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More Blogs on FCPX
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23 Replies
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ya, more positive thoughts by those that have not tried it yet.
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My guess is everyone who claims to be “moving” to something else will also be paying the $299 to play with FCP first hand. Then you have to factor in the costs of moving many seats in a facility vs taking a couple of weeks to burn in a single seat of FCPX . . . they’re going to wait and play and Apple is likely going to win them over.
When those in smaller and one person shops see the workflow efficiency improvements which may well be more readily apparent to them, will have no problem moving right back to FCP.
In 2000 I’d been using Avid for about 11 years (basically since it was released with it’s initial almost unviewable compression). The first few days with FCP it was confusion about not “stepping in” and opening things in the viewer to tweak and by the end of the week it was, compositing is easier and not have to go into “modes” to move things around and, I was liking it. It still couldn’t match Avid at that point but just a few years later as it matured and, at a great price point, it was easy to move . . . to FCP.
When people see how easy it is to work with 4K with Thunderbolt connected Raids on their MacBookPros or their 12 core Macs with multiple Thunderbolt cards people will “get” it. When people see that ingest doesn’t mean you have to stop editing, when those still using tape ingest find they don’t have to tie up the NLE so it can keep editing, they will “get” it.
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[Craig Seeman] “My guess is everyone who claims to be “moving” to something else will also be paying the $299 to play with FCP first hand. Then you have to factor in the costs of moving many seats in a facility vs taking a couple of weeks to burn in a single seat of FCPX . . . they’re going to wait and play and Apple is likely going to win them over.”
I don’t think will be much problem having both apps on the same computer.
rafael -
[Rafael Amador] “I don’t think will be much problem having both apps on the same computer.”
Not at all which is why I don’t think the “movers” will really be moving all that much. The problem comes if/when there are hardware costs involved. If “moving” involves switching all the GPUS from ATI to nVidia, if FCP compatible cards don’t work with Avid. Those costs add up. No one is going to jump unless they find FCPX a detraction from their business.
It’ll be far easier to transition from FCP7 to FCPX then FCP7 to Avid or to change FCP7 systems with ATI cards to Premiere systems having to buy nVidia cards to take full advantage of Mercury.
In my experience moves are more likely happen when the costs drop, not go up. Avid people moved to FCP because it was less expensive to do that then upgrade their Avid systems.
In short, much fewer facilities will move than the grumblings we see. It’ll be far easier for them to play for a bit and at $299 for FCPX, Apple understands that.
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[Craig Seeman] “Not at all which is why I don’t think the “movers” will really be moving all that much. The problem comes if/when there are hardware costs involved. If “moving” involves switching all the GPUS from ATI to nVidia, if FCP compatible cards don’t work with Avid. Those costs add up. No one is going to jump unless they find FCPX a detraction from their business.”
Avid has already opened up their software to AJA and Matrox external cards. AJA makes some, if not all of the hardware that runs current Avids.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the question is no longer “if” Avid will support AJA (and probably BMD) capture cards, but “when.” My guess is much sooner than later.
When I have to install at least 7 copies of software and I need all my editors to be up to speed on it quickly AND all my freelancers as well, then it better be a familiar software.
When I have to interface with sound studios, post production studios, numerous independent producers, my software have to work correctly importing / exporting all media.
[Craig Seeman] “It’ll be far easier to transition from FCP7 to FCPX then FCP7 to Avid or to change FCP7 systems with ATI cards to Premiere systems having to buy nVidia cards to take full advantage of Mercury.”
Really? Have you looked at the Avid, FCP 7 and Premiere interfaces? They’re basically the same. Heck we have have Premiere in our shop for several years now since we just buy the entire Creative Suite each year. It’s nothing to simply switch over to Premiere. Looking at the Avid interface, we’ll be editing immediately and figure the rest of it in less than a week.
Running Premiere with the ATI cards currently in our machines still gives us faster performance than with FCP and they work perfectly fine with our AJA Kona boards. So even if you were to just switch to Premiere and leave all your other hardware the same, you’re going to get a performance boost. We have simply chosen to continue with FCP to this point waiting to see what Apple was going to release.
We’ll definitely buy one copy of FCP X to play with and see just exactly what it will and will not do in terms of interfacing with other apps and the other pro features we need. However, the $995 cross grade price to Avid certainly makes that much more palatable for us, particularly with the much improved efficiency of codec handling and the really nice round trip to / from Resolve / Pro Tools and others.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media -
Walter if you find the switch easy and affordable why delay to hear more from a company who’s business practices you don’t like and who’s product may not meet your needs.
Apparently despite all that you’re holding off. For some reason, not financial, not related to personal training, is holding you back. Of course maybe I’m wrong and you’re already setting up your Avids or Premiere Pros.
Even if you downloaded one copy on the day FCPX arrives, you may find the interface is far more radically changed from FCP7 than either of the aforementioned NLEs. There’s no point in waiting if your editors will be up to speed faster on the other NLEs.
Even if you were able to customize the interface back to something that looks like a traditional NLE, you’ve made it quite clear you can’t securely base your business decisions on a company that secretive. This secretive behavior is not new so if it seems clear that this will happen again, sticking with FCP would seem to be a very insecure business decision. Than it makes sense for you to switch regardless of what Apple offers.
If you feel there is risk that even a single key feature that you facility depends on, is missing, why take that risk? You can switch now with confidence, having done your research, that Avid and/or Premiere Pro will meet your needs. In fact, given the 1.0 nature of FCPX, you may even find the key features are there but deleteriously buggy.
You like what Avid has to offer. You already have Premiere Pro, The costs are minimal. The personal training is minimal. You find Apple’s ongoing secretive practices a risk to your business. They’re offer a new product which only has a brand name in common with an old product complete with the risk of missing or buggy features. I see no reason why you haven’t completed your move to Avid or Premiere since it’s affordable, quick, more secure for your business’s future.
Heck you could even switch back FCPX 3, two years from now if they’ve have everything worked out and your happy with it at that point.
Or maybe you do have some hope that Apple will be delivering a game changer which, despite the fact there will be some retraining time, will increase your company’s efficiency or decrease your cost of doing business. Maybe Apple’s history of success against Avid and Premiere, even as a company that had no prior experience in the Post Production industry, causes you to suspect that they’re smart enough to come out with something new with enough workflow improvements, that it will continue the lead the industry.
I don’t know which of the above comes closest to where you’re at . . . but you’re spending your time complaining rather than writing a brilliant blog post how you’ve switched your facility in just a week or three so that all the other businesses in the same situation can be helped by that.
If you genuinely are waiting . . . then maybe you should write about that. The risk of business uncertainty in facility management is an excellent topic . . . and it won’t sound like a complaint.
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“It takes a worried man to sing a worried song…” Woodie Guthrie et al.
[Craig Seeman] “…FCPX 3, two years from now if they’ve have everything worked out “
Hi
That’s about it, in business planning terms, I reckon.
Same as the old FCP – it wasn’t until v2 that it became usable, it wasn’t until v3 that it became fully featured, and it took the v4 rewrite to make it capable of becoming an ‘industry standard’.So FCS 3/FCP 7 (or A. or A.) will have to do for the foreseeable future until FCP X 3 or 4.1 comes along 😉
In business planning terms Apple are likely to be secretive because there’s a lot still to do.
To some extent that relies on other worldwide technical standards being updated to be fit for the 21st century – like timecode (and, as mentioned elsewhere, EDLs etc…)Seems reasonable to me to apply old tools to old standards, yet look forward to hugely improved solutions to doing things more efficiently.
“…I’m worried now, but I won’t be worried long.” 🙂
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Incertitude?
Incertitude is what I had when i jumped to FC in 2001.
I bought an skinny, gray application with very little functions and options, and from a company without any previous experience on video.
Looks like the very day FCX will be released everybody will need to take a decision that will mark the rest of their lives.
I won’t start to think about this till I’m able to run FCX. FC7 still working
rafael -
[Craig Seeman] ” Walter if you find the switch easy and affordable why delay to hear more from a company who’s business practices you don’t like and who’s product may not meet your needs.
Apparently despite all that you’re holding off. For some reason, not financial, not related to personal training, is holding you back. Of course maybe I’m wrong and you’re already setting up your Avids or Premiere Pros.”
That’s an easy answer. Avid does not support the AJA Kona board today. We have 6 of them here along with a BMD 3D Extreme card.
If Avid did support the AJA Kona board today, we would already have at least one copy of MC 5.5 in here to test out the workflow.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media -
[Rafael Amador] “Looks like the very day FCX will be released everybody will need to take a decision that will mark the rest of their lives.”
For $299? hardly. On the day it’s released Apple will be able to issue a PR release that says something like “Apple shatters all download records with 2 (3, 4, 5) million downloads in a single day (weekend, week)” blah blah blah.
At $299 it makes total business sense for EVERY post production facility to one man band in the world to have a copy of FCP X in their shop. If for no other reason than to be able to bring in a project from another editor. So from a business standpoint, you’d be an idiot to not at least install one copy somewhere in your shop.
So Apple will be able to sing about the 5, 8, 10 million registered users of FCP X like it’s some huge deal that so many people have at least purchased / installed it.
But a major change in the rest of our lives? Not really. You need to make a business decision based on your needs, your workflow and how much you interface with outside production companies / broadcasters. You’re going to download FCP X but will you make it your primary editor right off the bat or simply have it around for testing and to interface with other FCP X editors as needed?
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media
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