[Nick Ring]

One of the challenges of FCP is that it is different enough in its approach to editing that trying to walk through the same steps is not the solution. It’s about identifying the goal and then the path to that goal.

It looks like your initial question is about performing a 3-point edit (“do a mark in / mark out and then insert / overwrite edit”). That is doable in FCP, but because it is clip-focused rather than track-focused the steps are different.

Here’s the section of the FCP documentation on 3-point edits. Here’s a clip from a Ripple Training video tutorial on 3-point editing.

I think the biggest challenge in grokking FCP is that thinks about clips’ relationships to each other rather than to absolute time and how that reshapes the approach to editing. Tracks are pretty essential for working in relation to time, but less so when the relationship dynamic changes.

[Nick Ring]

The guys at Ripple Training had a MacBreak Studio video (MBS 485: Exporting without Re-encoding in Compressor (youtube link)) about updating chapter marker info without having to re-encode. The trick is selecting “Enable video pass-through” in the inspector in Compressor. I imagine this could work with other video metadata, but I haven’t tested it myself.

Nick

[Nick Ring]

I was actually looking just yesterday for something like this. I have someone who is working on a documentary piece and he logged his footage by hand to paper. I am thinking getting that into a spreadsheet, then FCPX somehow. There are various ways of going from FCPX XML to CSV like Producer’s Best Friend, but I want to go the other way.

I found Shot Notes X which seems to do what we want. There’s also Lumberjack which, while primarily designed for on-set logging, can also be used for post-production logging.

I haven’t tried either yet, but that’s the next step. Unfortunately Shot Notes X is only through the Mac App Store, so there’s no trial available. Lumberjack does have a trial option.

-nick

[Nick Ring]

I haven’t tested it yet, but this line in the Motion 5.4 release notes caught my eye:

Easily convert between a Motion project, Final Cut Pro generator, Final Cut Pro title, Final Cut Pro effect, or Final Cut Pro transition at any time

That’s a really useful option I’ve been wanting since the beginning. In reality, I won’t use it that much, but having the option is great and one I’m glad to see in the program.

[Nick Ring]

“It would be nice if you could just “skim” and edit projects in the browser instead of making compounds, not a big time saving but it would be a slightly more elegant solution. I sent that as a feature request a while ago”

Definitely a feature I miss from the “olden days” of FCPX before they combined projects and events into libraries. You could skim through the projects without opening them. Would love to see this come back in the current structure.

-nick

[Nick Ring]

“Hire an intern.”

Ha! Yes, that’s actually part of my plan as I have a couple available. I want to use the intern most effectively.

[Nick Ring]

I’m excited to see that feature. I also bought the plugin on sale from MotionVFX. I like them and I’m sorry they got Sherlocked on this one, but it’s good to see a native version. Perhaps it can be improved upon by third-party vendors.

[Nick Ring]

sub-rant: Telepromoter software is the bane of my existence. Is there Mac-based teleprompter software that you actually like?

[Nick Ring]

Rumor mill seems to suggest that new macs will not be at the September 7th event, but quite possibly in October…conveniently just outside your window.

[Nick Ring]

Are you having the problem just with Blu-ray or with DVDs as well? Does it happen both when burning a disc and when saving an image file?

The 68% issue is a flag. Googling this issues suggests that a number of other people encounter problems around that point as well. Apple has a support document pointing out that time. I also found a thread from a couple of years ago on FCP.co that mentions that time as well. The last comment in that thread notes:

The 66% part sounds like the handoff to the embedded app, Create Disk was fumbled.

I had thought the most recent FCP X update was supposed to have addressed a number of Blu Ray encoding and disk creation problems. Have you updated to 10,1,3 yet?

From other forums, I recall that many users with problems were those who had long videos. If you have updated and it still doesn’t work, see if you can get a short section to encode and burn. (To save the expense of a test disk, I’d save it to hard drive to make a disk image.)

Not sure if that helps any, but perhaps points in some direction.