With the recent release of FCP X 10.0.3, a lot has been written about the ability to – at last – move Final Cut Pro 7 projects to FCP X. However, there’s another segment of videographers that can also easily migrate to the power of Final Cut Pro X: iMovie users. Let me show you how this works.

Unlike all past versions of Final Cut Pro, the latest – FCP X – makes it easy to import an iMovie Project or just the media from all your iMovie Events.

IMPORTING iMOVIE EVENTS

An Event is Apple’s name for a collection of media. Most often, this media collection comes from a single activity – a performance, for instance. However, an Event can contain any collection media.

Importing the Event folder from iMovie into FCP X adds ALL the Event media from all your iMovie projects as separate Events in the Event Library of Final Cut Pro X.

The only requirement is that the media needs to be imported into iMovie first.

Here, for instance, I have two iMovie events. Since all Events are stored in the same iMovie Events folder, when I import these into FCP X, all the media from all the Events will transfer.

To import the iMovie Events Folder into FCP X, select File > Import > iMovie Events folder.

FCP X is smart enough to know what it has already imported and, if you’ve already imported media, Final Cut will only import the media that’s new.

After you click OK your iMovie media is imported into FCP X, where each iMovie Event creates its own Event in Final Cut.

This is a very easy way to bring ALL your iMovie media into FCP X.

IMPORT iMOVIE PROJECTS

However, you may not want to import all your iMovie media – perhaps you just want to bring in one project.

That, too, is simple.

Select File > Import > iMovie Project.

Final Cut immediately displays all your iMovie projects; these are stored in Movies > iMovies Projects inside your Home directory.

Select the project you want to import and both the Project file and all its media are imported into Final Cut, ready for you to edit.

Simple and fast.

As always, let me know what you think.

Larry

I posted a brief video on YouTube, “Polishing edit skills and books for editors & directors” in which I recommend some books about editing and directors. Perhaps because I was thinking about the recent release of my own book, “Final Cut Pro X: Making the Transition” – and the creation of my Amazon Author Page – http://www.amazon.com/author/LarryJordan/ – which I hope you’ll visit – I wanted to share these links with you here.

Behind the Seen: How Walter Murch Edited Cold Mountain Using Apple’s Final Cut Pro and What This Means for Cinema by Charles Koppelman.

Mastering MultiCamera Techniques: From Preproduction to Editing and Deliverables by Mitch Jacobson.

Apple Pro Training Series: Motion 5 by Mark Spencer.

The Green Screen Handbook: Real-World Production Techniques by Jeff Foster.

All the books on color grading and correction by Alexis Van Hurkman.

Real World Video Compression by Andy Beach.

All books on video compression by Brian Gary.

Video Compression for Flash, Apple Devices, and HTML5 by Jan Ozer.

In the Blink of an Eye Revised 2nd Edition by Walter Murch.

The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film.
by Michael Ondaatie

One the the secrets that I’ve learned to improving both my production and editing skills is to watch a video with the sound turned off. This allows me to concentrate on the visual without getting hooked into the story. It is always enlightening to see how much you can learn this way. I use this technique for my own work, as well as analyzing the work of others. Best of all, it doesn’t require any money or special gear, just an ability to focus on the screen and learn from what you see.

(Caution: I’ve found that this technique drives the rest of my family nuts! So, I’ve been told this is an activity best done when no one else is around.)

Also, please stop by my Amazon Author Page and leave a comment. And I would be remiss if I failed to suggest that you purchase my newest book: Final Cut Pro X: Making the Transition at Amazon.com. Lots of great tricks and tips techniques packed into one slim volume to help you Power Up your editing!

Let me know what you think.

Larry

Apple released a 10.0.2 update to Final Cut Pro X late Wednesday.

The update is free and available as an update through the App Store. Primarily a bug fix, this new version:

* Fixes an issue in which a title may revert to the default font after restarting Final Cut Pro X

* Resolves an issue that could cause files recorded with certain third-party mobile devices to play back incorrectly

* Addresses a stability issue caused by changing the start time on a Compound Clip

According to Apple, the update is recommended for all users of Final Cut Pro X.

For more information, visit www.apple.com/finalcutpro.

I’ve been getting emails recently about speed issues with Final Cut Pro X. So, I did some digging to learn how to improve the performance of your system, and, along the way, discover some common trouble-shooting tips.

PERFORMANCE

FCP X takes full advantage of the Mac in terms of processor speed, drive speed, RAM and graphics cards. Decoding common camera codecs like AVCHD, XDCAM HD and others can be extremely difficult mathematically. This is no problem for an up-to-date system, but many people are trying to work with HD codecs on older laptops with slower graphics cards and minimal RAM.

These systems are fully supported as a minimum system requirement and, if you were doing minimum things (editing with DV or ProRes Proxy, for instance), then you will generally be fine. But if you are trying to work with professional formats under pressure, you need a system that is configured properly for that level of work.

The best tip for anyone who is experiencing slow response is add more RAM. I recommend a minimum of 8 GB, if your system supports it. And, if you own a MacPro, buy a faster graphics card with more VRAM. You will notice an immediate difference in speed, no matter what video format they are working on.

Another issue that slows performance, aside from the codec, is the image size. Larger images are harder to work with than smaller images.

TROUBLE-SHOOTING

Rebuilding Final Cut Pro X preferences can fix certain types of behavioral issues, but will not increase speed or performance. If a system begins to suddenly respond unreliably, then deleting corrupted prefs is a good place to start the troubleshooting. But, before trashing preferences, the first question to ask is always “How much RAM do you have and what is your codec/frame size?” before diagnosing unexpected behavior.

When the system allows you to optimize the original codec, which means to transcode it from whatever format the camera shot into ProRes 422, then optimizing is always a good idea. If the optimization choice is grayed out on the import menu, then FCP X has determined that there will be no benefit to optimizing. If you are working with a large frame size on a minimum system, you may actually be better off working with proxies and waiting until you get to a faster system before finishing at original resolution.

TRASHING FCP X PREFERENCES

There are two FCP X preference files you need to trash. However, the way you trash them varies between OS X 10.6 and OS X 10.7.

In both cases, start by quitting Final Cut Pro X. Never trash preferences with FCP X running.

OS X 10.6 – Snow Leopard

1. Type Command+H to open your Home directory.

2. Go to the Library > Preferences folder.

3. Trash com.apple.FinalCut.LSSharedFileList.plist

4. Trash com.apple.FinalCut.plist

5. Empty the Trash.

6. Restart Final Cut Pro X.

Be careful to NOT trash your FCP 7 preferences, if they exist. Pay close attention to the actual spelling of these file names.

OS X 10.7 – Lion

The process is the same, except that Apple hid the Library folder. There are two ways to reveal it:

WAY 1:

Hold down on the Option key and click on the Go menu in the Finder. The Library folder shows up as a selection.

WAY 2

Type Shift+Command+G, or select Go > Go To Folder in the Finder. Then, type ~/Library/ and click Go.

THEN:

3. Go to the Library > Preferences folder.

4. Trash com.apple.FinalCut.LSSharedFileList.plist

5. Trash com.apple.FinalCut.plist

6. Empty the Trash.

7. Restart Final Cut Pro X.

Let me know what performance or trouble-shooting tricks you’ve discovered and I’ll add them to this list.

Don’t forget that Apple has extensive Final Cut Pro X support pages here: www.apple.com/support/finalcutpro/

Larry

His voice was magical … summoning helicopters, gonzo moose, a startled cow, a man falling sixteen stories into tapioca pudding… it was a voice that created magic out of puffs of air.

Tom Keith died yesterday, the LA TIMES reported this morning.

For those that have not fallen under the spell of a “Prairie Home Companion,” hosted by Garrison Keillor, a blank look can be forgiven. Prairie Home has been on the air since the early 1970’s. It’s a radio show, airing Saturday evenings live from St. Paul, Minnesota.

Robert Altman’s last film, “A Prairie Home Companion,” presented an evening at a show — thus forever confirming that what goes on behind the scenes is ALWAYS more interesting than what goes on in front.

But radio is theater of the mind – and that’s where Tom Keith came in. What does a grade school teacher sound like when instantly being shrunk from 6 feet to 3 inches? Or a drunken caribou stubbing his toe? Tom instinctively knew how to make the sound, and the composure to create it in real-time for a live radio show.

Sound effects that were undeniably believable and off-the-wall funny. Tom could carry an entire scene on sound effects alone.

While I have met Garrison Keillor, I never met Tom Keith. I had the pleasure of watching the show live on two occasions, plus many more when PBS would broadcast a simulcast. Garrison is the soul of the show, but Keith was its heart.

“Tom was one of radio’s great clowns,” said Keillor. “He was serious about silliness and worked hard to get a moo exactly right and the cluck, too, and the woof. His whinny was amazing.”

It struck me, as I was reading the obituary, that we all get so caught up in the technology, that we forget the magic.

Tom Keith, armed with only a pair of hands, a versatile mouth, and a light-speed imagination, brought the impossible to life.

I will miss his singing walrus, the pre-pubescent teenager forever coping with growing up, and the garbage truck backing up into a tree. Because I can see them in my mind as clearly as if I were there. And I was.

The imagination of the mind trumps the imagination of the screen — and I’m grateful Tom lived to remind me of that.

Larry

With one eye firmly on the existing Final Cut Pro 7 user base, Avid today announced Media Composer 6 using the phrase “Committed to the Professional.”

When Avid CEO Kirke Arnold opened the press conference this morning, her opening remarks included the phrase: “Not only is Avid committed to its customers, we are committed to the professional.” She also mentioned that recent sales of Media Composer have exceeded Avid’s expectations.

This is the sixth major release for Media Composer, according to Avid, in about three years.

Chris Gahagan, Senior VP of Products, then presented the new software by announcing upgrades to Media Composer, Symphony, and News Cutter. My report will focus on Media Composer.

Ship date: Nov. 15, 2011
Retail price: $2,499
Upgrade from MC5.5: $299
If you purchased Media Composer October 15 or later, the upgrade is free.

The upgrade focuses on four key areas:
1. Architecture
2. Enhanced user interface
3. Stereoscopic 3D
4. Integration with stock footage and other outside resources

ARCHITECTURE

All new Avid applications are now 64-bit, providing much greater speed and more scalability.

Avid now offers an SDK (Software Development Kit) – called Avid I/O – for capturing and outputting media. They also announced that, in addition to Avid, AJA, Blackmagic Design, Matrox, MOTU, and Bluefish 444 will all be providing hardware support.

Native AVCHD support.

Native encode and decode for ProRes on Macintosh.

New DNxHD 444 codec providing 444 color support.

Support for Epic R3D files.

USER INTERACTION / INTERFACE

Avid has updated the user interface, but not how the software works. Same keyboard shortcuts, same “muscle memory.” Chris made a point of saying: “We can’t disrupt our professionals.”

More deeply integrated support for Avid Color hardware, though no new color correction tools.

Two weeks ago, Avid announced ProTools 10. Today, they announced support for surround sound workflow integration between ProTools and Media Composer.

REDEFINING 3D

Avid’s goal was to make editing 3D as easy as editing 2D. The new version provides significant speed improvements. Tasks that “used to take days now take minutes.”

They are also provides a complete suite of tutorials and workflows that explain, for editors that are new to 3D, how to edit 3D. Training on 3D is as important, Avid says, as the tools themselves.

CONNECT EDITORS TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD

Avid announced Avid Marketplace, with their first partner “Thought Equity,” a stock-footage supplier.

Avid Marketplace provides a series of plug-ins that allow you to search, view, create proxies, and integrate final version stock footage directly within the Avid interface.

They are also offering two support plans to make on-going technical support more affordable.

All in all, some impressive announcements. I’m looking forward to learning more and sharing the news with you.

As always, your comments are welcome.

Larry

With the release Tuesday of Final Cut Pro 10.0.1, Apple added the ability to import and export XML files. While not a direct benefit to FCP X editors, indirectly, this is huge. Let me explain why.

Video, and film, editing is accomplished using a wide variety of software tools. I like to think of editing as a wheel, where the editing software is at the hub and lots of different specialized tools orbit around it. From Photoshop, to ProTools or Soundtrack Pro, to After Effects or Motion, Compressor, DVD Studio Pro…. well, you get the idea — it takes a whole suite to raise a project.

This was one of the big problems with FCP X at release — it offered a walled garden. As long as what you needed was in the program, you were fine. But if you needed to share files to other applications, you had problems. Basically, you couldn’t.

One of the most glaring omissions was audio mixing — we couldn’t get our audio out of FCP X into Soundtrack Pro or ProTools for an audio mix. Wes Plate and the talented folks at Automatic Duck came to our rescue with Pro Export FCP 5.0, which exported FCP X projects for ProTools. — http://www.automaticduck.com/products/pefcp/ –

But that solved only a part of the problem; it got us to ProTools, but we were still essentially caught inside FCP X.

With the release of FCP X 10.0.1, Apple provided the ability to export and import XML. XML is the interchange language of applications. From XML we can derive EDLs, OMFs, AAFs, and all the other acronyms we need to move files from one place to another.

However, there’s still a problem – XML is like language, there are variations. Which means that before we, as editors, can take advantage of this, developers need to work with it first.

Let me explain by way of an analogy. Think of XML as a tab-delimited text file (it isn’t, really, this is an analogy…). However, that file is written in French, while other applications expect the file to be in English. So, a developer needs to convert this XML format from the version exported by FCP X, into the version needed by their application.

Wednesday night, Philip Hodgetts, CEO of Intelligent Assistance, demoed a beta program they are developing that illustrates what this new XML feature provides. Philip showed how an FCP X project can be exported as XML, converted, then imported into FCP 7. From FCP 7, it can be sent to Soundtrack Pro for mixing, or ProTools via OMF, or Color for color correction, or any of the other applications that link in with FCP 7.

The program is called: “Project X27″ and should be released in the next couple of weeks. It is SO new, in fact, it doesn’t have a webpage yet – when it does, you’ll find it at this website: — www. intelligentassistance.com –

I think this signals the tip of the iceberg where, finally, FCP X editors can start to share elements of their programs with the rest of the world. This still requires developers to do their part to support this, but the new XML export in FCP X 10.0.1 is the essential first step.

As always, let me know what you think.

Larry

[Updated Sept. 21 with a few extra details and the link to the free trial.]
[Updated with a link for the QuickTime update.]
[Updated with more information on Roles, and clarification on Davinci and AutoDesk.]
[Updated with clarification on XSAN.]

About two hours after Apple updated Final Cut Pro X to version 10.0.1, earlier today, I was in a meeting with key Apple product marketing folks to discuss the new features. Let me share with you what I learned.

UPDATE ACCESS
Unlike past versions of Final Cut, upgrades are only available through the App Store. In fact, if you look closely at the App Store icon in the Dock, you’ll see a small badge appear, indicating that an upgrade is available for FCP; or any other application that you purchased through the App Store.

(By the way, a benefit to upgrading to Lion is that upgrades only download the differences between the old and new software versions, which significantly reduce the download time. I’m still on Snow Leopard, so my download is, um, continuing. Some people are reporting problems with the update. I downloaded mine with no difficulty, however, if you have troubles wait a day and try again. Otherwise, the workaround is to remove FCP X from the Applications folder, then redownload from the App Store. Or contact Apple Support.)

FREE TRIAL
Also, for the first time that I can recall, Apple is offering a free 30-day trial for Final Cut. The 30-day period starts when you launch the program, so you can download today, yet not work with it till the weekend without costing yourself time on the demo.

Here’s the link: http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/trial/

Apple also updated QuickTime with new codecs. Get more information here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1396

APPLE’S KEY POINTS
As our meeting began, I asked what were the key points Apple wanted to convey with this upgrade. The answers were instantaneous:

1. Apple is committed to the professional user.
2. Apple is listening to user feedback and adding major new features far faster than they could do in the past.

I remarked that a release labeled: “10.0.1″ was hardly a new feature release. At which point, our discussion began.

VERSION NUMBERING
The new version is numbered 10.0.1 – which, given the past numbering system Final Cut used, implies this is only a minor bug-fix.

However, Apple has moved FCP X to the same numbering system that OS X uses. Using that example, the current version of OS X is 10.7.1, which we commonly call “7.1″. Using the same convention, the upgrade moved FCP X to version 0.1. In other words, Apple views this as a significant product enhancement.

HIGHLIGHTS

You've probably read the highlights on Apple's webpage (by the way, Apple also refreshed the FCP webpage with this update): http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/software-update.html

* Media Stems Export
* XML Import and Export
* XSAN network support
* Customized timecode by project

…and others. Let me go into detail.

XSAN (NETWORK) SUPPORT

XSAN is bundled with Lion (a small fact that I forgot). However, these network features should work with any network file server provided the data transfer rate is fast enough from the server to the local computer to support media file transfers, and the server supports user permissions and record-locking, which OS X Server does.

Shared media on a server has always been supported by FCP X. However, Project and Event folders needed to be stored locally.

Now, media, Projects, and Events can all be stored on a server. Media can be accessed by multiple users at the same time, however Project and Event folders can only be accessed by one person at a time. In other words, multiple editors can now access the same project, however only one editor can be in the Project at the same time. FCP X provides a simple menu choice allowing editors to move Events and Projects into, or out of, the app as necessary.

(As a network bandwidth thought, render files are stored in the Project folder. You might want to consider putting Events on the Server and storing Projects locally to minimize network traffic. Just a thought…)

XML IMPORT AND EXPORT

The core of Final Cut Pro is metadata and XML is the language of interchange of this metadata from one application to another. From XML we can get EDLs, OMFs, and all the other acronyms that we need. However, the first step is XML. The new version supports both XML import and export. While this feature will be used primarily by developers, the benefits of this feature will be used by all of us.

At our meeting, I was shown an XML export of an FCP X project directly into a pre-release version of Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Lite! This replicates the ability to send a project to Color, with fewer restrictions and faster export. The Apple representatives told me that all the DaVinci Resolve line would support XML transfers from FCP X. (This is a correction, as I earlier wrote that this would be supported by the entire Davinci family.)

This is great news for anyone looking to do serious color grading of their FCP projects.

Another use of XML involved CatDV. Again, Apple showed a collection of media stored and cataloged in CatDV, a great media asset manager for the Mac. We built a short rough-cut, using clips stored in CatDV then, with a single AppleEvent keyboard shortcut which activated an Apple Event — Shift+Command+X — the entire rough cut was sent to FCP X, along with all the media and project data. The whole XML transfer process took about two seconds from pressing the button to seeing the new Event with media and the Project opened in the Timeline. This was very impressive.

Two other programs that use XML transfer were mentioned:

AutoDesk Smoke. Apple demoed an FCP X export to Autodesk Smoke. UPDATE: However, Apple told me that they are working with Autodesk and collaborating to support XML based workflows for FCP X. It is not supported just yet.

Atomos, I was told, is also launching an export utility for their file-based digital recorders that transfers ProRes files and metadata directly into FCP X. In fact, more than 20 companies are in the process of announcing new utilities or programs to work with the new version. (As we realized at the launch, XML import and export is the critical first step to unlocking the flow of third-party applications.)

AUDIO ROLES AND MEDIA STEMS

We spent a long time talking about Roles and Media Stems. Roles are a new metadata category that allow you to assign “roles” to clips. The most obvious is tagging audio for export to mixing, but the benefits are deeper than that.

FCP X is trackless. This means that the “age-old” method of putting the same audio in the same track so that you can mix all your dialog separately from your effects won’t work.

Instead, we assign Roles, which is a special metadata tag similar to a keyword. Some Roles are assigned on import. FCP looks at the file and attempts to determine if it is dialog, effects, or music. (If it guesses right, you save time. If it guesses wrong, you can easily change it.) You can create an unlimited number of new Roles.

Roles can apply to video, titles, or audio. There are three default audio Roles: Dialog, Effects, and Music. All have keyboard shortcuts and you can add as many as you want. You can even add “subroles” — roles related to other roles.

You can also apply Roles to titles – say to flag all English titles or Spanish titles.

When you export, you can export all audio that is flagged with a specific Role. You can export just music clips, or dialog, or effects.

But, Roles can be a real benefit in the Project, separate from exporting. You can solo all clips that belong to a specific role. For example, you can just listen to all dialog clips.

You can highlight all clips that belong to a specific Role – for instance, display all sound effects clips.

You can make invisible all clips in any combination of Roles. This is the equivalent of turning off the green Visibility light at the left side of the FCP 7 Timeline. This is VERY cool, because now, you can hide or reveal any combination of clips that all have the same Role assigned to it.

When it comes to exporting audio, using Roles we can export all our different audio stems, for example dialog, in a single pass. Or, for multiple-language video, Roles makes exporting video in different languages simple. Turn on all the English titles and export. Then, turn on all the Spanish titles and export again. I can see all kinds of ways to use Roles in editing.

UPDATE: For moving projects to ProTools, use Automatic Duck. According to Apple, the stems are really for delivery of final mixes either as a digital delivery or output to tape using a third party app like the upcoming Media Express or VTRxchange. The Roles info is in the XML so a third party could use the metadata for a wide range of workflows.

Apple took Roles far further than simply flagging clips for export into something that can help make sense of a complex timeline.

EXPORTING
Apple added an entirely new export option to allow exporting Roles. In fact, the process of exporting a QuickTime movie is now faster – if you are working with optimized media FCP just does a simple file copy of the ProRes in the Project to the ProRes of the export. Also, you can export a master QuickTime file and have it automatically loaded into Compressor, while still retaining the master file.

Then, both Blackmagic Design and AJA have announced products that will take the exported file and output it to tape.

OTHER NEW FEATURES

We can now change the starting timecode in a Project. Timecode is set in Project Properties.

We can now add transitions to connected clips with a single keystroke. What this does is both add the transition and converts the connected clip into a connected storyline. (We still can’t add an audio transition to audio in the Primary Storyline without detaching clips, however.)

A new Theme — Tribute — was added.

If you have Lion, FCP X now supports editing in full-screen mode. However, there are no other Lion-specific features in FCP X, so if you are still running OS X 10.6, you aren’t missing anything else in Final Cut.

Exports are now GPU accelerated. In the initial version, exports ran in the background, and they took advantage of multiple CPUs, but they didn’t take advantage of the graphics card. Now, exports are significantly faster. However, in order to take advantage of GPU acceleration, you need to export in the foreground, because the GPU is shared for both exports and real-time playback of Timeline effects.

(An interesting sidenote: Given the technical specs of the H.264 codec, exporting directly to H.264 will be MUCH faster if you use single-pass than multiple-pass. Apple suggested using single-pass unless you can see a difference in image quality, at which point compress as multi-pass.)

Apple released a camera import SDK so that camera manufacturers can provide support for their latest cameras without waiting for Apple to update the software. What this means to us is that we should see cameras launch with support for FCP X built-in.

THINGS STILL MISSING

For the first time ever, outside a Steve Jobs speech, Apple announced products that are coming, but more than 30-days away. Apple publicly stated that both multicam editing and output to broadcast monitors will arrive “early in 2012.”

I tried to pin them down to a more specific date; no success.

Apple said they also fixed a number of bugs, but I didn’t have time to find out what some of them were.

There are still some significant missing features which are not addressed in this upgrade or their announcement: Retaining In and Out points for clips in the Event Browser is undergoing a debate in Apple. So is the ability to read source timecode for clips in the Timeline. Drop shadows for elements other than text and a few generators requires creating a custom Motion template. The ability to apply an effect to a group of clips, then modify that effect — think audio mixing — is still severely limited. There is no out-of-sync indicator for detached audio clips that have shifted in the Timeline. There is no way to set the default project audio to stereo.

Apple stresses that there is far more development planned for the program.

But this update is significant for several reasons:

1. The speed with which Apple was able to get it released.
2. The fact that most of these features are of interest to pro editors; an iMovie editor is not going to care about audio stems
3. The flexibility Roles provide as part of the editing process is really amazing.

If you currently own FCP X, I recommend you get the update as time permits.

Let me know what you think.

Larry

P.S. If you have purchased my Final Cut Pro X training, I will be providing a FREE upgrade later this month highlighting how to use the new features. (This update applies to all new purchases as well.) We’ll send you an email notice when our update is available. Learn more about my FCP X training here: www.larryjordan.biz/fcpx

According to MacRumors, and confirmed by two other sources, Apple is now offering FCP 7 (and the entire Final Cut Studio (3) suite) for sale.

You can read MacRumors here.

While only available on an 800 number – 800-MY-APPLE – using part #MB642Z/A – it is good to know that Apple is selling the product again.

I have contacted my sources within Apple to get the “official word” on this.

I’ll let you know what I find out.

Larry

- – -

UPDATE

I spoke with an official Apple spokesperson, who told me that: “As we’ve done before with many end-of-life software products, we have a limited quantity of Final Cut Studio still available through Apple telesales to customers who need them for ongoing projects.”

We are all looking forward to the release of Lion on Wednesday this week.

So I thought I’d dust off a few thoughts from operating system upgrades from year’s past – just to prevent any problems.

First – and most important – NEVER upgrade anything in the middle of a project. Lion will be just as dandy if you wait to upgrade when your project is complete. Yes, Lion is new. Yes, Lion is exciting. But both of those pale into insignificance if the upgrade breaks something on your edit system.

ALWAYS upgrade between projects.

Second, Lion is a big upgrade. For this reason, I recommend not upgrading any production systems for at least three months after a new OS ships. Give the third-party developers time to make sure everything works properly. Nothing is worse than upgrading only to discover that one filter you REALLY need for your project doesn’t work.

Third, a couple of weeks ago, I contacted Apple to see if Lion would bring any new features to Final Cut Pro X. Apple told me that it would not. My hope is that Apple will have new updates for FCP X in the near future, however, I don’t expect that at the same time as a Lion release.

For all these reasons, I recommend taking a cautious approach to upgrading any systems that you depend upon for editing. If you have a machine that you can spare for testing, by all means, give Lion a whirl.

Just be really, really, really cautious about putting it on any systems you depend upon until Apple has released at least one maintenance update.

Practicing patience can be difficult. But not being able to output a project is far worse.

Larry