FCP/ Compressor workflow...

[Almohada]

I'm running Final Cut 6-something on Tiger 10.4.11

[cgbier]

I never saw a reason to upgrade to 7 either. Tiger was a better system than the two Leopards, but Lion definitively rocks.

[dop16mm]

Final Cut 6 on tiger is what I'm running as well, on a G5 dual 2ghz. I've never run into compressor times even close to what you're experiencing on dvd profiles. h.264 can be painfully slow, but anything that I know will take a while to render I set up for over-night. I've never had anything go for days. I've seen crazy estimates displayed, but they nearly always correct themselves. But I find it best to close anything unnecessary down and walk away and let it do its thing.

The system still does what I need it to, and I don't do pressure cooker deadlines. So no need to upgrade. If it dies, then we'll see what's next.

[Almohada]

Well it's very odd. The estimated time was counting down fine but after 5 hours and 3/4 of the way through it started acting up and started counting up all the way to 36 hrs when I gave up and stopped it.

[Janke]

Running out of memory, perchance?

[cgbier]

No, it is a bug in Compressor... or, as it is with us since version 1, you can also call it a feature.

Happens from time to time. All you have to do is to stop the job and restart it.

[Almohada]

What?! A bug?! How come no one told me. I did not see this feature in the manual!!!!!

[DebG.]

Deb, there are loads of places that can give you a (free) overview over FCP X and Motion.

http://www.izzyvideo.com/final-cut-pro-x-tutorial/
http://www.pixelcorps.tv/macbreak_studio is releasing shortened versions of the rippletraining tutorials.
The Holy Cow has a lot of outstanding tutorials.
If you want to pay for your tutorials, the stuff from Rippletraining is about the best you can imagine.

Send to YouTube is faster than exporting first, then upload. You are still free to export your project to any format you like (or build a batch in Compressor)

The discussion about the move from FCS to FCP7 was hefty at the beginning. Apple brought out FCP X too early. It was a beta, and there was missing a lot of stuff. Putting FCS on EOL was not the best decision Apple ever made either. Meanwhile, most issues are addressed, and Apple is feverishly working on improving FCP X. The latest version is even more stable than FCS ever was, and even "pros" are warming up to it more and more. A lot of the complaints, however, came from folks that had never really used it. They were appalled by the "iMovie look", but if even Adobe has been copying some of FCP X' features for CS6, does that mean that CS6 is not a professional software anymore?

I've been using it from day one. At the beginning it was a love hate relationship. Sure, it was fast like hell, but also needed some time to think in-between (beach ball's your best friend), but it got that good meanwhile, that I don't open up FCS anymore (for editing).

Thanks so much, CG! I'll be checking out those links this week. I'd also been following Larry Jordan's initial free training videos on YouTube.

Although, I can appreciate older editors' displeasure with the new interface, I thought that objectively it really is a better way to go. I'd heard pretty much the same arguments when Apple switched the style of iMovie 6 HD to the current look. People went crazy! Where's my TIMELINE! I can't possibly edit without a proper timeline! I had to confess that as a new editor at the time, I didn't see the problem... there WAS (and is) a timeline, it just looks different and curves back and forth rather than go in a long, straight line. I think it uses the screen real estate more efficiently that way, actually. It eventually died down (sadly, after YEARS) when people got used to it and also just about every missing feature was slowly added back. REALLY funny how Apple didn't learn its lesson from that fiasco!

Deborah

[cgbier]

Larry's tutorials are great. His YouTube stuff is only teasers to get you into buying his stuff. When it's getting interesting, it stops.

iMovie and FCP X are made with MacBooks in mind, as about 75% of all Macs sold are laptops. Therefore, it only seems normal that Apple's working on efficiency in real estate.
FCP X' Magnetic Timeline is the best thing since sliced cheese. It takes some five minutes of cursing to get used it, but once you understood it, one would have to wring that Magnetic Timeline out of your dead, cold fingers.

Sorry, Almo. Completely forget about that. In my age, I'm allowed to have the one or the senior moment.

[Almohada]

Yeah I've watched a few of Larry's tuts a while back. Good stuff! I should re-visit them. Maybe I missed the Compressor section. Hahaha!

[cgbier]

I'm not sure if Larry ever even mentioned Compressor, besides an "I show you now a quick'n'dirty way to get your stuff out".

Compression is as complex as color correcting can be. That's why I never went too deeply into it - build some presets, a bunch of droplets, and hit "submit", then go to bed is all I do in it.

[Almohada]

Well my friend you are a life saver. I can finally "rest assured" literally and physically (rest) as it's rendering and not for 33 hrs for a 3 min clip

[cgbier]

Nah, you're over estimating me.

[Almohada]

Hey, CG... just curious.... is there a way to export from Compressor using the DVD 90 mins best quality and change the size so I can get pure 2.35 and not 16x9 with letterbox? Does it export out nicely or will it be funky if I change the size? Would it crop out my video from the black bars I have on it now? I noticed many feature film DVDs are pure 2.35 and are not letterboxed.

[Almohada]

Hmmm I tried setting the Custom Crop to Panavision 2.35:1 in the Geometry menu but it still comes out letterboxed. Guess it has to be that way since it's going onto DVD.

[cgbier]

There is some masking and cropping in FCP involved, but I don;t get it together anymore. Read a how to some years ago, but can't remember where.

[cgbier]

So, talking now like an eunuch would talk about making babies: You load your footage into the FCP timeline, then go Effects > Filters > Mattes > Widescreen. Do your edits then send the stuff to Compressor. There should be somewhere a Panavision 2.35 Widescreen preset in the Geometry tab.

Look into that when you want to fiddle around a bit. I never used it.

[Almohada]

So, talking now like an eunuch would talk about making babies: You load your footage into the FCP timeline, then go Effects > Filters > Mattes > Widescreen. Do your edits then send the stuff to Compressor. There should be somewhere a Panavision 2.35 Widescreen preset in the Geometry tab.

Look into that when you want to fiddle around a bit. I never used it.

I did exactly that but it did not work. Oh well, whatever.

[cgbier]

Hmm, maybe you're just holding it wrong.

Sorry that I couldn't help.

[Almohada]

Awesome, it took just under 2 hours (for a 22 min. project) to export the reference file!

[cgbier]

Seems you're getting there!

[Almohada]

Great. Ok, so I had to do it AGAIN because one of the clips jumped for half a second... I guess it wasn't rendered properly or something. I removed all the filters on that clip rendered it, put them back on and rendered again. So I exported another QT reference file. Everything was perfect.

Just now, I dropped it into Compressor. Everything looked good. The reference file played in Quicktime and VLC. So, I closed Final Cut since I don't want it open in the background as Compressor is working. Okay so I open the QT reference file to watch it again in Quicktime... what??!!?!?!?! It only plays audio. I open it in VLC, same thing. Only plays audio. Even if I right click on the reference file and go to "Get Info" the preview just has an audio file and not video like before.

Did something go wrong when I closed Final Cut??? Hell with it, I'm just going to export it... AGAIN.

[cgbier]

Are you talking about the Compressor result or what came out of FCP?
If you export a reference, you can close FCP afterwards. It's not needed anymore.

[cgbier]

You checked "Export Video AND Audio"?

[Almohada]

Yes I checked both. I played it Quicktime fine with both Video and Audio. Then after I closed Final Cut it only played the audio in QT. so I had to export it again, the left FC open as Compressor did its thing. Left it on overnight, woke up and it was done! I did a DVD plus a HQ H.264 .mov file of the project. It took about 4 hrs for compressor to complete the job. (I did an iPhone export just for kicks but the aspect ratio was off so I trashed it. So actually it was less than 4 if I don't count the iPhone export)