Multiple final cut pro x problems!

I was recently seduced by Final Cut Pro X and have attempted to swap from Adobe Creative Suite CS4. I am having endless problems and have been reading various forums for days trying to figure out what I need to do but nothing solves my particular problems. I would usually try and find some answers myself but I am getting nowhere fast and have work deadlines approaching so I thought I would list all (/most) of my problems here and see if anyone can help me understand any of them/ figure out what to buy that doesn't cost hundreds. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

1. Importing - I imported some avi files which I had captured on a PC using Adobe previously. About half of the files imported without any problem. All play fine in quicktime. After much searching I used MPEG Streamclip to convert what wouldn't work to DV. Nearly all the clips imported fine from DV. One clip which was quite long (15 mins) converted to DV fine, played in DV perfectly but when I imported it to FCP X only a minute of it imported. All the clips were from the same DV tapes, captured at the same time so I don't understand why I can't make this one clip work. I can't import directly to the Mac because it was from a Sony Z1 which I have read is incompatible . I tried to see if I could connect it but the the thunderbolt firewire adapter i bought was for firewire 800 and I believe I only have a firewire 400 cable. I don't want to buy a new cable as the posts I've read say the camera isn't compatible anyway?

2. Exporting - I used to use Adobe Encore on standard Pal AVI settings to export and encode films with a menu I'd created in Photoshop. Now I can't export to AVI without buying Compressor, which is rubbish according to all the reviews I've read and will just crash the computer. I've tried to look at alternatives to Compressor but don't really know what I'm looking for and don't want to have to spend hundreds on getting adobe for mac. I need something which will export in comparable quality, not tiny internet videos. The best quality settings I can find built in for exporting are MPEG-2(?!). Also, I want to be able to make menus without having to use an awful preset template but preferably don't want to have to buy photoshop just for this.

3. Project presets in final cut pro x - The footage I have imported is 720 x 576 and looks square on my display but everything else (e.g.. colour solids) is wider . I don't want my project to export with stuff at the edges - is this linked to how i eventually export it or do I need to change a setting somewhere? This also looks strange with transitions - for instance, I want to use the swap transition but at the end of it my 'square' footage still has the other clip poking out of the edge (screen grab attached) before it abruptly disappears. I can't find a way to scale a transition and rescaling my footage would just look wrong too.

4. I'm sure this is really simple but if I use a colour solid behind a logo with a colour background to fill the screen, can I colour pick the colour I need to match it - I can't figure it out.

5. Transitions - When I used Premiere I could change the centre of a transition so that it only worked on one clip but FCP X automatically centres between two clips and I can't move it - how can I make the transition only affect one clip?

I would really appreciate any advice on any of these problems. Part of me thinks I might have to give up and buy a PC & Adobe Creative Suite then just use FCP X for colour & sound correction but this seems ridiculous and certainly out of my price range.

About the AVI and the FCP X.
Have you tried opening Mpeg Streamclip (free program, look online) and use Export Quicktime - and pick an Apple Prores version? Use that in FCP X should work fine, I think.
Mpeg Streamclip theoretically can also export to AVI, but I never had good experiences with it. Bad files, with seemingly no video, etc. ...

About the exporting: you can make some very nice decent H.264 versions out of FCP X with the presets (Share - Apple Devices). Why does it need to be AVI? AVI and Quicktime are just containers. Have you tried making H.264 out of FCP X?

I don't think Compressor is bad software. I think Apple took a bit too much of the existing presets away in the last version, but you can put them back and/or make your own. I think Compressor's interface is very clear (am I the only one that thinks so? I think Adobe Media Encoder is much more confusing, but could be habbit), I think the way the program works (put a preset on it, and unless you adjust it in a custom setting or depending on the setting, it takes over a lot of the specs of the original video - frame rate, aspect ratio, ... with AME you always have to make sure what exactly are the specs of the preset, and they almost all seem NTSC) is very nice. The only really bad thing about it, is that it maybe could use some more native codec support (can be added trough Quicktime) and (the biggest gripe) is that it can be pretty slow in comparison with some other encoding software. But it's not bad software, especially not for that price.

About the color solid. It just tried it, and it was no problem. I put a generator (Custom) on the timeline. I then put a picture (your logo, would be it) on the timeline, and opened the generator in the inspector. I clicked on the colour, and I got the OSX normal Color chooser/picker. I made sure my playhead was on the picture (your logo) in the timeline, so I could see it in the canvas. I just clicked on the magnifying glass and clicked on the place in the canvas of the color I wanted and I got it.

About the transitions, not sure if this is a solution, but if you double-click on a transition, I think you get the precision editor. Can you do it there?

About the project settings. Maybe you should check the settings of the project, what's the aspect ratio. It can be dependent on the resolution, because of how pixels get interpret.
It's not so intuitive where to adjust project settings, but it's not difficult once you know how: go to your project library, pick the project/timeline you are working on, and in the Inspector click the small icon below right (I don't know the English word... wretch? It's not my native language), and there you can see it. Is it in 4/3 1.33 aspect ratio or not? If not, and you need it, adjust it.


Firewire400 and Firewire800 are perfectly compatible. Just use a small adapter-piece (7 dollars or so) or a 400to800 cable. Firewire400 is not being used a lot anymore, unless you have some older devices. It's normal that Apple makes the thunderbolt adapter to Firewire800: it's newer, faster, and backwards compatible.

FCP X is very new software. It has 2 big things working against it:
1. The program is very incomplete in many ways, because it IS a 1.0 software, a kind of re-imagining of NLE software. A lot of the concepts Apple is trying out are interesting and better then what came before. Others are worse then what came before. And there are still a lot of things missing. There is no other way around it. For many, the program can do enough for them in the current state, for others it needs a lot of work-arounds, for some it's impossible to use because of some things missing. All reactions can be valid.

2. Because the program is new, a lot of functions that you won't find immediately, are there, but they are done in another way, are at another place in the interface, etc. This is not only for you the case, but also for a lot of the people to whom you ask advice. It's new software for anyone, so the online database of knowledge online is a lot smaller too (growing every day), which sometimes makes it more difficult to find solutions to your problems or questions.
But take the time to do so, if you want to work with the software.

You seem to be comparing all the processes you used in Adobe products to FCPX and without a basic working knowledge of FCPX you are considering these to be problems when in fact most likely they are just handled differently. Many of your statements are not correct, such as Compressor being a piece of junk and crashing the computer. I have never had compressor crash my computer....there are a few quirks here and there but overall for transcoding it does an excellent job and should be definitely purchased with FCPX.

Of all things FCPX is not...a color grading solution and audio mixing solution is among the top of the list, so considering using CS4 to edit and FCPX to grade and manage audio would definitely not be the way to go.

I would suggest you spend some time reading on this forum and watching several of the good FCPX tutorials available. I think you'll find answers more clearly to your questions.

Hope this helps.

Get some proper training. macProVidep.com or Ripple Training.

Thanks everybody for the help & advice. If I could afford training I would, but I can't, so I really appreciate the help.

I'm going to try Compressor to try and sort out my project settings. It seems a bit strange that I have to convert my 720x576 PAL-SD footage to 1080p HD, just to work in FCP X then export it back to 720x576 PAL-SD. I guess its an American thing?

Thanks again.

1/3- AVI is not supported by FCP X, but doesn't PPro export ProRes now? Or at least WMV?

FCP X will in fact capture your standard PAL-SD footage. There's no need to up-rez it to HD then down-rez it. That would in fact destroy all image quality.

If you have a standard PAL-SD digital video camcorder, and it has Firewire, you can capture in FCP X from it. There's no need to use any third party software at all.

Since you're starting with a project already in PPro, won't it export WMV files?

AVI is not something I'd ever touch to start with.

2- Nothing wrong with Compressor. With Flip4Mac you can ingest/output WMV files, which is better than old AVIs anyway. But using FCP X you won't have any need for either.

4- Apple's color picker is very flexible and can store colors, and allows you to pick colors from anywhere on the screen. It's the magnifying glass icon at the upper left of its window.

5- Select a clip in a Storyline, Opt-Cmd-up arrow key, this will lift it from the storyline to be a connected clip, add a transition, simple. Or, apply the transition before the following clip is added.

This is all super basic stuff. Again, go to macProVideo.com or Ripple Training and get some proper training. Both are super affordable. Way cheaper than buying a PC and an Adobe suite of software.

SMM1374 wrote: It seems a bit strange that I have to convert my 720x576 PAL-SD footage to 1080p HD, just to work in FCP X then export it back to 720x576 PAL-SD. I guess its an American thing?

Nobody said that. Converting to Prores, if necessary. Prores is resolution-independent. It can be 640x360 or 4K resolution, whatever.

Training is dirt cheap. The $50 on the Ripple stuff will save you hours of trying to figure it out. It's worth the investment.

But there is a lot of free training available too. Larry Jordan has an iPhone app with a lot of the basics of the program for free!

You can edit PAL in FCPX. When you create your project, try selecting, "use custom settings" and change your resolution there.

If you have QT7 (QuickTime Pro) and it plays the AVIs there's no reason you can't export Pro Res from there. I do it with awkward formats regularly. If you don't have it, it's $29 and available here:

www.apple.com/quicktime/extending/

I haven't worked out the custom settings yet - it doesn't seem to allow me to set it to 720x576. However, I've been trying out different formats with Compressor, trying to author a DVD through FCP X. I am so close to getting something like what I want but then when I play the finished disc on my TV it seems fine for a while, then changes the aspect squishing people's faces randomly. This is what I've been trying - does anybody know if I've been messing it up somewhere?

I've been using the Share DVD> Advanced - Send to Compressor bit in FCP X
Then I click on the MPEG2 settings in the inspector and change the video format to Pal and aspect to 4:3 under the encoder tab, then Crop to 4:3 under Geometry as my original video must have been 4:3.

It looks like it has worked and plays perfectly for a bit (on my DVD player) but on a few of the clips it suddenly changes the aspect like the way a TV sometimes automatically changes aspect except Its the film and not my TV doing it (I know because this has happened on a bit where I had a split screen and the video on one side stayed the same all the way through whilst the other side warped a couple of times). Am I missing something out? Its just burned with a Superdrive and this seems to have burnt other discs fine before.

When you create a new Project you can choose to let FCP10 set the Project settings automatically based on the format of the first clip you put onto your timeline, or you can use a Custom setting. There is a Custom setting for PAL 720 x 586 (Custom > PAL SD > 720 x 576).

When you export SD video from your FCP10 Project to DVD using the Share option you don't really need the Advanced option. The standard option uses Compressor's MPEG2 preset which will create a decent DVD from your Project without you having to worry about any encoder settings. If you want better DVD menu's than the basic ones provided inside FCP10 you can also export your Project to a QT movie (using Current Settings), then use a dedicated authoring application such as iDVD or DVDSP to create your DVD.

Ah! I've just seen the PAL SD setting when I tried to create a new project. Its weird that it doesn't allow me to change my current project to that setting when I go into the properties. Perhaps because the solids I've used go outside that, although it could just allow me to change it and warn me about losing pixels. I should really work for Apple software testing - I can misuse anything.

To change the properties of any existing Project:

Choose File > Project Properties (or press Command-J).
Go to the Inspector pane > Properties tab.
Click the Properties button (the little wrench bottom left).
Change the settings as appropriate.
Click OK.

You are not misusing anything, you just have forgotten to read the manual