[Mark Dobson]

Hi Scott,

Sorry, but I was too busy working to get back to you + i’m in England and probably asleep when you are awake.

Don’t think I’m knocking your huge top end professional experience, or that of your client, it’s just that a lot of people have simply joined the FCP X is crap band wagon without actually gutting to grips with it and there are a lot of great features that are really missed when you work back in FCP7.

There are very few things you can’t do in FCP X that you can do in FCP7 – sure you haven’t got the easy round tripping into Color or Motion. But it really isn’t that difficult to get material in and out of Motion and as time passes superior 3rd party color correction will be incorporated into the application through companies such as Red Giant Software. Incidentally, DVD Studio Pro still works just fine and whilst bundled within FCS has always been a standalone application.

Whilst supporting your argument, equating an editor using FCP X to a carpenter or mechanic using bad tools just doesn’t ring true. FCP X, whilst lacking certain attributes, is perfectly capable of producing top end broadcast specification material. And well up to the task of producing material to be published on DVD.

And lets remember that it is just a tool, just as FCP7 or Premier Pro or Avid is.

If in a years time FCP X has not opened up to allow broadcast spec monitoring and full integration with 3rd party post production tools your producers opinions and your analysis will sadly be proved right – but I see the application as a starting point not a dead end.

Mark Dobson
Producer and Director
Alembic TV
http://www.alembic.tv

[Mark Dobson]

Geoff,

What sort of commands or activities are you using the trackpad for.

I’ve been thinking of getting one. At the moment I’m using a tablet and pen together with the keyboard.

The pen is great for certain things but I would be really interested to hear more detail of your experience with the trackpad.

What gestures have you programmed into the pad?

For instance do you us it for scrolling or for colour correction?

Mark Dobson
Producer and Director
Alembic TV
http://www.alembic.tv

[Mark Dobson]

Scott,

Your producer, like many people, seems to have a lot of uneducated preconceptions about FCP X. does she edit herself? Has she spent time with the programme?

Basically FCP X was probably more than adequate for the job you did for her. Maybe you could have shown her some of the features, maybe you could have turned the job around faster through using the new software?

To catagorise the wide range of editors who are learning to use FCP X as amateur or inexperienced editor is just expressing ignorance.

Bad workmen blame their tools. A craftsman will produce good work using the most basic tools because it’s what’s in your head, the experience you draw on, that’s more important.

Sure there are loads of things that will need to be incorporated into and improved with FCP X, the I/O situation being the most crucial, but it is deceptively complex and certainly up for a wide range of professional work at both
the entry level and at the high end of digital video editing.

But maybe it’s all just about image.

[Mark Dobson]

Sounds like you’ve applied some extreme measures to try and resolve your issue. Uninstalling/reinstalling FCP X and Lion and reformatting drives all take up a lot of time.

I’m able to reference XDCAM HD422 files successfully but as Jeremy Garchow points out these have quicktime wrapper. ( .MOV )

I pre transcode all my files to XDCAM HD422 or ProRes 422 (L) before referencing them in FCP X and have not had any problems.

It would be useful to know what media you are referring to.

[Mark Dobson]

Hi David,

Problem solving is partially about elimination of causal factors.

I hadn’t even thought the eSata card could be causing the issue. And neither had Apple support or Gtech support!

This all good practice for when I get a new MacPro (if it’s ever upgraded in it’s present form)

Maybe you could help me out with another query relating to setting up this partition drive.

Although I did not transfer applications to my new drive I’ve got a dock full of my apps from my primary
hard drive.

I was surprised to be able to run applications from my primary drive on this new one.

Many of these do not work, Final Cut Studio for example, which is prompting me to reinstall it.

I’m not going to do this as it defeats the whole purpose of the exercise which is to run FCP X on it’s own.

So what I have done is to remove my primary hard drive from the MacPro and I am now going through a fresh install of FCP X, Compressor and Motion. I’ll reinstall other programmes further on down the line.

So my question is how do I keep my new Lion / FCP X drive discreet from the rest of the drives on my MacPro?

Do I ‘eject’ the original boot up drive very time I open up the computer?

Or does it really not matter.

thanks

Mark Dobson
Producer and Director
Alembic TV
http://www.alembic.tv

[Mark Dobson]

So thanks to David Roth Weiss’s suggestion I’ve got my esata connected Gtech drives working again on my new partitioned Lion drive.

It was the driver for my Startech ESATA PCI card which was causing the problem.

After a lot of trawling I eventually downloaded a Sonnet Esata driver update and everything is just as it should be.

So thank’s David and others with their suggestions

mark

Mark Dobson
Producer and Director
Alembic TV
http://www.alembic.tv

[Mark Dobson]

I’ve done all i can do for today.

I’ve disconnected power – leads etc etc from the GTech Drive – but no joy – thanks Rick

I’m going to investigate the esata card driver tomorrow – thanks David ( i think that is where the problem lies ) I could try connecting via firewire but my mac only has 400 fw ports and GTechs are fw 800.

But here in southern england it’s time to turn off the computer.

Mark Dobson
Producer and Director
Alembic TV
http://www.alembic.tv

[Mark Dobson]

Hi Rick

Thanks for that advice.

No the drives are not showing up anywhere.

I’ll try your quit finder tip a go.

I’m in discussion with a technical advisor for GTech and he suggested that I turn off and disconnect the eSata cables and then restart the GTech drives as they do not have an internal reset facility?

This sounded plausible as when one upgrades the software on the Matrox MXO2 Mini that’s what you have to do.

But unfortunately it did not work.

I’ll speak to the technician again tomorrow.

I’m sure it will get sorted.

Mark Dobson
Producer and Director
Alembic TV
http://www.alembic.tv

[Mark Dobson]

Thank’s David,

Because all my other drives are showing up I’m confident I’ve done things in a correct manner. So yes I will contact a GTech rep here in the UK.

Dang

[Mark Dobson]

FCP X is pretty buggy as you’ve discovered.

If you haven’t done this already I suggest you trash the FCP X preference files. ( thank’s to Larry Jordan )

Quit FCP X

1. Open Library in home folder

2. Open preferences

3. Find these 2 preference files and trash them.

com.apple.FinalCut.LSSharedFileList.plist
com.apple.FinalCut.plist

Empty the trash

Re Launch FCP X and see if it has sorted out your problem.

( NB. take care not to trash – com.apple.finalcutpro.plist – that’s a preference file for FCP 7 or earlier.

Mark Dobson
Producer and Director
Alembic TV
http://www.alembic.tv