One of the best video converter out there is HandBrake and it's free.

It may be that your video is recorded with variable frame rate which FCPX doesn't like.

If Quicktime Player will open the video, you can also use that to export to another format though it doesn't have many choices.

First thing I want to say is that your tools i.e. software shouldn't dictate what type of content you are making. That is contingent on your client base and/or the type of work you want to specialize in. Whether you use Avid, FCPX, Premiere, Resolve or what have you, software is nothing more than a tool for storytelling. It seems like a lot of jobs for upcoming editors tends to fuse what corporate video producers do with what ppl in LA & NY do in higher end jobs which is a jack of all trades and master of none which is not helpful.

Also, can't the Affinity product line or Pixelmator fill the lack of photo editing apps? I've literally heard from diehard FCPX users who tend to be very anti-Adobe that they will recommend Affinity image editing products if it means they don't have to have a CC subscription.

On my end, I have both Adobe CC and the whole FCPX suite. My main reason for using AE over Motion is that Motion doesn't have the community engagement that AE has. It was an incredibly smart move on Apple's part to make all FCP effects Motion templates. But the closest thing Motion has to the likes of VideoCopilot or other high profile tutorial authors is Ripple Training. It also hurts Motion a bit that it is Mac only where AE, Fusion, Nuke, Cavalry and others tend to be cross platform. On top of that, famous Youtube filmmakers and social media influencers breaking down how they make their edits basically become unintended promotion for Adobe in some regards.

I would strongly suggest you use a program like MPEG Streamclip to convert to one of the aforementioned formats before you begin editing your footage.

Use the batch list function (command+B) to convert more than one clip at a time.

I mean, if you're just looking for a down and dirty solution, you can just use a website or google translate for it. I am not aware of any kind of text-to-speech plug-in or something like that.

this website says it does it, and you can download an mp3 and put it right into final cut.

https://www.naturalreaders.com/online/

i'm sure there is other solutions too.

The only way to get FPC7 on a PC is to create a Hacintosh boot volume so the PC can boot into OS X. The latest version you can use with FCP7 is OS X El Capitan 10.11.6.

You'd probably be much better off using the free version of DaVinci Resolve. Its editing is very similar to FCP7. You can export XML from FCP7 and it should import into Resolve and work if you can link to the original media.

Is the drive formatted HFS+ or APFS?

I'd hazard a guess and suggest it's HFS+. I have seen this behaviour before when the disk's directory structure gets out of whack.

My first suggestion would be to Put Back the library from the trash, then restart. Once restarted, move the library to a different location on the drive and try deleting again. If that fails, go here and grab a copy of the maintenance tool Onyx. Each version of Onyx is specific to the OS version, so make sure you get the right one.

If that doesn't work, try deleting the file from another user account. If you don't have another account, create one with admin privileges and make sure the file in question is moved to a location that is accessible to both accounts—the Shared folder in your user account is the best place. Try deleting from here.

As an aside, it's always a good idea to have two user accounts: a standard one that you use daily and an admin account for maintenance and troubleshooting.

The last option is a bit of a Hail Mary and only works if the computer is not an M1 machine and the drive is formatted HFS+: use DiskWarrior to repair and rebuild the offending directory.

/u/jonjiv is correct. h.264 is the way to go.

Which version of FCP are you running 7 or X? I don't have experience with X, but I've often had trouble getting a good h.264 export straight from FCP7. I've had color loss issues before. I like to do a ProRes export and then run it through MPEG Streamclip to get my h.264 copy.

You can get an idea of how much space will it take to transcode your media to Proxy by reading the Apple ProRes Whitepaper (pages 24, 25 and 26).

This should see you right.

Samsung T5 1 TB USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbps, Type-C) External Solid State Drive (Portable SSD) Deep Black (MU-PA1T0B) https://smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/B074M774TW/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_EXQDJTRA1V3BND6FS5GS

Your choices with mixing two USB sources are very limited. They should appear as two devices in Audio.MIDI interface and from there you might be able to use Loopback to control the routing.

As the Samson Q2 also has XLR, your best bet it to use something like a Focusrite Scarlett.

need a 10gb network minimum, then look up this NAS or one like it, there are some videos on Youtube about how to do it.

​

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08QS1K2SJ/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_5?smid=A2I4D0WO1JEMBA&th=1

Do you mean editing or using editing software? They are two different, but overlapping, skills.

YouTube has everything you need and more - the issue is cutting through the noise.

This community is great for answering questions. Add some more details: what do you want to do, where are you at, what are you stuck on? No one ever reaches perfection and editing is never finished, you just hit the deadline.

It's ages since I read it, but In the blink of an eye was a good read on editing.

This one? https://www.amazon.com/OWC-USB-C-Travel-Power-Through/dp/B07W74D2QR/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?keywords=power%2Bpass%2Bthru%2Busb%2Bdock&qid=1655316569&sr=8-2-spons&smid=A2W0TEJ3MK1XP5&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEyQjI4NjhOUEZBWVlYJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNzkzNzMxMjhGMElCOUlXSERTUyZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwNjQ4MjczM1YwUjJBR05EWEFZMSZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2F0ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU&th=1

Looks like I'll still be short 1 USB-C port for my external SSD

As for the orange film text, it's kind of possible to recreate it, but it's better and easier to use actually digitized film clips and use a blend mode right in the timeline. There are many film dust, burns and noise clips out there that you can download and use. That kind of writing was usually someone writing with a sharpie right on the celluloid. A quick search yields:

https://www.shutterstock.com/video/clip-1965337-marker-on-film-strip

Wow it's been a long time since I used FCP7, but pretty sure you have to convert your phone footage to ProRes or some other format. This should not visibly degrade the quality, however.

It's important that you set the FCP7 project to the correct aspect ratio, frame size, and frame rate. You may still have it set for SD. You probably want 1920 by 1080, 29.97 fps. Once you do that, FCP7 should work just fine. Yes, it will output large files, but these can be easily compressed to a smaller size. I recommend HandBrake as a free way to do this.

Sorry for delay in responding. OBS is Open Broadcaster Software; open source streaming and recording software which means that it's free.

I haven't used it in anger myself but I know many people that have and regularly do, and they're generally pretty happy with it.

https://obsproject.com/

Of course, the capture hardware you'd need for it would be the same you'd use to record straight to FCP 7 (I don't know about FCPX), so you might still have options there.

Yes, you can expand the timeline by using the shortcut (Command + Plus) or as you can see through this picture https://anonfiles.com/92e07881u4/_-_-_._._png

I got a refurbished M1 256gb with 16 gb of RAM from Apple’s refurbished site. Highly recommend it. Huge value for the cost.

I edit 4K video and can skim through without issues

I also got this hub which I love. My desktop machine has over a terabyte of storage with this cheap add on.

You can only access that panel through Quicktime 7 (by clicking on 'Quicktime Player 7' in the top menu bar and selecting 'Preferences...') which you may need to install manually as it has not been included by default at least since Lion, which is honestly kind of annoying. Quicktime X is really dumbed-down by comparison. As an editor I've run into issues with the limited control Quicktime X gives you, i.e. not providing any way to inspect frame size, frame rate, audio channels, etc of your media. One of the first things I do when I start a job is make sure Quicktime 7 is installed, it can run alongside Quicktime X without issue and gives you a lot more control. Here's a download link and some info that'll explain a bit more:

http://osxdaily.com/2014/07/20/run-quicktime-player-7-in-mac-os-x/

Not sure if this will necessarily solve your problem but it seems like what's going on is that your gamma is being handled differently on export/playback (i.e. outside of FCP when quicktime is handling the color) than it is within FCP. This would be the first thing I'd try, I'd also make sure that the specific codec of the media you're working with is installed, if not it may be being handled improperly by some other codec that's not interpreting the color correctly. I used to just install Perian (a bundle of video codecs) but it's not compatible with Yosemite as far as I know so maybe just search for "exact name of your media FCP7 codec"

Definitely sounds like it will be soon.

The feature I'm most excited about is the supposed "instant" color correct. Engadget also says it has auto image stabilization, which could reduce time spent using Motion.

What features are you guys most looking forward to?

Handbrake is a separate program from fcpx, I wasn’t aware there was even a helper for it.

Just click export in fcpx and select “Master File (Sams as source)” to export a prores master file. Download and install the handbrake dmg and use it to encode the prores file into an h264 or whatever you want.

https://handbrake.fr/downloads.php

Handbrake is basically a front end that’s easy to use for ffmpeg, and allows you to use the excellent x264 encoder.

You might try opening it with VLC Media player. It's also free. If VLC will open it, Handbrake can probably convert it to MP4.

Good luck!

Did something similar to this a few weeks ago. I found a green screen christmas light / fairly light video on YouTube. Ripped it off there. Keyed out the green. Overlay onto logo. Mask out anything that looks out of place.

For extra effect, download the Glint effect (free) https://sellfy.com/10154417130356796/p/3YGr/ and overlay on to the christmas lights.

All of the above won't make it look like it's properly wrapped in Christmas lights but it will give the impression of there being twinkling lights around and on top of the logo.

Ryan Nangle has a ton of FCPX plugins, most of them with a free version. Also worth checking out his YouTube channel.

I have previously used "CC Lens Effect" to change it afterwards in FCPX. Ryan Nangle does a very good tutorial on how to use and adjust this effect at; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DREnR7RLt_A The link for the free Effect is found in his description or at https://sellfy.com/p/CQp1/ I'm by no means a professional editor but I film with GoPro's frequently and find that this helps change the fisheye effect.' cheers hope this helps

I see a lot more artifacts in camera original footage than in LT, but you are correct, there can be artifacts. But who goes to 400%? It's interesting to read Apple's White Paper and get the gestalt of how ProRes was designed.

You will find with disk inventory that the library (most likely in ~/Movies) contains the majority of your space.

DO NOT MODIFY THE LIBRARY FROM FINDER, It can make her library really sad.

I recommend Deleting Generated Content

This is not destructive to the ability to return to an edit but will remove render files and optimized/proxy media that can take up a huge amount of space.

Detailed information on Library Management is super helpful to understand going forward.

Also, Most NAS are not nearly fast enough for real time video editing. Additionally, Final Cut Pro X has a hard time generating backups when the library is on a NAS. Stick with Directly attached storage.

I recommend thunderbolt RAID drives for editing. Even usb 3 externals that are fast will work for 1080p.

Getting FCPX to run in a VM in Windows is possible, but I really doubt it will be worth all of the trouble. Maybe try DaVinci Resolve from Blackmagic Design. It is free and a really good alternative.

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve

If you are going to pre-screen everything, you can do that with Lossless Cut before you ever import to FCP. In your case, this might be worth the effort and certainly will minimize storage.

:) Yeah. I've edited videos for 7 years, but always just one feed. Editing multiple feeds is new and I'm really surprised at how much longer it takes. I've tried to find a way to not breath into the microphone while talking, but no matter how I position my headset (I use this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IVPG0SW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1) the breathing is picked up and sure enough I keep on breathing annoyingly when others are talking. It's not an issue when I'm talking, which is why I've never noticed the issue before since I'm used to using the blade tool to chop out all the areas where I talk.

Also, in the waveforms its so hard to tell a "yep" vs a heavy breath, a sigh, or some sort of desk sound. I guess I was overly hopeful that there'd be some insider trick.

You'll need to compress the hell out of the louder voice in order to get the softer one to match, so you'll probably need to lower the threshold a bit and bring up the gain. You could try a steeper ratio as well (like 4:1 or higher). Alternatively, you could try an adaptive limiter and change the input scale until you find a setting you like. Just be aware that by bringing up the softer voice you are also going to be brining up the noise floor with it.

Generally speaking, shotgun mics are not a very good option for recording speech unless there are no alternatives. They are a very specialized mic designed for situations where close mic'ing is next to impossible. I would highly suggest investing into some simple audio recording gear, as it will make your videos much, much better and your life much easier. I use both this and this for field recording, and the combination allows me to capture most things I shoot fairly well. The H6 is great because you can pair it with up to 6 different microphones and it supports phantom power, and it comes with a high quality stereo x/y mic that can be configured in either a 90 degree spread or 160 degrees. The Tascam is an excellent little personal recorder that I can give to someone to wear all day or tape to a podium microphone, depending on the event. Sound is one of those things that can make or break a video, so it's important to get it right imo.

I’m using a Samsung 860 EVO SSD. Link here.

I’ll look into how to effectively use proxy media. I opted to work with source media to preserve storage space.

Ok, I understand.

It’s a spinning HDD if it makes any noise at all. Send me the model and I’ll tell you what it is.

Here’s an external SSD that will work well for things to run reasonably fast. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073GZBT36/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_DejdFbMMQFNSC

For in-progress projects, I use an external Samsung T5 USB-C SSD drive (2 TB) — I create a single FCP library for the project and actually work from it / store in on that external drive. I find that the drive is very fast, and it's nice having to worry about a project growing too big, and actually crowding out my laptop's main drive.

Once the project is finished, I copy the FCP Library to a Synology Network-Attached Storage (2 bays, each bay containing an 8 TB, RAID-mirrored drive), along with any exported videos. I generally keep the project's full FCP library here for 6-12 months, until I know I really am not going to go back and edit it. A few times a year, I go back and review what's there, and delete projects as needed to free up space.

Backups (for those who are curious)

• My MacBook Pro is backed up hourly using TimeMachine, using the NAS as a backup target. The external SSD drive is also backed up along with this.
  • These backups help out if I made a big mistake in the project, and need to revert to a good state from a day or two ago
  • If my computer crashed, I could borrow a friend's computer, pull down the FCP library from the NAS, and continue work without much interruption
• The NAS is backed up daily to Amazon Glacier service
  • This would covers the bad cases - a flood/fire, major theft, etc. If my laptop and NAS were unavailable, I would be able to remotely access the project from Amazon, and resume with only SOME interruption (assuming 500+ GB FCP project library would take a long time to download, even over a decent connection)

Samsung T5 SSD if you’re looking for a good working drive. The price on these things has dropped significantly in the last year, they’re a super deal.

It's this one by Seagate. It's gone up $10 since then, but still a good deal. It works great. I just move libraries to disks like that and retreive them if I need them.

You know what I'm talking about the cards right? Like these.

Well, you can get a thunderbolt to firewire adaptor or a proper hub but it sounds like you're trying to connect two computers to one drive. Is that right?

If so, you would need to have the drive configured as a server, which may or may not be possible. The easiest thing to do would be to enable file sharing on the first mac pro, and then have the second mac pro connect to the first over the network. It can then access the drive. If the file sizes are large, you will of course need a network with decent speeds.