[Mark Dobson]

I can’t find any links to ShakeX ?

[Mark Dobson]

I have to say that dipping into a forum is for me a work displacement activity, something to do whilst waiting for rendering . . . which just get faster and faster!

[Mark Dobson]

[Ronny Courtens] “And while we are at it: this whole “FCPX Or Not” debate has really lost its meaning anyway.”

It’s the debate part of it that makes it interesting. A lot of editors still see FCPX as a very substandard offering when compared to FCP7, PP, Avid or the other NLE’s available out there.

I have heard that many FCP7 users still find it the best option for them and are quite happy to continue using it. I would admit to a high degree of skepticism when I first downloaded FCPX and my initial reaction was ‘is that all there is?’, but as each update rolled out, and the plugin and support software hit the market it has become a real contender to provide broadcast and other top end solutions.

I think that, with quite a few editors railing against Adobes new business and delivery model, the FCPX or not debate is still pretty relevant.

[Mark Dobson]

Tim, there is an easier way.

Press Shift 3 + Q to just insert Audio from any clip in the event browser.

[Mark Dobson]

As someone who switched from FCP7 to FCPX over 2 years ago I watched the linked clip with interest.

It just all looks so square, inelegant and old fashioned compared to the way that FCPX works, very techy and and unintuitive to my eye.

Many of the tips that are shown really demonstrate that FCPX is really ahead of the game, that many of of the setups are done automatically, how much is under the hood.

And surely Hover Scrub is direct copy from FCPX, but in a very pedantic way that misses out on the metadata features offered by FCPX Event Library.

So despite many frustrations of working with FCPX I’m really glad that I took that route, rather than slipping back into the over complex workflow of the FCP7 + world of Premiere and fingers crossed I won’t have to take up a subscription to continue using FCPX.

[Mark Dobson]

[Bill Davis] “Hell, X started to “work” for me the day it was released. I could ingest. I could cut. I could export. And, most critically, I could START learning how to see video creation as something that could be beneficially detached from having JUST a timeline space to work in – and I got to start learning to work in a connected environment where both Event resources and Projects would stay connected and work together to solve production problems.”

Sure Bill – FCPX also worked for me the day it was launched, I’ve not used anything else since, and I honestly think it’s a fantastic piece of software but compared to how it works now it was pretty buggy and core functions that should have worked didn’t.

And to tell a group of very independently minded individuals (how many editors does it take to change a light bulb?) that the software they had been using professionally and supported for years was EOL was highly controversial and to this day the reason for that has yet to be explained. But it sure put a lot of backs up.

I used to confront huge render times and that lovely spinning ball was a constant companion. That wasn’t because I was doing things incorrectly, it was because the software was still in development. And I think that those of us who have been using FCPX since the launch have in many ways been working as advanced beta testers and I’m sure the huge volume of complaints about lacking features will have positively influenced the future updates.

I just can’t be as evangelical about FCPX as you are. It would seem from your post that there is and and has never been any faults with the software but for those working in in top end collaborative production units FCPX has yet to emulate the connectivity and customisation that FCP7 had and many editors require.

For me as a director turned shooter / editor it’s absolutely fine and like you I’m a big fan of the Event library, and how it enables me to quickly sort out the files and media connected with a job.

[Mark Dobson]

Ken Segall’s post seems strangely out of date even to the point of reigniting the ‘iMovie Pro’ debate and is there really such disquiet at the lack of a new 17′ Macbook Pro?

Things have moved on so profoundly in the 2 years since Apple launched FCPX that in many ways the editing world has caught up with Apples vision of how people want or need to deal with digital media.

But having just encountered the lack of batch export in FCPX I fully understand why many Pros steered clear of even trying out FCPX, not helped by the worst launch you could imagine. How different it would have been if they had kept Final Cut Studio active for a transitional period of say 2 to 3 years.

For me FCPX only really started to work well after several updates and I had invested in the new iMac. That enabled me to access Thunderbolt storage and since then I’ve had the editing set up promised in the early promotional material.

And Marcus is right:

[Marcus Moore] “Ultimately, I think the tools of our trade are being commoditized the way apple is imagining. A 2.5K RAW camera is now available for $2000. All three of the big NLE software packages are available for either $19.99/mo, $299 or at most $999. It’s skill and talent that will drive ones worth, vs someone being able to navigate labyrinth software or hardware. I don’t think it will make those skills any ‘easier’ or less valuable. It’s just a removal of unnecessary barriers to entry.”

Just imagine, as an example, what someone could achieve with the new Blackmagic Pocket Camera, a MacBook Pro with a retina screen and a copy of FCPX.

The new MacPro will be profoundly better than an updated version of the existing one with bolted on Thunderbolt capability and I’m just hoping that Apple will price it happy for me.

[Mark Dobson]

FxFactory provides the smaller plugin developers with a pretty easy and very professional marketing and distribution operation with the bonus of a very responsive in-house technical support.

I’ve mainly used it to have access to idustrial’s range of plugins and I’ve just got access to Hawaiki Autograde through the site. Ripple training have also used FxFactory to distribute some of their plugin collections such as Callouts.

However the downside for me is that several plugins are now supplied in a locked form, in other words it’s not possible to edit or customise any of the plugins in Motion.

I wanted to refine some of the elements within callouts and found that this is just not possible, not re-inventing the wheel, just wanting longer or shorter animation timings or the ability to replace a solid transition background with a transparent one. I exchanged emails with both Mark Spencer at Ripple training and FxFactory and this seems to be a new policy.

I also find the application, plugin manager pretty clunky, with a constant need to re-download a large programme and install new versions to reflect the addition of a new product, surely this could be done in a more elegant online way.

But moaning apart I’ve had great value from FxFactory and it’s been supporting FCPX from the start. And one of the many things I like about FCPX is the ability to buy interesting FX at reasonable prices and also import my home made efforts from Motion.

[Mark Dobson]

[Mitch Ives] “Is that one possibly called Hawaiki AutoGrade?”

Thank’s Mitch, that’s right – Hawaiki AutoGrade – available via FX FActory

[Mark Dobson]

[Mitch Ives] “Fix things that are broke, don’t re-design things that aren’t.”

Well that’s FCPX for you.

I personally find the FCPX color board a pretty powerful tool short of using an external corrector / grading software such as Resolve. It’s taken a while and I still see myself looking at the little color wheel icon for opposites but the simplicity of the controls belies what a powerful and clean color corrector it is.

I’m hoping that the next update will see some improvements, maybe a return to the wheels as an option and a greater degree of control over the secondary masks such as is found in the brilliant Slice X.

But through using more than one correction it’s possible to fix most problems and to transform or correct dull shots. Using the FCPX corrector in tandem with the improved scopes adds up to a pretty powerful app. I use to process Canon Log files and am astonished at the degree of control I can achieve through combining secondary masks and multiple corrections. The trick for me is not to try and fix everything in one correction.

I’ve tried Hawaiki Color and find it a bit too fiddly for me and I also perversely don’t like the onscreen controls and have noticed that these are also reflected in the scopes which is off-putting, I know you can turn them off . . .

Thanks to Simon I have been a beta tester with the Hawaiki Auto Adjust plugin which has just been launched and this is brilliant for correcting white balance. But as others have said I think that the plugin developers have been both aided and shackled by the motion template architecture.