[Herb Sevush]

1) A lot of this is about managing frame size. Assuming your master timeline is 1920 by 1080, create a color matte that’s also 1920-1080 and re-position it for your Picture-in-Picture. If it turns out you need to crop the matt to make it fit properly, you have to figure out what the new proportions are – this is mostly trial and error guess work, but once you can figure out that your matt needs to be, for example, 3×4 instead of 16×9, then create a new matte based on those proportions but using the 1080 as one of the sizes of your new matt. Now shrink your new matt into position and put it into your main comp.

Next create a new sequence with the proportions and exact size of the matt you’ve just made. Bring in your various photos, animate and re-position them to fill the frame and create visual movement etc. When your finished take the new timeline and drag it into the source monitor and put the playhead on the opening frame you want to use,then open your master timeline and find the opening frame of the matt insert, right click on the matt clip and choose “replace with clip in source monitor match frame” and you are done.

The hardest part is determining the proportions and size if the insert is not 1920×1080. Once you’ve figured out the right size of the matt, save the matt clip and re-use whenever you need this effect – use the matt to place in the comp, including any animations, drop shadows, or effects that you want for the PiP, then match/replace with the content timeline.

2) As far as I Know scale or set to frame size always works with the largest size of the object. I know what you are looking for but there is no way to automate this that I know of.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

I have a 2010 2x6core/3.33 with 64 gig Ram, SSD startup drive and a flashed Nvidia 680 GPU. I also recently bought a 2013 6core/3.5 D700 with 32 gig of ram. the 2010 is hooked up to a PCIe Raid, the 2013 to a Thunderbolt Raid, both get around 750 Gbs when half full.

In general they feel about the same to operate on Premiere – when working multicam 5 cameras, as I often do, the 2010 is a little smoother. Exports from the 2013 seem a little faster, but I haven’t done any serious testing.

for me the biggest difference is Thunderbolt i/o – you can’t get it on the 2010 and many clients are submitting Tblt drives as source material. Also Thunderbolt raids, not needing PCIe cards, are much cheaper.

My conclusions based on recent experience, is that if your just looking for a little more zip and you already have a 2009 or later Mac Pro, then upgrading will definitely get you there and will be the best bang for your buck.

If you’re looking to buy a new system and you will need to buy a new raid to work with it, then the 2013, with it’s Thunderbolt connectivity is the more flexible system and the price difference is almost nil once you take the Raid into account.

Finally, if you don’t have ProRes as a deliverable requirement, nor are you fixed on FCPX as your NLE, then get a Wintel box and find out what a truly modern computer can do for you.

My other conclusion is that if someone could come up with a PCIe-Thunderbolt card for older MacPro’s, you could sell a lot of units of both.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

“Winners focus; losers spray.” This is a very old adage of business speak that I first heard cutting a PBS documentary 30 years ago.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Alex Udell] “discreet edit* had super simple time remapping that was really teriffic…”

Stop it, you’re gonna make me cry. Again.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Robin S. Kurz] “Of course not. Spoken as a true, 110% solipsist. No surprises there.”

I’m aware others exist, it’s just that when their values are so skewed from mine their is little I can glean from their opinions. Similar to how I think anyone who posts on technical forums using emoticons, and isn’t 14 years old, shouldn’t be taken seriously.

[Robin S. Kurz] “Oh the irony!! ???? Seeing that the FCP’s primary storyline has often been described as the “spine” of one’s edit. Which makes the “nothin’ attached to nothin'” look even funnier.”

There’s nothing ironic about it, its causal.

6 years ago, when this forum started and X was but a seed, part of the explanation for how FCPX was supposed to work was that the “spine” of the edit should be placed on the primary storyline. Franz Bieberkopf, who was a major and influential contributor back then, thought that was backwards since “deciding the spine is the process of editing” and how could you chose what to make primary when that information only revealed itself over time. In fairness to Franz, after I started using that line in my posts, he asked if I would drop it because, on reflection, he thought that “deciding the spine” was only one of many processes of editing. I should probably take the attribution away, but I still think it’s a brilliant line and I hesitate to take credit for it.

That line shouldn’t be taken as a critique of the way FCPX actually works — even I, ignorant as I am, understand that moving things in and out of the primary is simple and that X is as fully capable of “revealing the spine” as any other NLE, but it’s my favorite description of the work I do, so sorry Franz, I’m keeping it.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Scott Witthaus] “to the point of the OP leaving the software to move to another platform.”

The OP chose, at this point in time, without specifying any need for ProRes deliverables, to re-build his editing business using Imacs as his hardware platform. Anything he has to say beyond that is of no interest to me whatsoever.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[andy patterson] “Did I answer your questions to the utmost satisfaction little buckaroo”

Andy,

A word of advice since you haven’t been posting on this forum for a long time and maybe you’ve mistaken this place for someplace else — it gets very confrontational here, and quite heated from time to time — but I would suggest you leave off the “little buckaroo” business, or any other name calling for that matter.

Thank you.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Steve Connor] “But in some ways there’s LESS capability as you have to add external devices to replace the connectivity that’s been lost.”

Their target user (14 year old) isn’t going to add anything external, if some old fuddy-dudies need something then they can dongle themselves into oblivion. A win-win in Cupertino.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Bill Davis] “But Herb, what I have keeps getting better and better and better.”

Good.

[Bill Davis] “Why the hell would I want to give that up?”

Who’s asking you too? I have no doubt that you have found the best of all possible tools to do your work with — a software marriage made in heaven.

But when someone else, even someone well practiced with X, asks for what they see as improvements, your knee jerk reflex is to say – ” I don’t want developers wasting time with bringing back the old, let’s push on to the new.”

And I think that’s silly. What was the roles re-build but an innovative way to bring back the old – in this case “visual organization.”

Perhaps some of these ideas, from editors with differing backgrounds, might make X even more useful to you and help it to keep “getting better and better and better.”

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Bill Davis] “I can do that bottle and label probably just as easily a Graphics Converter as Photoshop and toss it in Track X to integrate it into the scene directly in X too.”

I’m sure you can and I’m sure you do — that’s my point. You leave your base NLE to use specific tools (it doesn’t matter who makes them) that are beyond any NLE’s capability.

This sub thread started with your claim —

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/335/92982

[Bill Davis] ”
Part of the beauty if X (for me at least) is that I can stay inside it and get essentially everything I need to deliver my work done in one cohesive place.”

Which I found surprising. Apparently you do what everyone does – you use the tools you need where ever you find them.

As for —

[Bill Davis] “First you accuse me of “selective quoting” when I did no such thing”

I was not the one who made you look bad, Mads was, when he gave you half the quote he gave to another interviewer. I apologize for my misreading of the situation.

And finally —

[Bill Davis] “Sometimes I wonder why I even bother anymore.”

The jury is out on that one, although I would miss you if you weren’t here to badger.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf