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With Support from Apple(Page 1 of 3 pages for this article 1 2 3 >) Filed under: Hardware •Post Production • How To Get The Most Out Of Your Easy Setup Part 1
Any editor who works on FCP, no matter what version, is familiar with the Easy Setup. You simply select the Easy Setup that is most suited to your workflow, and you’re all set to go. For example, if you are working with a DV camera, you would choose DV-NTSC.
There is really no thought involved. It’s quick, easy and gets you editing right away. But let me give you another scenario. What if you had a producer who shot all his footage on a Sony F-900 camera, and you were going to be editing at home on an iMac with an external FW-800 drive.
Most people would say “No problem, just capture your footage with ProRes (or ProRes HQ), and you can edit with it right off the FW-800 drive”. True, but not all editors out there using FCP have upgraded to Final Cut Studio 2 (but with all the new features, you really should), so what do they do? Are they out of luck? No, they aren’t. You, as the editor, have the option to create your own Easy Setup (ES) and define the workflow that is right for you, your client, and most importantly, the system you are working on. But, as Uncle Ben told Peter Parker, “With great power, comes great responsibility!”, and that is definitely the case here. I thought that for this article series I would take a very in depth look at how to get the most out of your ES by understanding every aspect of the Audio/Video settings, and what the benefits are to creating your own. WHERE TO BEGIN As I said before, every Final Cut Pro editor knows the Easy Setup, and how to use it. However, most editors tend to stay away from their AUDIO/VIDEO SETTINGS (A/VS), as that is where if you don’t know what you are doing, you can get lost and frustrated very quickly. So, let’s see how we can manipulate our A/VS to our advantage. To get to them is simple. You can see that they are located right below your ES.
Once you click on it, you are greeted by the SUMMARY screen. What you see here is the Sequence, Capture and Device Control preset for the particular ES you have currently selected, as well as the video and audio playback format, as well as the option to save the current configuration as a different ES.
Most people, at this point would jump over to the Sequence Presets tab, and start creating their “ultimate setup”, but don’t. Stop right where you are. I have the same problem with this setup that I have with the way people are taught to edit. For some reason, when people learn to edit, they are always taught how to put clips on the timeline, do audio mixes and add effects, and then at the very end, they are taught to digitize footage into their systems. That’s like learning to play hopscotch before you even know how to walk. Whenever I am creating a new ES for the workflow I need, I always, always, always (did I stress that enough) start at the Capture Settings (CS) tab, as I am going to be capturing first, before I even lay a single clip into my timeline. For me, this setup would make more sense being laid out with CS first, (DS) second and Sequence Settings (SS) last, as that’s the order you want things set up in. But, since it’s not laid out like that, I always recommend to editors to create their Easy Setups in that order, as it’s the most logical workflow. Clicking on the CS tab brings up this window.
As you can see, since my ES was set to DV-NTSC, that’s the default setting in my CS, and for the purposes of explaining the settings window for your CS, it will work fine. As you can see, there is a lock to the right of the setting.
The reason for this is that there are “standard” settings that Apple doesn’t want you to mess with, and in the end, it’s a good thing. What I normally do when creating a new CS is to duplicate one that is close to the setting I need, as I then only have to alter a few settings instead of the whole thing. I’m going to duplicate the DV-NTSC setting by clicking DUPLICATE, located at the bottom of the window, then, making sure it’s selected, I’m going to click EDIT. Now we have a new window with a whole bunch of settings that might look intimidating, but if you take your time, and work your way through them, they really aren’t.
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