[Nick Meyers]

Walter is a mod at the FCP forum, which is where i think this post started out.
nm

[Nick Meyers]

Hi JIm.

my iMac is 2.4G intel core2 duo
with 4G of RAM

i cut 2 features on it in ’08 with FCP6,
(one a doc, one a drama)
now running FCP7 just fine.

i don’t use Color, and have dipped into Motion for a bit of slo-mo.

i used to teach FCP (6, i think) on the old white iMacs, and was very impressed with their performance.
that’s what made me get one.

i’d definitely get some more RAM if i were you. don’t get it from Apple, they charge like wounded bulls!

check out the FCP7 specs here:
https://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/specs/

storage i get depending on the job. generally get new drives for new jobs.

the doc had 4x1TB LaCies hanging off it (non-raided, media was DV captured from HDV)
got another raided 1TB for the finishing media which was all Prores.
plaid that out to tape quite a few times over FW800 no worries.

the drama was all DV media with a 25:1 ratio. 1TB did the trick,
plus another drive i think for exports.

generally i work with an assistant on a second system who has a duplicate set of the media.

oh, yes:
Walter Biscardi, a mod here, has quite a few iMacs in his studio, i beleive
running HD media over an ethernet network

cheers,
nick

[Nick Meyers]

i’ve got FCP on a THREE year old iMac (the silver ones, not the white ones)
and it works a charm.

do your iMac specs mean you CAN’T run FCP?

nick

[Nick Meyers]

hey, Trevor,
nice to meed a fellow Macro user!

you need to get the clip to open into the Viewer widow,
from there, you can open up the Modify > Timecode window.

you’ll need to assigns Modify > Timecode a shortcut.
in the Customise Keyboard window this command is (slightly confusingly) just called “Timecode”

once you get that window open you DO need to program a mouse click on the “Source Reel” check-box
otherwise the Reel field is non-enterable.

if this is not possible with Butler, or if you prefer to work with Keystrokes only (i do with QuicKeys)
then you should PRE-ENTER a bogus reel# into all your clips that don’t have one.

do this by sorting the clips i the Browser by reel. (or maybe using the search tool in the browser?)
find al the clips with no reel.
enter you bogus reel name (such as NO REEL) to one clip,
then right click in the reel column for all the others and choose the new NO REEL name.

if you do this, then the Reel field will be accessible in the Modify > Timecode window.
you need to Shift Tab back to it from the TC feld.

cheers,
nick

[Nick Meyers]

for nudging, i use the “Chicken beak” keys <+>,
as Jeremy points out you can also use the square bracket kets [ + ]

mostly, i just enter a desired value with the numbber key:
do i want to ad four frames? then +4 will do it

all these approaches will nudge any selected item in the timeline,
edit points, or whole clips,
it’ll move the clips, or if you have the slip or slide tools activated, slip or slide them.

the bad news is you CAN’T slip or slide clips in the Trim Window like you can in avid.
also you cant Slip or slide a RANGE of clips like you can in avid.
Slipping a range will slip the contents of each clip, sliding a rang does stuff so whacky i haven’t really figured it out yet.

when trimming in the Timeline, i generally summon the ripple tool, (rr)
especially when i’m doing a-symmetrical trimming,

but for trimming a simple assembly, you can just select the edit
by clicking on it or hitting V (Which will select any nearest edit point)
then using the U key to toggle which side of the edit you are trimming.

cheers,
nick

[Nick Meyers]

you might want to take a look at some noise reduction.
i use the NEAT VIDEO plug-in for FCP.
https://www.neatvideo.com/index.html
works great.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

VIDEO: you can also cut your frame rate in half

AUDIO: as Olin says, dont forget to compress your audio.
make it mono,
and experiment with quality

nick

[Nick Meyers]

i don’t use the FCP trim window that much, as you have most of the same functionality in the timeline.

i find i use it most on drama projects,
or if i need to to actually see an extension,
(like if i’m curious about the next line of interview, or what happens next in the shot)

the FCP trim window doesn’t seem quite as slick as Avid’s to me.
i don’t use avid really, but when i was on it recently i could see how you can spend a lot of time in trim window.

one thing you’ll probably wan to do in FCP:
set the trim window to “Dynamic” that’ll mimic the Avid experience a bit more.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

this is a pretty old post, so maybe you’ve found some of the more recent ones.
the situation hasn’t changed much, but there are a couple of knows tricks.

1.
Match back to bin only works if your timeline clip and browser clip are in the SAME PROJECT
this will NOT work between projects, so you cant have rushes in one project, and active edit sequences in another

2.
Copying a bin of master clips PLUS a sequence containing affiliates of the same clips from one FCP project to another will break the Master Affiliate relationship.
the way to do it is to copy clips and sequences separately.
copy/paste the clips, copy/paste the sequences (doesn’t matter which order)

same goes for Multiclips and Clips.
the last feature i worked on with multclips, i had to copy A: the clips, B the multiclips and C the rushes sequences across from the assistant project to my project each day as 3 separate operations.

hope that helps somewhat.
nick

[Nick Meyers]

Wow, gold cigar material!

nifty tool David.

nick