A bridge too far?

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Darren Roark] “The cat is out of the bag and it’s not going back in peacefully.”

It’s been out of the bag for quite some time. I was just giving an anecdotal response to Resolve’s freemium model.

I don’t want FCPX to be free. It’s nice that it’s cheap, but honestly, I’d pay more for it, but I’d expect more from Apple.

If they decide to go subscription with their own apps with the new app store models, I’d definitely expect more from it. Like, a lot more.

[Darren Roark]

[Jeremy Garchow] “I don’t want FCPX to be free. It’s nice that it’s cheap, but honestly, I’d pay more for it, but I’d expect more from Apple.”

I paid over $15K for my version of FCP X so far, that’s two MBPs and one fully spec’d nMP.

What aren’t you getting from them now that you would expect if you were paying monthly for it?

[Oliver Peters]

[Jeremy Garchow] “Of course not. But it sometimes is in the tool. Producers, Directors, whoever, sometimes need to see an expensive tool to “legitimize” the costs to clients. Sad but true.”

I think it’s hard to pin all of that on BMD. The high-end color correction market has been decimated in large part because almost no one shoots on film any longer. That has overlapped with raw and/or log-enabled cameras and low-cost color correction tools.

Other than certain markets like LA, NY, Chicago and maybe Minneapolis, the “hero” color correction suites have taken a huge hit. For instance, the Miami market used to have a number of high-end color correction rooms including telecine and tape-to-tape. I was looking for a resource down there yesterday and that’s all largely gone. However, one of the top colorists has been doing fine with a remote, come-to-your-place business model. Talent still wins out.

Since I also play a colorist on TV, I have done the grading on nearly all the projects I work on as an editor. Only occasionally do clients find any value in spending $1200/hour on a top-end color correction room in NY or LA. Heck, I rarely work face to face with too many clients anymore anyway. So it really doesn’t matter what I use.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Darren Roark] “I paid over $15K for my version of FCP X so far, that’s two MBPs and one fully spec’d nMP.
“

You would have to assign the cost of a computer and ancillary equipment to any NLE/Program you’re running. You shouldn’t assign the cost of a computer to FCPX alone.

I would expect quicker updates to get rid of the real life bugs in the application. And I’d expect more major feature updates/workflow enhancements than once every 1.5 years or so.

[Darren Roark]

[Oliver Peters] “The high-end color correction market has been decimated in large part because almost no one shoots on film any longer.”

Here in LA the major facilities are still trying to keep that reality alive using the ‘digital lab’ business model.

I completely agree that the part of this that people forget is that BMD buys tried and true tech for pennies on the dollar once the bottom drops out of the driving specialized need.

The fact you can buy a film scanner for the same price as a low end Prius nowadays is the last chip in the dam.

I am in a situation now where we contracted for a 4K final, the place the producers went with said they grade 2K DPXs on their “Not Resolve” system and that’s just how they do it. I sent the white paper to them on how well the “Brand-X” color grading system handles native r3d’s and has for four years.

4K is now a Netflix delivery standard for acquisitions.

For whatever reason they didn’t think we were serious and just did the 2K DPX grading anyway. Essentially they said they would have to start over from scratch. This is a big mess.

Paying for talent as opposed to gear will win sooner than later.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Oliver Peters] “I think it’s hard to pin all of that on BMD. The high-end color correction market has been decimated in large part because almost no one shoots on film any longer. That has overlapped with raw and/or log-enabled cameras and low-cost color correction tools.”

I don’t know. I am using more external color correction than ever. There are anecdotes for everything, I guess.

[Darren Roark]

[Jeremy Garchow] “I would expect quicker updates to get rid of the real life bugs in the application.”

I’m not going to say it’s perfect, but it’s been far more reliable than the Premiere jobs I’ve done recently. The updates are generally bug fixes that actually fix things in my experience.

[Jeremy Garchow] ” And I’d expect more major feature updates/workflow enhancements than once every 1.5 years or so.”

I guess people are still sore about 3D text.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Darren Roark] “I’m not going to say it’s perfect, but it’s been far more reliable than the Premiere jobs I’ve done recently. The updates are generally bug fixes that actually fix things in my experience.
“

I only use Pr when I have to. I don’t really care how Pr is worse or better than fcpx, I want FCPX to be better in relation to itself, not other NLEs. That is to say Apple’s development pace with FCPX has been fairly lackluster this passed 1.5 years. There are real XML bugs, there are real workflow deficiencies, and these problems have been present across many updates now, going to back to 10.1.

Some things have been fixed, true, but some things, big things, have not been addressed.

I don’t know if you have Logic X, but Logic gets many updates, and sometimes they are simple big fixes, other times the list of features and fixes won’t fit on a webpage after 3 years of development after release.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203718

Here’s FCPX which represents 5 years of development after release.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201237

I know there’s a double secret society version of FCPX that has been previewed for a select group of NDA’d individuals back in April. I’m wondering where it is, and when the big fixes are coming. Actually, who cares about the new one, when are the bug fixes coming?

[Oliver Peters]

[Jeremy Garchow] ” That is to say Apple’s development pace with FCPX has been fairly lackluster this passed 1.5 years.”

I’ve long contended that everything prior to 10.1 was in the pipeline before the release of 10.0. 10.1 was a revamp of the application and I believe in response to either, a) customer requests, or 2) the fact that 10.0 didn’t really work as well as envisioned. A lot of things after 10.1 feel like bolt-ons.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Oliver Peters] “A lot of things after 10.1 feel like bolt-ons.”

Again, it doesn’t really matter. If Apple is implementing user prefs, isn’t that what you would want?

Adobe is the king/queen of bolt-on effects so much so you can simply add whatever you want to a panel. Is that a bad thing? It’s definitely not easy to look at, and the panels are sometimes not that easy to use, but is it bad to have them?

I just want a bit more rapid bug fixes. There are some bugs that are known (as they get marked as dupes) that haven’t been fixed in years, literally.

I want to use FCPX. Right now, it fits our work the best. There are many upsides to FCPX. I just need a little more reciprocation and I feel like NDA-ing the preview is a really weird move.