Please, Apple: Bring us "Modify" for a group of Multicam

Hey, fellows!
I hope Apple guys read this forum from time to time (is it naive?)

In FCPX 10.4 if we want to change multicam properties we need to select a multicam clip and knock the "Modify" button in the inspector - it brings us a resolution, framerate and codec options to choose.



But when we need to modify several clips at once... It can't be done! If selecting more than one multicam the "Modify" button disappears :dry:

I need to change the wrong resolution/frame size for thousands of multicams - how it could be that so easy operation Apple forcing me to do manually selecting and modifying clips one by one. It's just 6 clicks for a thousand of multicam clips vs 6000+ clicks... Do we need Randy Ubillos back for that?

Why not just change them as you use them? Why all at once? Yeah, that'd be nice to be able to do. But I'd not sweat it, I'd just change them as I needed to access them.

I do it as an edit assistant for a feature film. I can't say to the director "just change it as you needed" : ))
Anyway, it's a nonsense that FCPX disables a group modifying option.
I hope they give an attention to my feedback.

Fill out the feedback page, there's no official Apple folks here.

Yep, thanks, I did that already. Just wanted to draw attention to the problem of more users : ) The only one my feedback will not affect Apple, I suppose : )

… just to feed my curiosity:
What was set wrong? resp. what do you have to correct?

… and 'thousands' of MCs?
… so, a whole 12ep season of a TVserie , mostly fight-scenes, was done with 3,4,5 cameras? …

I'm with your pain, esp. taking into consideration, that those settings are 'virtual', in terms of 'just some flag in the metas' …

Yep, thousands : )
We have 2 to 3 cameras in every scene, 104 scenes in total - from 2 to 10 shots in each - from 5 to 25 takes in each = thousands : )

Our studio rendered proxy clips out of FCPX (in Davinci) with wrong frame size (1920x1080) and letterboxed. Later they re-rendered them at 2048x1080 with original aspect ratio. I relinked the library to new proxies but I've done all the MCs already at 1920, so need to change the format to 2K and resolution to 2048. And for now it took me 2 days for a half work - instead of 6 clicks!

More of that, as I see, when the cut will be locked, if we would like (but we wouldn't) to finish it in FCPX and export at 4K, and I'll relink library to original 4K Canon C200 CRMs, I need to change all MCs settings in the timeline once again... Whaaat : )))) Or I could just break apart MCs in timeline... No, wait!.. We can't break apart MCs in FCPX : ))
That's why we force to finish it in Davicni - because it can flatten 2k MCs into original 4k clips.

What a simple task indeed, it's just metadata, cmon, Apple : )

PS: don't get me wrong, I like FCPX more that other NLEs, but such unlogical unfounded luck of the options just kills me

Working with poor pre-production planning isn't the downfall of NLEs. Someone should have thought this whole thing through more before production started.

SadMac wrote: ... I relinked the library to new proxies....

How did you do that? I can't get external proxies to relink reliably in FCPX -- even those which FCPX itself generated. It works sometimes but other times (say when the drive name has changed), it doesn't work.

Hey, joema
I don't mean "proxy" in terms of FCPX proxy - it's just proxy for us. Studio generates ProRes from Canon CRM and I loaded those ProRes in FCPX as original clips, so FCPX doesn't know that it's proxy at all. Later I relinked all to another ProRes (with right aspect ratio & resolution). Also, I've checked if there are enough metadata to relink to original CRM.
So, no, I don't insert this clips in FCPX internal folder, so FCPX sees them as original, not proxy.
Sorry if I confused you.

So, FCPX.guru, I'm sorry that I hurt your feelings... but it's strange that in your opinion it's ok if the app could change metadata for one clip and couldn't for more than one without any reasonable reason...

SadMac wrote: Yep, thousands : )
We have 2 to 3 cameras in every scene, 104 scenes in total - from 2 to 10 shots in each - from 5 to 25 takes in each = thousands : )…

… uhm, well … hundreds… no need to create individual MCs per take, … so I'm with Ben: a bit more grey-matter in pre-production, would have save time & sweat.

same story here:

SadMac wrote: …Our studio rendered proxy clips out of FCPX (in Davinci) with wrong frame size (1920x1080) and letterboxed. Later they re-rendered them at 2048x1080 with original aspect ratio. I relinked the library to new proxies …

… someone decided to out-smart the guys at Infinite Loop#1 … what was the rationale for such a … complex, manual workflow??? Let FCPX do its intended job, done.-

But afterwards we are all smarter :lol:

conc. 6 vs 1k clicks: me no engineer, but I dared for a while to dig into the xml of clips, projects, MCs (looking for a workflow to apply tags, generated 'live' in my audio.app to the MC, kinda poor-mans-Lumberjack …) - astonishingly easy to read, but complex. As an example. you're talking of 2-3 cams = huge difference to find & change two or three sets of data… not to speak of different layer orders etc etc etc. Or, for a start: where are MCs located ?

I have the most respect to all those xml-wizards …

Karsten Schlüter wrote: no need to create individual MCs per take

One MC per take was the director's requirement.
Secondly, even with one take FCPX syncs MCs not quite right (by waveforms) - in 35% I need to reposition the clips inside MC for syncing (though the clapper sounds clear). So, with 20 takes in one MC it wouldn't be too comfortable.
And lastly, how to do notes for takes if I have several takes on MC... :blink:
But to be open minded, i'm interested what was your proposition? Or do you mean to cut that MC into several clips and make them compound and make notes for compound etc?

Karsten Schlüter wrote: Let FCPX do its intended job

Yes, I like to do proxy in FCPX too. But they want to use proxy not only in FCPX for director but also in Davinci for another editor. That's why they generated proxy externally.

Karsten Schlüter wrote: where are MCs located ?

Each event represents the scene - in each event there are cam A, cab B, cam C, Sound and a bunch of MCs from them.
____________

Anyway, I finished changing the MC settings manually and it wasn't fun :S
Yep, the smarter way would be to check the xml in the text editor. And in my event’s xml I could see something like this:

<format id="r2" name="FFVideoFormat1080p24" frameDuration="100/2400s" width="1920" height="1080" colorSpace="1-1-1 (Rec. 709)"/>

And in the corrected event I see this:

<format id="r3" name="FFVideoFormat2048x1080p24" frameDuration="1/24s" width="2048" height="1080" colorSpace="1-1-1 (Rec. 709)"/>

So, in theory, I could change the value of FFVideoFormat and width and import xml back to FCP and have fun. And I’ve tried it successfully in the test event and it brings all MCs to what I needed.
And this proves that Apple can make this option works inside FCPX :evil:

But for my bad luck it only works in my test Event in the test Library, not for the main Library : ) In main Library I always get some infrequent xml bag - DTD validation failure (Element audio does not carry attribute ref…). Even if I import back the same xml which have just exported from fcpx without modifying I’ll get it. I’ve tried to copy events into new library, but the bag is here anyway (looks like it in the events). As I see on the forum it happens with large projects. But that’s another topic : )

Another strange thing to me:
in xml code we could see: frameDuration="100/2400s" instead of "1/24s"
Mathematically it’s the same, but looks weird :silly:

And one more thing: even in the corrected event with 2048x1080 in xml text I could see the old "1920" line despite the fact that all clips with this resolution have been changed to 2048. What does this regard - I don’t know, there are no clips with 1920 anymore.

PS: sorry for such a long post and for my English

I have to say that in the current version of FCPX I'm having a horrible time with Sync and Multicam clip creation. FCPX seems to sync things very off, 100% of the time for us. Does this on three Macs with every multi-camera shoot we've thrown at it. Hoping this bug is fixed next update.

SadMac wrote: ... even with one take FCPX syncs MCs not quite right (by waveforms) - in 35% I need to reposition the clips inside MC for syncing (though the clapper sounds clear)...

I have much better experience with FCPX MC sync by waveform, and this is in field documentary environments where the camera audio is often quite poor. We usually slate each take but the sync is almost always accurate without this. Even ambient noise is good enough. Maybe your set is too quiet Is your data labeled properly within FCPX as described below?

www.fcp.co/fcp-forum/4-final-cut-pro-x-f...-multicam-edit#96178

Re one MC per take, the director may be thinking of other NLEs. With FCPX the unit of organization is not the clip but marked ranges. It is very easy to have one multi-take MC and have individual takes marked within that for rapid and easy access. They could even be labeled act/scene/take #, so would have a conventional appearance to the director.

OTOH that's easier with a director like Michael Bay who does few takes. If Stanley Kubrick (who sometimes did 100 takes) was alive today, that wouldn't fit so well in a single MC clip.

I frequently request our director and camera operators to please let the cameras run between takes if possible. I explain that gigabytes are cheap but post production time is very expensive. A high take scene where audio is fouled up on one camera then becomes a burden in post.

If you're experiencing sync drift or a high % of sync errors, I understand how a multi-take MC would be problematic. But in this case you ideally want to figure out the root problem.

But your main point is why FCPX doesn't allow changing the characteristics of multiple MC clips at one time. I don't know but I suspect it is just not a high priority item. BTW the UI allows selecting multiple projects and (apparently) changing their characteristics but this doesn't work right -- only one of the group gets changed.

SadMac wrote: …what was your proposition? Or do you mean to cut that MC into several clips and make them compound and make notes for compound etc?

MCs are compounds … a special breed one, just to mention that.


Tags.
I would make ONE MC per scene, all angles, all takes.
Then, the assistant J/K/Ls/skim thru, set I/Os per take, and apply a keyword.
So, the editor gets his '36/bb' or wotever naming scheme on the left, the 'clip' offers all angles, and when you adjust the 'mother' (I often, tinkerer talking here, have to color match my 3-6 cams in use), it applies to any range in use in the project.-
BUT…
… no clue how this translates to DaVR … not using it, try yourself.

SadMac wrote: … Yes, I like to do proxy in FCPX too. But they want to use proxy not only in FCPX for director but also in Davinci for another editor. That's why they generated proxy externally.

… and DaVR is not able to use Proxies made in FCPX? hmm… business opportunity

SadMac wrote:

Karsten Schlüter wrote: where are MCs located ?

Each event represents the scene - in each event there are cam A, cab B, cam C, Sound and a bunch of MCs from them.

My Q was rhetorically and technically meant: one can not reveal MCs in Finder, anywhere in the Lib…funny, hm? To manipulate it, you've found out, you have to export it as an XML…-

SadMac wrote: … And in my event’s xml I could see something like this:

<format id="r2" name="FFVideoFormat1080p24" frameDuration="100/2400s" width="1920" height="1080" colorSpace="1-1-1 (Rec. 709)"/>

And in the corrected event I see this:

<format id="r3" name="FFVideoFormat2048x1080p24" frameDuration="1/24s" width="2048" height="1080" colorSpace="1-1-1 (Rec. 709)"/>

So, in theory, I could change the value of FFVideoFormat and width and import xml back to FCP and have fun. And I’ve tried it successfully in the test event …

When you change these settings:



… it adjusts the size/res of the MC. yep…
… but try the Spatial Conform settings … no luck, doesn't work! It's a lil' bit more complicated :blink: … but again, me no programmer, just a very curious tinkerer…

SadMac wrote: … Another strange thing to me:
in xml code we could see: frameDuration="100/2400s" instead of "1/24s"
Mathematically it’s the same, but looks weird :silly:

… FCPX calculates in its own 'tics' – in my tests, I had to combine 48000 (=audio app), 6000 and 2500 tics (my cheap sacrifice cams rec only in 60p) … nothing strange, keep in mind FCPX' optional audio precision …

SadMac wrote: … PS: sorry for such a long post and for my English

… you should HEAR my English, har har …

in addendum:

I used sync-by-audio with my football-reports: cams 100m apart, 300 people shouting, the refs erratic whistle, and frequently some church bells ringing = works.- Ok, I add roughly a synch Marker for 'orientation' - luckily, each cam records the start/stop whistle …
Haven't synched anything in v10.4.x … so no comment on that …

… OTOH that's easier with a director like Michael Bay who does few takes. If Stanley Kubrick (who sometimes did 100 takes) was alive today, that wouldn't fit so well in a single MC clip.…

… but Bay uses dozens of cams, simultaneously !! And Kubrick in the digital age… <headache> argghh, hard to imagine THAT!! :lol: