Adobe Announces updates to CC Video applications

[Lance Bachelder]

I imagine the next rev to FCPX will be significant and include big optimizations for AMD, OpenCL and the new MacPro. But no matter how they improve FCPX, will it be competitive with everything Adobe has been doing lately? Round tripping to Speedgrade – huge – and something Apple has given up on when they killed the old suite and Color. And how does Apple compete with Adobe Anywhere? Apple tried to compete with Avid Unity in the last decade with xServe and then Final Cut Server and failed and and again gave up.

So if small to large studios start buying in to Anywhere (which seems more flexible and is less expensive than say Avid Interplay) that means Premiere would be their NLE by default. FCPX would have to be so compelling as an NLE that Editors would insist on using over Premiere even if a studio is trying to tell them otherwise and very few Editors have final say on the NLE they use. This means Apple would have to do something about sharing and workgroups again with X. Are they really going to fully commit, longterm to a market they pretty much gave up on?

Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Downtown Long Beach, California
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1680680/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

[Bill Davis]

I wasn’t trying to be negative.

I was tryimg to figure the customer that Adobe was targeting here.

Burried in the announcement (if you noticed) was a mention of Anywhere enabling “remote voiceover” -as a longtime narrator and voice talent, who, it might shock you to learn, is currently also a CC subscriber (I like to know about how things in my industry work rather than just guess, silly me) my initial thought was that there might be a revenue stream for me to explore here. Particularly if I had all the pieces already in house.

I actually pretty regularly produce VO sessions for my clients , including running a studio hybrid telephone interface so that clients can direct spots and hear narrations in progress remotely via phone patch.

So my instinct was to see myself as a potential customer for this.

The cost was merely a splash of cold water, that’s all. At $12,500 i couldn’t see amortizing the cost of providing the service for my clients for years and years. So Adobe is pricing this for studios with different cost structures than mine. No sin in that. Just disappointment that they aren’t making and selling this “service” in a structure that better fits my needs.

And so it goes.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Craig Seeman]

[Lance Bachelder] “So if small to large studios start buying in to Anywhere (which seems more flexible and is less expensive than say Avid Interplay) that means Premiere would be their NLE by default.”

Apple’s cloud history is very muddled at best. On the consumer side they’ve had .mac, MobileMe, iCloud as they keep dropping or adding features. There also was iChat Theater in FCP legacy. Apple in many areas are by no means first or even early to market with some features. A lot of what they do seems to be market surveillance followed by re-envisionining. It’s possible Apple will hold off until they see a better way… or stumble as they’ve done on the consumer side… or maybe they’ll just cede that portion of the market. Given Apple’s tendency to “commoditize” I suspect they’ll hold off until they can find a more mass appeal so that smaller shops and solos can collaborate over long distances at a reasonable price.

[Chris Harlan]

[Andrew Kimery] “There is one small production company in LA “

Actually, and not to argue, there are MANY small companies working that way.

[Marcus Moore]

All true. And as I’m mentioned before I’m a CC subscriber for Ae and Ps, so I benefit directly from Adobe’s improvements here.

Our business has gone thru several cycles where it was advantageous to either use the whole widget from one company, or pick the best products in different areas. it’s take a while for Adobe to get Premier up to snuff- but Adobe has I think defined a clear vision of itself. Outside of CC actually NOT catching on and having to reverse course- I don’t see how they do anything but strengthen their position.

Unless Apple has all new products in the pipeline, Apple has clearly decided to ceeded certain areas of the post market- namely compositing and color correction. Perhaps ultimately they decided they couldn’t deliver the best in class solution in all those areas of HIGHLY specialized tools. We’ll never know exactly why these decisions were made.

Much like the MacPro, perhaps Apple sees strength in a core product- with customization thru expansion to the best 3rd party software the better bet.

I dunno.

I think if Apple can present a 10.1 update with cues from the recent LogicX- I think it could sway loads of FCP7 holdouts, of which there are MANY!

I know for me personally I would certainly bemoan if Apple exited this market. I find the core concepts of FCPX really enticing. And while I’m sure I could transition to another NLE (it’s happened several times before) I’m gonna stick with Apple for the time being and see how this plays out a while longer.

[Shawn Miller]

[Craig Seeman] “He also said most wouldn’t see a difference between ProResHQ and cDNG.”

That’s just crazy talk. I just got to work with CinemaDNG for the first time last week, and I think it’s fantastic. My only real annoyance was having to work between Resolve and Premiere. Now looking forward to a more efficient PPro to SG workflow.

[Craig Seeman] “Granted it’s my interpretation of what he said but with cDNG now in cameras at pedestrian prices, I hope Apple reconsiders.”

Agreed, it seems like CinemaDNG support should be a no brainier for all of the major NLEs… since it’s an open standard and all.

Shawn

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Adobe has shown again that they have a lot of commitment in bringing users the features they want.

And if Adobe can bring cDNG support, Apple should too. Why transcode, if you could just import? The native RED support in FCPX made our lives a lot easier…

Now let’s just hope Apple has a lot to show with their big FCPX update. It’s been a year since there was a big feature update, and it’s been more then 2 years since FCPX’s release. I really hope they don’t dissapoint. The bad reputation FCPX had at the start is slowly fading away, and Adobe got a lot of customers against them with their renting options being the only one going further. Apple should really take advantage of that.

[Bill Davis]

[Mathieu Ghekiere] “And if Adobe can bring cDNG support, Apple should too. Why transcode, if you could just import? The native RED support in FCPX made our lives a lot easier…”

But isn’t this mostly about licensing? Apple as a major corporation has long resisted too much reliance on technology outside their own patent portfolio.

I’m not technically sophisticated enough to understand who owns what underlying patent fu – but it seems to me when I look at the X Share menu, I largely see output codecs that Apple either owns outright or co-owns as part of a consortium (e.g. h-264)

Is cDNG open source? Or is it patented property? If the latter, then if Apple includes it in their output mix, don’t they have to license it? And if so, doesn’t that give the licensing body the ability to pull it if things go sour?

I’m not sure exactly why I’d want to put myself in that position if I had ProRes and h-264 already in my basket.

I know that as consumers we all want to work with what we want, when we want. But down deep, aren’t there a lot of IP underpinnings that have to be addressed?

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Shawn Miller]

[Oliver Peters] “If you shoot with the BMD camera and record with BMD Film (their flat gamma profile, like Log-C) using ProResHQ or 4444 – and the temp/tint/exposure is reasonably correct – then, yes, shooting raw gives you very little benefit.”

For most recording situations, that’s probably true. But the increased spacial and color resolution (12bit @ 2400×1350 vs 10bit @ 1920×1080) can be a big help with tracking and chromakey shots. Also, the BM cameras don’t shoot ProRes 4444, only HQ. 🙂

Shawn

[Mark Dobson]

[Mathieu Ghekiere] “Now let’s just hope Apple has a lot to show with their big FCPX update. It’s been a year since there was a big feature update, and it’s been more then 2 years since FCPX’s release. I really hope they don’t dissapoint. The bad reputation FCPX had at the start is slowly fading away, and Adobe got a lot of customers against them with their renting options being the only one going further. Apple should really take advantage of that.”

In a strange way I don’t think that Apple would be that bothered by what Adobe are doing with their CC and specifically with PP. Apple left that type of train set behind with Final Cut Studio.

FCPX is a much lighter footed piece of software and possibly more aligned to our times, to the future and the way that the younger generation work where many of the conventions of post production simply don’t apply any more. I’m really interested to see where Apple will take FCPX and having spent a solid amount of time delving into Logic Pro X I’m looking to see similar innovations they have bought to that application transferred to editing workflows. Specifically their development of Smart Controls, which within a video editing environment would allow bundled tools and controls to be developed by the user and applied to multiple clips within a project.

They have really honed in on simplifying the GUI, on looking at the application from the point of view of the user and enabling them to concentrate on their music making skills rather than having to become full time techies in order to fulfil their creative vision. But all of the detail is still there under the hood for those with the mindset to grapple with it.