WinstonCely
Second Unit
- Joined
- May 17, 2010
- Messages
- 273
- Real Name
- Winston Cely
Well, I just got finished editing 5 videos in FCPX. Very basic stuff, 99% still images in 4:3 SD format. I created my Event on an external FW 400 drive. Not only was that the drive I was given with the material, but figuring that I was working in 4:3 SD with still images, I'd have more than enough power to use FW 400 without transferring to my faster eSATA drives. I'm working on a MacBookPro 17" i7 with only 4 GB of RAM, 10.7.3, and latest version of FCPX (10.0.3). The final output are QuickTime files.
I'm not totally impressed with the speed, and I think I've got two things to blame for it: the low RAM, and the FW 400. I had created a short demo reel of my stuff for another project I was doing, where all the footage was on my internal HDD, and it ran faster than having the material on the FW 400 drive. Again, I think this is due to the limits of FW 400 and the low amount of RAM. What I'd like to do is double my RAM, and see if that gives any marked improvement in performance while still using the FW 400. Then do a test were the material is on my eSATA drive.
As far as editing is concerned, it was a breeze. In fact, I love that using the keyboard arrows, I can move my play head to three different spots of a transition automatically: the first frame of the transition, the middle of the transition, and the final frame of the transition. This is very helpful in doing compositional work in FCPX, like I was, in giving a "Ken Burns" effect to animating still images and making sure they move all the way through a transition.
This is no news to anyone, but the one thing I HATE that's missing in FCPX is a simple drop shadow function. It's beyond me why this is missing, especially when looking at how similar the FCPX layout is when compared to Motion. Everything in Motion (just about) has a simple drop shadow function, so why not FCPX. I actually had to grab a free filter (http://www.rippletraining.com/using-the-rt-drop-shadow-in-final-cut-pro-x.html) in order to put a drop shadow on a few elements.
Other than the drop shadow the edit went smoothly.
I'm not totally impressed with the speed, and I think I've got two things to blame for it: the low RAM, and the FW 400. I had created a short demo reel of my stuff for another project I was doing, where all the footage was on my internal HDD, and it ran faster than having the material on the FW 400 drive. Again, I think this is due to the limits of FW 400 and the low amount of RAM. What I'd like to do is double my RAM, and see if that gives any marked improvement in performance while still using the FW 400. Then do a test were the material is on my eSATA drive.
As far as editing is concerned, it was a breeze. In fact, I love that using the keyboard arrows, I can move my play head to three different spots of a transition automatically: the first frame of the transition, the middle of the transition, and the final frame of the transition. This is very helpful in doing compositional work in FCPX, like I was, in giving a "Ken Burns" effect to animating still images and making sure they move all the way through a transition.
This is no news to anyone, but the one thing I HATE that's missing in FCPX is a simple drop shadow function. It's beyond me why this is missing, especially when looking at how similar the FCPX layout is when compared to Motion. Everything in Motion (just about) has a simple drop shadow function, so why not FCPX. I actually had to grab a free filter (http://www.rippletraining.com/using-the-rt-drop-shadow-in-final-cut-pro-x.html) in order to put a drop shadow on a few elements.
Other than the drop shadow the edit went smoothly.
