Up through Final Cut 6, the speed tools were rather annoying. You could get what you need, but there was usually some kind of work around necessary. Now, in Final Cut 7, the speed tools have been revamped. Things like rippling the sequence are possible, and easy feathering. Ripple Training has a tutorial on the new speed tools.

Find the tutorial here – under Final Cut Pro 7, click on the link under “New Speed Tools.”

Changing the speed of a clip is a very helpful or even cool thing that can be frustrating to actually pull off. This tutorial from FCPTips shows the basic ways to change the speed quickly and easily to a constant speed.

Watch the video tutorial here.

Time remap is an incredibly intimidating tool, but once you get the hang of it, incredibly useful and makes some kind of sense. To quote CaptMench in this tutorial, “It’s a lot easier than I once thought.” Learn how to use the time remap in the Viewer.

Watch the video tutorial here.

Slow motion is useful for a whole slew of effects. Alex Gollner explains why sending the file to Compressor is a good idea, due to the way Final Cut handles speed changes. (This tutorial doesn’t cover Optical Flow retiming, which is available in Motion, and I haven’t seen a comparison.)

Read the tutorial and watch the examples here. Alex also shows some more examples, as well as some unexpected results using Compressor here.

From Creative Cow-

In this video tutorial, Creative Cow Leader Shane Ross discusses taking 60p footage shot with DVC PRO HD and slowing it down to 23.98 so that it’s slow motion. Please note that this only works if you are working in a 23.98 or 29.97 timeline.

Watch the video tutorial here.

I recently found the amazingness that is “Fit to Fill.” This edit is simple and versatile, basically taking available footage and making it fit in the space you want by changing the speed. Eric Meek at the Final Cut Studio School has this video tutorial on how to edit using Fit to Fill.

Read the tutorial here.

From Ripple Training:

Learn how to change the speed of your clips in the Timeline using the Match Frame command without affecting the clip’s duration.

Watch the video tutorial here.