Bill Davis
Forum Replies Created
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Dave,
FCP X puts assets in some very specific places so that all the elements in the database can find them when they need to.
That “Thumbnails” file is NOT trivial to FCP-X.
As I understand things, they are called by a LOT of the code to display clip pictures in the interface.
So as with much else in X, moving it them via the finder is an excellent way to make sure that your program starts to screw up.
Bottom line, FCP-X is NOT like FCP-Legacy. Until you understand how it works, it’s best to leave things in the places where the program puts them.
FWIW.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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Do a web search for Digital Rebellions “Preference Manager” and use that to trash your FCP-X preferences file.
This is essentially non-destructive since if the former prefs file is missing, it just auto builds a fresh one and missing some presets is trivial compared to your timeline not functioning.
That’s the first thing I’d try in a situation like yours.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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[Herb Sevush] “I didn’t laugh so much as chuckle. See, we still can’t agree.”
Which is consistent for you Herb!
After all, we wouldn’t want you to damage your brand as a “grumpy contrarian” – any more than people would accept my changing mine from “shameless Apple apologist” – it’s who we’ve allowed ourselves to become here just by being ourselves – and as we increasingly see, it takes too much time to understand a complex human being’s underlying truths – it’s easier to just suspend one’s critical, contextual thinking, and slot everything into what we perceive as it’s “brand attributes.”
We are not men, (nor DEVO!) – we’re just branding message depositories, willfully or not!
; )
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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[Dennis Radeke] “I wonder where Apeture would be if it hadn’t been dropped to $79.00 and put on the App store. “
As someone who was paid to make quite a few videos for a large national corporation relating to supply chain logistics management and the costs entailed therein, let me note that by understanding and adopting the “digital delivery” model Apple probably make Aperture at $79 a much MORE efficient contributor to the company’s bottom line than the legacy versions.
It’s not just inexpensive offshore sourcing of goods, ala Walmart, it’s having a system in place to deliver them to customers without sharing your profits with other entities. Quite a few logistics pros I worked with noted that, owning the supply chain was where much of the real profit was often made in national retailing.
When supply chain costs disappears (ala the iTunes Music Store Model) — overhead plummets and profits go way up. And smart companies can use that reality to cut prices and increase sales even further – driving even more profit.
I actually think that with 20/20 hindsight, it was the early iTunes “micro-payments for IP” play that was Apple’s single most revolutionary move. (That Word, Photoshop et al, are all now available via on-line subscription acknowledges that reality.) So I’d bet that there’s actually vastly more overall profit at selling a LOT of stuff at $79 – than there is in selling a smaller number of boxes at $999 ea and having to share those generated profits with a legion of truckers, warehousemen, and shelf stockers in stores around the country.
My guess as an observer, anyway.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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[Kevin Patrick] “I noticed Apple has a Best of Mac App Store 2011 section on their App Store.
I’m not exactly sure what the criteria was for getting on the list. The only thing I saw was, “Explore our favorites from 2011.” under the header. So I guess this list represents what they liked. Not users. Not top revenue. Not top number of copies sold. It appears to be what they like. (I assume they means Apple)
Given that, I suppose it would be bad form to put up a bunch of your own apps. But they did include one app. The best Apple App for 2011 is …
FCP X!
“So let me understand you.
You’re somehow annoyed that Apple is promoting one of their “flagship” (and highest priced) software products — during the holiday buying season — on their own web site — and have used precisely the same self-promotion with a touch of hyperbole that legions upon legions of businesses before them have employed to do so?
I would gently ask how this is in any possible way different from what EVERY successful business learns to do in order to stay in business?
Is it because they’re APPLE and they’ve somehow annoyed you – that you now don’t think they should be allowed to do what everyone else on the planet does?
Just seems a bit odd as an argumentative position. But whatever.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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[John Irvine] “Well, I was skeptical Bill, but I gave stabilising a go, and…it works on my shaky panning! I really didn’t think it would be able to deal with that kind of variation in lateral movement – brilliant! Yes, I do lose a bit of the frame, but it’s worth it. Thanks again, John :)”
Glad that it helped.
Digital video tools are definitely getting better all the time!
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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Theoretically. Some. Maybe.
In X you invoke the “analyze footage for camera shake” during import or after your clip is imported. and it can sometimes help.
But like all “fix it in post” solutions, it sometimes makes thing better and sometimes really doesn’t.
The process essentially works by “blowing up” the shakey frames to larger than the original size, sacrificing some resolution in favor of creating a “margin” around the frame that can be panned and scanned around to compensate for radical changes in what should be constant motion.
If the “shakes” are minor, it can look pretty good. If things “jolt” or the inconstancies are too great, the results can be as bad or worse than no correction at all.
Costs nothing but some extra background rendering time to try it. So knock yourself out.
Good luck.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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I second the “no.”
However, I’m doing some informal meetings in my studio with half a dozen guys learning X and one of them tonight was having trouble with dissolves. Specifically banding in gradients that looked like color depth issues.
When you cross dissolve two clips that are each pretty large in the first place, and you use the default bitstream compression presets, we could all see some banding happen in subtle gradients like blue skies.
The group solution was to get him to stop using the interior FCP-X export functions and go out to Compressor where he can reclaim control of stuff like setting the max bitrate export controls.
I also think a general rule is that with so many people using X (hundreds of thousands of seats downloaded = at this stage) If there’s not a lot of chatter from many sources having the same problem, it’s pretty good bet that it’s a settings or operation issue, rather than a flaw in the program.
Technically, since X dumped Quicktime in favor of AV Foundation and Core Video, most people appear to be seeing significant IMPROVEMENT in areas like transitions that QT used to regularly screw up.
So you shouldn’t have to settle for less than great quality if you can take the time to figure out how to set things up.
FWIW.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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[Corbin Gross] “Anyway. How much does one of these things weigh? I’m just looking at new tripods and want to make sure I don’t get something that just barely holds up the camera/prompter combo.
“The LCD units aren’t particularly heavy. But depending on the kind of cameras you typically use, it’s very possible you’ll need the prompter manufactures “riser” rig to get your camera high enough to center it in the glass. That means teleprompter rigs tend to be both top heavy, and front heavy (since even an LCD and a lightweight acrylic beamsplitter is a balance issue when it’s hanging 12 inches in front of at the nominal balance point.
So a somewhat heavier duty tripod with a well designed head that can handle shifting “center of gravity” issues is recommended.
FWIW.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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All these are good thoughts.
But understand that reading a prompter and looking natural at the same time is a skill roughly equivalent to dancing.
Most people can do it competently with practice. Very few people can walk out on a dance floor and do it very well the first time.
And those who don’t believe that the third paragraph from the top of this is true, are the people who end up making DREADFUL, stiff, hard to watch teleprompter driven videos.
YMMV.
Good luck.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor