[David Lawrence]

[Steve Connor] “We’ve been through this one before, it’s very easy to stop it rippling.”

Yeah, the “P” key. That’s not the point.

The point is parallel tracks/absolute time vs single track/relative time.

FCPX isn’t the best tool for every possible media production. It’s not designed to be. It’s OK to acknowledge that.

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[David Lawrence]

[Steve Connor] “So are you saying you can’t do absolute time in FCPX?”

I’m saying you can’t easily have multiple parallel channels of absolute time without bending over backwards. Clever hacks like Jim Giberti’s template attempt to bring some of this flexibility back but it’s still a hack. The bottom line is the magnetic timeline is a single track timeline that ripples by default and forces everything outside it to be in temporal relation to it, not the external window. For multi-channel work, there is zero advantage in this.

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[David Lawrence]

[Jeremy Garchow] “That is essentially a music video.

If you are confused as to how you might edit a music video in FCPX, it’s pretty easy.”

And how many multi-channel, synchronized video installations have you made?

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[David Lawrence]

[Steve Connor] “In timeline terms what exactly can’t you do in FCPX that you could do in Legacy, apart from tracks of course. A specific example would be great”

I think you’re missing the point. It’s not that you couldn’t do multi-channel work in FCPX, the question is why would you want to? It’s not designed with that in mind.

Look at multi-channel audio. Even Apple knows it’s currently a mess and needs fixing. The same problems with multi-channel audio apply to multi-channel video as well. Let’s see what Apple comes up with in the next release.

Tracks and absolute time is a natural way to graphically express multiple concurrent channels of time-based media. There is no primary. There is no secondary. There are just media objects composed in parallel channels of absolute time.

For the kind of non-linear/multi-channel work Clint is talking about, the magnetic timeline’s advantages would likely be far outweighed by its single-track constraints and inflexibility. Tracks and absolute time have none of these problems.

BTW, Bjørn Melhus makes his work with FCP Legacy. Or at least he did several years ago.

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[David Lawrence]

[Richard Herd] “All stories proceed linearly (traditional and avante garde). Non-linear diegesis is a metaphor for complexity in the narrative that forces the audience to use their intelligence and memory, but the playback of the narrative must proceed linearly. That is, even if the tape is cut (like the beatles did famously) and stitched back together randomly, during playback it proceeds linearly.”

Not necessarily. Sounds like you haven’t done much work with interactive or multi-channel video production. There’s more possibility than you’re imagining. This is especially true in the world of art, museum installation, and experimental filmmaking. It’s a very rich field with many innovative examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRszAGAXDY8

[Richard Herd] “In any case, X handles well the construction of any narrative. The databasiness gives the editor more “non-linear-ness.” “

Which is unfortunately undermined by the single-track UI which is locked to relative time.

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[David Lawrence]

[Steve Connor] “Shhhhh! you’ll start the PIOP debate all over again!

I now use the “F” key and it bothers me much less than it used to”

How well is that “F” key working for you in the timeline, Steve?

Ok, I’ll go back outside now. 😉

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[David Lawrence]

[Chris Harlan] “So, does LaCie have a quality issue?”

Google “LaCie drive failure” and check out the results. After I had three out of three LaCie D2 Disks fail, I vowed never to buy from them again. The problem was always the same – cheap power supplies that would always burn out at the most inopportune time. Never lost any data, thankfully. That’s not to say that you’ll have the same experience – YMMV. Maybe their quality is better these days. But it’s all G-Tech and docked bare drives for me.

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[David Lawrence]

[Jim Giberti] “I third it.”

Yep.

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[David Lawrence]

[Shane Ross] “Encoding a 8:30 piece shot with my Canon 550D at 1080p 23.98 to YouTube 1080p 23.98. It is slated to take 18 min.

I still think that is good. That’s a compressed format.”

Sounds like you’re getting somewhere between 1-1 and 2-1 encode times. I can work with that, though faster is always better.

I don’t know if it makes a speed difference but I always do my final output to a high quality codec like ProRes and master/encode as a separate process as I wrote about here. I’ll probably continue to work this way even with PrP since it gives me the best looking final files, even if they’re eventually going to YouTube or Vimeo.

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[David Lawrence]

[Shane Ross] “Use Maximum Render. I just did another one today. 3 min project. Rendered out in just over 3 min…3:20. To ProRes. From Mp4”

Thanks, good to know. My projects are typically 3-10 minutes long so these kinds of output times should be fine. May need to upgrade my laptop to get ’em, though.

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