Good assessment. Thanks.

Oliver

Some thoughts on this past week’s financial news.

https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2023/05/27/the-future-of-avid/

Oliver

My rather lengthy thoughts on the topic 🙂

https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2023/05/11/final-cut-pro-logic-pro-ipad-oh-my/

Oliver

LOL. Hi Michael. Obviously perspectives are different depending on which part of the globe one lives on. My general point was that NLEs have hit a level of maturity. Everyone is waiting for “the next big thing” in the same way as Apple has struggled with going past the iPhone phenomenon.

NLEs are mature products and people have largely settled into…

Read more

“has the NLE grown up to a point where it is no longer interesting?”

Good question. I think that may be the case. NLEs now seem to fit into silos based on type of product – social, corporate, film, TV, hobby. Blackmagic is trying to be all things to all users in Resolve. I don’t really think that’s workable if it weren’t for the low cost. And that…

Read more

A look at the NAB Show 2023.

https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2023/04/22/impressions-of-nab-2023/

Oliver

All 4 parts of this interview have now been posted.

Part 2 added.

https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2023/01/08/a-conversation-with-walter-murch-part-2/

If you are interested in film editing history, here’s my interview with Walter Murch from last October. The full interview is split into 4 parts. This is part 1.

https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2023/01/01/a-conversation-with-walter-murch-part-1/

This will continue each week during January.

Oliver

PS: This FCP workflow guide by Knut Hake (German feature film editor) may be helpful.

https://knuthake.notion.site/Final-Cut-Pro-Workflow-for-feature-films-8ba47cb0860049eebca48e4317ba2c09

There are actually a few considerations here. Are you going to be finishing the film in FCP or is this just the creative (“offline”) edit? If the latter, then how is the finishing going to be handled? Resolve or other?

Then, as far as the footage, is this ARRIRAW or a flavor of DNxHR or ProRes? ARRIRAW is very taxing and will need to be transcoded…

Read more

I agree that native would be nice. However, we haven’t seen Hocking’s solution in the wild yet. So I’m not sure this doesn’t require transcoding as well. Or am I wrong on that?

While it’s nice to have options, you have been able to bring BRAW into FCP (with transcoding) for a while now.

https://fcp.co/final-cut-pro/news/2455-color-finale-transcoder-braw-arriraw-dng-and-cinemadng-into-fcp

The Resolve iPad Pro press release:

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/release/20221020-02

FYI – Also, you can set the location for downloading files in the web browser that you are using. Each browser lets you specify the location in that browser’s preferences. I think it’s there or in your Mac prefs that you can choose download-only or download and open.

Unfortunately all of BMD’s keyboards and control surfaces only work with Resolve. However the larger Editor Keyboard does work as a QWERTY keyboard for typing outside of Resolve.

A look at the DaVinci Resolve Speed Editor keyboard.

https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2022/10/13/davinci-resolve-speed-editor/

Here’s my review of Colourlab Ai – an artificial grading approach that works especially well with FCP.

https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2022/09/28/colourlab-ai/

Cheers,

Oliver

Thanks for your comments. Our market (cen Fla) is still largely Adobe and I don’t see that changing. There are a few folks dabbling with Resolve and also a few with FCP. Like you, I haven’t run across ProRes RAW yet, but I have gotten BRAW files. Purely from an editorial side I still give Premiere the edge for now, but of course, that gets down to…

Read more

My review of Resolve 18

https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2022/09/01/will-davinci-resolve-18-get-you-to-switch/

“Let alone Apple’s claim that you could NOT import your FCP 7 projects into FCP X, but low and behold, within a couple months someone in the community put out a little $5 add on that allowed you to do just that.”

I think you might be mis-remembering. FCPX had and still has the ability to exchange FCPXML files. Intelligent Assistance was able to c…

Read more

I really like the Accusonus plug-ins, so I’m sorry to see this change. However, I also find that third-party plug-ins often work poorly in FCP. The same plug-ins that have issues in FCP are perfectly fine in Premiere Pro or any DAW, including Logic Pro. As far as just noise reduction, I’m also a fan of Klevgrand’s Brusfi.

Accusonus has announced a partnership with Meta that changes the direction of their company. As such, Accusonus products are being sunset and are no longer available for sale. This is effective as of March 4, 2022 (yesterday).

Existing customers can continue to use the audio plug-ins, but technical support will end early next year. Make sure you…

Read more

Accusonus has announced a partnership with Meta that changes the direction of their company. As such, Accusonus products are being sunset and are no longer available for sale. This is effective as of March 4, 2022 (yesterday).

Existing customers can continue to use the audio plug-ins, but technical support will end early next year. Make sure you…

Read more

Photoshop 23.0.2 macOS 11.6.1

Newest Photoshop no longer recognizes or can edit .bmap fonts. These worked in the prior versions. .otf and .ttf fonts are fine. If I open a .psd file with text in a .bmap font family (like FSJubilat) it will replace the font if you try to edit it. This font is valid under Font Book and these same .psd files can be…

Read more

Unless I’m mistaken, the OP wants to “flatten” the multicam on the edited timeline. Instead of a group of clips in a multicam container, you only have the one camera clip used for each cut. All unused clips are gone and thus the multicam is “broken apart.” This would be similar to breaking apart a compound clip, leaving you with the individual…

Read more

It’s not possible to break apart multicam clips in Final Cut. Give feedback to Apple, because other NLEs are able to do this.

Thanks!

Good plan. You can always add external drives.

What do you want to store and is this active storage or simply for long-term archiving? How much media? What sort of internet connection do you have?

In theory spinning drives have better longevity than SSDs. But it’s really just a theoretical issue and it’s unlikely you’ll encounter any issues. For now, your G-Tech TB2 drives should be just fine. For my home system, I’m using Samsung T7 2TB drives for active editing projects. These are fast and work well with 1080 and 4K media, When a project…

Read more

With all due respect, if you are struggling to pay for MC, then you shouldn’t be using it anyway. OTOH, if your workload is on projects where MC is expected or required, then Resolve – as powerful as it is – wouldn’t be acceptable.

Also an MC perpetual license lapsing doesn’t mean the software no longer works (like Adobe). It’s perfectly…

Read more

Here’s my interview with Knut Hake about editing Netflix’s “Blood Red Sky” using FCP.

Blood Red Sky – an Interview with FCP Editor Knut Hake

Oliver

Sorry. No specific experiences there. What issues are you hearing about?

I used to run a mid-2014 15″ MBP with a Dell 27″. I could run the MBP open or closed. There’s some screen switching that occurs between the two modes, but it works. I’m not sure about two external screens, though.

I presume you mean that you don’t see them on the tracks in the timeline. If so, expand the height of the timeline track. Drag the line under the track name (A1, A2, etc) lower to enlarge the track height.

PS: Another option would be to consider one of the 21:9 Ultrawide 32″ displays (or larger) that are out there. Dell and HP both have options, as do others. They are more expensive. But, you’d really only need one, since the MBP size itself is still functional as a second screen. In fact, two side-by-side 27″ displays PLUS the MBP display might be…

Read more

These may require Thunderbolt. I’m presuming when you say USB-C, you mean the connector type and that electrically it’s either USB-C or Thunderbolt 3. In the US these LGs show up in the Apple Store on the regular website as an accessory. The 5K is actually the size you want, but it’s more expensive. The LGs through the LG website or on Amazon may…

Read more

I would suggest two of the 4K LG UltraFines from Apple. Not as big as you want, but they fit the budget and work properly with Apple’s color profiles. I’ve also had good luck with Dell high-res 27″ displays, but you’ll need adapters or a dock to make them work.

I see. Yes, two HDMIs are not that common in a single devise.

Why not simply replace the UltraStudio Monitor with the UltraStudio HD Mini? This will give you simultaneous SDI and HDMI outputs. Seems like that would be a lot less hassle.

I can’t answer the question about the 64X; however, our facility has five 2017 iMac Pros (10-core, 64GB RAM, Vega 64 16GB). We bought them right when that Mac was introduced. These machines are workhorses and perform well with the Adobe apps, Resolve, Media Composer, FCP, etc.

Avid Media Composer is currently not compatible with M1 Macs.

avid.secure.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/Download/Pro-Tools-2021-6-Release-Info

You can go through support and convert your dongle to a software license key. You will need to have the actual dongle’s serial number handy. This is listed in the paperwork or on the DVD case sticker. Once converted, both *should* be active from then on. So don’t give away or sell your dongle, since it’s still licensed to you.

Wait, actually I think you can. Select the first transition. They Shift+select the others. Make sure that the transitions are highlighted/selected, not the cut points. Then right-click and “Set Transition Duration” and enter the value. You do have to Shift+select one each one to get a group, but after that it’s a global change to the selected…

Read more

I don’t think there’s a simple way to change them globally. When you hold down CMD (Mac) and drag up from the empty timeline area or at the end of the track and drag across only the track, you will select all of the cut points. You can apply a default audio transition.

Let’s say you set the default crossfade for 4 frames (Preferences > Timeline).…

Read more

SH – are you trying to select audio transitions that you’ve already applied? If so what are you trying to do – change the duration or something else?

When there is inconsistency between two dissolves, is the length of the two dissolves the same? Is it a cross-dissolve, film dissolve, or fade from black effect?

Build a stringout (timeline) of sync’ed selects and export a .xml for that sequence. Then give the editor the raw camera files and sound, plus the .xml file.

The bigger question I have – Why not just let the editor sync the project himself? That way he can organize it in a many that he is most comfortable with.

Michael – There are plenty of users who never use the integration. Frame is far more versatile when you don’t use the various NLE integrations, IMHO. So you can (and always have been able to) use Frame by itself, even if you never touched an NLE.