My Brain is SMOKING!!!! Learning Final Cut Pro and DVD Pro

[dbbubba]

I am taking on a video project that requires camera work, live switching, capture of video, editing and DVD authoring.
I have been messing with Final Cut Pro for about a year, but now I am deep into learning to edit and use the program to a fuller degree.
Final Cut is a VERY dense program!
I am also learning to author DVDs in DVD Pro.

Runs on a Mac.
Looks like a DAW.
DOESN'T operate anything like a DAW!!!!

I am about to put my first completed DVD in the DVD player in our entertainment system.
It is stuff I shot, edited and authored.
I hope it works...

I HATE READING MANUALS!

[videoteque]

The oposite hapens to me, I still can't understand I have to put an audio effect to all the clips in a track, instead of being free to put an effect just in a clip like you can do in FCP...

[dbbubba]

It is a different thing for sure!

Well, the DVD plays like it should.
I need to learn to use the set up for the transport buttons in DVD Pro.

My only real gripe with Apple on these applications is with the manuals.
The Final Cut Pro manual has way to much detailed text about the "WHY" aspect of stuff instead of the "HOW" aspect.

It is like reading college level textbook on the program instead of an operation manual.
You learn a lot, but I keep finding myself thinking, "Yeah, yeah... I know all that, but HOW do I do it in Final Cut Pro?"
I am used to thick manuals (DP5/6 and PT.)
Studio Vision Pro is spread out between five or six manuals.
The index is at the end of the last in the series, so that is a pain in the azz, too.
DVD Pro is another 600 plus page manual and the other graphics and utility programs all have their own manuals as well.

It is a bit more manageable to use the manuals in the HELP pull-down in the program (same text.)

It is like learning a whole new world.

[joelpatterson]

Maybe if you sleep with the manuals under your pillow you will absorb them by osmosis?

(Just be sure they're facing the right way or you'll learn it all upside down and backwards)

[taturana]

i understand... i think it's far too much information for one brain only... audio and video... everytime i tried it it took me very long and was very arduous..

but i've been dabbling in premiere a bit...

last time i checked manuals were a bit too hard for pillow duty.. e

[seaneldon]

Originally Posted by dbbubba

My Brain is SMOKING!!!!

I think they have surgery for that.

Originally Posted by dbbubba

Final Cut is a VERY dense program!

Yes it is! The only software I've ever tried to understand, but instead decided that if I ever needed video compilation and editing...I should just hire someone!

The guy that edits video for the studio has been "learning" Final Cut for about a year now. From what he tells me, he's nowhere close! I see him dicking around with "Colors" (which is like...shade EQ for video, but way more confusing and nonsensical) and it makes my head spin. He shows me the NEVERENDING list of key commands and I rethink my existence.

Originally Posted by dbbubba

My only real gripe with Apple on these applications is with the manuals.
The Final Cut Pro manual has way to much detailed text about the "WHY" aspect of stuff instead of the "HOW" aspect.

You could think of it this way: deep understanding of the "WHY" is required to know WHEN and HOW to implement something properly.


....but yeah, Final Cut kind of sucks. It doesn't, but it does.

[joelpatterson]

Maybe... running the manuls through a washer and dryer might soften them up a little...?

[macleodgrant]

final cut pro is awesome but there are some very simple ergonomic omissions.

like why when you click the background or select a different object it stops playing

why can't you turn off 'screen follows playhead' - have you noticed that whenever you stop the playhead it shifts the focus of the screen to the playhead and you can't turn it off - very annoying. the same thing happens in soundtrack pro!!!!

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by joelpatterson

Maybe if you sleep with the manuals under your pillow you will absorb them by osmosis?

(Just be sure they're facing the right way or you'll learn it all upside down and backwards)

Or you'll dream of the professional FCP editor you're going to marry some day.





After hacking around with a motley selection of free and giveaway video editors on the PC for a few years -- and hating each from NeroVision to Avid Free to Win Movie Maker for various reasons -- I finally broke down and bought the consumer version of Sony's Vegas Video ($60 after a $30 rebate).

And I was shocked to be absolutely delighted. It looks like a DAW, yes, but, better yet, it acts like a DAW in ways that mostly make perfect sense. I use Sonar and many of the same editing conventions used there are applied to both audio and video tracks in Vegas.

Even on my extremely modest, several year old $400 Dell refurbished beater P4 with only 1.25 GB RAM, the editing and previewing is no wait and the previews smooth (load up the FX plugs and you can drive it to dropping frames, to be sure).

'Pulling' the edge of a clip non-destructively slip edits it. 'Rolling' the mouse on an upper corner of a clip, fades it. Overlapping two clips defaults to a crossfade that can be customized. And, at least in the video lanes, Vegas also supports dropping vid FX into individual video clips. (Unfortunately, the version I have doesn't allow individual plug ins in individual audio clips, as I've become used to in Sonar, although there are track-wide live plugs or you can apply destructive edits to individual clips. Maybe the pro version has it. But I didn't get Vegas to use as a DAW and I can live with the limitation in a program that cost me well under a hundred bucks.)

I'm happy to say that I think I only had to refer to the online documentation once. Almost everything simply acted like I expected it to.

I have to say, I wasn't a big fan of Sony and hadn't been for years -- but they really hit a winner for me with Vegas.


There are two low priced consumer versions; they're limited to four video and four stereo audio tracks in a project. The deluxe consumer version I have threw in DVD Architect [whose predecessor CD Architect I paid Sonic Foundry around $300 for in '96 or '96!] I assume the $600 list pro version has more tracks and perhaps other features as well. Also, keep in mind that, according to Craig Anderton, who produces and edits a bunch of vids for the AES, running Vegas on a 64 bit Vista machine tremendously speeds up rendering -- which is certainly not fast on my lowly Pentium 4.

[dbbubba]

As is the case with anything new, you have to be mindful of your time and decide how much time to devote to what.

Here I am learning rudimentary Final Cut Pro operation and learning to author DVDs, but I have so many other things I could be doing.

Work on MCI JH-538C re-capping project.
Interface tie lines and patchbays from synths and stuff to JH-538C.
Repair broke stuff:
1.) Crown DC300A
2.) Crown D150
3.) Lexicon 224 (the one that sorta' works)
4.) Ashely Notch Filter thing
Re-cap two MCI JH-110Bs
Install new driver in Echoplate III
Re-build my wife's old Wurlitzer electric piano
Work on my Hammond M3

At least messing with FCP onle involves sitting in a chai and staring at a computer!

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by dbbubba

[...]

At least messing with FCP onle involves sitting in a chai and staring at a computer!

I prefer to drink my Chai -- but I've always wanted to try a warm milk bath... and a champagne bath always sounded kinda cool in a decadent, let them eat cake kinda way...

[taturana]

Originally Posted by joelpatterson

Maybe... running the manuls through a washer and dryer might soften them up a little...?

since it's that time of the year... i was actually thinking of dipping them in eggnog...

[AllAboutTone]

I have been learning Final Cut for the past 2 days, about a 2 hr session each day, I have made huge progress I think, It helps to had worked in the late 80s in a video/editing studio.
The only thing that I have not go to yet is putting my test project to DVD.

[Mikeren]

I teach FCP and DVD Studio Pro.
Now if I could edit as easily in Pro Tools as I do with FCP, I'd be one happy camper...
About Final Cut being a "dense" program--I describe it as a few feet wide (easy to get the job done) and about a mile deep (with options and ways to do things).

MR

[AllAboutTone]

Originally Posted by Mikeren

I teach FCP and DVD Studio Pro.
Now if I could edit as easily in Pro Tools as I do with FCP, I'd be one happy camper...
About Final Cut being a "dense" program--I describe it as a few feet wide (easy to get the job done) and about a mile deep (with options and ways to do things).

MR

Endless for sure, Pro Tools is easier to me altho final cut is getting real easy day by day, I told myself I would never learn either, both have been a piece of cake so far.
Logic 9 is a pain im my side, I use it sometimes but hate it.
The new PT8 is amazing, A big step from 7.4.2, they just keep making things that almost a kid can use.
I never read a manual, sometimes i use youtube help but mostly trial and error is the best way for me.
btw on FCP, The word unrendered trips me out the way it works on some effects.

[iluvatar]

Conceptually, I didn't see how FCP was all that different from a DAW - you put assets on tracks, you cut stuff, you move it around, you fade between them, etc. The big difference is the per-clip processing. I can see just dropping an fx plug-in on a particular clip, but it sure would be nice to be able to adjust the volume & pan on all clips on a track. Yeah, there are a lot of key commands, but have you looked at the full key command list for Pro Tools? Logic can be just as bad.

With FCP, it's more the ergonomic issues that bother me. The audio waveforms take eons to draw. Color is essentially EQ for the eyes, and it can do some great stuff, but the GUI was designed by morons (no horizontal scroll bar for the timeline? ).

-Dan.

[d1rtynyc]

Originally Posted by dbbubba

I HATE READING MANUALS!

Danny-
Have you seen this site:
macProVideo.com - Tutorial-Video Library

For $30 you can stream all their videos for 1 month or buy certain lessons outright.
You might want to drop $30 on it. It can save you some time & get you up and running faster.
They also have plent of DAW tutorials as well.

[jmarkham]

I learned FCP, DVD and Motion using Lynda.com ... I found
them to be very helpful.

jeff