[Joni Church]

Ah, I figured as much. But I had to hold out hope that there might a way to choose! Sometimes it’s the littlest things…

Thanks for the confirmation, Jason.

[Joni Church]

Hi Jason and Andy,

I see that this is a very old post, so I’m wondering if the current version of FCPX has changed.

It sounds like when Jason added a Favorite to a clip, the clip automatically expanded in the browser to show the Favorite. Andy mentioned there was no way to stop it from doing that.

I’m having the opposite issue, actually. I *want* the clip to expand automatically when I add a Favorite so I can then name the Favorite without having to manually toggle the arrow open, but when I add a Favorite, the clip doesn’t expand.

Did this change in one of the FCPX updates maybe? Or is there a way to force the clips to automatically expand?

Thanks a lot for any thoughts,
Joni

[Joni Church]

Thanks Ryan (and everyone else as well)…

After some option-weighing I decided to leave my current Mac Pro as-is with FCP7 and without any OS upgrades, and buy an iMac for work on FCPX, and potentially try out Avid or Premiere on that as well.

The new iMacs with the 3.5GHz processors, stacked with RAM (I bought from Canada RAM for a giant reduction in price from Apple’s RAM) are far faster than what I’ve currently got, at a more manageable price. If I didn’t already have a Mac Pro I would have gone with a new one, but it feels like overkill at this point. I just finished a feature for A&E going back and forth between my Mac Pro and a 2012 iMac, and I did three docs/series last year with speed being the only real issue. I don’t want to mess with my FCP7 set-up since I know I’m a while away from being done with it.

I picked up a 6TB Thunderbolt RAID, so I figure I’ll try out this configuration and see how it goes. I never thought I’d be cutting on an iMac, but after using a 2012 model for a few weeks on this last feature I have to admit, with a second monitor attached it did everything I need, and so much faster than my 2009 Pro.

Thanks for all your thoughts, they really helped me out.

Joni

[Joni Church]

Thanks Declan, I appreciate the info. I was pretty sure FCP didn’t utilize all the cores within itself, but I wasn’t certain.

There’s such a domino effect with any new software or hardware (some specific to my situation noted in my second post), and it’s difficult to make the bigger decisions.

JC

[Joni Church]

Thanks guys. I agree, for the most part and am super hesitant to change.

I was unclear in my post. I have to stick with FCP7 for a lot of my work, but some of the productions I work on with co-editors and post houses in other cities have switched to FCPX, so I need to use that as well. I know it works on 10.6.8, but I’m finding the speed of my machine has become a hindrance lately, and looking into it I’ve learned that the dual quad-core 2.26 Ghz processors weren’t made as well as the current ones. I compressed a rough cut of a movie last week on a 4-core 3.33 GHz iMac and it took 25 minutes, whereas it takes 2 hours on my 8-core machine.

The increased speeds of Thunderbolt and even USB3 for media transfers is attractive as well. I tried adding a USB3 card to my tower recently and created chaos and Kernel Panics left and right, so I pulled it.

I’m also looking into a Cinema Display for picture quality and higher resolution/screen size, and the new Thunderbolt ones won’t work with my machine, so I’d be limited to a refurbished MiniDisplayPort model that doesn’t have all the ports I’ll want when I do finally upgrade to a new Mac pro (inevitable as technology changes).

I know there are several things I can do to upgrade my machine for speed in the meantime, but I’m weighing those costs against their worth if I end up biting the bullet on a new machine in the next year or two.

Complicated! I appreciate your input.

[Joni Church]

Client screeners; for sure, but when I’m posting them to the web they can usually be a little smaller than 640 and pristine quality isn’t an issue. I also usually end up doing individual scenes so the files aren’t as big. I’ve been lucky so far in not having to post full cuts online for anyone.

That’s an interesting thought about Cleaner not communicating well with QT. I’ve got version 6 and it does seem archaic, but it’s served me fine so far. Looks like an upgrade to something else would be a good move.

I’ll post back once I get in to the other suite and test it out again.

Thanks.

[Joni Church]

Thanks, Craig.

Funny thing, I set the data rate to 300 kbps on the H.264 as well, but the file size was still huge. I wonder if there’s a glitch in Cleaner on that setting somehow, because I checked the file properties in QT just now and it says the data rate is 7,847.03 kbit/s.

I seldom do work like this since I’m a film/TV editor and don’t often have cause to upload such large files to the web (not needing them to look good, anyway).

I’ll double-check the data rate and do another test. Thanks for the tip on the other apps, I had a feeling Cleaner was outdated.

Thanks again for your help,
Joni

[Joni Church]

(posted here erroneously, sorry)

[Joni Church]

Hehe, seriously though, thanks a lot for your help. No matter how confident I think I am with these Panasonic decks there’s always a sneaky little menu item (or twenty) that I miss.

I owe you one,
Joni

[Joni Church]

I think that I would like to buy you a car.