Final Cut Pro 10 is a disgrace to editing in fact it’s now positively dangerous, I decided after leaving it for a week or so to watch some more of my Ripple Training video and have a positive look at FCP-10.
It did not take long to shake me to the core, this software is a joke, I have used non linear edit suites for about 15 years starting with an Apple Turbo Cube, Digisuite with Speed Razor then Premiere 6.5 onto Premiere Pro. I joined FCP at version 5 and still use version 7.03.
The first major flaw is this mini cine reel, I accidentally clicked on it and it brought up a new project, wiping away my 2 hours of editing I had been working on…this is unreal I searched for an hour to retrieve my edit to no avail…to all intent purposes it was gone, then came the second more serious part of this joke software.
The second clanger came when I was playing about with a duff take and I erased it from the timeline to discover that you also erase it from the bin as well…this defeats the concept of non destructive editing.
Now I know this software is not FCP-7 with bells added but my experiment proved one thing that Apple have lost the plot when it comes to non destructive editing.
I decided to use this software as I would FCP7 or Premiere Pro 5.5 and it not only failed badly but is NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE and is POSITIVELY DANGEROUS in its present state. I also had to buy a program called CLIP WRAP which is excellent I may add in order to get my 1080 50p NX70 footage into FCP-10 (PS. It also gets the 1080 50p footage into Final Cut Express).
It’s a shame that Apple have got this so wrong in fact what we now have is a direct response to the DSLR mass marketplace, solid state editing at the cost of professionalism. (PS. This is not a cheap knock at the DSLR rather Apple trying to worm their way into an ever-increasing marketplace).
I do realise that I have “NOT” understood the concept of this software and it works lightyears away from what I have been used to but even after reading your comments I do feel Apple have re-invented the wheel for the sake of it and added a lot of unnecessary confusion and bad feeling that could so easily have been avoided.
One thing we found on top of this is that the exported videos don’t work. After forcing myself to do an edit in FCPx, and finally getting the video we wanted, we couldn’t export it!
Any export was extremely juddery and useless. Eventually found a work around by exporting as a large MOV and then taking it into trusty FCP7 and exporting from there!
Final Cut Pro X is undoubtedly not ready for broadcast work, and there are some pretty nasty bugs and missing functionality in what’s clearly an early-release product. There’s also a pretty steep learning curve before you start to feel comfortable. All of this has been covered well elsewhere.
Perhaps less vocal are those of us who are gradually adjusting to the new way of working, and finding that it fits our workflows better than we initially expected. Personally, I’ve gone from ‘what the hell is this?’ to ‘damn, that’s neat’. I’ve not yet found a show-stopper that’s anything more than a simple bug, and I’m finding lots to like.
In particular, I’ve not seen either of the issues you mention, and indeed I can’t recreate them on my install. The first issue seems to be a misunderstanding of how the project library works. That pane is either showing a storyline (‘project’), or a list of projects, and the cine reel button toggles between these two views. Saving projects is automatic.
The second issue looks to be a misunderstanding of what you’re editing. The timeline viewer is showing the contents of compound clip 00002, within the Sports Direct Event. You’re editing the compound clip itself, and you’ve removed all clips from it. The clips aren’t gone – they’ll still be elsewhere in your event library – but you’ve fundamentally changed the compound clip. This is entirely as expected; nothing destructive has happened, and the software is doing exactly what you’ve asked of it.
I suggest going back to the training videos (or even the help files) and revisiting the project management features. It’s radically different to the bin model adopted by other NLEs, and takes some adjusting to. Trying to make it work like Premiere or previous FCP isn’t going to work. At all.
Perhaps the only good news to emerge from this disastrous ‘upgrade’ is your recommendation of ‘Clip Wrap’. This deceptively simple piece of software appears to work really well, although I’ve still to run a side-by-side comparison of software- and hardware-converted AVCHD. The advantages of using Clip Wrap over a hardware converter such as Matrox include: it’s significantly faster than importing in real time, discrete video clips rather than a continuous stream of shots, considerable cost saving (if you’ve not already purchased a hardware converter!).
It seems like a lot of effort (and headaches)to adjust to how Apple wants you to work – no thanks.
Speaking as a still photographer, one who’s familiar with this type of data-management I’d have to disagree with your data related comments.
Look up Philip Hodgetts for more reliable information in this area. That Ripple tutorial is superb but I’d suggest starting with the Izzy video tutorials.
Here are the free Izzy video FCPX tutorials:
http://www.izzyvideo.com/final-cut-pro-x-tutorial/
Been using it for a few weeks now and have had very few problems. Have exported lots of finished files and not had any problems at all. It’s not Final Cut Pro 7…. it’s very very different… you have to re-learn your working methods. Or just use something else.
The reel icon just brings up your project window.. it doesn’t lose your work. Click it again and it goes away.
Philip, I feel your pain. I am a power FCP 7 and Avid user. It has been extremely slow going trying to get through the FCP X Ripple Training. But like other people have commented on this post, I am starting to appreciate FCP X the more I learn it.
The biggest complaints with X is the well deserved I/O limitations. Once you get past that however, there are a lot of pro features – they just have a completely different implementation than traditional NLEs.
I am not saying FCP X is the future of editing though. I remember when Motion came out and people thought that it was going to steal a lot of users away from After Effects and that did not happen. Like most people I stayed with After Effects as my primary motion grfx app. I use Motion only for small and specific tasks. FCP X could go that route. It may eventually be adopted by the pros but only used for certain types of projects. It is too earlier to call at this point.
I am interested to see what updates Apple will add and what functionality third-party developers will add.