[Andy Mees]

I can’t imagine anyone was surprised by Smart Bins.

[Andy Mees]

[Sam Cole] “his NEW FCP X forum is rather hilarious (in a positive way).”

Well here we go then …

A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts: “Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?”

The man below says: “Yes, you’re in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field.”

“You must be an engineer” says the balloonist.

“I am” replies the man. “How did you know?”

“Well,” says the balloonist, “everything you have told me is technically correct, but it’s no use to anyone.”

The man below says “you must be in management.”

“I am” replies the balloonist, “but how did you know?”

“Well,” says the man, “you don’t know where you are, or where you’re going, but you expect me to be able to help. You’re in the same position you were before we met, but now it’s my fault.”

Some contents or functionalities here are not available due to your cookie preferences!

This happens because the functionality/content marked as “Google Youtube” uses cookies that you choosed to keep disabled. In order to view this content or use this functionality, please enable cookies: click here to open your cookie preferences.

[Andy Mees]

Haha … sorry man, I wasn’t suggesting you actually needed a demo! I was just trying to illustrate that to someone (or a hall full of people) who hadn’t seen the UI before, well they’d only see the action, not how it was done, and so wouldn’t know it wasn’t automagic. Is it the default behaviour? Sure, if and when magnetic is turned on it did appear to be the default behaviour as presented in the demo, but ….

[Andy Mees]

[Aindreas Gallagher] “But given that clip swapping, audio avoidance and snap basically comprise the magnetic timeline, do we like that as out of the box default behavior? Should clip swapping be the default timeline behavior? Why should it?”

Just cos it was demo’d doesn’t mean it was default behaviour. I could “demo” Swap Clip to you in an FCP 7 timeline … see how I click and drag this clip, and look now as the cursor changes to a swap edit icon (its magic), I drop the clip and viola … doesn’t mean it’d of happened if I hadn’t have held down the option key but it’d have looked automatic to you. But it’s just a demo, showing what can be done, not teaching “how” to do it so those details I might have not gone into. Makes sense, right? So what was presented as the Sneak Peak was just a demonstration of whiz bang features, we don’t know whether they were all necessarily default behaviours or not. I’m not saying magnetic timelines are not default, and am not saying that having magnetism enabled doesn’t make “swap” a default action, am just saying that just because it looks like a bone and smells like a bone doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a dogs dinner.

[Andy Mees]

Hey Don

You’ve got a few options available to you, but most are based around simply rewrapping into a Quicktime container (MOV) the XDCAM EX footage thats inside those MP4 files. Thats because FCP itself already understand the XDCAM EX movie format, just not the native MP4 container that media comes in. Sony offer a few (free) tools for this, theres XDCAM Browser 1.2.1 (which is a combination of their Clip Browser and XDCAM Transfer tools), theres XDCAM Transfer 2.12, and then theres their XDCAM EX Log and Transfer plug-in for FCP itself. XDCAM Browser is the latest incarnation of their tools but the latter more mature options are generally still more popular.
https://support.sonybiz.ca/esupport/Navigation.do?os=Mac

Another option is a Quicktime component that will allow you to work natively with the MP4 files such as Calibrated Software’s MP4 EX Import component https://www.calibratedsoftware.com/MP4EXImport_Mac.asp

A lot of people do struggle with editing this MPEG HD format natively though, and in those cases the only real option (as Shane has already explained) is to transcode the footage to a more edit friendly format such as Prores

Hope it helps
Andy

[Andy Mees]

[Craig Seeman] “This is, in part, the basis for the amazement in games like “peak-a-boo.” “

Peek a Boo … I used to love that game … but Peek a Boo X Solitaire Edition, man that was rubbish.

[Andy Mees]

Hey Aindreas
Don’t think we’re looking at anything more there than the “Swap Edit” function thats existed in FCP for yonks. The action may be sexed up with a bit of core animation goodness, and the built in logic of the mugnutic timeline allows it to work more intelligently with attached audio, but its still just a swap edit at the end of the day and would be used no differently than normal. Did you see anything to suggest that you couldn’t perform an edit normally ie without doing a “Swap”?
Cheers
Andy

[Andy Mees]

[Chris Kenny] “(there’s “Audi”, but the icon makes me think that’s just a collection of footage)”

What you are calling “a collection of footage” is what Apple calls an “Event” (hence the Event Library) … this same Event icon is used in iMovie ’11.

Question: Whats that little icon up in top left of the filmstrip for the above selected shot (Phantom Ahead) ? It’s not shown on all clips and the icon in the detail view is similar and also reflects the same disparity (not the same as the other “clips” in that list).

It looks a bit like a clip with attached audio as seen in the timeline … I’m thinking it may denote a clip that has linked second sound audio via FCP X’s pluralise type thang (or perhaps some other form of “Merged” clip).

[Andy Mees]

Well the specific flavour of HD that FCP 4.5 HD likes is DVCPRO HD (720p and 1080i) … it’ll do Uncompressed HD too but I’m guessing thats not what you’ll be looking to handle on your older G5 rig. Given that, if your DP is using a DVCPRO HD camera, then shooting 720p24 may be your best bet.

Here’s a link to a success story using just such a format with FCP 4.5:
Incredible Success with FCP 4.5 HD

[Andy Mees]

Hi George
Yes FCP 4.5 HD will work with 24 and 25 fps media. Are you shooting HD or SD? You of course know that FCP 4.5 “HD” is quite limited in the kinds of HD it can handle .. and camera formats have moved on a fair way since back then. It’s bad enough keeping things working smoothly on the latest and greatest! Anyway, its good you’re taking the time to clarify (and the test?) your workflow before you start shooting, you’d be amazed at how many folks just blunder in blindly and then realise too late that none of it works! Hoping you can wrangle the camera files into a format you can work with.
Cheers
Andy

Ps I know you say you have no budget for it, but still, you’d be advised to start looking at upgrading soon .. a second hand but otherwise modern Mac will run circles round anything that you could run FCP 4.5 on. And a newer copy of FCP / FCS should not be too hard to find either, just make sure you find a reputable seller who will transfer the license properly.