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Did Apple Fall Behind the competition ?
I did not spend much time searching for this yet but, I was reading something the other day and it brought up a question.
Ist let me say I have been a Final Cut Pro guy since version 1.0 so it safe to say Im a fan. But there is something that occurred to me. In general I don’t remember a time in the last many years when Apple let anyone get out in front of them in the market place. Generally they are the leaders. But it seems to me that since file based systems and work flows have been driving hard into the video eco-system that folks that Adobe, AVID, SONY and even Grass Valley have been making inroads in to Apple potential customer base. Sure the new version is supposed to be amazing, but the fact is this update is “overdue” and its not typical for apple to have to play catch up to anyone.
You could say Apple had just to big of a job in the 64 bit re-write, or they they elected to wait for the Lion platform and new QuickTime. Fact is that their competition has not waited for anything right. Its not a matter of money, Apple has more money then God right now. I wonder sometimes if its not been a matter of priorities. Have the ProApple evangelists inside Apple had to keep talking Steve Jobs into staying engaged, or if Apple started to walk away from this, a few years ago, then changed their mind at some point…. after all they have all been about consumer space for sometime now.
I was just wondering.
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5 Replies
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First I should admit I am not a fan or FCP, AVID, Premier or Sony Vegas, I am a fan of editing;). I have over the Years used Avid, FCP. and Vegas. For the last couple of years I have used Vegas and in the last month or so am giving FCP another go.
There are things I prefer in FCP and things I prefer in Vegas and I like to think I have a openish mind.
I would say the fundamentals of most of the top packages are relatively similar, for me the big difference is how much time I have to wait for things to render and if I have to render all my rushes before starting a project. Unless I have missed something a lot of HD formats require rendering to ProRas before you start editing and this is the rushes we are talking about. So for a 30 minute film with a shooting ration of 10 to 1 that means you have to render 5 hours of footage before you even start. On my 4 ore 3ghz box this will take hours. With Vegas and I believe Premier you just import and start editing, importing taking a couple of seconds for a clip (or less).
You also seem to have to have to stop and let affects etc. render during editing, In Vegas/FCP you render have to wait for anything to render until you finish the project and print the final file.
The BBC have apparently just purchased 2000 Premier licenses.
I think FCP 8 is going to be a very important release, left hope Mr Jobs decides to take the Apple just works philosophy of ease and simplicity and make FCP accept a larger number of formats without rendering to PoRes, we are in the 21st century.
Ben
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Ben Edwards – Freelance Filmmaker
https://www.funkytwig.com -
A lot is riding on the next release. So much of market buying decisions are based on subjective impressions of how good the product is going to be over time, not just objective lists of features. You are selling people on a way of doing things and a long-term commitment. They want to have faith that the product is going to keep up with the industry’s leading edge, so that THEY will be on that leading edge.
We saw FCP steal away a lot of business from Avid when it was the hot new thing on the block, and it made Avid look kind of moribund. I’m talking about subjective perception here, let’s not get into a feature comparison argument.
A lot of people put their reputations on the line with their companies in buying into an Apple/ FCP workflow, instead of an Avid or Adobe or Sony workflow.
Meanwhile, the past couple years, Adobe has surged back into the lead with a number of improvements and refinements to premiere, and some lab demos of stuff in the works that’s truly mind-boggling. And the Apple crowd has been sitting like loyal Cubs fans, waiting patiently for an answer out of Cupertino.
That answer is coming in April, apparently, and not a minute too soon. I think there are a lot of people on the fence about getting into FCP or continuing with it, in the light of innovations from Adobe. I think Steve Jobs needs to knock this next one out of the park to re-establish the perceptual momentum that the FCP platform is going to stay cutting-edge. Or I think it is going to experience the same scenario as Avid did when it was first challenged.
It isn’t just about who’s objectively better at what. It’s about whether people think the product has a bright future, or if it is just winding down.
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Being based in the UK and working in the mainstream broadcasting arena, the way it’s looked to me over the last few years is that Avid had the professional market in London pretty much sewn up and it took a lot of effort for Apple to really break through, which they did around three years ago(ish) when (a) FCP could do pretty much what Avid did (b) Avid released some buggy updates, and (c) the BBC bought a load of them. So as a freelance editor I only had to know Avid to make a living until FCP became big enough in the market to make it necessary for me (and others like me) to learn it. To some extent editing software can be a personal choice, but for example I frequently cut stuff on my laptop then take it to a facility for the next stage and it ends up at the BBC, so that’s 3 systems that it’s been through before it gets transmitted – all currently FCP, but whatever system you want to use (and I’ve done the same thing with Avid) you don’t get away with rendering into different codecs for different stages of the job when you’ve got BBC or Channel 4 engineers doing the technical reviews. I don’t particularly care whether the system I’m using is new or “amazing” (whatever that means) or who manufactures it, only that it’s fast and reliable at doing the things I want it to do and that it doesn’t give me any technical headaches at delivery time. FCP works, Avid works, I don’t know much about the others, but getting a major broadcaster to use your system is going to be a major marketing coup and losing one would be fairly disastrous for any manufacturer.
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Ben,
What codec are the rushes in when you receive them? Can you make your FCP timeline that codec? That should save you from rendering all of that original video/footage, and if you really need a ProRes final product, just render out a ProRes version of your final edit.
It just seems to me that the only reason you would have render ALL of your original footage would be if FCP didn’t offer the ability to edit in whatever your native codec is.
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Did apple fall behind the competition? Yes.
Alf
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