[Fabrizio D’agnano]

I usually turn the stereo track into a double mono one from the inspector, and then expand the clip in the timeline. Another way could be breaking apart clip items selecting the video clip on the timeline and again selecting the audio track, then working on them separately, but it’s something different.

Fabrizio D’Agnano
Rome, Italy
early 2008 MacPro, BM Intensity Pro, early 2008 iMac, 2014 MacBook Pro Retina, Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Monitor, FCP7, FCPX, OSX 10.9.4

[Fabrizio D’agnano]

Yes, it’s about three years I’m using the BMD Mini Monitor, but it’s always been pretty stable. I don’t remember experiencing crashes until a few weeks ago. I’ve also tried installing an older version of the driver after removing the latest one, but FCPX is unexpectedly quitting very often. I am also concerned about all this resulting in a corrupted project.

Fabrizio D’Agnano
Rome, Italy
early 2008 MacPro, BM Intensity Pro, early 2008 iMac, 2014 MacBook Pro Retina, Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Monitor, FCP7, FCPX, OSX 10.9.4

[Fabrizio D’agnano]

Now that I’m thinking about it, it all started after I installed the new BMD drivers. Maybe I should revert to the previous ones, that were pretty safe.
Thank you!

Fabrizio D’Agnano
Rome, Italy
early 2008 MacPro, BM Intensity Pro, early 2008 iMac, 2014 MacBook Pro Retina, Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Monitor, FCP7, FCPX, OSX 10.9.4

[Fabrizio D’agnano]

I shoot and edit documentaries for a satellite TV channel here in Italy. My opinion is FCPX is just great at that. What I like best is the ability to use metadata to find, say, all the clips from my ten years archive containing a particular fish or a particular area once I’ve archived the clips with proper keywords and comments. Besides that, I also like FCPX as a fast and easy editor.

Fabrizio D’Agnano
Rome, Italy
early 2008 MacPro, BM Intensity Pro, early 2008 iMac, 2014 MacBook Pro Retina, Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Monitor, FCP7, FCPX, OSX 10.9.4

[Fabrizio D’agnano]

What exactly are you going to shoot? Depth? Sea? Lake? Swimming pool?
Unless you are going to shoot surface swimming competitions from underwater, and you think you’ll need slow motions from that footage, I’d stick to 1080p 25 fps (especially if you are in a PAL country and you are going to mix that footage with other coming from other PAL cams). Usually, there’s nothing really fast underwater, especially if you are shooting some breath holding swimming, while lighting can be an issue. I specialize as an UW documentarist, and I use a GoPro as a second angle in difficult conditions. I set 1080p 25 fps, delivering PAL. I uploaded some demos or various footage on Vimeo or Youtube, and they seems to play just fine. I think it’s best to keep the FOV at max width, maybe tall HD if you don’t have a display, so you have room to reframe the scene in post.

Fabrizio D’Agnano
Rome, Italy
early 2008 MacPro, BM Intensity Pro, early 2008 iMac, 2014 MacBook Pro Retina, Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Monitor, FCP7, FCPX, OSX 10.9.4

[Fabrizio D’agnano]

Maybe you already know, but if you import a multi track file after export and place it on a timeline to check if everything’s OK, you’ll see only one audio track. To reveal all the tracks in the timeline you need to check “expand audio components”.

Fabrizio D’Agnano
Rome, Italy
early 2008 MacPro, BM Intensity Pro, early 2008 iMac, 2014 MacBook Pro Retina, Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Monitor, FCP7, FCPX, OSX 10.9.4

[Fabrizio D’agnano]

I use a separate backup set for media and libraries/projects.
I keep a fcparch of each card on a raid5 array. Then a copy of all extracted media on external drives I don’t use for editing, stored in a separated location for extra safety against theft or such. I keep current project and currently used media on a RAID0 fast array I use for editing, and synch libraries daily onto another RAID1 array. I feel safe enough this way. If I had to share media through different project I’d rather make multiple copies, but I don’t have to do it a lot and I mostly work with AVCHD source material so disk space is never a real issue.

Fabrizio D’Agnano
Rome, Italy
early 2008 MacPro, BM Intensity Pro, early 2008 iMac, 2014 MacBook Pro Retina, Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Monitor, FCP7, FCPX, OSX 10.9.4

[Fabrizio D’agnano]

I work mostly on 26′ timelines on a maxed out MBPr, no plug ins but for a couple of effects, doc style editing. I need to quit and relaunch after one up to three hours of editing. I have the feeling it the sluggishness that grows has something to do with waveforms.

Fabrizio D’Agnano
Rome, Italy
early 2008 MacPro, BM Intensity Pro, early 2008 iMac, 2014 MacBook Pro Retina, Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Monitor, FCP7, FCPX, OSX 10.9.4

[Fabrizio D’agnano]

Thank you Brett! This solved the problem. I used it a lot on Legacy, I don’t know how I did not think of it on FCPX.

Fabrizio D’Agnano
Rome, Italy
early 2008 MacPro, BM Intensity Pro, early 2008 iMac, 2014 MacBook Pro Retina, Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Monitor, FCP7, FCPX, OSX 10.9.4

[Fabrizio D’agnano]

[Scott Witthaus] “You can adjust the volume in the Inspector’s Audio tab…while playing if you want.”
Thank you, Scott. However, it seems I can only lower the whole clip volume from the inspector or single keyframes, not the part between two keyframes. Even if I highlight the bar, if I enter a value in the inspector, a keyframe will be placed where the pointer is, and no change will apply to the bar, unless I’m doing something wrong. I work mostly on long form documentaries containing a lot of background music and voiceover. I lay the music and duck the audio while I place the temporary voiceover, and I need to refine levels when I receive the definitive one. So the second passage involves a lot of raising and lowering bars by even just one or two db, sometimes, and I feel clumpsy when doing it manually even with clip appearance set to high.

Fabrizio D’Agnano
Rome, Italy
early 2008 MacPro, BM Intensity Pro, early 2008 iMac, 2014 MacBook Pro Retina, Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Monitor, FCP7, FCPX, OSX 10.9.4