[Jim Giberti]

[tony west] “It seems like people who like Motion are more willing to work with X than people who like AE.
I was wondering if anyone else sees this pattern.”

It was definitely a factor in our decision Tony.

That said, I’m still a bit stunned by the awkward new “workflow” and lack of round tripping.
I can’t even imagine why they removed the ability to round trip from FCP.

[Jim Giberti]

[Chris Harlan] “On the other subject, my first video card was an Intel Action Media II that I paid something like three grand for, but it was capable of an amazing 30fps at 1/4 resolution. No fields mind you. But what a blow-mind that you could watch full speed video on a computer. Oh, and the AV hard disk I got to go with it–a whopping gig (or was it two) for a grand. NLE, though. THAT was a revolution.
“

Hell, our first NLE was steam powered.

[Jim Giberti]

[Chris Conlee] “I remember buying a 16MB SIMM for my Amiga which was $1000. Nobody could even DREAM of a gigabyte of RAM. Unfathomable. Can you imagine!?”

And to bring that full circle – yesterday I realized that one of our macs running fcpx only had 8 gigs of RAM and could handle 16. So I jumped on OWC to upgrade and found that it cost a whopping $95 for 16gb of RAM. Then I remembered literally using an old $40k Media 100 system to hold a door open when we were moving into our new studios.

So I extrapolated this overall trend and I figure by 2020 all of our systems should be free.

My calculations also show that by then fcpx will have evolved beyond any storylines at all, and Apple will provide all possible content, pre-edited, with a pulldown menu of styles: Drama, Doc, Soft Porn etc.

[Jim Giberti]

Hey Bob,

An important question would be, “what are your editing goals going forward”?

As a FCP7 studio that’s switched to FCPX and explored the alternatives I’d recommend you pick up X (at least the trail version and see what you think after doing some tutorials and giving it a test drive.)

It’s a very nice program and, despite the issues for some users, it’s Apple’s current and future video software. I like it more everyday and I would (and have) advised new users, students and pros to give it a serious look.

Jim

[Jim Giberti]

I agree Steve, that’s one of many little things that make this more advanced and facile than it’s predecessor and that get overlooked in the bigger discussion.

I’m unashamedly pleased with the simplified, comprehensive approach to organization, editing, audio and finishing in one program. FCPX may or may not be a future solution for dedicated editing facilities, but I like it more everyday for our studio.

Looking forward to seeing how they refine it in the new upgrade.

Jim

[Jim Giberti]

Hey Peter,

First, despite the things about this first generation program that I really hope are addressed in the next update – I really love that I can mix and edit together in real time (as opposed to mixing to a QT with exported audio.)

I’m digging the Logic plug-ins and the ability to cut audio live in the timelineOther nice things are quick fades and levels adjustments with the main bar, handles, the Range tool, option click and directly in the Inspector – pretty wide and fast options.

I also really like the ability to quickly group audio sources into CCs and effecting them universally. There seems to have been some confusion in the original discussion about individual clips maintaining their FX when they were CCed then double clicked to access the individual clips again. The fact that they do retain their FX is what makes mixing in X so smooth so far.

Here’s a quick example of a TV spot and a web film that I’m Mixing/Editing right now. It’s pretty simple audio – 3 characters and a music bed and an added VO on the film.

First I just tweaked all the individual audio clips for each character to set a manual level, most of it with the main bar and some with a little more option clicking for trouble spots. Once each character’s level was set I grouped the clips and Option/G each character and then applied a Logic channel EQ to each CC.

The fourth voice on the film version was done in the studio and already compressed and leveled so I just added a channel EQ.

Now I’ll group all the voice tracks with another Option/G and apply a Logic Multipressor to the master voice mix.

Last I add that CC together with the music track (that I didn’t want the Multipressor on) and put a final limiter on that Master Bus/CC.

It’s really fast, and it’s not like a music mix where I’m always going back and tweaking 20 or 30 tracks individually as the mix progresses. With the average project I get my audio tracks together pretty quickly and if I do have to adjust individual CCs or clips within a CC it’s very fast and because you can do it right in the timeline, very easy.

Hope that helps some.
Ask any particular question and I’ll be glad to answer it if I can.

Jim

[Jim Giberti]

[Aindreas Gallagher] “what. are. we. doing. here?
“

Editing, on our end.

[Jim Giberti]

I think the one on one experience is the important difference.

[Jim Giberti]

[Mark Dobson] “I firmly believe that FCPX has more problems under Lion than SL””

Given our experience, I’d agree. I’ve been cutting one project after another for a couple of months now and have yet to have fcpX crash in SL 10.6.8

[Jim Giberti]

[David Lawrence] ”
Another interesting link from Bro in LA. PluralEyes demonstrates how their new version works with FCPX, including multi-cam sync. My favorite line at the end:
“If this seems like we are kind of abusing secondary storylines to simulate tracks, well that’s because we are.””

I don’t feel so guilty now.