Behind the Headlines
There’s been a lot of coverage of the big changes in FCP6:
- Mixable codecs, frame size and frame rate
- ProRes 422 codec
- SmoothCam image stabilisation
- Motion template integration
But what of the smaller improvements? Here’s two I’ve discovered so far:
Redesigned Easy Setup window
FCP’s flexibility in handling so many formats can be a double-edged sword - in FCP5 the Easy Setup list was so long that it was often difficult to find a particular setup. In FCP6, this has been improved. Easy Setups are now categorised by codec, so you choose the codec first (e.g. DVCPROHD, DV) and then a second popup menu lists all the easy setups for that codec. A welcome change.
New option to rename media files
This one is interesting. If you rename a clip then the original media file does not get renamed. It’s never particularly bothered me but I know that a lot of editors want the QT media file to match the name of the clip in the Browser. In FCP6 there are two new options available when right-clicking on a Browser clip:
- Rename clip to file
- Rename file to clip
With this new feature, you can have the clipname match the QT filename and vice versa without having to rename manually and then reconnect the media. It’s not yet clear what happens if the renamed clip has been used in other projects - in FCP5 it would be offline because FCP uses the filename to reference the media with the source clip in the project.
Martin Baker is the founder of Avid2FCP/Digital Heaven and an Apple Certified Trainer for FCP and Motion. During his 13 year editing career, as a freelance and at the BBC, he worked on a wide variety of edit systems including linear, Lightworks, Avid DS and Avid Symphony before switching to FCP in 2003.
Comments
April 17th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
Gotta say, the new clip rename feature is one more thing that I can check off my list of “Avid does it, why not FC?” This is so awesome!
Thanks for catching it. I got so swept up in all the bigger, sexier features that I completely missed it.
The new Studio is simply amazing. I was fortunate enough to get a private demo from Apple. I don’t impress easily, but this blew me away! I cannot wait to add it to my kit. I will be able to do so much more for my clients with my Final Cut than the Avids I use around town. Very exciting indeed.
April 17th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
If you guys get any more info on the “smaller improvements” please post them for those of us who couldn’t make it out this year. Color and 3D Motion and mixed timelines are great but we all know there are lots of those little things than needed addressing and since the Sunday event didn’t really touch on any of them I think a lot of people are worried that a lot of those nagging issues are going to be fixed…and they NEED to be fixed.
April 18th, 2007 at 1:32 am
Excellent idea for a site, Martin.
Yes, I too would be interested in hearing about these so-called “smaller” improvements. I was blown away by the demos of Motion and Color … but rather underwhelmed as far as some long-standing, nitty-gritty issues being addressed in FCP6. Seemed a little disappointing after a two-year wait. But I haven’t gotten much hands-on time, so I’m sure there are things I overlooked.
April 18th, 2007 at 1:57 am
Hopefully I should have more info tomorrow.
April 18th, 2007 at 8:06 am
[…] some of the more important questions (at least in my mind) behind Final Cut Pro 6 in a post called Behind the Headlines. We all know what the most flashy features are but I want to know what they have fixed under the […]
April 18th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
I was hoping for a subtitle (caption) solution, where you don’t have to change each instance in the timeline, when you decide on another font or size. And it should export to standard caption formats easily, especially exchange with DVD Studio. Is there anything like this in FCP6?
April 19th, 2007 at 1:04 am
Any changes to Time ReMapping Martin?
This is probably the one thing that still causes me some grief.
Especially when using the Media Manager.
April 19th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
yes please. more of the “smaller” improvements.
April 24th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
The subtitle/caption thing is integrated into FCP6 via Motion templates. You can now work on your titles inside FCP6 and make universal changes to all instances of the titles at once, or just one, depending on what you require.
There’s also now some lovely looking optical flow slow mo options. I haven’t seen them for myself in real life yet, but the little bits I have seen look like a bit imporvement on the time remaps we have today.
Check out the ‘Motion templates’ video demos here : http://www.apple.com/au/finalcutstudio/finalcutpro/
Look for the ‘Retiming Behaviours’ clip here : http://www.apple.com/au/finalcutstudio/motion/
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