I wouldn't describe myself as a power user, but I am basically competent.
One thing I have done literally thousands of times is run out videos when I have completed them on the Time Line (not that they call it the time line any more). In fact these days there's not much else you can do once you finish an edit except run it out.
There was a time when you could produce a dvd. But not now. Today you can only create a file. The easiest way to do it is to hit the share button and when you do that you get a generous range of formats you can create videos in.
But not today. Today GCHQ, almost certainly inspired by MI5, has decided that I am not allowed to create a video.
Over the last 24 hours I have tried several times to create a video and the process always stops at around 35%. It just stalls. There's nothing I can do to persuade it to get to the end.
As I said this is the easy way to do it but there is another way. It's called Compressor and it is companion software that offers a great many more potential output formats than FCP.
When I tried Compressor I got the extraordinary result that the clock telling me how long I had to wait actually started running backwards. Hackers turn time backwards. Strange, unprecedented but not at all useful.
And why is all this going on? MI5 knows perfectly well that I am no terrorist or spy, but they are control freaks. They want to dominate and manipulate everything that is said about Gaza, about Ukraine and most particularly about the spooks themselves.
We live in a world where power is truth and a 90 year old lady holding up a cardboard placard can be a terrorist if they say she is.
Jonathan Brind