FCP X

[gotenks794]

http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/

Not sure whether to buy or pass just yet....any thoughts, Kio? From looking at the screenshots I must say it looks watered down. It reminds me of what they did to iMovie when they wen't from the '06 to the '10 version. Frankly I'm concerned.

[McDirty]

I would definitely wait, maybe not even consider buying at all, because FCPX has been getting a lot of complaints from users with a 2/5 star average rating. A lot of the common complaints that I hear is that there's little control with the timeline and little to no flexibility.

Professional editors also need to stay away from it for now. Here's something that might interest FCP users as to why we shouldn't use FCPX:
http://library.creativecow.net/harringt ... rdi/FCPX/1

[McDirty]

I should probably also mention, I'm not trying to bash FCPX btw. It's a good chance that a lot of the missing features that are making everyone angsty will be implemented upon later releases. For now, the safest bet would probably to just wait and view from the sidelines concerning FCPX.

[Kira_Douji]

After messing around with it for a bit I think our biggest concerns (outside of the usual encoding/re-encoding/transcoding blagh) is the timeline. The reasons behind the 2/5 star ratings on the Mac App store have approximately zero to do with AMV creation. (Multicam support, output to non-computer-monitors, export to tape, EDL, OMF, XML exporting, to name a few). No, it's the whole Magnetic Timeline bit that's really kind of difficult to work with. That having been said, it's entirely possible it's just a steep learning curve.

On the plus side - this thing FLIES. Not having to render is quite sexy and the program is still much better than iMovie, imho. Still being used to Premiere Pro, however... the adjustment period looks to be long.

My two cents,
Kira

[rubyeye]

I've been following up on the new FCPX, because we've been talking about upgrading to using it for our company. But everything I've been listening, reading and watching, has not been encouraging. It really is a version 1 release and most definitely NOT designed for "professional" editing suites. There's a lot it can't do (yet) and people looking to using it have to completely re-train their entire approach to editing.

The architecture looks quite capable of editing really simple videos (or AMVs), however the workflow is entirely different and would require a steep learning curve to figure out. I was curious about how it could handle creating AMVs, but it feels more likely a "sit & wait" approach would be best before jumping on this application.

[Kira_Douji]

Yeah, I think for professionals the broad consensus is "Oh HELL no" ;P

For AMVs though it really is very smooth - and certainly has all the bells and whistles needed. I made a brief sequence in it for a few hours last night and still more or less come away with the magnetic timeline being the weirdest part. Ah well, I'll just keep playing with it ^,^

[Kira_Douji]

So I took some pictures of the layout with some layered footage, etc...

http://nivian.net/misc/No%20Pics.PNG
and
http://nivian.net/misc/Thumbnailview.PNG

After working with it for a while, you DO get used to the timeline - and it's certainly useful that it moves things out of the way for you without affecting your timing. So far it's been pretty easy to work with... oh and my favorite part? COMPLETELY CUSTOMIZABLE KEYBINDINGS (that you can also export and take with you). So yeah... FCPX + Razer Naga = what the heck is my left hand for?

Also, much more stable than Premiere Pro on this machine. (1y/o iMac 27")

That having been said, creating transitions is WEIRD. I still haven't quite figured it out. (Manual opacity changes for crossfades FTW?)

Just updating as I go.

- Kira

[gotenks794]

I've never liked the transitions in Final Cut (I only have express but I'm sure the dynamic is nearly the same).. so I've always manually changed the opacity for fades

Can you explain like what the "magnetic timeline" thing does? It sounds to me (just from the name itself) that it like "snaps" clips into the place it thinks they belong, and that sounds concerning to me.

[Kira_Douji]

Yeah, that was part of my problem initially - I was afraid of where it would drop instead of just letting the clip drop and adjusting it. You can think of it as essentially making however many tracks you need on the fly. It means that if you go back to a section and, say, want to extend a clip for a crossfade you actually just pull the edge of the clip over first and THEN move it up a level. And actually, most of the time it'll move the clip for you, because it can pretty much figure out that you're trying to overlap them.

Speeding up and Slowing down a clip is a little awkward - first you have to hit that curving arrow next to the magic wand and give it an arbitrary x2/4/etc... one way or the other and then you can fine-tune the speed on the clip itself. I figure once I find a keyboard command to do this, I'll be gtg. Apparently you can just cmd + R to change a clip's speed. lol!

I did manage to figure out how to get the dang transitions working, though! (For example, applying a page turn affect from one clip to another!) You have to select the clips together, right click on one and "Create Storyboard", then just click on the edge you want the transition on and hit cmd + t. This is your basic crossfade. Then you drag whichever transition you want over into the transition block and make adjustments. Why all clips aren't naturally considered to be on the same storyboard, I haven't the faintest, but keep in mind this could still be user error

Hope that helps!

- Kira

[gotenks794]

What's your process for getting footage into it? Everything I throw at it is ending up with just noise..