your brain to learn FCPX after 10 years of Sony Vegas use, is like learning to write while someone is beating you with a shovel. I feel better now.

Haha, that's it, let it all out.

I completely understand your frustration. I've been learning all the ins and outs of Vegas for a while now, and recently was considering moving to Edius but thought, no way am I going to re-learn everything I did in Vegas all for the sake of having 'less crashes' which Vegas is notorious for!

Even if you decide to stick where you are software-wise, it would be smart to spend some time learning the nature of metadata wrangling as it applies to "in-program" edit operations.

To my mind, that's the huge groundbreaking part of FCP-X.

All the other software will eventually take note and increase their access to metadata that can be applied not just to overall clips, but portions of clips as with FCP-X.

It's the really transformative thing about X editing. And it only starts with having the capability built into the software - the next part of the puzzle is to train your brain to leverage it with solid and effective keyword search, sort and access strategies.

This is the process that turbo-charges your editing - because suddenly, you stop thinking about "scenes" or even "clips" and "where did I put that shot" and you start focusing on custom crafting usable editing assets from square one - knowing that you'll have any and every video creation resource at your fingertips when you sit down to edit.

That's why many of us early adopters will never go back to our old way of editing. It just feels WAY too sluggish and old-fashioned after you get accustomed to the new thinking.

FWIW.

Hey Bill, those are great insights. I look forward to FCPX and its evolution. I'm not so sure about Sony adopting anything since the platform has remained mostly unchanged since they bought it imo. I want FCPX to be my edito.......just waiting for some upgrades to it's tweakability.

Steven,

I understand the desire to be cautious. But I have to say that this is a big change for any editor - and it's odd, because there are two layers to it.

The basic software operation is actually pretty simple. You can do a lot with it running it at a very basic level without much "deep" knowledge. The only requirement is that you adapt from the way NLE's traditionally worked and get to a point where you understand how X operates at a basic level.

Then theres the deep stuff. And I have to tell you it's remarkably deep. Not the functions, per se, but the implications of the functions. Giving a person a full-tilt database linked to clip ranges - means you have to eventually develop a robust database strategy if you want to go below the surface and unlock the power of the app. Similarly, having a truly robust under the hood asset batch re-naming system - requires you to start thinking about the philosophy you want to employ to name things. And those are just two of maybe two dozen fundamental changes that are waiting for you to adapt to.

Because of those depths, I really don't recommend that people wait too long before they switch if they're going to.

You can certainly start getting basic editing accomplished in a couple of weeks - and get pretty comfortable as a basic user in a couple of months - but I'm two and a half years into X and I still discover stuff nearly every week that I didn't fully understand until last Tuesday! And the more it develops, the more capabilities it embodies, the more time it will take editors to learn it's depths.

At some level, those who did take the plunge are moving farther and farther ahead into what some of us feel will be a solid competitive advantage as X editors in the coming years.

What I'm saying is don't wait too long. While you're waiting for it to be "more perfect" there are quite literally hundreds of thousands of editors (based on Apple's own sales numbers) out there around the world who are NOT waiting. And they're liable to be ahead of you for the seats that will be filled in the years to come.

Just food for thought.

my brain to FCPX through the new iMovie in Mavericks. No it is not the same, but it seems to be based on the same kind of principle. It does not have anywhere near the same power but sort of gets me used to the interface.

When I can afford FCPX, I think I will find it an easier transition than FCE, on which I have sort of given up.

(This is me saying, "Give me a USP that will get the cost passed the Chancellor of the Exchequer" (wife)!)

I learned on Avid, got into Vegas in Version 4, tried Premiere and FCP Studio (and hated both). I stuck with Vegas even when I switched to Mac six years ago. But FCPX came along and I tried it mostly because the FCP7 fanboys hated it. I got hooked. It was remarkably easy to make the transition and it had a lot of similarities to Vegas. I've used it exclusively since, and now I have no reason to put any PC garbage on my Macs.

I think I need to get a new Mac, however. I've gotten so fast on FCPX that sometimes I have to wait a bit for the computer to catch up with me.

your brain to learn FCPX after 10 years of Sony Vegas use, is like learning to write while someone is beating you with a shovel. I feel better now.

I know exactly how you feel!

There are a few things I really love about FCPX:
Color correction, I can't explain the difference, but it takes only a few seconds to make my videos look better in FCPX, whereas in Vegas, I often made them look worse.

Titles are very easy to use. I'm somewhat of an amateur and I find the all the templates in FCPX look professional and elegant, the title templates in vegas usually look cheeses, unless you really know what you are doing.

No matter what I do to the video in FCPX the preview window is always sharp, and 30fps.

Now the shovel part...
Why are all the cool logic plugins hidden? Why aren't they in the EQ section like every other daw ever made?

Why did FCPX create 100 gigs of temp files on my system drive? Why didn't it allow me to put them on the 4TB hard drive that the rest of the project is on?

How do I color correct a whole track?

I've committed a month to learn the program and see if I can live with a mac as my primary OS. Nothing has made me appreciate the flexibility and ease of use of Win7 more than my past few days on a Mac.

The lure of the Mac is way the trackpad interacts with the OS, and my false notion that any video format will play flawlessly in QT on a Mac. It turns out that my Sony AVCHD files aren't even recognized on the mac. Thankfully FCPX can use them.

~Jay

I know exactly how you feel!

There are a few things I really love about FCPX:
Color correction, I can't explain the difference, but it takes only a few seconds to make my videos look better in FCPX, whereas in Vegas, I often made them look worse.

Titles are very easy to use. I'm somewhat of an amateur and I find the all the templates in FCPX look professional and elegant, the title templates in vegas usually look cheeses, unless you really know what you are doing.

No matter what I do to the video in FCPX the preview window is always sharp, and 30fps.

Now the shovel part...
Why are all the cool logic plugins hidden? Why aren't they in the EQ section like every other daw ever made?

Why did FCPX create 100 gigs of temp files on my system drive? Why didn't it allow me to put them on the 4TB hard drive that the rest of the project is on?

How do I color correct a whole track?

I've committed a month to learn the program and see if I can live with a mac as my primary OS. Nothing has made me appreciate the flexibility and ease of use of Win7 more than my past few days on a Mac.

The lure of the Mac is way the trackpad interacts with the OS, and my false notion that any video format will play flawlessly in QT on a Mac. It turns out that my Sony AVCHD files aren't even recognized on the mac. Thankfully FCPX can use them.

~Jay

The plug-ins are there but not all called EQ despite their apparent function. Some are in the Levels folder. Go figure.

The 100gb of temp files are a mystery to me. It never did anything like that on my computers.

Two immediate ways to color correct an entire track:
1) select the entire timeline and turn the selected clips into a compound clip - color correct the compound clip.
2) correct an individual clip on the timeline, preferably the first one. After correcting to your satisfaction, copy the clip. Then select all the other clips that need the same correction and press shift/Cmd V. A window comes up which allows you to pick all or some of the adjustments from the first clip (this includes filters, audio, image transformations, etc.) and apply them to everything selected.

Sony files are always difficult for some reason. Try MPEGStreamclip (free) or VLC (also free) to view the raw files.

I keep hearing about this magical metadata functionality. Is this really that important/big of a deal if youre NOT doing long form projects where you need to find random bits of footage? Much of my work is corporate presentations where people lecture for an hour+ at a time, and i will edit in powerpoint slides, sometimes cut between two cams, cut out the garbage (5 minute coughing fit, lectern catches on fire has to be put out, raccoons run off with the projector, etc.), tweak audio to even out levels, minor color correction if needed. Do you think fcpx can speed up THOSE types of projects compared to 7?

I keep hearing about this magical metadata functionality. Is this really that important/big of a deal if youre NOT doing long form projects where you need to find random bits of footage? Much of my work is corporate presentations where people lecture for an hour+ at a time, and i will edit in powerpoint slides, sometimes cut between two cams, cut out the garbage (5 minute coughing fit, lectern catches on fire has to be put out, raccoons run off with the projector, etc.), tweak audio to even out levels, minor color correction if needed. Do you think fcpx can speed up THOSE types of projects compared to 7?

I agree. It think they're tailoring FCP towards people who have large databases of commercial stock footage, or TV stations that have archives. I'm a Vegas user, so it'll be a while before I switch.

Don't get me wrong. I'm trying to poo all over the software. I'm very curious about it; it's very affordable, and it's also basically the only Mac option left since Adobe went all subscription-y on us. I just don't know what the big deal with metadata is for the kind of project I describe above of the short films I make. Documentaries or something, sure, but not all of us work on things like that.

Do you think fcpx can speed up THOSE types of projects compared to 7?

Hi Josh.

Yes.

I do a lot of corporate video (with quite a bit of After Effects work added to the timeline) but, like you, don't have a real need for the extra metadata functions (although I appreciate the fact that it's available if I ever do need it). I pretty much organize my live footage and animated clips the same way I did with FCP 6, keeping them in separate folders in the Finder as I create them and then importing the folders into FCP X. This works for me only because I'm self-contained with what I do.

However, I find editing on FCP X to be super-fast compared to FCP 6 or PPro.

Once you get used to it, there's no comparison. For fast editing in the timeline itself, it kind of predicts how you need to work and just does it. In my case, I might have to cut in over 100 clips into the timeline in very rapid fashion to make the deadline and FCP X handles it like the proverbial hot knife cutting through butter.

If you are only spending 2 or 3 hours per week in editing at the moment, then you might not really need or notice the speed-up that FCP X can bring. But, if you find yourself having to spend a four or five-day stint in editing to wrap up a project, then you'll notice it big-time!

Hard to say. After all, these are hour+ (often) lectures, sometimes a full day's or several days' worth (around the fire in our log cabin, I tell other people's grandchildren, since I don't have my own, the tale of the 2011 shoot that was 9 hours a day, two cams, for a solid week, where anyone in the crowd could at any time ask a question, which often evolved into multi-minute discussions between audience members--none properly mic'd of course--and how I had to edit all that together).

Thanks William, that's very helpful.

The mystery 100GBs of files I'm pretty sure were proxy and other render files. I still don't quite understand how to set up a project where I can easily define where all the media goes.

On the positive side, I made my first video tonight. It's just a silly video of a girl I know working a speed bag. To my surprise, all my 3rd party audio plugins from Waves and iZotope were in FCPX!

The learning curve will be steep, but I'm slowly starting to like it.

~Jay

Don't get me wrong. I'm trying to poo all over the software. I'm very curious about it; it's very affordable, and it's also basically the only Mac option left since Adobe went all subscription-y on us. I just don't know what the big deal with metadata is for the kind of project I describe above of the short films I make. Documentaries or something, sure, but not all of us work on things like that.

Once you start using the metadata, even on simple projects, you'll find ways to use it productively. A lecture with slide inserts and an extra camera is relatively simple on it's own but if you have a day's worth of it from different lectures, the metadata can be utilized in several different ways to help you keep track of media efficiently.

I keep hearing about this magical metadata functionality. Is this really that important/big of a deal if youre NOT doing long form projects where you need to find random bits of footage? Much of my work is corporate presentations where people lecture for an hour+ at a time, and i will edit in powerpoint slides, sometimes cut between two cams, cut out the garbage (5 minute coughing fit, lectern catches on fire has to be put out, raccoons run off with the projector, etc.), tweak audio to even out levels, minor color correction if needed. Do you think fcpx can speed up THOSE types of projects compared to 7?

It's not just that big a deal. It's MORE than that big a deal.

Welding a truly functional database onto range selection and persistent tagging where the USER gets to create the keywords and buckets at will is nothing less than transformational as an organizational tool for editing if you can teach yourself how to use it well.

It not only lets you select things. it lets you rate them, sort them, call them up instantly with keyword search and generally lets you created "ordered stores" of assets that you can call up instantly to build the projects you want to build.

And no, it's NOT just if you have complex projects. I use X exclusively now to edit my radio and TV Voiceovers. It's not that they're complex at all. I might have 5 paragraphs per spot - and I might have done just 5 takes of spot when laying down the reads. With X, I can simply go back through those 25 takes and use X's database to rate them by quality - and only when each has been judged against all the others and a series of all the paragraph takes has been refined down to the absolute best - I can then assemble a nearly finished "perfect spot" from my highest rated takes with a SINGLE keystroke. That's just a tiny, tiny example of how the database can work for a simple process.

Learning to use X is (in part) a process of learning to understand that you can save a thousand judgement ideas done prior to ever going to the timeline - and codify those judgements into persistent tags into the Event Browser. And once you do that you're so much freer to test and swap and alternate and perfect your edit, because so very much of the editing penalties of old style versioning are just gone.

A well constructed Event Browser arrangement with proper tags that fit YOUR editing style, is kinda like having a magic genie that sits on your shoulder bringing any and every clip you decide you might wish to use instantly to your hand when you're editing.

It's flat out wonderful. IMO.

Well, it's wonderful UNLESS someone tries to use it like their old NLE and just starts hacking away in the timeline like we've been editing for decades. If you do that, then you'll learn that you can make X nearly as dull as the other NLEs out there. I know, because I see people doing that all the time. It's annoying. It's like watching someone take a power screwdriver - only to lock the bit and twist it just like a manual one. It so misses the point of the tool.

FWIW.

Hmm. The way you describe it makes it sound like how Walter Murch (famous editor guy) talks about his editing process in his book, where he watches literally all the footage from a movie he's working on making notes on where the strong parts etc. are in each take.

Sounds like you're basically talking about doing a lot of your "editing" while logging/reviewing footage, rather swapping stuff in and out of the timeline.

I could see how that would be useful, but on the other hand one could assume, with a degree of likelihood, using your example, that the 5th/last take of each of those 5 spots was the best one (hence why you stopped after 5), and try to use as much as you could of each of those 5th takes, only going to another to look for a word/line here or there where there are imperfections on take 5.

I say this because what time you save not screwing around in the timeline, you might use up anyway logging 25 takes with that level of detail.

The whole point of X is that it gives you the OPTION of using the database to mark anything you range select in anyway you like.

Imagine you're reviewing the two hours of footage for Scene 213 of your movie. On shooting day seven, during the afternoon, you were doing 2-shots of the boy and girl having an argument. While you were checking focus, the craft service team announced they had fresh, warm doughnuts available. So you have a fabulous shot of her looking puzzled, then struggling with the decision whether or not to risk the extra calories - then deeply sad that she has to say no to the doughnuts. The shot is wonderful by accident. In X? BINGO. You tag it "Jane" (the character) "Sad" (the emotional tone) and Slap FIVE exclaimation points on it as your secret TAG that you have a killer shot here.

From the moment you do this - you OWN that shot. No matter where it was, you can instantly bring it to your edit. So that's one little way the database in X can help you.

Now lets look at a totally different use.

You set up to record a political speech. You roll camera. And the first 10 full minutes of the gig, the politician spends doing the obligatory "I'd like to acknowledge Councilman Flurburgen, First selectwoman Cheezeducken, and the fundraising help I've received from the United Pillow Fluffers of America.... on and on... You KNOW that you're NEVER going to want to use this crap, it's a waste of your time. You came to shoot the speech content, not the introductions. So you REJECT the intro crap with the dashboard Tag in X. Filter to Hide Rejected - and from that moment on (unless you go back to willfully remove the Hide Rejected filter) you NEVER have to even think about that useless intro material again - it's like you never shot it.

Those are just two tiny, tiny examples of how having a robust range tagging database built into your editing system can make your work easier. The "cost" is that you have to use the system enough to know what's possible. But, honestly it's like learning any industrial language. The learning necessarily presceeds using the language for helping you get your work done. But without the language, getting work done is harder. You can take five minutes to describe the shape, location and characteristics of a light - or you can build a working system where you know the language and start thinking "I'll need at least two Kino's on this shoot"

One is much, MUCH more efficient than the other.

X is built to let you develop your own organizational structure, your own "language" if you will - around your digital assets. That's one reason why it's so damn fast to edit with once you truly learn it. The tools are just frankly amazing if you've never had something like it before.

That it's also so cheap to own, runs on modern lightweight hardware like laptops so well, and Apple is so obviously committed to building it into a modern editing monster - all that's the icing on the cake, IMO.

So far, one of my biggest gripes is the audio editing. Coming from Vegas which has a very strong audio GUI, FCPX is cumbersome, having to split this, go back and forth do add envelopes. That's why it still feels like something for Youtubers than something someone would use for complex technical audio/video editing.

Just my opinion. I hope Apple gives it some steroids, because it's good for some of my projects, I'd like to make the transition one day, but they'll have to streamline somethings.

That all does sound neat, but again, the time tradeoff sounds like a six of one situation to me. Where you spend time "the new way" I would probably spend as much or a similar amount the old way (finding the boring speech footage, marking it rejected, messing with filters, vs dropping the whole clip in the timeline, finding where the "real" speech begins, razor everything before it, delete).

That all does sound neat, but again, the time tradeoff sounds like a six of one situation to me. Where you spend time "the new way" I would probably spend as much or a similar amount the old way (finding the boring speech footage, marking it rejected, messing with filters, vs dropping the whole clip in the timeline, finding where the "real" speech begins, razor everything before it, delete).

That's not how it works in FCPX unless you insist on doing it this way.