[Banks Meador]

But

[John Berpskin] ”
Or another way of looking at it is that NO ONE has built a NLE from the ground up that is file based (vs tape based which every other editor is) and this is the first step of the journey.

I mean, did it ever occur to anyone that, with a new operating system and Thunderbolt drives coming, that you may not be seeing all of the picture yet?”

But NONE of that stuff explains why such rudimentary things aren’t present. Thunderbolt drives and Lion probably won’t bring with them the ability to fine tune a dissolve with the precision of every other pro editor out there, including FCP 7. It probably won’t bring with it the ability to make a simple title (though FCPX does actually seem to update the titling live over the viewer – an improvement).

With me, it’s the sheer amount of missing functionality that is the proof. It’d take a mammoth amount of work – two more years by Apple’s (and most other NLE manufacturer’s) release cycle – to add in the functionality needed for a professional editor to fall in love with this software. They’ve stepped away from the tru pro market.

[Banks Meador]

What all of you just said.

It was the plan from the beginning.

The approach seems to be that they wanted to help novices keep from “messing up.”

I truly love innovation. If there were simply different ways to do some of these things, I’d be ready to learn – no worries. Different isn’t bad at all.

But compare the capabilities of this editor – even in the foreseeable future – to that of its supposed competitors, Media Composer and Premiere. It has not even half the FUNCTIONALITY (not features, though that’s a strong argument too) of its “peers.”

[Banks Meador]

Jerry,

The main reason I feel there is no plan to bring this new application to half the functionality of FCP7 is because SO MANY of the little things are missing from FCPX. It would take something near the scale of a full re-write of much of the software. The sheer scope of the labor it would take to add in the functionality doesn’t seem viable. Make sense?

The copy and paste of transform, distort, crop, etc properties can certainly be addressed (since I used that as a specific example). However there are literally dozens of examples that are just not there (the coarse controls and behavior of dissolves, titling, lack of multiple sequences / storylines per project, etc).

The approach was seems to be that they wanted to help novices keep from “messing up.”

I truly love innovation. If there were simply different ways to do some of these things, I’d be ready to learn – no worries. Different isn’t bad at all.

But compare the capabilities of this editor – even in the foreseeable future – to that of its supposed competitors, Media Composer and Premiere. It has not even half the FUNCTIONALITY (not features, though that’s a strong argument too) of its “peers.”

Banks

[Banks Meador]

I’m running FC Studio 3 on 10.5. I just moved over to Mac/FCP several months ago from a PC running XP and Avid Liquid Chrome.

Generally I’ve been very pleased, but render performance is dismal (1920×1080 AVCINTRA natively via MXF4MAC rendering to PRORES 422 standard quality mostly) and system responsiveness is less than desirable from time to time (several spinning wheels of colored death).

Would I not benefit from an upgrade to the 64 bit OS in both areas? Is the risk of upgrading not worth the potential reward?

Thanks for the insight!

Banks

Mac Pro Workstation
Two 2.66GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeons
16GB Ram
Black Magic Decklink Studio Pro
FCP Studio 3
Adobe CS4 Production Premium

[Banks Meador]

Walter,

Thanks for the quick response! I’ll do that.

Is there a way to set a preference on how FCP scales HD clips in a TL?

Thanks again,

Banks

[Banks Meador]

Nevermind! Found it in a hidden spot called “customize” during the install process.

Thanks,

Banks

[Banks Meador]

Jeremy,

Thanks again! I ordered my copy of FCS3 and we’ll see! Exciting, ain’t it?

Banks

[Banks Meador]

Jeremy,

Thanks for the insight. I’m new to FCP, and I need to establish a good workflow for a time sensitive television show (we shoot our football coach’s show on Saturday night, and it has to be ready for air by 8 am Sunday morning).

So….

If I record the production truck feed for highlights on my HPM110, which is capable of AVCIntra and DVCPROHD P2 recording, if I want real time support, I’ll need to use DVCPROHD for now (with MXF4MAC), right? By the way, we’ll be editing directly from the P2 cards read from the HPM110 recorder/player.

Just curious; what happens to the AVCINTRA when it hits the FCP project? Is it not wrapped just like the DVCPROHD? Is it transcoded to ProRes?

If I try to use MXF4MAC to edit the AVCINTRA clips (while attempting to leave the files on the cards in the reader) what will happen? I’m awaiting my copy MXF4MAC, and I’m interested in whether FCP will copy the files to my media drive; an obvious roadblock when it comes to asap editing.

Thanks for any further thoughts. You guys are all helping me make the transition to FCP work like a charm.

Banks

[Banks Meador]

“At this particular time, AVC-I is not enabled in real time in FCP. You can download the codec from Panasonic, but FCP sees it as 8 bit and also knocks it down to smpte range…”

Hi, Jeremy… Is your above statement still true? Bummer if it is, because I just purchased an AVC-Intra option board for my HPM-110 (P2 recorder) so I could use MXF4MAC to edit the files natively. If I use that workflow, am I still doomed to 8 bit and smpte range when working with AVCINTRA?

Thanks for your insight…

Banks

[Banks Meador]

Shane, thanks for the insight. You feel like this would work for a single stream of 720 over USB 2.0 or Firewire 400? Last year we stuck with DV50, but I’d like to move up to 720 if possible.

Thanks again,

Banks