[Douglas K. dempsey]

Let’s wait until the inevitable “Resolve or FCPX: The Debate” forum gathers some steam. 😉

There may come a time when even those of us who love cutting quickly and intuitively in FCPX — including our multi-cam shows — will finish up by porting over to Resolve for transitions, compositing, titling and grading … and all those edit tools and sophisticated key-framing will be just the thing for final tweaks and trims.

In such a world, there would no need for “round-tripping” to FCPX because you’d finish up in Resolve.

The big HOWEVER, though, is the audio. How many of us want to edit in one NLE, do their audio work in another, and finish/grade in a third app? If you are that compartmentalized, shouldn’t you relying on several other people/departments for compositing, visual effects, grading, audio clean-up and mix?

Doug D

[Douglas K. dempsey]

I second everything presented here. Compressor 3.5 in conjunction with FCP7 works well, but always seemed rather a kludge in interface and organization. Compressor 4 w/FCPX is much neater and streamlined, yet the controls are still there if you need them.

The Droplet procedure is excellent.

Julian, I too will sometimes compress first, then upload. And I also do a “bundle” of Master file and h.264 for Vimeo.

Compressor uses the same settings whether you share directly to Vimeo or use the Vimeo h.264 settings.

Here is an example of compressing now and uploading later: You post a clip to Vimeo. Then you remake it– correcting some titles or re-editing it slightly. If you “Share” out of FCPX it will upload to Vimeo as a completely new clip, with its own URL. Fine, if you want version 1 and version 2 BOTH available to your viewers.

But often you DON’T want a new clip. I have embeds that sometimes need updating; I don’t want to go back and rewrite webpage code. Or worse, I have already blasted out a Vimeo link to everyone, then discover I need to make a change. So I use Vimeo’s great “Replace this video” feature – uploading my fixed version, overwriting the original and retaining the same URL. People using the link don’t even realize they are seeing a new “fixed” version.

To do that, you must first compress to your hard drive, then choose the h.264 file when Vimeo asks for the “replacement” video. As far as I can figure, there is no way to have the otherwise awesome and quick “Share to Vimeo” feature do such a replacement..

Doug D

[Douglas K. dempsey]

FWIW:

I get a tremendous amount of satisfaction from the expanded and sometimes OT discussions on this forum. And like reading your favorite tech writer or movie critic … I know the personalities here well enough to understand their context.

I think the history of this forum makes it MORE useful to anyone considering X for the first time.

— The majority of posters are people who have tried and/or adopted FCPX, and many use more than one NLE.

So the discussions have evolved with X. “Are you sticking with it?” “I’m using it more than ever.” “I have finally decided to abandon X.” “I now use X for such-and-so, and PPro for this-and-that.” And so on.

Rather than the initial head-scratching debate, these are ongoing, informed and evolving discussions. The blunt “Or Not” aspect of the debate is less interesting. FCPX is well known now. So if you ARE considering it’s use, you’ll find more, better and more UP TO DATE info.

— I personally use X and Legacy, and dabble with PPro. I haven’t used Avid professionally in a decade, but I’ll probably get an edu-priced Avid MC soon, to learn and teach my high school students who are interested.

My point: This forum is great BECAUSE of the knowledgeable editors who use or have tried X and ALSO use the alternatives. I learn a ton from their posts. A good example is Oliver Peters, who write a tremendous blog with real-world, practical advice on which NLE is currently strong in what area, which is weak. And he generously caps many an ongoing discussion on this forum by sharing his latest, up-to-the-minute experiences.

While that might be considered “catch-all” post talk, we are lucky to have our FCPX knowledge base expanded by anecdotal comparisons to other workflows.

So my vote is: Change the name slightly, if people really feel the need. But don’t “atomize” this wildly entertaining, informative and rich forum into a lot of sparsely populated niche forums.

Doug D

[Douglas K. dempsey]

Bret, yes, I’ll keep a watch. I looked at exactly those Resolve 11 features longingly, especially transition control and keyframe control. These may not seem like much to someone working fast & furious, but asymmetric transitions and subtle key framing control of layering can really make the effect work. Also it’s why we need key framing in color correct. If you can begin and end the dissolve when and where you want it, control the curve as particularly light or dark parts of the frame come up and then go away, you can make transition that don’t even look like a dissolve … more of a melt that slips by, almost … “visually inevitable.”

In my high school class, I like to show the opening of Apocalypse Now, mainly to make the point that months were spent getting the compositing laid out just right — the ceiling fan overlaying Martin Sheen’s eye socket perfectly — but a modern NLE can do it “live.”

But some of the subtleties are not going to happen using out-of-the box FCPX.

Doug D

[Douglas K. dempsey]

I would agree that the X has not proven to be the new paradigm; who could say that is has, in view of the numbers, as you point out. But “having grown up in X” doesn’t imply anything about numbers of users. It’s simply to say that, if you’ve never used tracks, you won’t know what you’re missing in X. And supporters of X, like me for my uses, feel that we are not missing much.

That has been my point about teaching to high school kids. They don’t seem to NEED a traditional NLE at their level. The argument has been at the pro level, whether you inevitably hit a functionality wall in X and must go to a track-based NLE.

I think many users on this forum have long since testified that it works in many situations, and the Debate now is not so much “FCPX or Not” — but more like “FCPX, When & Where?”

A lot of posting that goes on now is about that wall, and discussions on whether there is an acceptable workaround for a particular issue, or whether that issue is the road sign that says “Dead End” and it’s time to take another route.

Doug D

[Douglas K. dempsey]

Right. If you have come out of Avid, PPro of FCP Legacy, you may have a pang of nostalgia when you see the “track mapping” from Browser to Timeline, and some of the sliding and trimming.

But if you have “grown up in X” you already execute those techniques using mag timeline, gaps, secondary story lines, moving clip anchors and all the rest of it.

Doug D

[Douglas K. dempsey]

Indeed, Charlie that is the serious reaction, as opposed to all the joking.

If you are in the process of “round-tripping” and find that you can fuss and tweak in Resolve, grade, go back to X when you’re ready … it just increases the comfort level as Scott mentions.

Doug D

[Douglas K. dempsey]

Haha, hey Charlie. We’re not jumping off the X ship just yet! But you gotta admit they’ve made some interface choices that ape X’s “modern NLE” look while retaining track-based editing.

Doug D

[Douglas K. dempsey]

Tim, change the forum title! “Apple FCPX or Resolve – The Debate!”

Doug D

[Douglas K. dempsey]

Haha, Apple will have to start another court case a la Samsung.

If it really works, this looks like the long-lamented FCP 8 or FCP 9, a hybrid with FCPX features!

Doug D