Completely new to FCP
 

Just got a Mac Pro for editing with FCP and a Matrox MXO recently. I've been putting it through it's paces, and while I am impressed by the feature set I need help with a few things. I feel like I've gone back to 1st grade with all of this! ;-)

Regarding the MXO, is there any way this will output via Color? There seems to be the option for video output but all the selections are greyed out. Not much use grading unless I can output via this.

L and J cuts. Is there an easy way to do these on the timeline without having to link and unlink video and audio? For some reason when XDCAM footage is impored it insists on creating 4 layers of audio (Vegas for example allows me to tell it not to do this). I don't want to be spending all my time linking and unlinking many levels of audio.

The FCP manual says that unlinking can be done temporarily by holding down the option key. But I can't seem to get this to work. At least not be holding down the option key and then dragging the beginning or end of a video clip.

Sorry if all of this seems elementary. I've spent a whole lot of time with Vegas and FCP is totally alien to me.

Sorry, I can't help you with the XDCAM or MXO settings.

As for L & J cuts use the roll tool, just press "r" and it should come up.

Shift-L links and unlinks the audio and video. S brings up the slip tool.

Check out www.kenstone.net.

BTW - thanks for all your EX posts.

Simon:

Not sure why the Alt key is not unlinking the audio for you, but i'm not familiar with the XD cam workflow, though i dont see why it should make any difference.

Its probably operator error but if you think there may be a problem here's a link to Larry Jordans troubleshooting page which is worth copying to your favourites/bookmarks for future reference anyway.
http://www.larryjordan.biz/articles/lj_trouble.html

Also, i suggest you Tune into the LAFCPUG (los angeles user group) where all your questions will be answered and Color has its own forum. People over there post questions about cams and get swamped in anti mpeg 2 hate mail - Its an extremely panacentric HVX loving site - but its great for anything to do with FCP workflows. I usually direct people with camera questions to this site and vice versa.

BTW, I was looking into buying an MXO box a couple of weeks ago before being informed that it doesn't support Color Yet. I think this will change soon however.

PS, you're gonna Love FCS once you get into the groove. All the best.
Dom

Oh and BTW Simon. If you really want to get going in FCP buy Diana Weynand's FCP6 book from Peachpitt Press (i bought mine "used" on amazon for half price) which has 14 lessons varying from 45 to 90 mins each. By the time you've gone through it you'll really know your stuff.

Odd, option key is specifically how I do it, and that's through 3 or 4 versions of FCP. Hold down option while dragging the end of either the video or audio clip. What kind of keyboard do you have?

You can tell FCP to not import all audio to the timeline by unlinking some of the "destination chains" left of the time line. Bit difficult to explain here, but is easy. And it's explained in Weynand's book mentioned below.

Thanks for the tips guys :-)

I was using the Apple key as I thought that was the option key. I tried Alt and that worked! :-)

Winfried, cheers for the tip about the destination chains. I'll look that one up.

Simon i wrote alt key in my post on purpose because i thought you might be making the same mistake i made when i switched to macs. didn't want to spell it out in case i was wrong and you felt i was being patronising.
If i had a quid for every time i pressed the apple key instead.
I think its because when you switch platforms you keep reading about the command key, the option, key, the alt key and the apple key and before long you're tied up in knots.