A series of quotes from the forum on the scale of the Turd Sandwich that has been served.

[Paul Harb]

What he said.

Paul Harb-Producer/Director
Wrong Beach Multimedia
Dual 3.2 GHz Quad/10.5.5/8GIG RAM/FCP 6.0.4/QT 7.5.5

[Andrew Watts]

I’m stunned at how terrible this product is. Played around with it for a few minutes and wanted to barf in my mouth. This is Apple’s New Coke.

[Chris Kenny]

[Aindreas Gallagher] “You can’t tell it where you want to save a project (always saves in your “movies” folder like imovie.”

This is not true. From the Project Library you can right-click any volume and choose ‘New Project’.

[Aindreas Gallagher] “Where you had a collection of sequences and bins that were relevant to the specific project. Instead each project has one (1) timeline only, or in other words each timeline is it’s own project.”

This is true, but sort of misleading, because with the addition of ‘events’, the role of projects is very different in FCP X than in FCP 7. Also, many things that involved horrible kludges with multiple timelines in FCP 7 can be done better in FCP X in a simple timeline with some of the new timeline features.

—
Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.

You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.

[Aindreas Gallagher]

but chris, for god’s sake I can’t even ‘save as’ anymore. The moronic software is relentlessly autosaving on top of itself like a maniac. I need to be able to fork and park the file saving at points.

And multiple timelines are not a cludge. They’re an important part of iterating different conceptions of the edit.

This software has had a full frontal lobotomy. It may be stronger, leaner, gaudier, faster, but a large part of its brain just went missing.

http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Chris Kenny]

[Aindreas Gallagher] “but chris, for god’s sake I can’t even ‘save as’ anymore. The moronic software is relentlessly autosaving on top of itself like a maniac. I need to be able to fork and park the file saving at points.”

I suspect that problem goes away with Lion’s ‘Versions’ feature.

[Aindreas Gallagher] “And multiple timelines are not a cludge. They’re an important part of iterating different conceptions of the edit.”

But FCP X provides tools explicitly for the purpose of doing this sort of thing in a single timeline. For instance, you can group all the shots in a scene into a compound clip (basically a less screwy nested sequence), and then duplicate it as an audition, which lets you easily swap different versions of it into and out of your main sequence.

Basically, FCP X does support multiple sequences in a project, but it drops support for multiple top-level sequences in favor of support for better hierarchical organization of sequences.

—
Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.

You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.

[Aindreas Gallagher]

[Chris Kenny] “But FCP X provides tools explicitly for the purpose of doing this sort of thing in a single timeline. For instance, you can group all the shots in a scene into a compound clip (basically a less screwy nested sequence), and then duplicate it as an audition, which lets you easily swap different versions of it into and out of your main sequence.

Basically, FCP X does support multiple sequences in a project, but it drops support for multiple top-level sequences in favor of support for better hierarchical organization of sequences.”

ah whatever.. I want multiple timelines that exist as independent entities in the browser that I can name. That’s gone, and that’s total sh*te.

We had that feature before the lobotomy – and so farewell to it. I’m loving the fact that a deleted clip item in the browser now sends the corresponding finder item to the trash. If true, that is a deliciously, aggressively stupid move. Its basically Apple whipping out the megaphone and saying – “this software is as conceptually sophisticated as itunes, have fun, you crazy teenagers, with your one rad project/timeline/event/whatever b*llocks we’re calling it now/ slicing and dicing that CNN’s ireport you’re editing in your dorm room”

Look at all the promo material – they’re basically saying this thing is good for a three minute sizzle reel of cars being driven.

http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[David Dobson]

Multiple sequences withing a main sequence? Yikes. That sounds very confusing. I’m sure some 12 year old kid will love it and put me out of work using it though.

[Chris Kenny]

[Aindreas Gallagher] ” I’m loving the fact that a deleted clip item in the browser now sends the corresponding finder item to the trash. If true, that is a deliciously, aggressively stupid move. Its basically Apple whipping out the megaphone and saying – “this software is as conceptually sophisticated as itunes, have fun, you crazy teenagers,”

Basically, it provides the option to consolidate all of your media as you import it (copy it to the Event Library, basically), at which point it’s managed by Final Cut, so it makes sense that it goes away when you delete in Final Cut. Otherwise you’d just have orphaned clips in the Event Library folder. But you don’t have to let Final Cut manage the files for you; you can have them in your own hierarchy, organized however you like, and just import references. If you do that, it doesn’t move clips to the trash when you delete them in Final Cut.

This all makes a lot of sense, and given some of the atrociously idiotic things I’ve seen editors do over the years, the consolidation behavior is probably a good addition. Particularly the fact that it’s enabled by default, which will prevent a lot of less tech-savvy editors from shooting themselves in the foot. (And in my experience onlining various projects, including feature films, just because someone gets hired as a pro editor doesn’t always mean they’re competent at media management.)

[Aindreas Gallagher] “Look at all the promo material – they’re basically saying this thing is good for a three minute sizzle reel of cars being driven.”

You’re just trolling at this point. In terms of timeline organization and markers, tagging, etc. FCP X is substantially more powerful than FCP 7.

—
Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.

You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.

[Aindreas Gallagher]

Who am I trolling Chris? Apple? I’m annoyed is what I am.

Anyway – you didn’t read what I said – It’s what Apple chose to present FCPX as – I’m not arguing it doesn’t have mind numbing lists of metadata. It’s how they’re pitching the product, and who it’s intended for. Did you hear? you can’t turn the magnetic timeline off apparently.

http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Chris Kenny]

[Aindreas Gallagher] “Who am I trolling Chris? Apple? I’m annoyed is what I am.”

Claiming FCP X is designed for editing three minute sizzle reels, when it clearly has the metadata management features to support long-form projects, is trolling.

[Aindreas Gallagher] “Anyway – you didn’t read what I said – It’s what Apple chose to present FCPX as – I’m not arguing it doesn’t have mind numbing lists of metadata. It’s how they’re pitching the product, and who it’s intended for. Did you hear? you can’t turn the magnetic timeline off apparently.”

The solution to that seems to be connecting clips. If the magnetic timeline could throw specific clips out of alignment that needs to remain in alignment, you just connect them, and they’ll maintain the same relative relationship.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but a lot of your criticisms seem to be of the form ‘if this feature were added/removed in FCP 7 it would cause the following problems’. FCP X is a very different app. Not only from FCP 7, but from other traditional non-linear editing apps in general. It has a set of editing tools that are designed to work in specific ways with each other, and many behaviors that seem like they wouldn’t make sense in the context of a traditional NLE do make sense in FCP X. You just have to kind of wrap your head around the way it works first, and Apple’s documentation is not great for this purpose.

—
Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.

You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.