13 Responses to “FCP Versioner works magic on your FCP Project Files”  

1. 1 Peter in Miami Dec 14th, 2009 at 8:50 am

   With my clients, change is constant. They even have us build their shows long so they can cut and rearrange from the finished cuts. This product sounded like a great idea but it needs to work in the background. I hit ctl-S about every time I do anything – nervous habit. The initiates the Versioner backup sequence which tied up the puter for at least a minute at a time.
   I love the idea of this product, but it cannot interfere with productivity – so I suggest they find a way to make it a background function. I could really use it.

2. 2 Jon Chappell Dec 14th, 2009 at 10:44 am

   Peter contacted me by email too. This was my reply:

   I would fix this in an instant if I could but unfortunately this issue lies with Final Cut Pro. FCP is not multi-threaded so everything you do (rendering, saving, exporting to XML) ties up Final Cut Pro which becomes more noticeable with larger projects. There is no way to do this in the background. Apple made some improvements in this area with FCP7 but there is still a lot of work to do. I can’t see this problem being fixed before FCP 8.

   However, what I can do is allow users to only backup a specific sequence instead of the entire file. This should save a decent amount of time on larger projects. I will add this in a future release but it will require Final Cut Pro 7 in order to work.

3. 3 Matthew Jeppsen Dec 14th, 2009 at 10:46 am

   Thanks for the detailed answer, Jon!

   -MJ

4. 4 Jon Chappell Dec 14th, 2009 at 10:46 am

   Oh, I should also clarify that Peter’s experience is not necessarily everyone’s experience as the time it takes depends on the size of your project file and the speed of your computer. If you feel it is taking too long, just click Cancel and Versioner will back up your project file instead.

5. 5 Peter in Miami Dec 15th, 2009 at 7:30 am

   I was remiss in not mentioning my average production is 7 – 20 minutes in length. It’s surely the volume of media and mulitple timelines that contribute to the long export. If I were doing spots, I probably would not have near the wait.

   Also did not know about cancel option – will re-install and try it.

6. 6 RobShaver Dec 16th, 2009 at 1:13 pm

   Why not let the editor decide when to create a “version”? That is, have a seperate key to save and snapshot.

7. 7 Peter IN Miamim Dec 16th, 2009 at 1:26 pm

   I think Rob makes an excellent point. Looking forward to next version.

8. 8 Jon Chappell Dec 16th, 2009 at 1:37 pm

   These are great ideas. I’ll implement them ASAP.

9. 9 Jon Chappell Dec 22nd, 2009 at 4:38 pm

   We’ve just released FCP Versioner 1.1 with the following changes:

   * Added the ability to only backup a specific sequence, boosting performance
   * Added the ability to initiate a manual backup snapshot
   * Improved marker support
   * Improved changelog generation performance
   * Fixed extraneous “New filter added” notifications
   * Improved memory usage when generating logs
   * Frame values are now converted to timecode
   * Markers can now be filtered
   * Fixed an issue where it was not possible to remove the base copy of a project

   http://www.digitalrebellion.com/fcp_versioner.htm

   Thanks for the feedback, guys. If you’ve got any more suggestions I’d love to hear them.

10. 10 Peter in Miami Dec 22nd, 2009 at 4:48 pm

    I am really excited to try this! I think you really captured what we need. Will try with next project and report back. Happy Holidaze!

11. 11 Sove Feb 2nd, 2010 at 10:04 am

    I agree Peter.Thanks.

12. 12 Peter in Miami Feb 2nd, 2010 at 9:37 pm

    We will be re-birthing the Mac Pro on Saturday and plan on including Versioner, if it supports SL.

13. 13 Jon Chappell Feb 2nd, 2010 at 10:04 pm

    Yep, it supports Snow Leopard.