David Burch
Forum Replies Created
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I also edit for a living. In fact, I am the only editor at the company I work for, which is a small production company based in the Pacific Northwest. We are constantly busy, and I always have a long queue of post production work to do. I also am on the board of directors, and have many other responibilites beyond just post production. Long story short, I know what time is worth.
All that being said, I would strongly recommend giving FCPX another go. The time that I took to learn it paid dividends down the road. I now find I can finish projects in nearly half the time I could in FCP7. In fact, the only thing slowing me down at this point is the physical limitations of the hardware I’m working on, and my system is no slouch (2011 27″ 3.4 GHz i7 iMac, Pegasus 12 TB Thunderbolt array, 16 GB RAM). I think that this is a very good place to be in, since hardware will only get better, and it shows just how efficient FCPX really is. Editing has become so much faster and easier that practically takes no time at all, compared to the time I’m waiting on waveforms to render (I work mostly with long-form events 2+ hours each, with around 10 tracks of audio at a time in MultiCam, so a little wait for waveform is to be expected no matter what system you’re on).
TL;DR – FCPX is well worth the time it takes to learn. Take it from another professional with no time to spare.
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Yeah, I do that sometimes too, but when you’re working in a project with hundreds if not thousands of switches between angles it can be hard to remember which ones you wanted cross dissolves in. Ah well, one more thing to add to the list of “wanted features” 🙂
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Andy, thanks for your suggestion. That’s actually kind of what I already to. Unfortunately, when working on a 2+ hour multicam project, having to expand the tracks every time can get rather tedious, especially if I’m using fades constantly, and I prefer not to work with the tracks expanded all the time, for various reasons. I was hoping there was a way to turn off the audio fades altogether without having to expand the clip, either through a different keystroke or by some kind of toggle that would make cmd+t affect the video only.
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I have a couple things of my own I would like to see.
1. Batch export from FCP. Yes, I know you can send multiple files to Compressor, but two different releases of FCPX have caused issues with Compressor for me so far (fixed now, fortunately). At the very least I would like to be able to select multiple timelines and send them all to Compressor as a single batch. This would save me a ton of time, as I’m usually working on multiple projects at once.
2. Either the ability to embed markers as chapters marks (like FCP7 could do) or the option to export a list of markers, along with timecode, as a .txt file. Right now, the best solution I’ve found for putting in chapters in a DVD is to mark the timecode locations on the timeline, manually copy all of the names and timecodes to a piece of paper or text editing program, and then re-enter these names and timecodes into my DVD authoring software. It would at least save me a big step if I could export a list of markers.
3. The ability to toggle off the feature that automatically adds a crossfade to audio when using cmd+T. At least 90% of the time I don’t want the program to do this, as I’m either manually adjusting the audio crossover or I want the audio to continue seamlessly as though no transition were made.
4. The ability to copy and paste specific filters and effects instead of everything all at once
5. The ability to export only specific segments of a timeline instead of just the whole thing. At the very least, when you open a clip in its own timeline, let me export that new timeline by itself and not the parent timeline it came from
6. The ability to save a compound clip created on the timeline in the event, so that it can be used again when needed
7. The ability to replace media and/or add to an audition using something that’s already on the timeline and not just in the event. Number 6 would create a workaround for this.
8. The ability to detach audio from a multicam clip. I understand why it doesn’t do this, but it would be nice if I could at least duplicate the audio and work with that.
9. Along the same lines, the ability to use audio from multiple angles of a multicam clip at once. Again, I understand the reasoning for not allowing this, and I know I can work around it by selecting different angles and expanding the audio out to the duration of the clip, but this is a bit cumbersome. I may need to use, for instance, ambience on one of my cameras together with dialogue or music from another, and I might need it for the duration of a 2 hour multicam project.
I’m sure I could think of more, but if all of these issues were addressed, or at least the first 7, I would be a very happy camper.
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I had a few reservations with the first version, and the lack of functionality at the time forced me to continue using 7 for a while on certain projects. However, I immediately fell in love with the magnetic timeline and the media management. 10.0.3 sealed it for me with the inclusion of multicam.
Today, FCPX is the only NLE I want to use, by far. I still have a list of features I would like to see included (batch export, anyone?), but by far it is the best, fastest editing tool I have ever used. I work in a small production company in which I am the only editor, and we work mostly with live documentation of events ranging from weddings to concerts and conventions. We also do a lot of things such as corporate training videos, promotional videos, and mini documentaries. Most of the editing I do is essentially finishing up a pre-switched show, but the ability to easily synch isolated camera angles and fix switching mistakes is essential (which is why I was forced to use 7 for a while). The auto-synch feature using audio waveforms alone puts FCPX way ahead of the competition, and after I learned how to properly use the magnetic timeline I find I can accomplish tasks in about half the time I could in other NLEs.
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This was a bug in version 10.0.4. In my experience it happened mostly when I used Compressor. It appears to have been fixed in 10.0.5, at least for me. I was having the exact same issue, but could work around it by exporting directly from FCP to an audio file, and skipping Compressor (unless Compressor had already tried to export the same format, in which case I had to pick a different format).
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The bug seems to be unique to 10.4. The 10.5 update that just came out *appears* to have fixed it. I’m going to check the next few projects I do just to be sure, but the issue was almost 100% of the time before the last patch, and I haven’t seen it show up once since.
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Has anybody else been able to get audio to export through compressor correctly after 10.0.4? I have now confirmed this is happening on two different workstations, one running Lion and the other Snow Leopard. Any feedback would be appreciated.
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*Update*
After a bit more experimentation, I’ve determined that the format I’m exporting to doesn’t seem to matter. The problem seems to be with sending a project timeline that uses Multicam to Compressor. If I export straight out of FCP, it works fine. (I think the reason exporting to an AC3 didn’t work is because it was using cached files from the job I had just sent through Compressor; after exporting an aiff and shutting compressor down an export from FCP straight to AC3 worked just fine). Sending a project without Multicam to Compressor still seems to work ok, so I’m thinking the issue has to do with the way Compressor is parsing the Multicam audio. Again, this has only started happening since the update to 10.0.4.
This could be a major problem if it isn’t fixed soon, as nearly everything I do uses multicam audio tracks, and sending to Compressor is the only thing close to a batch export we currently have. Has anybody else experienced this?
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I would say a 7200 RPM Firewire 800 drive is a bare minimum. I personally use e-SATA drives, along with a couple of adaptors from Sonnett that allow me to get e-SATA from the Thunderbolt port on our iMac. This setup, along with a dock for bare drives, allows me to get decent speeds for editing (still not as good as a Raid array, but good enough for most projects).
I would highly recommend looking into some of the new Thunderbolt products as they become available. Currently, I agree that they are mostly too expensive, but really the Pegusus Array is no more costly than a comparable fiber or e-SATA array would be. The LaCie Little Big Disk is a bit pricey, but not much more than 500 GB FW800 drives were a couple years ago. I suspect portable, fast TB drives will be available within the next couple of years.