[Mark Morache]

Mike,

I wish Sony came up with a plugin for FCPX. Meanwhile I go back and forth between ingesting in FCP7, and using Clipwrap, so I don’t really miss not having a Sony plugin.

Thankfully, the HDV files are relatively small, so if I keep a copy of the card, as well as the ingested files, it’s not an insane amount of space on my drive.

And I’m considering NOT keeping a copy of my cards since I keep a clone of my external drives, with all the ingested media on it.

———
Don’t live your life in a secondary storyline.

Mark Morache
FCPX/FCP7/Xpri/Avid
Evening Magazine,Seattle, WA
https://fcpx.wordpress.com

[Mark Morache]

and put your hands on your head, twirl three times and click your ruby slippers together.

Yikes.

I am having the unrender bug hit me frequently as well. I wish we could figure out what’s getting unrendered and why.

I agree with the no-rendering plan. Since I’m editing on my MBP I frequently need to render things in order to see them, so I selectively render bits of the timeline.

There should be a low-res render that works quickly and gives us a sort of proxy render.

———
Don’t live your life in a secondary storyline.

Mark Morache
FCPX/FCP7/Xpri/Avid
Evening Magazine,Seattle, WA
https://fcpx.wordpress.com

[Mark Morache]

It’s actually simple enough to create a copy of the portion you want and paste it into a new timeline.

I’ve also had good luck collapsing the entire timeline into a compound clip,(select all: CMD-A, compound: OPT-G) trimming off the part I don’t want to export, then restoring it after the export.

What I like about compounding it, instead of simply trimming, exporting and undoing, is that the entire timeline is still embedded inside the compound, even after you trim it. So if the app crashed and I can’t undo, I can still reopen the project, extend the trimmed ends and break apart the compound to get my timeline back.

It’s a workaround, but it works.

I hope they create a work area like in motion and after effects, and many other applications.

———
Don’t live your life in a secondary storyline.

Mark Morache
FCPX/FCP7/Xpri/Avid
Evening Magazine,Seattle, WA
https://fcpx.wordpress.com

[Mark Morache]

I’ve noticed that if I start by placing audio in a project before I put in any video, it wants to give the project video settings, and usually not the ones I want.

When I start with a fresh timeline, I’ll place any bit of footage in the empty timeline that has the settings I want for the timeline. This will “Set” the settings. Once I start editing, I can easily go back and delete the clip.

As for selecting all of your footage and “cutting”, I don’t have the balls to do that. I’d be too afraid of getting a beachball and having to force the app down, and losing all of my work.

I always create and open a new project, then you can use the arrows in the upper left portion of the timeline window to switch between your new project and the one you’re trying to fix. Select all, copy, switch to the new one and paste.

Good luck.

———
Don’t live your life in a secondary storyline.

Mark Morache
FCPX/FCP7/Xpri/Avid
Evening Magazine,Seattle, WA
https://fcpx.wordpress.com

[Mark Morache]

To heal cuts, I’ve been selecting the right edge of the first half, with a one sided trim, then I use the down arrow to jump to the end of the second clip and extend the clip to the end the second clip, then I select and delete the second clip.

It mostly works, so long as the second clip doesn’t have anything attached to it.

———
Don’t live your life in a secondary storyline.

Mark Morache
FCPX/FCP7/Xpri/Avid
Evening Magazine,Seattle, WA
https://fcpx.wordpress.com

[Mark Morache]

I would wager a guess that some intrepid coder would come up with an app for that.

I recall from my avid days, there was a way to send a timeline into a process where all the material used in the timeline would go into another timeline that could be put to tape, with the original timeline relinked to the new material. This meant that reviving a project was as simple as opening the new project, digitizing the new compile tape, and presto.

It seems to me that someone could write a routine that would do the same sort of thing, perhaps creating a timeline full of your used material that you could export and a new project relinked to the material.

I don’t expect Apple to do this. I’d love to have it be a part of the software, however having third parties produce it makes sense as well. They will work faster and probably harder to keep us happy.

As for archiving, if seems that if you keep copies of your original cards, you should be able to resurrect your projects and events from those, without the need to keep all that extra media.

I always used the consolidate function in legacy FCP to create a copy of all the media with handles, but that was mostly when I was shooting on tape, and could easily re-ingest footage from the tapes. I don’t do that anymore.

Even with the tsunami, hard drives are relatively inexpensive. A 2tb drive will hold quite a bit of footage. I use the Newertech Voyager and raw hard drives to store my projects. I keep a clone of the backup on a second drive for safety, and I pass the cost to the client.

———
Don’t live your life in a secondary storyline.

Mark Morache
FCPX/FCP7/Xpri/Avid
Evening Magazine,Seattle, WA
https://fcpx.wordpress.com

[Mark Morache]

Are your photos on the primary storyline? Is there any space between them?

I’ve encountered a bug where I can’t seem to drag a transition onto an edit. It will apply the transition to the edit BEFORE the one I’m dragging to.

Sometimes I can get satisfaction by dragging the transition to the edit FOLLOWING the one I actually want the transition. Sometimes I can drag the transition to the clip itself, thereby adding the transition to both edits on either end of the clip.

If your photos are not on the primary storyline, move your audio out of the primary storyline and then place your stills in the primary.

———
Don’t live your life in a secondary storyline.

Mark Morache
FCPX/FCP7/Xpri/Avid
Evening Magazine,Seattle, WA
https://fcpx.wordpress.com

[Mark Morache]

Ironically, you used to be able to do this in 10.0.2.

Right now the only way is to use the shift-f to perform a match frame.

———
Don’t live your life in a secondary storyline.

Mark Morache
FCPX/FCP7/Xpri/Avid
Evening Magazine,Seattle, WA
https://fcpx.wordpress.com

[Mark Morache]

and strangely enough, the empty multicam clips that are in my timeline, don’t show up in the timeline index. It’s as if they don’t exist.

———
Don’t live your life in a secondary storyline.

Mark Morache
FCPX/FCP7/Xpri/Avid
Evening Magazine,Seattle, WA
https://fcpx.wordpress.com

[Mark Morache]

[Bill Davis] “Now just duplicate that sequence – preserving the current state of your file – and truncate the duplicate which becomes your “export” range just like you had in your old workflow.”

That’s partially true.

I continue to be troubled by the render files. They don’t follow to the duplicated project unless you choose to duplicate all of the renders as well. This could be huge.

If I’m trying to export 10 seconds of a 20 minute project, I probably will not duplicate the renders, however whatever I export will need to be virtually re-rendered whether in the timeline, or through the export process.

You got me to think however about this versioning idea.

If I had a portion of my timeline I wanted to save in a particular state, it would make more sense to keep it all within my project. Projects keeps their renders.

I’ve been trying to use the process of auditioning compound clips for versioning. I will select a portion of my timeline, compound it, and then select the compound and duplicate to audition. Now I can step inside the compound, make my version changes, then step out. The duplicated compound clip is still pointing to the original renders. I can make 20 auditions of the compound clip and they will all keep the same original renders.

(Note that I could do this for an entire timeline as well. Compound and duplicate the audition. Doing all of my editing inside a compound could cause Inception-like brain pain however, and still feels like a workaround.)

I think for this process to be perfected, I’d like to see some things added.

I’d like to see a way to easily add a compound clip created in the timeline to the event browser. This is for safe keeping, should a compound audition clip accidently be deleted in the timeline, all of your versions won’t disappear.

I’d like to see something similar to FC7’s nesting ability. A collapsed clip in the timeline now lives in the event browser, and when I make changes to the nest in the event browser, all the iterations of the nested clip within other sequences are altered.

I think there should be a way to extend the ends of a compound clip while you are inside the timeline view of it. Right now we can see the limits of the clip, and where the non-visibile parts are greyed out. I’d like to grab the end line and be able to extend it, so when I step out of the clip my adjustments will be visible in the timeline.

This is the big one: As far as exporting, when I’m inside a compound clip, why can’t that export just reference the compound clip or regular clip I’ve got open in timeline view, instead of exporting the entire project? I think this would solve many people’s complaints about exporting just a section.

Now add to that the ability to batch export, either clips or compounds in the event browser, or projects, and we’d be a little closer to the flexibility we all enjoyed in FC7.

But really, what’s the problem with just giving us the ability to export a portion of the timeline? Honestly! What’s with that? How difficult could it be to give us a way to define a “play range”? Something so simple would make so many of us so very happy!

Back to the idea of versioning by compounding the entire timeline… couldn’t FCPX just give us a versioning option for our single project? Instead of duplicating our project, couldn’t we hit a button to save a version, sort of like opening time machine. I’d much rather have one timeline with stored states, than several copies of the projects. When I share a project, it could automatically store that state as a version, then I could always go back and see what I sent out.

And while I’m on the subject… what about giving us our vault back?

———
Don’t live your life in a secondary storyline.

Mark Morache
FCPX/FCP7/Xpri/Avid
Evening Magazine,Seattle, WA
https://fcpx.wordpress.com