[John Steventon]

I’ve got a script boy (which as been renamed a script girl by the PA) working off radio mic feeds which I could send upstairs I guess. To be honest, I can live without it, it’s just a thought for things I think would make an already good system more user friendly.

Thanks for all the feeback though.

John

Success is merely a failiure to imagine more…

G5 2.7Ghz, 4.5Gb ram, Blackmagic Decklink/multibridge, 5.6Tb Infortrend storage, FCP Studio 5.02, Makie MCU control, Yahama 5.1 surround, JVC DTV multi-format monitor, 2x23inch Apple monitors – and a partirdge on a pear tree.

[John Steventon]

Hi,

The ‘super’ output of the DigiBeta deck isn’t patched up to the edit suite unfortunately. All monitoring is just done through the SDI input/output from the multi-bridge. So apart from chaining another monitor/cable upstairs (something I don’t want to get into (due to having to tear down walls…)) I guess I’ll just live with the lack of TC information. Pity.

John

Success is merely a failiure to imagine more…

G5 2.7Ghz, 4.5Gb ram, Blackmagic Decklink/multibridge, 5.6Tb Infortrend storage, FCP Studio 5.02, Makie MCU control, Yahama 5.1 surround, JVC DTV multi-format monitor, 2x23inch Apple monitors – and a partirdge on a pear tree.

[John Steventon]

What MS mouse are you using? I find my MS Intellimouse is all I need a mouse to do, provided you’re into using the keyboard too.

John

Success is merely a failiure to imagine more…

G5 2.7Ghz, 4.5Gb ram, Blackmagic Decklink/multibridge, 5.6Tb Infortrend storage, FCP Studio 5.02, Makie MCU control, Yahama 5.1 surround, JVC DTV multi-format monitor, 2x23inch Apple monitors – and a partirdge on a pear tree.

[John Steventon]

Ah, my bad.

I don’t know if I read your instructions wrong, or if there was just room for interpretation – but I didn’t do what you said. When it got to the “Ctrl Click” part – I was still right clicking on the clip name, and going into the format properties window thing – rather than right clicking on the reel name column, bringing up the list of tapes you mentioned – and then being able to change them all at once in there.

So, sorry for the mis-reading, and thanks very much for indeed giving me the correct answer.

John

Success is merely a failiure to imagine more…

[John Steventon]

Hi there,

Firstly, thanks for the quick reply, but I must be missing something, as this is just the same as what’s currenrtly happening – I select all the clips I want to change, right click (or CTRL click) on one of the clips, change the tape name there – but only that clip changes the tape name – all the others I still have to do the same – or just change them one by one in the browser.

Am I missing something in your instruction maybe?

Sorry to be a bit vacant here – I just can’t work out what I need to do.

John

Success is merely a failiure to imagine more…

[John Steventon]

Hi,

I’m with you on this one. I asked this exact question earlier on today due to my love of the feature on Avid. But, the fact I can at least scroll it manually by ‘shift/scroll-wheeling’ at least means I can do it.

I’m learning there’s a few things that FCP doesn’t have that would be nice – and a few nice things it has that aren’t on Avid etc – we all just gotta wait until Bill Gates buys everyone over and makes MicroAvidCutPro100Vegas before we’re all happy.

But, at least there’s a ‘work-around’ for most things we think we’re missing.

I just wish I could change the track colour….

John

Success is merely a failiure to imagine more…

[John Steventon]

Jerry – YOU ROCK!!!

Thanks so much for that tip. I’m sure had I read a manual (rather than approaching it like “It must be the same as an Avid”) I might have eventually picked that up – a year or two down the line….

Thanks very much for such a helpful reply. I’m even more amazed that you must have gotten to at least half-way down my last post to have found I was having that kind of problem though.

Thanks again.

John

Success is merely a failiure to imagine more…

[John Steventon]

Hmm, when I posted that last post, I sat back and though “oops, have I just started another FCP v Avid argument by accident?”

I’m not saying the FCP timeline activity is wrong/bad or any other negative comment (apart from personally frustrating), what I am saying is that coming from an Avid point of view, the size of the expand/collapse control (the one next to the track height control) is frustratingly small – and the actions to expand/collapse the time timeline with the larger, main control on bottom of the timeline are, well, bugging. Simply because it doesn’t stay centred when you try to expand/collapse the size of the timeline.

Oh, and don’t get me started on all the blank space it adds to the end of the sequence (unless there’s something I’m doing wrong/a setting I have wrong – I’d like to be able to do a “fit to window” for the sequence on the timeline, rather than having to drag arrows/sliders all about the place.

I know that this frustration is purely as I’m a relative new comer to FCP (only been using it a few months) and this kind of comment is derived PURELY as it’s just ‘not an Avid’ – and I know that when you come down to it, you have to make sure programs have some differences, otherwise they’d all be the same, but I just find it frustrating. And if sharing frustrations like this may help other people who are migrating from Avid to FCP for the first time, then I feel I’ve done a service by sharing them.

I see this exactly in the same way as when I started to use CD’s as a Dj. For years I was a complete vinyl dinosaur – and just wouldn’t accept CD in my sets at all – and for the past couple of years I’ve rejected FCP at every turn. Now though, I’ve realised that Avid is as financially restricting as their codecs – and have made a side-switch to FCP for the HiDef work that comes through the company. I’m patiently coming up against issues like this – the timeline colour question I’ve already had, the hassles of ‘apply to all’ not being as easy – not being able to put a global effect across a top track, not being able to add audio transitions the way I’d like to – and a few other problems to come probably – but I understand that this is merely something that comes with using a different system – I’m not saying Avid is better/FCP is worse – I’m not judging either by the other – my comment is purely that of a gu who’s used Avid for the past 9 years, and finds it frustrating at times that things aren’t the same – and by sharing my thoughts on the small controls like this – maybe help another editor along the way.

Hmmm. This should be filed under “Things to do while rendering…”

All done now though. I hope you didn’t find this a preaching response, but as I’ll probably come back with a couple more “Avid did it this way, how does FCP deal with it?” posts, I want to make my point clear right now that these are merely posts of a frustrated editor who is working at 90% speed right now due to not knowing this system inside and out like I did with Avid.

Phew…

John.

Success is merely a failiure to imagine more…

[John Steventon]

Thanks for the tip Zeeton, didn’t know about that one. Works well.

John

Success is merely a failiure to imagine more…

[John Steventon]

Ok, thanks for such a quick response.

I guess I keep looking at Final Cut hoping that I can do everything I was able to do on Avid with it. I’ve got to learn that it’s just different, most of time oddly so, but it’s nothing I can’t accept and work-around.

This isn’t going to stop me firing questions in here for a while longer though…

John

Success is merely a failiure to imagine more…