[Gary Huff]

That’s only a problem if you think in terms of “tracks” and “objects”. You can easily disregard all of that and say, “This element on Video 2 plays at 45 seconds, 10 frames, and because it is on Video 2, it will be shown instead of the element that is currently playing at that time on Video 1”, and so on, and then translate that to where it works under FCPX, which can then have all the relationships re-done by the editor who needs to make changes.

Again, FCPX is trying to hide “time” with it’s magnetism, but at its core it is still relating to time because that’s how video works. ¥ou can’t get around that, only hide it to a certain extent from the end user.

[Gary Huff]

[Jeremy Garchow]My first questions is, what if they aren’t? Then what does FCPx do?

FCPX importing a FCP7 project would make Video 1 the primary and Video 2 secondary and so on. I’m not sure what the problem is. As long as the layering of the videos remain intact, the edit will work.

What if all you want to do is dissolve from v2 to v3? Then you can simply add a secondary storyline with no compound clip, and add a cross dissolve between the two elements. Another scenario is, are they simple connected clips? Then they would have to have opacity transformed applied to them instead of dissolves. How does FCPx know which one to use?

I’m not sure what you are getting at here. The same problems occur because you can’t add a transition between a clip in V2 and V3. You’d have to alter opacity handles, which can easily be translated into FCPX, because you can do the same effect. You could even default to relating all Video tracks as secondary storylines and be done with it, and then fix it as you want. I don’t see how this would effect being able to easily make changes to a legacy timeline in FCPX.

Also, little things like Motion tab transforms, audio/video filters and the like will probably not translate directly or at all, but to me it is more about how the layers from FCP7 will translate to FCPx.

Yes, but this would be the case with any importer (it will be similar in going from FCP to Premier for instance). I don’t think the layering of the video will be difficult at all in translating a timeline from FCP7 to FCPX.

Also, there’s the audio. Does the V2 track have audio? DO you then bring in the audio embedded to the video? Or is it a totally separate clip in which case, it will simply be an audio element tied to the primary storyline.

It would be an audio element tied to the primary storyline. I’m not saying that clip connections might not be odd, but as long as everything runs at the appropriate moment in the timeline, the edit should be good. The problems will be in the connections, and that’s either going to be an easy fix or not, meaning that FCPX is either easy to work with and makes changes in or not.

[Gary Huff]

And edited in Final Cut Pro 7…hmmm.

[Gary Huff]

I think that really depends on a lot of things. Apple has still to release the APIs to make that possible for one. I’m not sure what is out there regarding the FCP7 project file data structure. If there’s nothing official, then it will have to be “hacked” essentially in order to be read. If, by the time this has all happened, FCPX is a wash for use in those production houses that have a vested interested in opening legacy projects, it may not be financially viable to do.

So, it largely remains to be seen what happens.

[Gary Huff]

I think, then, that we are ultimately at an impasse which will only become clearer once someone actually makes it possible to import and we can all see what actually happens with the timeline at that point. Whether that happens or not depends on what the status is on acceptance of FCPX as an editor in those worlds come a year from now.

[Gary Huff]

[Walter Soyka]With an imported project with hundreds of guesses, you’d have to pre-flight the entire edit before you can expect the FCPX timeline to work as it’s intended.

How would this be the case? Video tracks are essentially layers, so any video on track 1 will be ignored when there is a video on track 2 at the same time, and so forth and so on. That is what is required to make the edit work as intended: to respect the layers. Same thing for audio. I have no idea why you think it is so overly complicated, or that FCPX does not actually deal in time. Of course it does, it has to, there is simply NO WAY around it.

Like this:

Video 3]_____________________<---------->________________
Video 2]___________________<------->_________<------->___
Video 1]<------------------------------------------------>
Audio 1]<------------------------------------------------>
Audio 2]_____________<-->___________<-->___<-->_________
Audio 3]_________________<-------->______________________

This is a representation of a typically basic timeline. Now each of these elements is arranged in a layer. Video 2 will overwrite the video on Video 1 because it is on top and so fourth. Audio is different because it will play everything on every track simultaneously if you let it. Now, what keeps Audio 2 from playing at the beginning of the clip or right in the middle of the track at Audio 3? Time. It doesn’t matter how much fancy metadata you have, or what is linked to what or anything. That only matters when you move stuff around. What matters is that at a specific moment in time, the track in audio 2 will play and then stop. Then at a further moment in time, the process will repeat. Further from that, the track in Audio 3 will also play, and so on. Same with the video, except whatever is on top of another Video track will be shown and not underneath.

Now HOW exactly would importing this timeline into FCPX mess up? I can understand clip connections and so forth and so on, but there should be absolutely NO reason why you couldn’t import a project from FCP7 and it actually play “correctly” as per the basic edit itself. There won’t be Video 3 clips playing underneath Video 2 clips in the like. The only possible problem would arise when you start to move things, and then you might possibly have to fix relationships, but I don’t think that would be that big of a deal, especially if you switch to the position tool.

FCPX has an editing methodology built in, but FCP7 just let you arrange time-based media in absolute time within a video raster. FCPX may work easily when you observe its methodology, but I think if you diverge from it, you’ll end up fighting the way the app is built to work.

Again, you are making this far more complicated than it actually is. FCPX is really not doing anything different than FCP7. If you had the source code to FCP7, you could very easily duplicate the magnetic timeline just by adding in a bunch of “If” “then” “else” statements that see how elements are being added to the timeline and then grouping them together automatically. You can duplicate all the magnetic timeline stuff yourself in FCP7, you just have to make the clip connections manually.

[Gary Huff]

I agree, Herb. But that is far more damaging to your edit than that magnetic timeline would be. That was my point, sorry if it wasn’t clear.

[Gary Huff]

[Walter Soyka]I do think it’s tremendously difficult for a computer to do, automatically, with any real meaning.

I think Herb’s idea works just fine. You really need to explain how this would be any different than how FCPX derives “meaning” from just your plain ‘ole basic everyday footage that has no hooks into any kind of FCPX database whatsoever. To re-iterate, FCPX gets “meaning” from where you place your footage on the timeline. Whether you are placing your footage in real time within the program, or did it in FCP7 and are now importing an old project, FCPX can still get “meaning” either way. And if the meaning is wrong, you can fix it.

a poorly-translated import would be difficult to work with in FCPX.

How? Is FCPX easy to work in or not? It cannot be both ways. Either it’s easy to make changes or not. Can you describe a specific example of a poorly-translated FCP7 project that would be difficult to work with under FCPX?

Effects plugins are a far bigger hurdle than the timeline itself (which is really a non-issue) and would be where I suspect the biggest problem would lie. They are quite different under FCPX, and translating values over to a brand-new filter that doesn’t work quite the same way (if it has anything analogues in FCPX to begin with) would be quite a difficult project. That’s to say nothing of third-party plugins that, by and large, don’t even exist for FCPX yet.

[Gary Huff]

[Walter Soyka]Consider an FCP7 timeline. This clip that starts on V2 at 00:07:24;10? Does it belong in the primary storyline? Or maybe a secondary storyline?

It would go into a secondary storyline, by default. There are exceptions, but I would say that most edits have the meat of the footage in track 1 anyway. You can always move it down into the primary if it’s meant to be more than a “master clip,” there’s no reason why “accidentally” putting video tracks 2-infinity into secondary storylines would break anything. It’s all layers.

Or maybe it’s a connected clip? Is it connected on the first frame?

How does FCPX know to connect clips when you first drag raw footage into it? It makes a guess, and then you have to turn it off or select another option, so I fail to see how playing by the default rules that FCPX already has to do would be any different.

Perhaps there’s an audio hit that connects to a visual hit? Or perhaps it’s connected to a specific reference in the audio track? What role should be assigned to the audio track?

Role? You mean like keyword? Assign it “Audio Track 2” or whatever they would like to designate it. Then you can rename it, can’t you? Sure, you’d have to go in and do housekeeping chores, but when else wouldn’t you have to when importing a legacy project? And an “audio hit” that is connected to a “visual hit” is an element of time. Video starts at 32sec 12frames and the audio must come in at 32sec 22frames in order to match the onscreen action. How could FCPX NOT know how to handle this?

and you really need to understand the content as well as the placement in time to determine a clip’s relationship to the other clips

You have, more than once, referred to FCPX needing to know things that, frankly, make it sound like it has some kind of Artificial Intelligence engine. It does not. FCPX is based on a programmers idea of how to group things in order to “second guess” the editor and do some stuff automatically. When the guess is right, it’s great and saves time. When it’s wrong, you have to fix things. Considering it does this just from a brand new project, why don’t you think it can be done in a project importer?

[Gary Huff]

[Walter Soyka]FCP7’s timeline places clips in absolute time.[snip]
FCPX, on the other hand, has the relationship between clips built into its fundamental design. FCPX’s timeline places clips relative to each other.

You are totally over-thinking this. The magnetic timeline is nothing more than a “gimmick.” A series of “If” “then” and “elses” that automatically groups clips together in a way that it thinks will be helpful to the editor. While FCPX may try to do its damnedest to hide time from the end user, it still has to relate to time at some point.

When you edit in FCPX, you’re still editing in the typical way. You lay down a “master” track, then you place tracks next to it or on top, and so on. There’s really no difference, and don’t let the pizzazz fool you. You can still select a clip and MOVE IT FORWARD IN TIME or even BACKWARDS IN TIME. Then, the logic functions of FCPX go “Hey, I think until editor specifically wants to move this clip again, I’ll just connect it to the master clip!” Remember, all of this stuff has to be done from scratch at some point. No footage being imported into FCPX has anything done to it to give any kind of pseduo-FCPX-mumbo-jumbo-magnetism that makes things work. It’s just footage, like it has always been. FCPX just has a lot of fancy processing functions that try to hide stuff from the end user, but at its core it is processing time just like every NLE on the planet.

Now, I’m not saying it’s easy, I’m sure there are some complicated edits that would require some translation to get across, but there’s absolutely no reason that FCPX could not import a FCP7 project on a basic level.