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A bit of a retreat by Apple
Libraries containing Events, Sequences, Keyword and Smart Collections.
We are essentially back to Projects, Clips, Sequences and Bins are we not? Albeit in a better way.
I immediately feel better organised and more comfortable.
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27 Replies
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It’s not really a retreat, it’s actually very similar to how Aperture has worked for a long while.
A lot of the terminology is getting unified across the ProApps, which is decent.
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Yes but having Projects as separate entities was ridiculous.
We are reverting to the tried and tested system of media management albeit with some massive great simplifications.
I wonder if UK facilities and broadcasters will now jump on board?
It’s all much more intuitive and logical now.
Somebody at apple must have said “this is silly” let’s put it all into Libraries.
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[James Ewart] “Somebody at apple must have said “this is silly” let’s put it all into Libraries.”
“This is silly, let’s do what we did with Aperture.”
Do you have Aperture? FCPX 10.1 is very similar in methodology, but it has been tailored for video needs.
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Hey Jeremy,
I also have FCP 7, Avid (don’t use it) and Premiere (don’t like it).
They all use the tried and tested Projects, Clips, Bins, Sequences model… Sorry I mean Libraries, Events, Projects and Keyword collections.
I am not convinced they have been looking at Aperture for inspiration. I think they have reverted to what was a lot more sensible in FCP7 and their competitors at least at UI level.
You could argue that all the that has now changed are the names of these things. Of course even I get the whole metadata things is a game changer.
But they could have used the old names for these things could they not? And i think it has made the software less approachable, and the Avid and Premiere users less inclined to have a look because of the new vocabulary.
Maybe I am missing a point but I think it’s change for change sake and it’s silly.
Why not call them “Keyword Bins” and “Smart Bins”. They are Bins!
Why not call Libraries “Projects” and Projects “Sequences”? Why bother to rename these things? It’s just a head f@™k especially at the beginning of the journey.
It just seems like it’s taken two years for a bit of common sense to prevail.
Obviously I am aware that they have greater minds than mine but as for Common Sense? I’m not sure.
I think now people moving across will be able to make the mental leap a lot more easily.
What am I missing here? I must be missing something.
cheers
James
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[James Ewart] “But they could have used the old names for these things could they not? And i think it has made the software less approachable, and the Avid and Premiere users less inclined to have a look because of the new vocabulary.”
Well. If you work with Apple ProApps, all of them, would you rather have things operate differently or similarly?
Would you rather have FCPX be like Avid or other ProApps?
As an Aperture user, FCPX makes a lot of sense to me now, and vice versa. There are, of course, differences, but there are also many more similarities.
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I still find the language a bit silly.
I do not find renaming things for the sake of appearing new helpful.
A ‘project’ is what you work on. It has a lot of components, some of which may or may not be currently on the ‘timeline’ or ‘a timeline’.
An event is live and takes place at a certain place and time.
A Master folder or Project folder I think would be appropriate as the top level folder/container.
Granted that a library might be an appropriate label for a container of organized media that is used for multiple projects and/or a folder of exported media. I do understand that they got library from the finder level organization of their database as is used my mail, iphoto, contacts, etc.
However, I cannot see ‘library’ being used as a name for a video project.
Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV30/40, Sony Z7U, VX2000, PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.
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[Craig Alan] “I still find the language a bit silly.”
Perhaps.
But, at least they are making them all similar across the ProApps so if you do use all of them, they make more sense.
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Amen….
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[Craig Alan] “An event is live and takes place at a certain place and time.
A Master folder or Project folder I think would be appropriate as the top level folder/container.
Granted that a library might be an appropriate label for a container of organized media that is used for multiple projects and/or a folder of exported media. I do understand that they got library from the finder level organization of their database as is used my mail, iphoto, contacts, etc.
However, I cannot see ‘library’ being used as a name for a video project.”
“Event” was never quite the right word, but it’s hard to think of a better one. ‘Media Collection’, maybe, but it’s annoyingly long, and wouldn’t fit anymore now that events contain sequences.
If you create one library for each project (real project, not FCP X ‘project’) then yes, it would make sense to just call a library a ‘project’, and an event, perhaps, a ‘bin’ or ‘folder’ or something along those lines. And organizing things that way probably will work best for some people (it’s probably what we’ll do). But I think Apple is trying to avoid terminology which implies such a rigid structure. For instance, some people may work on many (real) projects that share media with each other, and for those people it will likely make the most sense to keep collections of such projects in a single library. If you call a library a ‘project’ is discourages this pattern.
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I agree.
Keyword collections aren’t really bins.
Smart Collections aren’t really smart bins.
An Event can mean many things, as can a library.
A library, by definition, is a repository of many types of media for people to refer to, or browse, or borrow.
An Event can mean many different things to different workflows and people. An Event can be an actual Event, or a day, or something that happened during that day.
A Project can also have a few different connotations.
I don’t think the renaming is misguided. Is it difficult to translate from other more established nomenclature? Perhaps, but if you think about the greater meaning and perhaps then the use of the words, I don’t think Apple made some of these decisions without thinking about it.
It really is different. That doesn’t mean you have to like it or like the way Apple chose to release this product.
While the addition of libraries does harken back to what an FCP7 project represented in that there’s a file that is exposed very plainly in the Finder, but they are also very different, especially if you start managing media in to them.
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