Don Smith
Forum Replies Created
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I keep a page of links hidden on my website. It’s just a down-and-dirty list of links and I add a link every time I find something interesting. It’s so I can refer back to a tutorial “I once ran across” when I’m in a spot.
Here it is, and don’t complain that its not pretty!
https://www.newsvideo.com/fcpx
Don Smith
NewsVideo.comNewsVideo.com
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If you’re interested in a report where FCPX is used for a paying gig, please let me jump in…
I’ve been working, for pay, in FCPX for a couple of weeks. I’m on-location using the client’s gear.
I have to qualify my report by saying up-front that I’m on a MacPro 3,1 with an NVidia GeForce GTX 285 graphics card. 10GB of RAM. Snow Leopard.
I also own a new MacBook Pro, 17″ laptop with Thunderbolt. FCPX and Motion 5 run better on the laptop.
I’m constantly running into little things. Where do I begin? I was stepping frame-by-frame to hand-keyframe a short motion path. FCPX would stop moving to the next frame, often, when pressing the right arrow key. I would have to click off, make another window active, and come back to resume.
I would copy a text effect. On the copy it would not lose the font family but would lose the type of font (normal, bold, etc.). It kept going back to Light.
I would shorten a clip and the playback would be like the longer clip was still there. It seems the render file didn’t disengage.
That’s only three of the many LITTLE things that happened to me. I’m still a fan of FCPX, though. I just think and hope that the next update will shake all these beta bugs out.
Don Smith
NewsVideo.com
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I also meant to mention above that you scale down your video within the placeholder but then scale up the placeholder itself so that you can see a drop shadow but still scale the whole thing to 101%.
NewsVideo.com
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The drop shadow is there but you don’t see it because the 4×3 video has to shrink within it’s 4×3 frame in order for you to see the drop shadow. In shorter words, the drop shadow is being applied to the video and not to its container. Without shrinking the video, the container is limiting your view.
RippleTraining has some free effects to accomplish this but you can create your own in a couple of minutes.
Create a new effect (doing this off the top of my head) and publish the scale control so you can shrink the video inside the placeholder and thus reveal any drop shadow you apply to it. You’ll also have to publish the drop shadow controls for the video as well. I’m sure I’m leaving out a detail or two trying to convey this without Motion in front of me, but you seem savvy enough to fill in those details.
NewsVideo.com
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I’m going on the assumption you already have something in the primary storyline, probably narration or something and you want to lay your 4×3 video above it and cover the pillars off to the side.
Put the playhead at the point where you want the 4×3 video to begin. Select a range on your 4×3 video and press Q to place it above your primary storyline as a connected clip.
Do the above three times so that you have your 4×3 clip stacked as three copies above the storyline.
Highlight the first copy of the clip just above the main storyline and, in the Inspector, change its X position so that it’s left edge is touching the left edge of the 16×9 frame. You’re just shifting the clip furthest to the left without it going out of frame. In the Inspector, go to the Color area and click the right-facing arrow to get to the color boards>Saturation, and bring down the main slider on the left to make the clip black and white. Finally, put a Gaussian blur (Effects) on it to blur it a little.
Do this same treatment to the next clip above, only slide it to the right edge.
The top copy of your clip will remain centered and normal.
That’s the start. You may want to put a frame around the top copy of your clip. Maybe not.
You could also make the three clips into a Compound Clip and dissolve it in and out.
Don
NewsVideo.com
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Another thing I’ve noticed is that FCPX will partially hang. In other words, the playhead will be moving but then stop but the sound and picture will continue. I do a CMD-1 then CMD-2 and the playhead movement is restored. I wonder if others see the same thing.
NewsVideo.com
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I have the FCPX update but it still happens to me where I suddenly can’t undo and I realize that the software is not auto saving. I’ve noticed that it seems to happen with the loss of the skimmer when returning from a Trim mode. I mostly work with the skimmer off these days, but when I do use it, that has been the tell. But, this is only anecdotal evidence and I only offer it to see if others are (or are not) seeing the same thing.
NewsVideo.com
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The Crop tool works great. I’m just an under-the-hood kind of guy and so I tend to do things manually when I can for the understanding of what’s happening to the video. It helps solve problems when you know the why of something. But my suggestion is only good if you only need to resize the video and forget it.
That’s where the Crop tool is better (if you are going to set multiple keyframes). In Trim mode there’s a bug or a use I don’t understand because you’ll get a wavy movement after setting the second keyframe. I found a way to work around that wave problem (under the hood, remember?) but its a lot of work when you can just use the Crop tool to effect multiple changes to happen the way you expect.
NewsVideo.com
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All good suggestions from those above this message, but take one small step toward doing it better and, in the Inspector, Scale the image to fill in the frame then position it (also in the Inspector) for the part you want to show. It other words, you’ll be cropping your picture to fill the 16×9 frame.
Or, if you need to show the whole picture but not see the main video around it, put something larger in the layer between the main video and the picture. A black or a white background to be simple, or, one popular technique is to use a copy of the image only larger and blur it. That’s how the network news shows usually showcase older 4×3 video in a 16×9 HD frame. You see the edges of the 4×3 video copied into the pillars on either side but magnified and blurred and even brought down to black and white.
Don Smith
NewsVideo.comNewsVideo.com
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It SEEMS to happen after visiting the Transform Effect. See if you notice the same thing. Note that I said ‘SEEMS’ because it’s where I’ve always noticed that bug, but that isn’t scientific. I’ve developed the habit of checking on that after going to the Transform Effect and back.
Don Smith
NewsVideo.comNewsVideo.com