After much consideration, I finally purchased FCPX
 

And. . . Wow!! I like it!

I'm not a pro like most of you people. But, during the past 5+ years, I've been doing a fair amount of video editing for my place of employment. (I'm a full-time ICU nurse and video-tape the educational in-services for the benefit of the "off-shift" employees such as myself. I do NOT get paid to do this extra work, by the way.) These projects range from 30 minutes to (sometimes) 2 hours in length. Needless to day, I have spent HOURS (up to 24 hours in total for some projects) editing many of these in-services. I can see how FCPX can significantly shorten a lot of that editing time. Very cool!

Now. . . to be honest, I just purchased FCPX last night. I haven't even read the manual, yet!!! Still, I was up and running in no time, working on a personal project (my 25th wedding anniversary-vacation spent in Sedona, Arizona). This particular project involves lots of "footage" and lots of photos, all easily "accessible" and editable, thanks to this newer version of FCP. I still have Final Cut Studio suite on my happy Mac Pro. It's there to use in case I need to re-edit any of the dozens of projects worked on these past number of years. But dang! It's nice having this newer version of Final Cut as I look at some longer and potentially more involved projects that I know my "work" will ask me to do.

New Applications usually have teething pains
 

My experience started with iMovie HD6 then went to iMovie '09. For lack of computer prowess and due to camera file type (*.tod) I never made any progress. Just recently got a computer to handle FCPX and bought it. Now, I'm really cranking out the videos and am beginning to loose count. Let's see, just more-or-less finished the fifth one, well.... a really good "draft" version.

Had some problems last night with transitions not working right and solved that one on my own. If the clips don't actually touch then there will be a problem. Also, editing the clip length while in the Timeline with the transition seems to cause me problems. Now I delete the transition on each end of the clip, delete the clip, insert a new clip, adjust length, then re-insert the transitions. There may be an easier or better way but this works and its pretty fast. A no-brainer (Hey, works for me!).

With each new video I'm entering new areas and it's all about working through the system. I've got two books to help and they have been helpful. On the problem above, the book "Visual QuickStart Guide", "Final Cut Pro X", Lisa Brenneis & Michael Wohl, is very helpful. It is written for 10.0.1 though.

Re: After much consideration, I finally purchased FCPX
 

Hi John -
Nice to see another user enjoying the newer FCPX program. :)

Over the past couple of days, been spending a number of hours with FCPX. Currently have three projects started (I have four to work on). The program seems intuitive (as other have shared on other posts). Still haven't read the manual. . . YET! But that time to "crank open the book" is coming soon. I'm realizing that I don't know how FCPX makes DVDs complete with menus, etc. Not even sure if FCPX can. (There's no equivalent to DVD Studio Pro that I can find!) Figuring this all out will require me to actually RTFM!! LOL! Still, its basic editing capabilities is nothing short of phenomenal. Glad I finally made the purchase.

(By the way, I still have the Final Cut Studio. Those "earlier" programs still seem to be working as intended, including DVD Studio Pro. So, I ain't too worried about burning DVDs when it comes time to do this.)

Re: After much consideration, I finally purchased FCPX
 

The program seems intuitive (as other have shared on other posts). Still haven't read the manual. . . YET!
[ed. comment: That's probably because the male genes kicking in.]

But that time to "crank open the book" is coming soon.
[you might be able to delay that for a bit. When there is a problem area, what I've done is to just create a short Project with the problem-area clips and work with that so as not to mess up the Project I'm working on. This way you can really mess it up and if it isn't what you want just delete it and start over all the while keeping your good project intact. See, there's no need to open the book and waste time.]

I'm realizing that I don't know how FCPX makes DVDs complete with menus, etc.
[Found out on my second Project that FCPX can't burn a DVD with a menu. There wasn't that much time left on the DVD anyway but it would be a lot more "professional" looking to have a menu. I'm sure that there is a program that will do that but I've been too busy with cranking out a backlog of old videos, plus with other things going on in life, to deal with that right now. But the time is quickly coming to where it's going to be time to deal with it. Anybody have suggestions?]

I think some of the "earlier programs" that Apple had that worked in conjunction with FCP7 have been discontinued. Also, I'm sure the FCP coding crew is working really feverishly (at least I hope they are) at cranking out new code for improving the application. Surely DVD burning with a menu has to be a part of that.

Personally, I have a bit of a problem using the Apple FCPX support page but it has been useful, somewhat, in finding out things. Mostly, though, I've been learning on my own via a combination of "Help" (which isn't that helpful if you don't know the key word), trial-and-error, and that two books I have. The one book has been really helpful.

Keeping in mind how a data base works helps in understanding how the application system works.

Re: After much consideration, I finally purchased FCPX
 

It would surprise me if Apple updates DVD Studio Pro. As a company they seem to be moving away from optical media as a whole (App Store, lack of optical drives in MacBook Air and Mac Mini). I think they see the future as being online download of content.
One solution for you would be to write out your edited videos and use something like Roxio Toast to do the DVD menu and burning.

Re: New Applications usually have teething pains
 

John - which book is most useful to have in your opinion, especially now that 10.0.3 is out?

Re: After much consideration, I finally purchased FCPX
 

I'm about to dive into FCPX. A bit forced to really.
With Mobile Me going away and a couple of key clients going to FCPX, I decided it was time for a new laptop and I plan to put X on it to see how deep it goes. This will at least mean my email/calendar stuff will continue to work. I have to keep 7 on my desktop for legacy projects (yes I know I can port to X but I have a ton of plugins that I use regularly) and I don't want to change the OS to Lion just yet as I'm in the middle of several large projects!
So essentially I will have two edit systems. Not a bad thing as AE renders can eat hours of my day.
I also plan to dive into PP6 when it arrives as some other clients use PP5.5.
Such is the life of a freelance shooter/editor! Gotta be proficient in what my clients, many of them being large production companies, want to use.
My laptop arrives tomorrow and will have X on it shortly after unboxing!
Report will follow in a couple of weeks!

Re: After much consideration, I finally purchased FCPX
 

Same here. I think that DVDSP is EOL. And I think that the future of distribution on disk is no longer that rosy.

DVD sales have been flat or declining for years, and Blu-Ray has never reached the kind of popularity that DVD had at its peak. There's just too much competition from VOD streaming and download platforms.

Re: New Applications usually have teething pains
 

David: Sorry, but I can't realistically give a good answer on this one. When I went book shopping I didn't do a serious study of what was available and read reviews, just a quick fast and furious one. And, of course, there is the old saying "Haste makes waste." I knew that I needed something so I went down to Barnes & Nobel to see what they had but everything that looked good was priced at, or near, retail. Made a few notes and came back home to the computer and logged onto the Internet, searched around some more and just ordered a couple.

1. "Final Cut Pro X, How it Works", Rothermich. This is really great for getting an idea of how FCPX works. It stresses that it is a database program. I've built some databases myself so I know the concept so this was just reinforced. The book is letter-sized and 61 pages and didn't cost very much. If one can relate to diagrams and outlines then this is good. If I had a gripe about it, it is with the graphics - they just don't look very sharp and the colors are rather muted.

2. "Final Cut Pro X", Visual QuickStart Guide, Brenneis & Wohl: This has been my go-to book most of the time. I've got several pieces of paper, book marks, in it that are marking areas that I've been working in. When you can't find an item in the FCPX Help because you don't know "their", or the, right word, the index in this book is very helpful.

Frankly, I'm moving along so fast on this right now with learning new tricks and new things to do I don't have time to look for any more books. Even though these are for the .1 version they're still very useful. I can't remember off hand what the new items were with .2 and .3 but so far these books have pretty much covered everything I've needed. At least I think they have.

Hope this helps. And if you go book shopping and come up with something good we hope you share it with us.

Re: After much consideration, I finally purchased FCPX
 

Some of the video training series, like Larry Jordan's and Ripple Training's, offer updates to include all the new updates, including multicam, media relinking, etc. I put together a large guide to training material and also certification options.

Heath

Re: After much consideration, I finally purchased FCPX
 

I'm a long time Vegas Pro user and just received my first Mac (Mac Air) and decided to give FCPX a try. I know the Air's not ideal for editing, but FCPX isn't that expensive. FCPX seems very intuitive at first glance, but I'm already having problems getting media from my Panasonic TM900 and had to try ClipWrap to format from MTS to MOV. Works, but it studders very badly whereas my 7D footage plays very smoothly.

We'll have to see how it goes. Learning Mac and FCPX is a bit steep, but I think I'll get it. I just feel like I'm writing with my left hand.