[David Eaks]

He’s asking what your hard drive setup is. For example-

One single HDD in slot 1 with your OS, Apps and all your media stored on it as well.

Or

A solid state PCIe drive like the Accelsior for your OS and Apps, with internal drive slots 1-4 filled with SSDs in RAID-0 for storing your media.

Or

All HDDs, slot 1 for OS and Apps, slots 2 & 3 RAID-0 for original media and slot 4 for exported files.

Are you editing media that is stored on an external drive? If so, exactally what is the drive and what is its connection to the computer?

[David Eaks]

Honestly, I think one of the best speed increase upgrades you could do, would be software. From the sound of your workflow, FCPX should be great. I rarely render anything in the timeline. GPU accelerated exporting is way faster than legacy and you can continue to work on other projects during export. Huge gains right there. $400 including FCPX, Compressor 4 and Motion 5.

I’m on a 2008 Mac Pro, eight core 2.8, 16GB, 5770. I’ve been researching further upgrades a lot recently myself. Here’s a thread discussing that-

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/335/55636

One recommendation being an upgrade to a Sapphire Radeon 7950. I’m not quite sure if the cost to benefit ratio, when replacing a Radeon 5770, is there. Still needs further research.

For h.264 I recommend you throw a Matrox CompressHD card in any available pci slot. It basically just adds a new set of settings to Compressor. Using these settings off-load the task of encoding h.264 video from your CPU to its own hardware, giving slightly faster than real time compression (We shoot video at a lot of 2 hour events, 30+ so far in June, we could not function as we do without this card). You can start to work on the next project in FCPX while CompressHD is crunching away on the delivery file for a finished project.

I’m not an AE user, yet, but there is a good thread with AE and FCPX users going on right now that you might be interested in, here-

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/335/55883

[David Eaks]

“…we can now officially conclude the “Is FCP X pro?” discussion.”

[Gary Huff] I fail to see how having a computationally powerful desktop concludes that discussion…”

It doesn’t need to. Although while watching the WWDC Keynote live, I’ll admit some serious feelings of relief to simply see the words “Mac Pro” pop up onscreen.

Page 21, Apple White Paper September 2011 “FCP X for FCP 7 Editors”.

Link- https://images.apple.com/finalcutpro/docs/Final_Cut_Pro_X_for_Final_Cut_Pro_7_Editors.pdf

Quote (bold added for emphasis)-

“Conclusion

Understanding the similarities and differences between Final Cut Pro 7 and Final Cut Pro X will allow you to work faster than ever with this new breakthrough application. A rebuilt 64-bit multicore architecture; rich metadata support; a collection of tools for automatic and manual organization; and increased control over editing, audio sweetening, motion graphics creation, color grading, and delivery offer significant improvements over Final Cut Pro 7. Final Cut Pro X is a powerful and flexible video editing application designed for pro editors, and there is much to learn and explore that will accelerate your workflows and allow you to focus on the important creative decisions of storytelling.”

So, Apple designed Final Cut Pro X for professionals. We know for sure that there are professionals using it for professional work. You don’t have to like or use FCPX, but your opinion does not make it “not pro”.

[Gary Huff] “Then the discussion is clearly far from being concluded then, correct?”

Not correct. I suppose you could continue to discuss it if you’d like, but it is long since concluded.

“Two years ago, I predicted that within a year, FCP X would be the platform used by most professional video editors. Is that true? It’s impossible to say, because “professional video editor” is a concept that is being redefined as I write this.”

[Gary Huff] “That’s a “no” if I ever heard one.”

Uhhh, yeah. I agree. That probably wasn’t the most likely prediction.

[David Eaks]

[Mark Dobson] “Strangely enough I don’t think I’ve ever actually lost anything”

That’s awesome, I don’t recall a crash ever causing me to lose any work either.

How many other applications has anyone ever said that about? “I don’t think I’ve ever lost even one keystroke after a crash.” Especially throughout the first couple years an initial .0 release? Any?

[David Eaks]

Thanks for the reply, glad to hear its reliably working as expected. I’ve had trouble using Matrox settings with send to compressor in the past (FCP 7 days), option has since slipped off my radar.

Do you ever open a different project in FCPX and work while the project sent to Compressor is still processing? or just walk away from the computer altogether once the batch is submitted?

[Claude Lyneis] “result ends up in my movie file, not in the project “share” file”

Yeah I just realized that a couple hours ago when I went looking for the file after sending to compressor. I couldn’t find it on my own and had to spotlight search it. Going to the Movies Folder ends up on my system drive, which I don’t want (tiny 128GB SSD). I figure simply setting the jobs destination to a specific folder, instead of source, will get around that no problem. Assuming this becomes part of my normal workflow, I’ll set a single folder as the default destination for Compressor, so all compressed files go to that one location.

Seems like everyday I find another thing in FCPX that improves some aspect of my workflow.

[David Eaks]

You can line them up end to end on the primary storyline and trim out the overlapped parts, making sure that the cuts between clips are perfect frame for frame, then export. The resulting file is your new master clip. Or create a compound clip of the three after trimming, the resulting compound clip is your new master clip.

If you’re having trouble getting them lined up perfect, you can put one clip on top of the other so just the ends are overlapping, then lower the opacity of the top clip and use , or . to nudge the clip until the “ghost” lines up with the lower clip. Then trim the correct side of each clip to the play head and reset the opacity.

[David Eaks]

Option-f will insert a still of the current frame at the playhead/skimmer.

I have a tendency to hit option-f, then copy the still, undo insert still image (since we still don’t have the “remove through-edit” function back yet), then option-v to paste as connected clip.

Pretty quick and easy way to get a still from one clip, pasted as connected over a different clip. Makes me wonder if there is a create still as connected shortcut…

For the same but with video Instead of a still I’ll blade either side, copy, undo undo, paste as connected.

[David Eaks]

What does the event browser say the troublesome clips are? With events in list view, look under the format/frame size/frame rate/codecs columns (you may have to enable those columns by right-clicking the top row)

EDIT- I see that you have already tried this… So never mind-

Since the same files play normally if reimported. Maybe if you intentionally make the media go offline, then use reconnect to link back to the same Prores files, FCPX will get past whatever is holding it up? That may not be something you want to try though.

[David Eaks]

Alex Gollner has a nice set of 4, 8 and 16 point masks available for free-

Mask+
https://alex4d.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/mask-plus-fcpx-effects/

Might as well grab Motion Template Tool from Andreas Kiel too-

https://www.spherico.com/filmtools/MTT/index.html

[David Eaks]

Happy Birthday FCPX! (Just, nobody sing the song… Yet?)

Man, I remember the first paid job I decided to do in FCPX on 10.0.1 or 10.0.2, what a nightmare. It was already a fairly complicated edit due to unexpected situations during the shoot… Plus I don’t know how to use my crazy new software!? Well, I stuck it out. Needless to say the client got a little anxious waiting for their final product and I went back to a nice comfy FCP 7 for a few months afterward.

Now I’m more comfortable in FCPX than I was in 7 and I can just fly through the fairly simple and monotonous tasks I do regularly. Anything more creative, sometimes with a little help from Motion, is better than anything I ever did with Legacy. And it’s all just more enjoyable to do.

Mark, out of curiosity. On average, throughout all the times FCPX crashed or you force quit a sinning beach ball, how many “unsaved” edit operations do you think you lost per crash? In my experience, upon returning from a crash my last edit was usually completed and saved before crashing. I took to the “no saving” pretty quickly, to the point of just hitting control-option-command-eject right from the timeline, to shutdown at the end of a late night edit session. Everything is always right as I left it in the morning

Cheers! To the future, with a hopefully decent priced New Mac Pro and a killer FCPX update to go with it! (and maybe Motion X… With… 3D?)