FCP X

[gotenks794]

Does anyone know how I could do an uninstall/reinstall of the App? Do I just delete it and then re-download it? That's my last resort at this point. Everything I throw at it (even the tried and true DV file) is giving me a blank screen on playback, chunk of noise on pause. Even the video generators are doing it. When I bring something to the timeline, it renders and makes thumbnails, but has the same problem. I think I could have a hardware issue, but I'm not sure why that'd be affecting simple playback. The only other thing I could think of would be an issue with Perian or some other codec that I have plugged into Quicktime, but I'm not sure exactly how I'd fix that at this point. I foresee that a very long telephone conversation with Apple Support is in my future.

[Kira_Douji]

Create another user and see if it does the same thing.

[gotenks794]

Create another user and see if it does the same thing.

It did the same thing

[Kira_Douji]

Ick. Okay. Well to uninstall, the usual method - dragging the app to the trash. You'll want to go through and pick up all the plists too, of course, and likely remove the folders it puts in Movies. Looks like there's a folder in User>Library>Application Support... And some files with Final Cut in the name in User>Library>Preferences>ByHost that you'll probably want to get rid of. After you delete all that, you'll probably want to restart before installing again.

I have Perian and a couple other things too... so while I suspect things aren't playing nice I doubt that's the sort.

Have you tried applying the ProKit 7 update? Or running software update at all after Final Cut was loaded? The system should recognize that you have other things to download after the FCPX install. I also updated to 10.6.8 and have seen ZERO issues - and the update was mainly for graphics/videos/FCPX etc...

Hope some of that helps!

[McDirty]

I'm curious what happens when you recode it and reimport...

It seems to fix the problem. Something to mention though, apparently it wasn't that FCPX didn't like the entire file, it was only one little segment of that file that seemed to cause the entire sequence to black out. All other segments of the file seemed to play ok. Weird.

I've found it easier to clip exactly where I want before I hit the timeline. Select the clip, then use the left and right arrow to move frame by frame (shift+arrow goes faster!), hit "i" for the beginning, "o" for the end and drag it on down. Frame perfect grabs

Also, you can tell FCPX not to both with the audio in the clips too - in your screenshot the buttons are right above your marker! Just hit the "Give me more options" triangle on the right of that group of three buttons and you'll be about to select "video only". (This button is also just to the left of your blue arrow "tools" button).

Once again the trimming takes a little time getting used to, but I did finally get it where I can frame it to exactly where I want it. Thanks.
Those Insert Tools options you mentioned to the left of the cursor are also very neat.

I really really like the Transition Editor in FCPX. When you double click a transition on the time line, it'll open up a Transition Timeline below, which allows you to properly fix your in and out points for your A/B clips. Pretty handy, I wish they had it in FCP7. Although, I've ran into some problems adding transitions between clips sometimes, where the cursor would flicker back and forth from the head of the clip to the tail, as if it can't decide where to put the transition. Really annoying.
I'm very happy with how they handled speed control on this.

I find FCPX has a lot of missing elements that were vital in previous FCPs, but apparently, the more I use this app, the more I like it. I just hope Apple expands this so it can one day suit professional video editors.

[Kira_Douji]

Okay, I LOVE compound clips.

This is the same project as this.



When you finish a section, you no longer have to draw the thumbnails forever!

- Kira

[McDirty]

Okay, I LOVE compound clips.

This is the same project as this.



When you finish a section, you no longer have to draw the thumbnails forever!

- Kira

It's definitely convenient in this version. For now, it would have to do for people who are trying to do basic multi-cam editing until Apple adds the feature back in.

I've been experimenting with titles and closed captioning. Apparently, I've been getting some weird stuff going on. Take this for example:
Screenshot

This is using the Fade title feature. Maybe FCPX can't handle so many overlaps of text, but for some reason I keep getting the very end of the sentence popping in when it's not suppose to be there yet. Even after render, the titles don't fade in properly. This only occurs though when I get a lot of titles mixed in the timeline and when some overlap each other. I also can't find anywhere where I can import or export SRT files. This maybe one of the missing features in this version.

[Kira_Douji]

I haven't really attempted any subtitles that way, so you're ahead of me there. I've had two text sequences, though, and those titles did well enough... I'll try some out on my end and get back to you!

As for the rest, all I have to say is this:


1080p makes me want more RAM. T_T

- Just thought of this - Have you checked to see if any of that is done in compressor?

[McDirty]

I just rendered a 5 min 720p vid from both FCPX and Compressor for a test. Both were rendered with ProRes 422 and the two took the same amount of time 5min.
Processing for FCPX render:


Processing for Compressor render:


Apparently this Compressor is a lot more stable than the version in Final Cut Studio bundle, but I was never a Compressor fan to begin with.
Compressor still has some issues with x264 and takes 1 hour too render the same vid into x264! This for both rendering straight from the timeline and rendering a ProRes file. The quality and size ratio ends up being crap anyways.
The time it takes to render out of FCPX and throw it into MPEGStreamClip for x264 only takes 10min with a lot better compression ratio.

[Kira_Douji]

You took the words right out of my mouth on Compressor.

On the other hand, that picture was just me in FCPX + a web browser.