Any Final Cut Pro users here? - Page 5

Good start:

http://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/articles/587-the-top-ten-things-to-do-after-youve-bought-fcpx

The full Murch talk at Boston:
http://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/news/630-walter-murch-a-final-cut-pro-we-premiere-the-full-video-presentation-from-the-boston-supermeet

Starts around 35 minutes in discussing FCPX after discussing his history for a half hour first.

More from the Murch-ster:
http://www.macvideo.tv/editing/interviews/index.cfm?articleId=3316346&pagType=samecat

New version out today with Multicam support:

 

http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/31/apple-updates-final-cut-pro-x/

Broadcast monitoring is in as a beta feature.
http://www.loopinsight.com/2012/01/31/apple-updates-final-cut-pro-x-with-multicam-broadcast-monitoring/

More details:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2012/01/apple-issues-second-update-to-final-cut-pro-x-to-appease-video-pros.ars

http://help.apple.com/finalcutpro/mac/10.0.3/#ver23c764f1

http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/blog/2012/01/31/magic-bullet-looks-for-fcpx-now-available-and-50-off/

http://www.bosfcpug.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=337&Itemid=87

I did a quick 5 min test on taking an XML from 7 and going to X (app is called 7toX) and it works.... sorta. It did better than I thought, but not as well as I want it to.

Basically, it brings in the media, and creates compound clip of your sequence from 7. The compound clip was perfect! However, when I broke the compound clip apart, that's when I ran into trouble. Because the FCP7 sequence was a master sequence with multiple layers of graphics and titles, the resulting timeline looked jumbled up and out of order. From this, it looks like there will need to be prep-time before exporting your XML. In other words, create a "textless" sequence in 7 that has the bare minimum of your edit, and then export out your XML.

Of course, I am sure 7toX will get better at this as time goes by, and most people who used 7 are still using it so there's plenty of time to get it better. I'd just like to say that it certainly feels like Apple and the 3 party developers are doing their share to get X back up to a professional level as quickly as they can (despite what the nay sayers say).

EDIT: That's what I get for only spending 5 minutes on this! I went back and the sequence isn't jumbled up! It's actually pretty much in tact. The problems I see are transitions (most being converted to cross dissolves) the cropping and matte work I did in 7, and some Motion files that were in the sequence aren't showing what's in the Motion file. In other words, the fine tweaking is what's missing. It's not over everything, but almost everything.
Edited by DellaStMedia - 2/2/12 at 1:42pm

That's great to hear, please keep us posted on your thoughts!

THIS is more important to me:
http://www.larryjordan.biz/app_bin/wordpress/archives/1733

Looks like I can one button import all my iMovie work into FCPX! SWEET.

http://www.larryjordan.biz/understanding-more-about-blu-ray/

Eeeenteresting.

Also an interesting if complex technique that integrates Motion. Bit beyond me right now but may be of interest:
http://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/tutorials/723-customising-a-title-in-final-cut-pro-x-by-publishing-parameters-in-motion
Edited by Sam Posten - 2/6/12 at 5:30am

7 pros weigh in, some are coming around.
http://philipbloom.net/2012/02/07/fcpxeditors/

Lots of little gotchas with Multicam:
http://chrisfenwick.com/home/2012/2/26/fcpx-multicam-in-depth.html

Pros are coming around....
http://www.philiphodgetts.com/2012/03/final-cut-pro-x-do-the-features-tell-us-anything-about-the-target-market/

Neat:
http://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/news/760-reelpath-debut-two-final-cut-pro-x-plugins-on-the-mac-app-store-with-bounceit-and-springit

More good news:
http://www.dvinfo.net/article/post/five-ways-i-think-fcp-x-is-changing-editing-for-the-better.html

Another fairly positive review:
http://www.maclife.com/article/reviews/final_cut_pro_x_1003_review

It's funny... I've been doing a lot of work in FCP7 due to the company I'm working with right now, and I'm really starting to hate it. It feels clunky and slow, and I'm not talking slow in render time. I mean slow as in, it feels like I have to do so much to achieve so little.

If I were staying in the business, I'd use FCPX now as my go to editor.

You aren't alone Winston. TV guys are giving it a shot. Real world experience on a high budget 1/2 hour tv series:
http://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/articles/691-using-fcpx-on-long-format-broadcast-productions

Real world experience from filming the Iditarod, via the NJ FCP User's Group:
https://vimeo.com/39306986

That was a great video. I love the tips and well laid out pros and cons in a real world project.

Agreed, what I don't understand is why he didn't just put a cheap 8800 GT in his Mac Pro. It's the lack of a powerful GPU that is holding his box back, not the fact that it isn't an i7 and he should know better....

Right. I thought that was strange myself.

I've also noted that I have had slow downs on my MacBookPro i7. However, I'm wondering if it's because the simple projects I've been working are located on my internal hard drive, as opposed to an external hard drive. I know that's cardinal rule number one, to get the material off the internal drive, but from such small projects I've not even bothered. I'll have to run a test at some point when I slow down from work.

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.

4gig is not enough at all.

Not sure on the firewire i never used it...