[Craig Alan]

Did you try opening a back up project that FC saves automatically? Did you try trashing FC permissions?

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

I’m using it in almost all my edits now. Good framing is to me more important than the loss in resolution. I’ve pretty much let FC decide on the setting in the timeline based on the original footage upon import. (unlike FCP 7 where I would make decisions upon import). According to the inspector info tab, the footage is 1920 x 1080 29.97p. I’m not sure but I did notice in previous versions of FCP X that the metadata about the media in the inspector is based on the original media rather than the transcoded or rewrapped media. Are you suggesting I’d do better transcoding to a 720p timeline if I’m going to be transforming WS to CUs?

Here’s more info: I opened one of the rewrapped clips in QT player and the QT inspector gave this report:

Do you think I’d do better in 720p?

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

My new favorite FCP X tool, though I’m not as experienced as you, is the transform tool. Once I learned that you can use the timeline to auto create keyframes, the viewer to reframe the result, and the inspector to set parameters, it became a really easy way to reframe, zoom, pan and even cut between shots that were not there in the raw footage. It’s the interaction between these windows that allows for a powerful efficient workflow. It also made me realize why 4K would be a very good thing even if the project was not distributed in 4K. If you start with a WS and decide to transform to CUs, moving or otherwise, you loose resolution. In 4K, this would be mostly an insignificant loss.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

you could lasso all the video and make a new compound clip out of it and then just highlight it and drag it to the primary. Some editors like to work the way you did this, connecting everything to an empty primary. as you seem to have discovered the problem with this approach is that the primary has some abilities that the other story lines do not such as the ability to connect another clip to it. I really don’t get why they don’t allow you to have a secondary story line with its own connected clips. If this were unlimited then X would pretty much have the equivalent of tracks only with visual connections.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Why not consolidate your projects and get them off your hard drive onto a back-up drive? Edits will process faster and you won’t be hitting the wall all the time. OWC has a basic 4TB raid which runs in FCP X very fast.
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/External-Drive/OWC/Elite-Dual-RAID.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

I agree that a clean install is best practice. However you might try a simple reinstall of FCP X first.

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT5149

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Which sadly is the very workflow that FCP X uses in place of tracks. Another thing I’m finding is FCP X preferences need to be trashed now and then or else it gets buggy like skimming greyed out and won’t toggle on and off. The real gotcha for me is when I try to open a library in a different user account, normal clips appear as compound clips and media that is on-line goes off-line or needs to be reconnected etc. I think these are all permission issues though I can’t imagine how a non-compound clip is seen as a compound based on permission issues. Though permission corruption has always yielded strange issues way before FCP X.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

What was nice about it? There is not a single frame of this video or even a hint in the voice over that anything magical or even cutting edge is happening in a Bentley. I could shoot something beautiful with an iPhone and capture what is beautiful about it without my still or video being of high quality. But show me a shot in this video where you go, “Wow, I want one of those!” The two subjects talk like robots. There are so many beautiful high end cars in today’s market. Really futuristic looking control panels. The one thing they showcased here was built in iPads in the back seat. Are they docks? Do they sync with the iPad and Mac Pro at the office? Can I bring up the same images in the passenger seat? How about on the GPS media screen for the diver? What’s with the thick white border around the pad? Looks like a toy computer I’d give a 5 year old. Of course that’s usually who would use a backseat consumer device.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

In theory nothing is wrong with it. But it rubs me the wrong way. “Driving” in the back seat of a Bentley is ruling class not avant-garde winging it with inexpensive creative tools. The iPhone is not the Bentley of video cameras or even still cameras. It’s a multitool that takes decent pictures or short clips if you need it to and for many of us is always within reach. It’s an ok vacation cam. Taking a pad and turning it into a pull down laptop for back seat executives is ok but we don’t actually see them doing any work with them. We see them typing but can’t tell what. We do not see them drawing or designing. And if they are permanently housed in the backseat did their industrial designs sync using the cloud? Were they worried about industrial theft? Once you add a permanent installation in landscape mode and keyboard why not a laptop? I can’t tell if you can dock an ipad on this tray or its truly fixed which would be less appealing. I would have liked this a whole lot more if we see them use the pull down pad out of need or as part of business as usual and not all the hype saying that this proves how great Bentley design is. Seriously what does shooting the commercial with an iPhone have to do with using a portable device in the back seat? It’s misguided pretentious crap. It’s not that you can’t tell a story with an iPhone but no one would hire a full professional production team and use an iPhone as a camcorder except to prove a point.

However it does have some marketing genius. Apple means exposure. There’s a ton of hits on google about his commercial and we are only talking about it because of the Apple connection. You could have shot that commercial better using a 300 dollar vixia camcorder, a $50 buck hand held mike for voice over and edited it using a PC laptop with Sony Vegas and no one would give a damn.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Try the Video Animation Editor to fade in or out of a clip. Most transitions overlap two clips so the transition is applied between them.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.