Requested Features/Improvements for FCP X

[David Knaggs]

Because FCP X is constantly being worked on by the folk at Apple and they really do seem to be listening to their customer base at this time, a dedicated thread made into an easy-to-find sticky might be a good idea.

No "belly-aching"-type posts. Just the facts of what feature you'd like added or the bug that you'd like fixed as an improvement.

I'll kick it off with the first requested feature:

Mask Shape effect.
I missed this one the most during the job I just completed in FCP X. In FCP 6, you used to find it under Effects>Video Filters>Matte>Mask Shape. And I need it with all of the same controls or parameters that we had in the original. My preferred "Shape" (when making a corporate training video) is "Round Rectangle". And it's very important to retain the ability to make keyframes for each of the 3 main parameters: "Horizontal Scale", "Vertical Scale" and "Center". This keyframing allows you to move both the position and the shape of the effect to different parts of your screen in a very elegant manner. And I'd like each parameter to be able to be adjusted numerically - just like in the original - and not have to rely on dragging those large circles (as in current FCP X) to position your shape. I would always invert the shape, so the "Invert" checkbox must also be included.

The last part of this effect is the ability to "Mask Feather" your shape and add a "Soft" slider, which should also be able to be adjusted numerically. In FCP 6, this was added as a separate effect (Effects>Video Filters>Matte>Mask Feather) onto the top of your Mask Shape effect, but I'd prefer the feathering to simply be added as another parameter inside the new Mask Shape effect.

Currently, I've been "making do" by using the "Mask" effect (under the "Keying" effects) in FCP X but it's very clunky due to having to drag the positioning circles to define your shape (due to no numerical adjustments available) plus no keyframing to change your position and shape of the effect. I did use some cross dissolves to "move" the shape around, but the result lacked the polish that you'd get with the original Mask Shape effect. Hence my request.

[William Hohauser]

I would very, very much like to see the return of the four scope window or at least a dual waveform/vectorscope choice.

And the return of directly importing into keyword categories which disappeared with 10.0.7.

The audio needs to have the option of locked tracks. Option, not always. For many projects the floating audio tracks in FCPX are just fine and an improvement over FCP7 in many ways, however, I am working on a project in FCP7 because I need to export an OMF for an audio person and when the fixed audio track returns I can drop it in it's own set of tracks and disable the rest. "Roles" isn't doing it for me.

Maybe it exists already but I would like a slide to cursor function where we can shift a clip to the cursor point by keystroke.

[Dave Partington]

I shouldn't really get started on this.... but go on.....


1) Audio meters for every 'track'. It's going to be hard for them to implement but I'm hoping they find a way. The current way of only cumulative meters is costing me too much time when looking for stray 'bumps' and things that aren't obvious on the waveforms.

2) All scopes visible at the same time

3) Animate the colour corrections

4) Ability to enable / disable just one section of the colour correction (e.g. just exposure, or just colour or just saturation on that tab).

5) Ability to change the height of just one track. I may need to look closely at one waveform without needing to make the entire world bigger, making it hard to find the one track I'm looking for.

6) Get rid of those stupid switch panels and put those controls on the tool bars

7) When resizing the tracks, keep the project window centred at the same place.

8) When resizing the main windows, keep the event viewer and the project windows centred in the same place instead of things you were working on disappearing off the top / bottom

9) Saved window layouts!

10) I'l like to be able to stack the colour correction tabs on top of each other so they are all visible at the same time

11) Round trip with motion 5

12) When colouring a multicam it would be nice to see which clip is active at any given time. They could do this by dimming the clips that aren't active as you skim across.

13) Auto scroll the project window!

14) Shortcut to go to the exact frame in a multi cam from a cut clip.

15) Separate the audio tracks properly in the angle viewer for easier editing without cutting the audio up

.... and another 20 - 30 on my list but I have to go ....

[William Hohauser]

You know what? I just realized how annoyed I am at the Background Tasks floating window. First of all, it disappears when I switch to another program even if it's on the second monitor. Second, if I want it available all the time, it doesn't have a place to live except on top of the other windows which would be workable if I had monitors that were higher than HD resolution.

The info it contains could be shown (in abbreviated format) in the half empty toolbar.

[Dave Partington]

Oh, the BIG thing I want is to have the thumbnails scroll an entire thumbnail row at a time instead of smooth scrolling by pixels. It takes way too long to flick through the thumbnails if you have a couple of hundred, and it's all down to the smooth scrolling. At least make this an option!

[Bill Davis]

When I saw this thread pop up, I got worried.

Great, it will be a mess of people trying to make X work like their former NLE, I thought.

Glad to see it's not going in that direction. Congrats.

If I was in charge here - (and so very thankfully I'm not!) I'd make it a rule that nobody gets to post feature requests until they've cut at least 30 Projects on X or been using it for their day-to-day work for at least six months.

I can handle nearly anything other than someone trying to force X to be "more like" they way they liked working in another NLE.

It is what it is. Embrace it or use something else, cuz it's NEVER good to be someone who's dating someone new and constantly wishing that this date was more like the one you recently broke up with.

That rarely, if ever turns out well.

FWIW.

[Chris Hurd]

Originally Posted by Bill Davis

Glad to see it's not going in that direction. Congrats.

One of the many benefits due to the standard operating procedure for DV Info Net.

[Dave Partington]

Originally Posted by Bill Davis

It is what it is. Embrace it or use something else....

Of course..... but there's always things in every NLE that could be better. FCPX is already streets ahead in so many ways.... just a few little irksome bits we need to get a handle on ;)

[William Hohauser]

Originally Posted by Bill Davis

When I saw this thread pop up, I got worried.

Great, it will be a mess of people trying to make X work like their former NLE, I thought.

Glad to see it's not going in that direction. Congrats.

If I was in charge here - (and so very thankfully I'm not!) I'd make it a rule that nobody gets to post feature requests until they've cut at least 30 Projects on X or been using it for their day-to-day work for at least six months.

I can handle nearly anything other than someone trying to force X to be "more like" they way they liked working in another NLE.

It is what it is. Embrace it or use something else, cuz it's NEVER good to be someone who's dating someone new and constantly wishing that this date was more like the one you recently broke up with.

That rarely, if ever turns out well.

FWIW.

I have done at least 100 different projects on X in the time X has been out from simple assembles to theatrical trailers for 35mm output, so I guess I pass. If you have seen the original 1966 Django re-release in theaters the past couple of months, the theme song sing-a-long after the feature (not all the theaters are playing this) was done on FCPX by me. Not a complex project but a breeze with X. The big test for me will be the six episode two-camera sitcom that is starting in month or so. I think the media management and keyword organization is up to the task.

[David Knaggs]

Here's another one:

The ability to work natively with XDCAM EX files.

This is an incredibly popular format (and I think even the JVC cameras might have the capability of recording to XDCAM EX as well).

The fact that FCP X was recently updated to work natively with files from the RED cameras indicates to me that the new "engine" for FCP X isn't tied exclusively to QuickTime.

I know that two companies offer their different versions on adapting native footage to work in FCP X (and I think it costs more than FCP X itself!). I don't know if those solutions are truly reliable and robust in the long term. Why deal with workarounds anyway, when working with native XDCAM EX files can be added as a new feature under the hood of FCP X?

It will save a lot of drive space and time (by not having to put QuickTime wrappers around the XDCAM EX files) if this feature is included.

[Steve Benner]

Libraries:

The unified Library approach is not good. I have Event Manager, but that started becoming unmanageable with too many products also so I started using the Sparse Bundle Approach which works better.

However, neither is a solution.

Apple should treat FCP X like it does Aperture and have the ability to create multiple libraries. The Events and Projects folders would reside under each library.

This would allow editors to have different libraries for different clients/jobs. And those who want one unified library can still have it.

There are some other minor things that have been mentioned (mostly related to Color Correction), but I am happy with the FCP X progress.

Bring us different libraries, and I will be extremely happy.

[David Knaggs]

One function that I'd like to see improved (because of the occasional bug or glitch) is rendering.

I find that, on occasion, FCP X will render a single green frame at the beginning of a transition or at the beginning of an overlaid clip (and sometimes further along a clip). If you export a movie directly out of the timeline, the exported movie will have this green frame in it. While there is a workaround of exporting via Compressor (which seems to automatically discard the render files) and while William thinks the rendering bug might be improved by turning off Perian (I find Perian too useful), it would be great if this occasional rendering glitch were fixed in 10.0.8.

Originally Posted by William Hohauser

And the return of directly importing into keyword categories which disappeared with 10.0.7.

Ditto.


Finally, I thought I would also sing the praises of FCP X over FCP 6 for a little bit (so that casual viewers of this thread don't come away thinking that there are "so many things wrong" with FCP X. On the contrary, there are so many more things which are superior about it!) I've been doing some sound editing this morning and I counted 3 really nice improvements that make sound editing in FCP X so much faster (and even more pleasant): 1/ When you hover the cursor over the sound level on the clip in the Timeline, it shows you the numerical amount of the level. When you hover it over a keyframe, it also shows you the numerical value. 2/ With the audio meter, it also gives you the numerical value of the maximum (peak) level reached since playback started. 3/ If you have "Show reference waveforms" checked in the Preferences, the waveform shows peaks which are too high in red, so you can quickly address any problem areas.

These three little things might not seem much, but I'm tearing through the edit about twice as quickly as I would have with FCP 6.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

This was my feedback to Apple (as I advise everyone to also send your wish list to Apple trough the FCP X Feedback Menu):

"Dear Apple/FCPX development team,

here my (updated) wish list for FCP X:

- Being able to Scale or Stabilize Attributes on synchronized clips.

- Remove Attributes button

- If you scroll trough with JKL keys, and you do it very quick, you hear the audio pitch-perfect for the first seconds, and then it disappears. It would be great if it would stay like that.

- Being able to give color labels to projects in the Project Library

- Another behavior when putting multiple dissolves in a timeline. In FCP 7, it would add a dissolve everywhere it could, but if there wasn't enough media, it would not copy a dissolve there. This was very handy when you worked with a lot of clips that just follow each other coming from a recording device that splits long recordings in multiple files.
In FCP X now, you can only choose to create media for the transition, or just cancel and not have a a cross dissolve anywhere. If I'm not mistaken, the first releases of FCP X would give you more choices in this regard.
It's nice to have a combination of the old behavior and the potential new one (with creating extra media) and just have options of both in the dialog window you get. Because if now, you have a recording split in multiple files, and put a dissolve in between those clips with FCP X doing the 'creating extra media thing" you get a weird effect that's not wanted.

- A kind of batch export, and maybe support for kind of reference files?

- If you export for instance, 3 timelines in the background, you only see the first file by name.
The one below, awaiting, just say: 'Master File'. Why can't you say the name of the project or timeline? So you can get a quick idea of what you are already exporting and if you forgot anything.
If it's the same timeline you are exporting multiple times, with changes, let's have it say the name of the sequence with the date and exact time of the export?

- I don't know if this is by design or a bug: if I put multiple in-and out points, ranges as you say, in a clip, and I make them chronologically and push E to append to the primary storyline, it puts them in the wrong order in the timeline. If I make a range 1 and a range 2 in the same clip, in chronological order, FCP X puts it in the timeline as range 2 first, and range 1 second. It's completely opposite of normal thinking? If you have an interview that you want to go trough, it's more intuitive to have it in the same order as the interview. Now it ruins the multiple ranges-option. I can't remember this being so in FCP 10.0.6, but I could be wrong, so I don't know if this was introduced in 10.0.7?

- Synchronize clips seems to only use audio. According to the manual, it also used timecode, but we tried multiple times doing it with clips with the same timecode, and FCP X would never place them correct. In multicam this works correctly. It would be nice to get some more options there and let FCPX use timecode correctly to synchronize multiple audio/video clips.

- If you click Expand All in the menu for expanding video and audio, that it expands every clip in the timeline, INCLUDING the ones you put in the timeline AFTER you pushed the Expand All option. It reduces the amound of clicking. If you want to edit with an expanded view of audio seperately, you click expand all, and edit the way you want. If you put new clips in the timeline, you don't have to press again and again in the menu.

- If you have a synchronized clip with R3D material, making sure the spatial conform works like it does with a normal rough R3D clip.

- More RAW controls from REDCINE in the R3D Hud, including (big one) the eyedropper tool to very quickly and automatically set white balance.

- Have a simple white balance tool in your standard color tools, like the one from RED. Let it be a tool you can switch on or off. The Match-Color behaviour doesn't work very well, and the older 3-way color corrector in FCP7 was miles ahead on some of this manual control.

- A timecode HUD with much more timecode options. Seeing in one view the timecodes of everything in the timeline (like the old timecode overlay in FCP7), optional of course. Being able to COPY and PASTE a timecode from a clip instead of manually having to feed it always, like you could in FCP 7. You could just copy the timecode from the viewer of canvas.

- A well made timecode reader/generator effect, not only a generator. (have both). Like the old one: read timecode, generate one, custom, ...

- More options from Color, including but not limited to color wheels. Tracker. Custom shapes, that can be keyframed, including in their shape points. Sharpening, denoising,... Maybe have a seperate Color Room? (same with Audio?)

- If you click to have Proxy Media Playback, put a warning side if media hasn't been converted to Proxy yet, but don't have it be offline completely. It sometimes doesn't make sense to transcode EVERYTHING in your timeline to Proxy Media. Only being able to transcode a portion of it, and just see a small subtle warning sign in the rest without hindering your ability to work with it, would be much better!

- Fade Handles on seperate Audio Components.

- Fade Handles on video?

- Prores LT as a codec option to optimize!

- In the preferences, have playback for Optimized Media or Original Media be 2 seperate options? Or just some more flexibility.

- Better support for working with networked storage! I'm not talking about users working on the same project on the same timeline (although the patents I saw online about guardians etc. were interesting) but just having the program work easily with networked storage over ethernet!

- If you open the HUD of a Smart Collection, it seems I cannot make the HUD bigger or smaller. Sometimes if I have long names of Keyword Collections of which the first 3 words are the same, I cannot see which to click on or off if I put a Keyword on one of the parameters of a Smart Collections. I don't know if this is a bug or not.

- At the retiming menu, if you click it, have a custom option to manually give in a percentage.

- Custom resolutions when making a project! With a way of making it a preset! It's possible now trough a compound clip and work-around, so it must be possible technically, but just the option needs to be 'activated' in the dialog window when making a new project.

- 'Break Apart Compound Clip' back in the contextual right-mouse click menu.

- This is more of a general Mac OSX complaint since Lion, but the way the system works with programs in full screen is really really one of the most emberassing things ever if you have 2 monitors... FCP X is no different. Suddenly seeing the second screen dissapear is really... ugh.

- At Audio Enchancements, at the background Noise Removal option, have a small button to set the noise print, as you could with Soundtrack Pro. I don't know if the technology now in FCP X is the same as in Soundtrack Pro, but I'm getting much worse results (frankly, I never get good ones, and thus never use it) when using the remove background noise option in FCP X. Maybe having the option to manually set the noise print, will get better results back?

- An audio mixer! Maybe have some seperate Audio Mixing 'room', like you could have with Color Correction. FCP X seems to have great technologies under the hood (some of Color, some of Logic, some of Soundtrack Pro, some of Cinema Tools), but just have the tools deeper would really make it a super-NLE. Not needing to round-trip, but still being able to do so much in an NLE that can seem so simple, but yet can get very deep, is VERY appealing, and would get many people to switch to Macs and FCP X. Look at Color... Yes, you could say Resolve is better, but not needing to round trip, and being able to do very good corrections in the same program where you do the finishing, compositing, editing, ... is really tempting. If you don't want to use it, you don't need to. But I miss Color, and in the same way I think much more of Soundtrack Pro needs to return to FCP X.
Maybe audio mix trough color coded roles or so?

- Being able in the Copy Paste Dialogue box, to paste seperate color corrections, and have them being applied ABOVE whatever you have done to that clip earlier. And not only replace it. Maybe have a small button in the dialogue box where you can choose to ADD your attributes to the clip you are pasting it too.

- Being able to give Color Corrections names, instead of just the automated numbers. And also being able to move a color correction up or down in the effects stacking order, like you can do with other effects.

- Being able in a way to very easily put a video-only dissolve on a clip, without messing too much with detaching audio, secondary timelines, ... Just have a cross dissolve video-only transition in the transition browser or something. Same thing with making an audio-only cross dissolve with a dedicated short cut (it used to be ALT+CMD+T in FCP7)! These little things suddenly can make FCPX a much more slow tool to use.

- Have a quick way of putting audio back to a clip after detaching it. (and if they are out of sync, maybe have a dialogue box or something to choose if you want to keep it out of sync, or put it back to it's default?)

- Have out of sync-markers when detaching audio... Or have better solutions for working with a recording where all the audio is for instance 4 frames off.

- Have a smart Render function, as FCP 7 had where it simply copies original media if you are doing simple cut-cut operations. Now this only seems to be with Prores LT, but not with XDCAM material for instance…

- Have the Background Render option be REALLY background. So for instance, when you are working, it keeps rendering, but like with one core or something. So it's low taxing on the system, but you can really keep working. Now it stops if you do something in the program, and you really let it do a lot, it kind of makes your computer super super slow.
Like the generating waveform that seems to pause whenever you work in the program. It's not logical.

- Get rid of the bugs when using some plugins (namely Magic Bullet). FCP X is heavily reliant on third-party plugins often, and better communication with some of these plugin providers would not let these bugs go un-resolved for so long. It doesn't add to the good name of FCPX, which is, admittedly, already fighting in the professional market.

- Being able to also put Events in Folders, like you can with Projects.

- Also having Skimmer info in the timeline, showing for instance timecode of the original clip.

- If you have a (raw) clip in the Event Browser, and click Open in Timeline, and for instance, put a timecode generator on it, and you put it in your timeline, it shows the timecode generator on the clip in the timeline. So far, so good. But if you then, in your Event Browser, after the edit, use the same process to remove the timecode generator or make it invisible, it doesn't update in the timeline. The work-around is to first put your clip in a compound clip, but I think it's a unnecessary work-around which can cause potential errors. You suddenly have every clip you need to use like that twice in the project, and you have to make sure the starting timecode of your compound clip is the same as the one of the clip itself.

- Better support for using FCPX with 3 displays. On a rMBP connected with 2 other displays, it will always use your laptop as a standard second display. The only work-around is closing the lid, let FCPX put your content on the other display, and opening the lid again. Very silly work-around, especially if you have to do it in front of clients.

- If you have a bunch of clips and you all change their scale properties trough the transform tools in the viewer, the slider in the inspector will still say it's 100 procent while the clip clearly isn't on 100 pro cent. Maybe I got this because of working with compound clips, I don't know if it's the same with raw clips, but anyhow, if I use the inspector to change all the clips their scale, they all update correctly in the inspector if I click them afterwards. Strangely enough also, when I use the transform tools of the Viewer to change the Position of clips, they all update fine in the inspector. Unless this was a bug on my end, I don't think this is logical.

- Please make it possible to have your transform, crop and color correction tools in the inspector change in stacking order together with effects. Being able for instance, to put a crop ABOVE a 3rd party effect for instance. Now there are many work-around necessary (compounding) to do this.

- When doing a split edit on a connected clip and the audio starts a lot earlier then the video (J-cut), and you then you collapse the clip again, and then put a dissolve on the video, which causes it to become a secondary storyline, it cuts the early audio off. That doesn't make sense (if it's not a bug). A way to solve this, would being able to just put a transition on a clip (dissolve) without it becoming a secondary storyline. I get the logic behind this, but in practice it causes me a LOT of unnecessary clicks in a timeline, while the other way around, if I want to have secondary clips become a storyline, I can always have the option trough the menu command or contextual menu. Please change this behaviour.

- The background Dashboard hud dissapears when going into another application. Not that handy.

- This feature could maybe be a work-around for the dashboard dissapearing, although it would be nice to have both: In the Share Monitor program, have a look at what you are exporting in every program (FCPX, Motion 5, Compressor 4). They all share the same engine. Having the Share Monitor open and being able to see what you are exporting in FCP X next to your regular Compressor Batch would be great. Having a seperate tab or something like that.

Thank you for hopefully considering adding these abilities to the program. Every version of FCPX seems to make it better then it was, and I wish the development team bests of luck.

Kind regards,"

[William Hohauser]

Wow, that's detailed. Gives me a lot to think about. A number of suggestions that would help me greatly if FCPX adds them.

Fade handles are there but are hidden in the Video Animation pull-up on the clip in the timeline and additionally hidden in Opacity pull up. Sort of a hassle to use on a regular basis.

I deal with out of sync clips occasionally and my solution is to fix the sync in a compound clip and label it as a fix.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Originally Posted by William Hohauser

Wow, that's detailed. Gives me a lot to think about. A number of suggestions that would help me greatly if FCPX adds them.

Fade handles are there but are hidden in the Video Animation pull-up on the clip in the timeline and additionally hidden in Opacity pull up. Sort of a hassle to use on a regular basis.

I deal with out of sync clips occasionally and my solution is to fix the sync in a compound clip and label it as a fix.

Well, it comes after working with the software for a while. It's very immature software in a way, but very interesting, so I really want to 'help' the developers, how corny as this may sound, with making it better. It's in my own interest, and I think with FCPX, they are also very receptive of feedback, maybe more then ever.
And despite my maybe pretty 'long' list, if they would add/fix these issues, it would be probably near-perfect NLE software for the work that I do now. And having edited our first projects now with FCPX, there are some gotcha's and work-arounds that we have to figure out, but it's also a drag to return back to FCP7. It's really addicting software if you learn how to work with it. We try to do nothing in 7 anymore.

Thanks for the tips, btw.