Final Cut users?

Depends on what you mean by "crash." If you open Motion while FCP is open - locked up. In my particular setup, I switch between DV and BetaCam I/O, and if I switch without hiding FCP - locked up. And if you use a SCSI, if that crashes then obviously your system's gonna be fucked up. Plus there's been several instances of lock-up for no reason. But in any of those circumstances (aside from the SCSI crash), a simple restart (or forced reboot if it's super-locked-up) will fix the problem.

As far as Avid vs. FCP - I used to be much more partial to Avid's interface, but I've come around to FCP and would probably call it my preferred setup. But to each his own. I will say if Windows is as ingrained in you as it was in me, the initial switch is going to be a culture shock. It took me a long time to adjust.

It depends on how much RAM you have and how many programs have open. I've got enough to run Motion and FCP at the same time, but if I do something really effects heavy in Motion you can bet that my CPU fan is gonna start running overtime. I've had my editing system for a little over a year now, and I've never had the actual computer crash. I've had some programs crash, and my external harddrive is picky as to which other Firewire devices it'll allow be plugged in at the same time, but I've never had the system lock up on me.


I also prefer CP, but I'll admit to not really spending a lot of time with Avid--industry wise Avid is considered the best and is still the most commonly used program, with FCP taking the silver prize (but is growing). Still, the silver prize warrents some serious bragging rights, and you can see the diference between FCP and programs like Vegas and Premire.

I'm still wondering where that "Macs don't crash" fallacy comes from. My Mac--which I run FCP on--crashes all the time, forcing me to reach around the back of the tower and yank the plug out of the back in order to get it restart. Everytime I see one of those stupid Mac commercials claiming that Macs are some kind of crash-proof wonder machines, I want to punch the TV. Computers all suck equally.

That being said, FCP is great, and I think it's quite a bit smoother than the Avid. Plus, if you're already familiar with Avid, a transition to Final Cut should really be no problem.

Yeah, FCP is very intuitive if you have non-linear editing experience. I got my start using Media 100 (may it rest in peace), and within a few days of using FCP I felt like I was at home.

As for the "Macs don't crash" myth, yes, Macs crash. My particular system has never gone into total lockup, but programs crash on me all the time (save often!) and sometimes the only way to get them to behave is to restart the computer. My old G4 would go into lockup every now and again, and going even further back, my Performa was no stranger to reboots, but since that's an OS architecture that not even Apple uses any more I won't hold it against them.

Also, Mushnik, and this goes for PCs too--if your computer locks up, don't yank the power cord out. Hold the power on button for five seconds or so--it'll turn the computer off. Yanking the power source out is a bad idea.

Unfortunately, there's no other way to get the computer to respond. Holding down the power button seems to shut it down, but it remains locked up, and will still be locked up when it comes back online.

I'm a big Mac advocate, and have moved my wife and parents over in the last year. FCP, and the broader Studio package, is a great production pipleine that has only gotten better over the years... Quite honestly, I don't know why anyone would want to buy into Avid at this stage, it's not as flexible and WAY more expensive. Truth is, anyone who works on an edit system is going to be protective of it, since making any switch is going to be painful and make the editing process seem less fluid.

I have to wonder what kind of systems you guys are running that your having all these crashing problems. Opening multiple parts of FCS at once should DEFINITELY not be resulting in a crash. I would say possible reasons are A/ you're running an old machine, B/ you're using cracked software, C/ not nearly enough RAM, or D/you have some confilicting plugins or codecs going on. If none of these things is you... get your machine checked- seriously! MACs used to be buggy under OS9, but since the move to OSX, my machine might get a freezeup or "crash" once a month... if that!

I think for most people, the MAC ads are accurate. My parents used to go nuts with crashes, virus software, spyware (god help anyone that has to try and remove porn spam from their parents computer...). Since the switch, outside of a small learning curve, they've been problem free. Next up will be my Uncle, who I swear must spend at least half the time on his computer fixing or installing things.

Not True

Rebooting is almost never required, Apple+Option+Delete allows you to force quit out of any specific program, and the OS will tell you which app is generating the problem.

As someone above said, SAVE OFTEN (auto or manual). I think that should be the rule for ANY computer user who values their work. I have autosave set to every 5 minutes, because that's the value I put on my time.

I think probably 90% of computer users would probably be happier on a mac. I had a friend who complained he didn't want to buy one because he couldn't "get in there and get his hands dirty". I said to him, "What are you talking about? You're a surface user! You don't even know HOW to get your hands dirty.". I think a lot of people are concerned they're loosing flexibility in a Mac, and maybe they are, but it's certainly not in an area that most of us have any reason to care about. Incidentally, my friend is now on a Macbook Pro, and is thrilled with it...

Mac isn't the answer to every problem you have ever had with computers but they do make life simpler.

I'm currently running FCP Studio and Pro Tools 7.1 (run through an Mbox 2 with iLok) on a Mac Book. After years of working with Avid and Cubase on a PC you could never get me to go back.

Go Mac, you won't regret it.

I can't wait to get my own Mac setup with Final Cut Studio. Relying on the school computer labs is a horrible waste of work hours. For example, yesterday morning I scrambled over to the school buildings hoping to use my President's Day to crank out 12+ hours of editing, only to find they were closed for the entire day. What a waste of a class-free day.

Yeah, I used a good chunk of my student loans to get my won Mac setup (reasoning being I could use it far past class projects), and it's helped me tremendously (those Desperate Hours episodes you see in my sig? Yeah, I couldn't have polished those toiling in a lab). The trade off is that I'm gonna be paying it off for a few years, but it's worth it to me.

In terms of problems, you can't even compare a Mac and a PC. My Mac Laptop crashes once, seeing as I don't have that much RAM, but I've never had any problems with my G5 crashing. And viruses, especially trojans, are VERY rare on a mac. I've had experience with both Avid and FCP (much more so on FCP) and while Final Cut doesn't have as many real-time functions, I find it more than makes up for it with a great interface and overall sturdiness. And render times are negligible anyway, if you've got enough RAM.

That's the one thing about FCP that bugged me at first - having to render raw video, whether or not you applied any effects to it (and there are circumstances in which that can be a bother), although once I did get past that I found myself in the FCP Camp as well. I don't have a fraction of the exposure to FCP as I do to Avid (5 years vs. 5 months), and I already prefer Final Cut. I think that says alot.

You have to render raw video? Are you on a G5?

With my current system - I don't know. It was already here when I started this job - if I had to guess I'd say it was a G4. At my last job, where I got my very first FCS, I helped spec it out and I know it was a G5 HD Setup. Both systems required rendering RAW video from the BetaCam Setup, but not for the DV. I guess it has something to do with the Digital vs. Analog, but I never had that problem importing from BetaCam into my Avid.

Oh right, Betacam. Gotcha.

I worked on a HD 3D (cut on FCP) project a few months ago as Second Assistant Editor that was such a pain in the ass for rendering. Essentially we had to digitize each scene twice, at full res., once for each eye. We then rendered the left eye so the editor could cut his version of the scene. We added the right eye to see if it worked in 3D, which meant we had to render each eye again. The director would then say yay or nay to the cut, usually nay, and the process would start again.

It tripled our time for digitizing and rendering right out of the gate. Plus the director never called cut on a scene so digitizing was already a pain in the ass as we couldn't work slate-to-slate.

The worst part was that we tried cutting on an Avid hoping that it would negate the render issue. Avid crashed any time we tried to marry the eyes together.

The lesson: Final Cut has issues, it's not the perfect solution, but it's way more flexible and forward thinking than Avid.

I'm using Adobe Premier for a class and I'm digging it. Can anyone tell me what the benefits/disadvantages of Premier are vs. Final Cut, which I have not used?

Edit: If AVID is the same thing as Premier, please just forgive my ignorance.

I HATED Premiere. The digitizer sucked, the viewer and the timeline seemed to hate each other and refused to cooperate - just a completely unpleasant experience. I realize other people use it and love it so maybe the copy I had (which was legit and was running on a monster of a machine) was just glitchy but bleah.

And nooo - Premiere and Avid are not the same thing. The interfaces may be similar but I always saw Premiere in the same group with Vegas Video and the other One-Step-Above-Windows-Movie-Maker suites. Which is awesome for Soccer Moms, grandmothers and backyard filmmakers (no offense, soy), but not the best choice for any sort of professional situation.

Quoted for truth. Cutting and shortcuts are all counter-intuitive on Premiere and it is frighteningly limited in it's capabilities. I have found that the only people who like it are directors and producers and they only like it because it's cheap.

Premire's like Fisher Price's My First Editing System. It's Real-Time effects are lacking, the color correction's a joke, and it's such a bug hunt trying to find stuff. That, and the need for it to render anything--even if you so much as move a RT effect. I hate their logging system, too. The new Pro 2.0 suite is better, but it's like watching a monkey imitate a poet when you look at how shamelessly they're aping FCP with their "new" interface. It's OK if you're just starting out or are using for a class, but once you get FCP you'll never go back.

Dutifully noted. I have an Acer Aspire Laptop that runs Windows XP, with (according to the properties window under My Computer) 1.93 GB of RAM. Will Final Cut Pro run properly on my system, or do you really need a Mac? Cuz I don't have any money for a new computer.

As far as i know FCP is a Mac-only app. If there is a Windows version, your laptop should be able to handle it. What's the processer speed?

I don't believe there is an FCP Windows version, but there is Avid Xpress DV, which I have used (although it was an older version) and is a solid little piece of software.

Patrick, if you want I can send you an old version of Avid Xpress DV 3.0 (free upgrade to 3.5). It comes with Boris FX Ltd., Graffiti, and Cleaner EZ. It's about five years old but it's a pretty decent system and I will likely never use it again.

If you want it send me a PM and I can send it to you COD.

It's not a digital vs analogue issue. Something is telling me that you've got incorrectly formatted sequences. The speed of the machine has almost nothing to do with playing back video. It's all about the speed of the drives the footage is on. If you're playing off of Firewire drives, you can play back pretty much anything except uncompressed SD & HD. If you've got a RAID, then there isn't anything you shouldn't be able to play.

If you can digitize the betacam material, you can play it back. it's as simple as that. If you can play the betacam material in the preview window, that's the key to understanding your problem. If this is the case, then you need to check your sequence settings and make sure they're matching your footage. Scroll along the headings in your bin and make sure things like FRAME SIZE, VID RATE, COMPRESSOR, AUDIO RATE , and PIXEL ASPECT RATIO are the same for both the footage and sequences. If you can play DV stuff and not the betacam material, my first theory is that you're trying to play Betacam uncompressed material in a DVNTSC sequence...

I think I know the answer to this one....but anyone using/heard of VelocityQ? I'm using that in the video production suite at the church I work at and have had nothing but good experiences with it. From what I understand, it's probably in the same range as FCP/Avid.

I'm still learning the ropes, but it seems pretty stable, robust and deep to me.

I've never heard of it. Avid and FCP are the two big players, with a couple others jockeying for 3rd place (most notably Premier). If it works for you, awesome... Truth is most non-linear editing are laid out pretty much the same, just with different function keys...

That's absolutely true. I've been through about 6 different programs and function-wise, they're mostly the same. Now I judge mostly based on onlining functionability (colour-corrections, user-friendliness in getting stuff to Flame etc.) and real-time ability. FCP is definitely the front-runner, especially considering that soon we'll have a Final Cut that can edit 4K in real time, which is pretty awesome.

I've been stuck using premier, I havnt had any problems interface wise, but I do agree that it's constant need to render after the smallest change, and it's crappy color correction are annoying.

Yeah, Final Cut Extreeme (as it's been rumored to be called) could be pretty spectacular, but really only necessary if you're doing online film work. Most of the work I do is for broadcast, so uncompressed HD is the most I'm going to have to worry about. Even for offline editing of features, "Extreeme" wouldn't be necessary.

For straight editing, I don't think there's too much to improve on, exept perhaps on the file management side- which I seem to recollect is the nature of a company that Apple bought out last year. For full-scope editing, a beefier colour corrector is the real must. I've been using Synthetic Apature's Color Finesse for years. If Apple can integrate something of that calibre, I'll be thrilled...

Hoping to get down to NAB to this year to see what Apple unleashes...

Quick question - I have a VO that, after trimming all the breaths and pauses out, is still 11 frames too long. May not sound like a problem, but is a bitch when you're editing for broadcast. I see all the audio filters but have no clue what any of them do (and honestly don't have time to experiment with each and every one of them). All I wanna do is speed up that little track by 11 frames so it will fit. There's no easily apparent Time Remapping for Audio function that I can find, so what do I do?

Crap. If you had a Pro Tools rig that's a pretty easy fix. It has a time remap tool as one of the standard tools.

Hoiw long is the entire clip? Part of the problem happens when you re-time something that is quite short it sometimes becomes all phasey and distorted. If it's a longer piece over thirty seconds, the time re-map will work as Murdoch suggested.

It's a quick ID - a :04 second deal. Is there some way you can do it in QuickTime Pro? OH - or maybe Soundtrack? I really haven't ever had to mess with any sort of fancy audio editing since all I ever use is music beds and VOs.

It's very easy in Soundtrack Pro. Just open the clip in Soundtrack.

In the top menu, under "PROCESS". About half way down is "Time Stretch..."

This will open a new window which displays the current length of the clip. Switch the time base to "frames". Then enter the desired lenght.

Simple!

Fabulous! Thanks, fella!

No problem.

We all just took one step back from the leading edge today with the release of the new 8-core mac pro.

http://www.apple.com/macpro/

Just think. Only a year and a half ago my G5 Quad was the bees knees of the mac world. This puppy is 2.5 times faster! I'm not going to be able to make it this year, but one shudders to think of the power behind this machine if the rumored Final Cut Extreeme premiers at NAB in two weeks. Yowza!

Indeed. I just worked at a Studio that had just upgraded to a G5 quad so they could run Pro Tool HD...bet they wish they would have waited a few more weeks. It would have been worth the extra cost to be right up to date for a change.

Oh well, it still does what I need it to do, and pretty darned fast. I think the processor power is going to be most advantaged to those proposed Final Cut Extreeme users who will be onlining in 2K or 4K.

The good news is my machine is 64 bit enabled, so I will be able to take advantage of the rumored 64bit functionality, and I still have shitloads of space left for more RAM. Only 4GB out of a possible 16GB.

I've only got 2GB in my system, and it does what I need it to and renders quickly, but damn if those new specs don't make my G5 look like a friggin Apple II in comparison.

Oh, it's so tempting... A friend of mine put together his dream system online and it was going to be CN$9,100- and that's not including monitors!

Speaking of which, looks like they've dropped the price on as well. $100 on the 20" and 23" and $200 on the sweet, sweet 30". Only CN$2,099 now...

Apple has finially announced their new Final Cut Studio 2 Which includes FCP6 Motion 3, Soundtrack 2, Color (a new application solely dedicated to color correction), Compressor 3, and DVD SP 4.

I'm excited about the 5.1 surround sound capabilities, as well as HD editing. I'm tempted to buy it. But I think I'll wait till it shows up at my college bookstore before buying.

http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/

It's an awesome update. Specifically the updates to Motion mean "Bye Bye" to my use of After Effects for graphics...

Color looks like a fucking godsend. Guess I know what I need to start saving up for now...

Holy shit...Soundtrack 2 has a convolution 'verb plug-in plus a really great hi-pass and lo-pass filter (These will help immensely with your dialogue problem Greg) and pretty decent surround effects. I guess I better find someplace to give this a test spin.

This is a very cool looking package for indie filmmakers.

The most exciting thing may be the variety of formats opened up to people thanks to Apple's prores422 codec.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...eo_format.html

Essentially, for anyone like myself who is working off external Firewire 800 media drives, we can now run multiple streams of broadcast qualtity HD, and even 2K media- which is just nuts!