How do I export selection?

[Christopher Drews]

My only option is to export the entire project as a giant QuickTime.
Anyone know how to export just the segment in/outs like FCP7?
Thanks,
_CD

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

It isn't possible... You have to do that in compressor...

One of FCP X's many omissions at this point.

[David Parks]

This is a major omission for us. I just cut a :60 web video for our portal but the client wanted 3 versions on different titles based on 2 different v.o.'s. I had to cut it in Avid.

I think versioning (if that is indeed a word) or the ability to have multiple sequences (projects in FCPX lingo) in a project (events in FCP X lingo) with the ability to easily edit a sequence into a sequence is a must when dealing with clients. Whether your cutting a spot or a wedding video, you have to keep options open and have options to cut different versions of sequences. The export of trackes and partial timelines plays into versioning as well.

Hopefully Apple will fix this or someone will come up with a workaround or this software is only good for me to cut personal projects.

Cheers.

[Christopher Drews]

Thanks Mathieu. That's exactly what I did- used compressor and then crashed. Anyone else notice that they make you purchase the new compressor. It's cheap but still pretty shoddy of Apple.

On the bright side: Titling in "X" is incredibly versatile except I haven't figured out how to export a QT with Alpha.

_CD

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Yes, I've read that it doesn't work with Compressor 3.

If you make a title, and export a Prores 4444, doesn't it have the transparancy channel?
And if you try it in Motion?

I know I can do this in Motion 4, don't know about Motion 5.

[Jason Lowe]

Originally Posted by Mathieu Ghekiere

Yes, I've read that it doesn't work with Compressor 3..

Nope. Please open your wallet, sir. We're not done taking your money.

BTW, have you seen the new iPad? It's magical!

[Daniel Epstein]

Can you Duplicate the project and then make it the shorter/different version and then export? That is how I made different sequences in FCP

[David Tamés]

The "new" way of doing things like this would be to create compound clips, which allow you to group any combination of clips in the Timeline or the Event Browser and nest the clips within other clips. This way you would have multiple projects for each of the different length deliverable, which in turn would be made up of one or more compound clips.

[Henrik Reach]

Crazy not being able to do this.

Apple has a long list of small improvements that should come fairly soon.

Stuff like this just has to be there... FCP X is supposed to be all about efficiency and productivity. Crazy workarounds does not save time. :p

[Steve Connor]

Make a compound clip of the area you want and then copy it into a new project and export from there

[Dom Stevenson]

I notice Compressor is still a dog that takes twice as long as the freeware Mpeg Streamclip to transcode H.264 clips.
But at least we get a new coloured icon in the dock. Yippee!

I'm pretty positive about X, but Apple really need to pull their fingers out of their *rses.

[David Chapman]

@Christopher
I have an "export" project ready that I can copy/paste to if I want to export a selection. It was handy to export a sequence section based on in/out points, but you couldn't ad dissolves at the head or tail cause that would mess with your overall edit. Pros/cons to both, but that's my workaround for now.

@David
Before, I would have various sequences of the same edit, with title or graphic differences. That was a pain when I had to fix something in the main edit. I would have to go back to all my sequences (4-5 sometimes) and fix the same thing—or copy/past a section. This title variation can be done now with a single project by using the Auditions function. I can have my various opens or bumps and swap them out based on the intended export.

[Bill Davis]

This whole particular thread is PERFECT.

Voice 1: How do I do this in X?
Voice 2: You can't
Voice 3: Yeah, you can't and thats why FCP-X sux.
Voice 4: Exactly, that's why (software Y) is better than FCP-X
Voice 5: Well, I've actually found a perfectly reasonable way to do that - but with the massive interface change, you're probably not used to doing it this way yet so you need to re-learn stuff and that's probably going to take weeks if not months - just like FCP did originally.
Voice 6: Yeah, FCP-X sux.
Voice 7: Damn straight - tho I haven't actually used it much yet.
Voice 8: I'm scared.

Personally, I have a reasonably big-assed corporate project on my desk right now. 30+ high def location interviews - two hours of standard def grand opening facility coverage - and a big folder of new corporate graphics to support the new branding initiative. I've got the whole thing digitized in my FCP-7 main drive - AND the whole thing on my MacBook Pro in X. While 7 is doing log and capture, I'm grabbing the cards in X and learning the interface.

So far X looks wicked fast to get footage in and get working - and it took me about 10 minutes to figure out how to do a window burn out of X - it wasn't that complicated tho TOTALLY different than how I would have done it in 7 - but it was also MUCH faster than with 7. With the learning curve I'm experiencing, I know one thing for sure. I'm DEFINITELY NOT going to tell people how the software does or doesn't do stuff until I spend enough time operating it in the real world to actually LEARN what is possible, what is not, and what work-arounds might be devised to fix what I think I'm missing in the first go round.

This is complex and very deep stuff. And I'm just not comfortable telling people what something is or isn't until I feel I've explored enough to have a real grasp of it.

At this point people are just popping up yelling about what it probably doesn't do. Okay, fine. I'm sure some of that will prove to be absolutely true. So go ahead and dive out and find something different to spend your next few months learning.

A year from now, you'll either be right back to where you are today going through the same transition if the other software companies realize the FCP now has the strong advantage of a fresh new code base - OR you'll find you were absolutely correct, and you'll be in the large but relatively smaller OTHER line of folks who now use alternate legacy software for editing because they need that odd feature that was built into it around REV 4 or 5.

The central problem, is that everyone in ALL the camps will STILL be competing with you. Because ALL these programs do basic editing just fine. And if FCP X evolves like most software - at some point you're going to be forced to look back and try to figure whether delaying future capability for current safety was a smart call.

I get the post house pros being stressed.

They've grown an industry around the big trucks and Apple has just re-tooled for making smaller, more fuel efficient load haulers. But don't forget how you stopped seeing all those old fashioned delivery trucks a generation ago - and suddenly every business was snapping up Isuzu short haul delivery vehicles because they were not only more fuel efficient but faster and more agile as well.

Maybe the industry will remain - like LONG HAUL trucking - a world where the same big stinky diesel trucks rule the road. But if it turns out the the future looks more like short haul trucking - a bet against Isuzu efficiency and agility is going to lose.

I personally think it's a sucker bet not to learn $400 worth of possibly revolutionary software just because you're pissed at what some crabby old guy with suspect credentials (like me, maybe!) says about how FCP X might or might not work out for you.

FWIW.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Bill,

the question was: how do you export a selection from the timeline?

The answer was TRUE: YOU CANNOT DO THIS. (at this point)

There are WORK-Arounds, which have been mentioned in this thread - I personally already mentioned Compressor 4, and it indeed is one of the BASIC things Apple left out.

I won't ask a refund to Apple because I want to see how this grows - and FCPX has some huge potential, but that doesn't make the criticism invalid though.

[Bill Davis]

Then riddle me this...

If you can output your entire movie... then output is possible.

If output of a section is a sub-set of the larger world of output - and we've already admitted that output is possible.... perhaps the issue is that in order to output what we once called a "selection" in the old language is now simply something that we haven't wrapped our brains around.

It might work clunkier. And yes, right now it might not work at all. It's also possible that we might discover that there IS in fact a way - but it's not intuitive at first.

Mark in, out, and the menu selection to EXPORT was nice. I've also seen editors who didn't understand that concept literally copy and paste a range of clips to another timeline to do the same thing. I even once saw a guy take one complex timeline, drag it onto another sequence - and cut his needed clip out of THAT concatenated timeline to functionally do the same thing a simple range export would do.

Three different processes in FCP 7 - the same result.

Maybe there's NO way to make a range-targeted clip from a FCP X timeline. But at this stage, arguing that in a world where the most knowledgeable editors are still pretty much newbies with this stuff is farther than I want to go.

And I have to tell you, as a LONG time FCP editor, I still help out newbies with basic, simple editing tasks all the time. And when I do, I remember that just because I know (or don't know) how to do something - that's seldom the complete answer on whether it can or cannot be done - or whether there's a different way to get the same result.

That's all I'm saying.