FCPX - Syncing your HDSLR Footage

How to Sync DSLR Footage with Final Cut Pro X from Web Video Chefs on Vimeo.

FCP X - Resources

This “Resource Guide” was created in 2011, back when we all hated Final Cut Pro X. Since then, a lot has happened. Here is a link to my 2013 Resource Guide. Some of these are good to. You also may want to check out our new podcast. FCPX Grill is a weekly discussion with video and film editors and content producers who have chosen to use Final Cut Pro X in their workflow. Certainly some of what you’ll find on this page is still of great use, but the links on the 2013 Resource Guide are more up to date.

One thing i for certain about Apple’s Final Cut Pro X, it’s gonna be good for the tutorial community.  I’m getting tweets and emails and calls oh my, all from people asking what my thoughts are. In short… its too earlyto say, although I’ve had 4 crashes in the first afternoon of diddling it, not a good sign.

I will say, there are some GREAT resources that I recommend people look into, I myself have downloaded and am using these in my own exploration of the app.

First would be Philip Hodgetts blog. Here is answers a bunch of questions. He also has a “for pay PDF” for 5 bucks that is a great read. I bought it, you should too.

Mark Spenser and Steve Martin at Ripple training have already done a couple dozen videos on FCPX and the new Motion. It works really cool, You pony up 40 bucks and they download the videos right into your iTunes. You can also play them on your iPad if you’re into that sort of craziness. 

Steve Martin also has published a great free resource on the old kenstone.net page. This article is really good, I’ve read it and took a lot away from it.

Digital Rebellion has an article, “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly”. A great breakdown of some of the issues with FCPX. 

David Pogue has a great rundown on the “missing features” in FCPX. A very impressive run down from a tech writer who apparently either, knows a crap load about video editing or he is being feed talking points by Apple. There is a uncredited quote from Walter Biscardi’s write up on FCPX. It really seems like the Apple Hype machine got to Pogue and said, “GET THIS INFO OUT ASAP!!”

Richard Harrington has a great post on his blog where he goes thru Pogue’s rundown step by step. Richard is one of the most well studied instructors on the planet and really knows his stuff. This article is WELL WORTH going thru.

Jeffrey Harrell has a great recap of his frustrations with file management after trying to get started in FCPX. Very funny look at the comic nature of some of the decisions that came out of Cupertino.

DVCreators.net has a great article by Josh Mellicker, who was one of the first ‘outside people’ to put his paws on FCP back in the early days. He also is a friend/collegue/aquaintence of Randy Ubilos, creator of FCP. 

Larry Jordan has chimed in with some of his thoughts about FCPX on his blog. I pretty much agree with everything he says. He has some great insight on what Apple SHOULD do at this point. Its a good read. I also responded with some of my input to his blog, you can read my comments here.

Izzy Video, free FCPX tutorials. I haven’t watched any yet, no commentary here, just wanted you to know they are there.

Ron Brinkmann chimes in on the FCPX debacle from his experience with Apple.

Jeffery Harrell, creator of “I don’t have a title for this” speaks candidly about his experience with Adobe product managers. And here is another Jeffery Harrell article that talks about his frustration with FCPX. I had read this last week before he posted the video and later realized who had written it. 

An EXCELLENT walk thru of 100 Questions about FCPX by Scott Simmons on Pro Video Coalition.

Mark Spencer, extreme Motion Guru has links to many Apple Knowledge Base docs on his site here.

FCP X - My thoughts.

Here’s what I think… so far.

Final Cut Pro is many things to many people. For the past decade many of my friends have been using FCP as the center hub of our post production workflow. We cut in it, and then we go to outside apps, as needed, to finesse bits and bobs. We may use ProTools for audio, we may use Soundtrack Pro. We may use After Effects for animation, we may use Motion, we my also go outside to one of the REALLY smart 3D animator types out there, if need be. 

Initially FCP works as an editorial application where trimming and cutting and slipping and sliding is very important. In the PURE editorial world the most important thing to me is how well and HOW FAST it allows you to make tiny tiny changes to get your flow down.

Then in the finishing stage as you export bits for additional processing and have to bring those bits back FCP becomes more of a clip player… you may have a bunch of AE composites that you need to play back in order… and at that point FCP is your tool for that. 

Both jobs important, both unique. 

In order to pull this off you have to have many ways to export or “Send” to outside apps and also be able to bring them in.

Very few jobs are completed without some help from outside apps.

So far, we don’t know how FCPX is gonna work with other apps. Does it care? Is a file a file?  We don’t know. As an editorial machine. we don’t know. I will tell you this. Much of what I saw tonight looked a lot like iMovie and I am NOT an iMovie fan at all.

The metadata that was discussed was interesting. Most of us don’t put metadata in our clips cuz, well, its hard. If they make it easier to embed metadata, and maybe even give my producer a way to log at home… that would be cool.

Clearly, its too early to say too much about FCPX. All we know for sure, is how to spell it.

Final Cut Studio 4 Review

My full and complete review of Final Cut Studio 4 and Final Cut Pro 8.

First of all I want to say that I’m very happy to have been asked to review the new Final Cut Pro (total lie) and I look forward to sharing with you some of the awesome new feature and tweaks to the application that we have grown to love over the last 13 years.

Speed
We are all tired of rendering. Those pesky blue bars are driving us crazy even if they do offer us a walk away from the client to have a smoke outside. However, lets face it, they ARE a pain. I’m glad to be able to tell you that now, Motion tab moves can be done as smooth and fast as you can lay out “keyframes” in ScreenFlow. For the past couple of years those of us that do screen captures have been blown away by this amazing little $100 tool, so much so that many people are actually EDITING video inside ScreenFlow. I’m happy to tell you that the new “playback engine” inside Final Cut Pro works as fast and smooth as ScreenFlow (OK, wouldn’t this be cool)
Also, everything is GPU accelerated and things work as fast as they do in Motion but you never have the AWEFUL SLOW renders that usually occur when you bring things back into your timeline.  Yea… in FCS 3 composing your animation was fun in Motion but face it, eventually you gotta render that pig, and it aint pretty. (Good point, Motion stuff DOES have to render huh??? Oh well, it DEMOs well)

Color
Now that “Color” is a social networking photo app, it OBVIOUSLY can’t be a color correction tool. So all the functionality of Color has been moved from the application to a new Color MODE. You now get all the power of the primaries and secondaries, and all the other stuff you don’t use now because the workflow sucks so bad, in an easier to use filter metaphor instead of the old XML timeline metaphor. (This is one thing I REALLY would like.)

DVD Studio Pro becomes Web Studio Pro
You thought you were done with DVDs? Almost. Imagine now you can take all of the interactivity you know from DVD Studio Pro but now you can author interactive HTML 5 environments. Cool huh? (How come they haven’t done THIS yet?)

Gamma
Apple finally heard us and have fixed all the gamma issues in the Final Cut Suite… (honestly, I don’t know if they even realize they exist, but lets dream for a moment of a future…) No longer do we have gamma shifts between Apple Apps and Adobe Apps and for that matter… between Apple Apps and ANYTHING ELSE. (Fingers crossed?)

Keynote Integration
OK… although not a broadcast tool, lets face it, Keynote has some crazy cool features and animation presets built in like “Magic Move” and even Steve Jobs style Refections.  All of the great features of Keynote are now in Final Cut Pro 8 and make it a very powerful tool for us Corporate Video makers. (SERIOUSLY, this would be VERY COOL)

Keyframing
Here is something we have ALL been wanting… in the MOTION tab, PLEASE let me lasso a bunch of keyframes at a time, like in AE… PLEASE???? (Do we REALLY need to still be asking for this?)

Audio Capabilities
Soundtrack Pro and Logic Studio have been melded together to give us the very best of each… and then, all that has been put into a new Audio Tab inside FCP. Lets face it, Send to Soundtrack was cool… but on board kick ass audio is WAY COOLER. Oh, and can we get rid of the stupid FCP1 UI and use the COOL UI from Logic? (Seriously, who likes the current Soundtrack.)

Hardware Use
FCP8 now actually uses all the power of the bad ass hardware you have been spending thousands of dollars on.  Imagine setting up your hardware delegation to set aside a few processors for true background renders. Any region of your timeline you are not working on it will render on a predetermined number of processors truly in the background. Or, you can give everything to your realtime playback of your GPU accelerated effects. FCP8 now REALLY uses all your hardware. (Oh please, oh please, oh please!!!)

In summary, FCP 8 or FCS 4, what ever you want to call it, could be the dream application we have been waiting for, since Final Cut Studio 1. The last couple of releases have been kind of anemic, so lets hope they’ve been working hard in “The Loop” and Christmas 2011 is coming early this year.

Leave a Comment below, what do YOU want to see in the new Final Cut Pro?