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What am I doing wrong with Final Cut Pro 7


alnova1
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I must start out saying that I don't make a living doing film editing I just do it as a hobby but I just don't see what the big deal is about final cut. I really, really want to use it but I find that Premiere Pro does a better job. I guess my problem is the timeline real time editing. I can drop all my clips and transitions in the time line on Premiere Pro and its there..no rendering or warning messages that I have to cut off unlimited rt (which I don't even have on by the way). I can watch the video in real time which I can't seem to do with Final Cut with out it stopping Or having to render. I have a Q6600 Quad-core computer so I wouldn't think thats the problem along with 8 gigs of memory. Any help would be grateful because Im sure it might be something Im doing. I really want to use Final Cut but right now Premiere pro seems to do well for me.

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probably its a habit. :rolleyes:

many are of the opinion that Final Cut is a best tool for video editing.

but i still use Liquid - it's comfortable for me,

the most convenient tool, I would say

 

Also depends on what format you are shooting on.

certain Canon formats will only capture (easily.) in FCP.

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My favorite for video editing on a computer had to be a Video Toaster Flyer on an Amiga commodore 4000, software made by Newtek. It was easy to use, no rendering, and it was more of a video sequncer then timeline editor. Your video clips were called croutons and it had what they called the "kitchen sync" for fixing timebase code and non brodcast video's. . .

 

I've been using FCP 2 for quite sometime now, it works, I hate the rendering but don't have a machine fast enuff for Premiere CS4. . .

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My favorite for video editing on a computer had to be a Video Toaster Flyer on an Amiga commodore 4000, software made by Newtek. It was easy to use, no rendering, and it was more of a video sequncer then timeline editor. Your video clips were called croutons and it had what they called the "kitchen sync" for fixing timebase code and non brodcast video's. . .

 

I've been using FCP 2 for quite sometime now, it works, I hate the rendering but don't have a machine fast enuff for Premiere CS4. . .

 

So ts not just me...I am a Ma c man through and through but Premiere is better for real time rendering. I guess its what you get use to.

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  • 3 months later...

I think I must be doing my math wrong because it seems if I keep going that rate, Id only make a dime per 1,000 views.

 

But its been a long week and I shouldnt try to think too much after a week like that. Please feel free to correct my math skills because - even at the best of times - they suck horribly. LOL

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I I guess my problem is the timeline real time editing. I can drop all my clips and transitions in the time line on Premiere Pro and its there..no rendering or warning messages that I have to cut off unlimited rt (which I don't even have on by the way).

 

You didn't mention which format you are trying to edit. The are at least two or three settings you can change in FCP so that you don't have to render. One is the RT-settings, another is the preview and/or render resolution. You might want to check those.

 

I too was a Premiere-fan but more and more I find myself using FCP. Firstly it is more popular and secondly it definitely seems more stable and less "quirky" than Premiere. That said, Premiere does not deserve the bashing it gets from FCP-freaks... so whatever-works-for-you... good luck, ninetto

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  • 2 weeks later...

my company only uses red one cameras, so... i have no choice. i need to use fcp. red basically constructed their workflow around fcp. i heard they have some compatibility with avid now, but its w/e. at the end of the day, its just editing software.

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It's simple, really. Timeline must have the same settings as the source clips to be fully realtime. FCP will ask you if oyu want to conform timeline to the clip setting when you drop the first clip on new, empty timeline.

 

This way, FCP will be WAY more powerful than Premiere - you can't get even simple color correction to be played realtime in Premiere no matter how you cut it, with FCP on THE SAME hardware, you can get multiple streams of HD with CC in realtime.

 

You just need to know the basics.

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  • 2 weeks later...

FCP will only require rendering if video/audio streams of your Sequence are different from the ones you have on your imported clips. For me most of the time I see request for rendering after doing manipulations in Motion and bringing back them to FCP.

Agree with the note above about knowing the basics. FCP is one of the most powerful tools out if you know what to do and how to do it fast. Tons of training on torrents sites (copies of video tutorials etc). Gave me lots of boost after learning from professionals who are working on it from day one of the product.

The same is true for some transitions. Sometimes you need to render. I guess if you try anisotropic DV your requirements to render are less often for starters. Plus anisotropic can scale easily. Also most of apple native formats are OK too. I love Apple ProRes 422.

 

No need to blame the tools if you did not read the manual (at least once). ;)

Good luck and happy video editing.

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FCP will only require rendering if video/audio streams of your Sequence are different from the ones you have on your imported clips. For me most of the time I see request for rendering after doing manipulations in Motion and bringing back them to FCP.

Agree with the note above about knowing the basics. FCP is one of the most powerful tools out if you know what to do and how to do it fast. Tons of training on torrents sites (copies of video tutorials etc). Gave me lots of boost after learning from professionals who are working on it from day one of the product.

The same is true for some transitions. Sometimes you need to render. I guess if you try anisotropic DV your requirements to render are less often for starters. Plus anisotropic can scale easily. Also most of apple native formats are OK too. I love Apple ProRes 422.

 

No need to blame the tools if you did not read the manual (at least once). :D

Good luck and happy video editing.

ProRes 422, I've seen that, what is it used for?

 

I capture all my all footage from canon SD which is basic firewire raw DV and that's what I usually edit with.

I've been thinking about upgrading to HD samsung which uses an SD card for all it's footage, which I think is compressed MPEG2 format... What are your opinions on that?

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MPEG2 and DV are lossy codecs. You basically lose quality every time you render, transfer from one application to another (for example, to After Effects for post work) and back. Every generation has slight loss of quality. DV is usually fine, but MPEG2, H264, AVCHD are basically distribution codecs - optimized for bandwidth, but not for CPU usage and multigeneration workflows.You can see that if you do some more agressive color correction. You will get maps and nasty artifacts, whereas with some kind of intermediate codecs, you would get nice, clean image. Think RAW vs JPEG in still photography. H264, MPEG2 and such are used simply to save money - you would need gargantuan drives in camcorders in order to shoot HD into some nice, editing and post-friendly codec, like ProRes.

 

So, the best thing you can do is transcode your shots to some kind of intermediate formats like Apple Intermediate Codec, DVCPro/HD or ProRes. These are optimized for quality and postproduction workflows. When you finish, you can export to H264, DivX or whatever you need, but during editing and postproduction, stay away from these highly compressed codecs.

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MPEG2 and DV are lossy codecs. You basically lose quality every time you render, transfer from one application to another (for example, to After Effects for post work) and back. Every generation has slight loss of quality. DV is usually fine, but MPEG2, H264, AVCHD are basically distribution codecs - optimized for bandwidth, but not for CPU usage and multigeneration workflows.You can see that if you do some more agressive color correction. You will get maps and nasty artifacts, whereas with some kind of intermediate codecs, you would get nice, clean image. Think RAW vs JPEG in still photography. H264, MPEG2 and such are used simply to save money - you would need gargantuan drives in camcorders in order to shoot HD into some nice, editing and post-friendly codec, like ProRes.

 

So, the best thing you can do is transcode your shots to some kind of intermediate formats like Apple Intermediate Codec, DVCPro/HD or ProRes. These are optimized for quality and postproduction workflows. When you finish, you can export to H264, DivX or whatever you need, but during editing and postproduction, stay away from these highly compressed codecs.

So what you are saying is that after I capture my DV footage off my tapes, which is about 20 min's per 4 Gigs, I should then convert the RAW DV into an intermediate codec for editing? Because my final's are usually either DVD's or YouTube streams. . .

 

I know the camera's I'm looking at getting use the H.264 (MPEG4 part10/AVC) format. So would I need to convert them as well to say like ProRes??

 

( You don't know how much this helps btw, ty so much! :)

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