’t exist anymore and won’t exist anymore, because it doesn’t match with the Sandbox stuff Apple requires (that was posted by Greg who works with Philip on all the cool IA apps).

Another problem is that good old QT is dying and AV foundation is not really there , this makes it even more complicated.

So currently all you can do is to use X, if it works it’s fine – if not write a bug report (not a feedback). For a bug report you need to be a developer – that’s free. But writing a bug report is handled different from feedbacks, you get a ticket ID which can be tracked.

And even if people complain they have to pay 299 bucks for a beta – it’s way cheaper than the mxf4mac/P2Flow bundle 3rd party stuff Jeremy used to use with FCP 🙂

Andreas

Spherico
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools

[Andreas Kiel]

There is a new version available which makes use of the (limited) XML features of FCPX and allows a better share of projects with templates.

To learn about the app you can download the manual here
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools/MotionTemplateHandler/Motion%20Template%2...

To get the package:
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools/MotionTemplateHandler/MTT%20Installer.dmg

Have fun

– Andreas

Spherico
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools

[Andreas Kiel]

There is a minor update available.

It fixes some little bugs. Has a revised manual and a new feature which allows to check template availability for a current user using a project FCPXML.

To learn about the app you can download the manual here
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools/MotionTemplateHandler/Motion%20Template%2...

To get the package:
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools/MotionTemplateHandler/MTT%20Installer.dmg

Have fun

– Andreas

Spherico
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools

[Andreas Kiel]

[Robert Bracken on Feb 7, 2012 at 12:14:37 am]

I don’t get it. Installing the motion templates isn’t hard.

Thank you for working on an app that I’m sure is great! Please just let us know what we would be missing if we didn’t use it.

I totally agree it’s not hard to open the Movies folder then the Motion Templates folder, then open the matching folder for the kind of template you want to install, create a new folder (maybe) and then drag the template to it. It’s not a problem to do this for each category of template if you got several at a time, it’s easy. You even can do this easily for many users on the machine. Not a problem at all.

One thing I don’t understand is what you mean by “us” – this means obviously a group of people, which I don’t know. So to answer your question for your group: I don’t know what you’re missing. And to be honest, I’m happy that your group doesn’t know why they should use the app – saves me some time to answer question about an app I don’t earn any money on.

Regards
Andreas

Spherico
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools