[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Adobe has shown again that they have a lot of commitment in bringing users the features they want.

And if Adobe can bring cDNG support, Apple should too. Why transcode, if you could just import? The native RED support in FCPX made our lives a lot easier…

Now let’s just hope Apple has a lot to show with their big FCPX update. It’s been a year since there was a big feature update, and it’s been more then 2 years since FCPX’s release. I really hope they don’t dissapoint. The bad reputation FCPX had at the start is slowly fading away, and Adobe got a lot of customers against them with their renting options being the only one going further. Apple should really take advantage of that.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Hi Walter,

I’m sure it would have its own sets of challenges.

But that was something that was hinted at exactly with the ‘Guard’ system that Alex found out in the underlying code of FCPX, in an early stage:

https://blog.alex4d.com/2011/07/18/secret-fcpx-xml-multi-user-editing/

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

1 year since the last feature update, and 2 years since inception.

2 years were the intervals of big FCP-Final Cut Studio releases. Very interested to see what happens.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

It would be really awesome if FCPX had those things. Some of those being a case of ‘finally’ having them (a decent audio mixer), and in some cases hopefully being ahead of the curve (the whole guards and collaboration thing).

I have a long wish-list, with a lot of small things, but if FCPX 10.1 would have the things Alex outlined in his blog post, I think FCPX would have a very bright future in the industry.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Did you first make .RMD’s before importing your RED material in FCPX?

It’s this RMD file which you should make BEFORE importing your R3D’s in FCPX, that makes changes in REDCINE X appear in FCPX (and vice versa).

WeMakeMovies, Sam Mestmann, has great tutorials about working with R3D material in FCPX.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

We can’t use that because we need all the layers at the same time, with picture-in-pictures.

Multicam is more if you switch between angles, what we don’t need, and in the beginning we thought about using it, but we decided not to after some tests.

Well, we get by now, but we still have to do extra steps that we didn’t need to do in 7. And I just think X is limited in TC options. Not having seperate readers and generator, filters. Not being able to copy and paste into the dashboard. Etc.

That being said, working with compound clips DOES give us extra advantages too, so it’s not all bad, and I’m glad with our switch to X, but there are definately things X can do better that it doesn’t do now.
It’s not because I love X and switched to it -as well as let a complete company where I did freelance work switch to it with my reputation on the line – that I can’t be critical of some areas where I think they can do better.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

You have a timecode generator in FCPX, but it reads the timecode of a timeline.

You don’t have a timecode overlay like in 7, where you could see for instance, if you paused, all the timecodes of the clips in the timeline, so you could see if they were in sync or not.

I could give the details about why I would need this, but we already discussed this in a thread about TC options in X. It has to do with editing images from medical monitors, where it’s not always easy to see if something is in sync or not.

We have a work-around, namely, working inside compound clips first. This allows us to put for instance, 6 layers of images on top of each other, all in picture in picture, and all with their own timecode generator on it and their own label. It works, and to X’s credit, it can play all these 6 compound clips at the same time, all with an unrendered timecode generator on it.
It works great in that we can give, trough the timecode generator, each image it’s own label, use it trough the complete editing stage, and just before export, just go trough the compound clips, put the timecode generators on invisible with a fast V click, and just export. If we need it again to check stuff, just click V trough the compounds again, and it updates in every project again.
It’s a work-around but it works, and it has its benefits. And for the amount of clips we have, it doesn’t add that much extra work.
We could also put it in the Event Browser on the clips themselves, by Opening them in their own timeline (without compounding), but then I’ve noticed, for every clip in the timeline (if you work with 6 hour clips, which you use small portions of in a 40-minute timeline), you have to open EVERY clip in the timeline again in its each timeline, and remove the Timecode GEnerator. With Compounds, we just remove them on the master clips in the Event Browser, and it ripples trough in all the edits. Very handy.

Again, I can give the complete details about why I would need this, but I already did in another thread, and it’s a pretty long explanation. Point being is: X’s options with timecode really could be better. Out the top of my head, it would be great to have a timecode overlay canvas like we had in 7, or maybe as a hud, I don’t know. It would be great to be able to COPY and PASTE timecode in the Dashboard. It would be great to be able to give clips a second timecode without compounding them first. It would be nice to have a timecode reader and a timecode generator. And AUX timecode.
So, yes, I think the TC options in X could use some extra work and features.

My complaints don’t have that much to do with the magnetic timeline, which for certain work is great, and for other work we just work-around it by putting clips as connected clips in the timeline. Works.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Hi Bill,

as long as Apple does not provide us with a TC overlay in X like we had in 7, at our company we are ‘forced’ to use all sources in Compound Clips. For our kind of editing, there really is no other way, except maybe first indeed rendering them out completely again with a different timecode.

We don’t have THAT many clips generally in an Event for a given project, and it works okay for us. It has its advantages and disadvantages (more advantages then disadvantages, X having a modern render engine helps). But all this compounding or putting clips in a seperate projects, all because of limited timecode stuff, is exactly the reason why I’ve been sending feedback to Apple for over a year to talk about more and better display options for timecode in X.
And it’s really something we *need*. Untill then, for a lot of our projects, we first have to put everything in seperate compound clips.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

“Still doesn’t negate the gripe that it shouldn’t be in there or should be turn on/off-able. Why should I have to a) add another action to a process that shouldn’t be forced and b) clutter up my timeline with extra expanded elements, I like it nice and neat so I can see what is going on.

Auto cross fade, on/off.

In addition it appears that when I subsequently add a new clip it doesn’t come in expanded, so I need to do that again. And again. And again….”

Well, you do make some good points. The thing about adding a new clip that doesn’t come in expanded, also drives me nuts. This is easily to do by Apple: once you choose ‘Expand ALL”, every new clip should come in expanded. It’s that simple. They actually made it more like Premiere was before, and that drove me nuts. I sent feedback to Apple a couple of times about this.

I don’t think it’s wrong that it’s automatically there, but it would be nice if there would be seperate shortcuts, or an on/off toggle for it.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

https://www.fcptalent.com/logic-pro-x-dialog-box-refers-to-something-fcpx-doesnt-do-yet-hints-at-updated-fcpx/