After a year has perception of FCPX changed?

[Chris Harlan]

[Tim Wilson] “The only thing that I personally assess as noise here is pointedly personal stuff, but even that is being dealt with far better than this time last year. A post or two and move on, rather than consuming whole threads…or whole days….
“

So that means that my suggestion for the new forum name of “50 Romantic Things You Can Do To Your Opponent’s Skull” is just completely out of the running?

[Clint Wardlow]

And Tony this is where different styles have different needs. I agree that FCPX seems to work well for a pretty straingt forward cut. A series of actions where one just cuts from one shot to the next with simple foley and sync sound.

However, in my more experimental work I will use multi-layered video that doesn’t always work on a one to one length with the several other shots of whict it overlays . A certain piece of video may run through out a segment, over several other shots, and I will vary its opacity using key frames. I often have multiple layers of video working all at once. At the same time I may have several tracks of sound. I do use sync, but it is often only a small part of my overall sound design.

For this FCPX seems ill-suited. I have seen where folks have come up with various byzantine work-arounds in FCPX to achieve the same results. However, I am never going to remember all of those. And the fact is I would have to spend A LOT of time in X to get to the point I am now in Legacy (and my time to experiment in a new NLE is limited). I moved from a flatbed to tape-based linear editing to NLE over the years and the basics of intercutting and montage have not really changed. I’ve had to learn new stuff sure, but FCPX is the first time in the process I feel that I would come in further behind the game than when I made a changeover.

That said, I know this is only me with my very specialized workflow. There are a lot of people I think may benefit from FCPX and are resisting for all the wrong reasons. They stay away not because it doesn’t work for them, but because of negative (admittedly some deserved)feedback. But there are others –particularly in higher end production — that FCPX’s editing paradigm as it now stands will never work IMO. I think apple is going to have to makes some major changes in X to entice those folks.

[Bill Davis]

“What’s more surprising to me, in retrospect, was that we all saw something so similar when we looked at FCP7”

Well, by V.7 sure. Those of us who were with FCP 1-3 experienced a very different story, as Jeremy pointed out so brilliantly with his “heres the REAL history of FCP Legacy as discussed at the time” post.

Hopefully, we’ll all have the same chance to re-assess FCP- X versions 3-7 like we did with Legacy.

The real question may be does the way editing happens for the bulk of the practioners more closely resemble the way editing was done in a suite in the 1980s (which it very much still does at the high end today…or will it change substantially in response to new technology needs and opportunities.

A solid case can be made for both approaches.

But in the 1980s editing HAD to be done in a dedicated room with special, expensive tools accessible to only a very few.

Now that’s changed.

What that means is up for grabs.

For some there’s absolutely no reason to change that basic model.

For others, that change shouts opportunity.

Both can be right at the same time.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Herb Sevush]

[Marcus Moore] “I think it speaks to a larger, dare I say philosophical?, question of what a workstation is”

Right now a workstation is –

capable of handling 32-64 Gig Ram

available with the latest GPU and CPU processors, including multiple CPU and GPU processors.

built with multiple PCIe slots.

This is not a hard definition to make. If you can handle all of that your a workstation, if you can’t, your not.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[alban egger] “But FCP7 now REALLY looks like the lame duck it always was. CS6 wipes the floor with FCP7 from what I read and saw (but never really had time to try it). So what do the FP7 disciples think about their NLE?”

I wish there was something as good so I could buy it, but so far, everything else comes up short. Every other system is too rigid. FCP7 allows me to edit with more freedom – multiple open timelines, timecode sync indicators so I’m not afraid to disconnect my audio from my video, easy to work with audio split out over all my video sources, tracks allowing me to organize my info visually, ease of moving clips to different tracks, ease of copying specific attributes from one clip to any or all other clips … a very flexible and customizable system that I wish someone else would match.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Jules bowman] “You see, to me it seems that, limitations aside which could have been fixed over time, FCP was very very very good. My biggest frustration is not having to find a new NLE although that is a drag, but that neither PP6 nor FC10 are as good as editing on FCP. Sure it had flaws and issues but at the same time it had a lot of great sensible little short cuts and features that seem so logical and sensible that them not being in the others almost beggars belief.”

I second that emotion.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Fredy Schwerdtner]

Walter Soyka:If Apple had launched with 10.0.3 or 10.0.4, we might all be having a different conversation.

I couldn’t agree more !!!!!

iMac 2.7 GHz Intel 4 Core i5
16 GB memory

MacBook Pro 17″
2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
6GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

OWC RAID 5 with 4TB

OS X 10.7.3
FCPX
Final Cut Studio “3”

[Chris Harlan]

[Herb Sevush] “[Jules bowman] “You see, to me it seems that, limitations aside which could have been fixed over time, FCP was very very very good. My biggest frustration is not having to find a new NLE although that is a drag, but that neither PP6 nor FC10 are as good as editing on FCP. Sure it had flaws and issues but at the same time it had a lot of great sensible little short cuts and features that seem so logical and sensible that them not being in the others almost beggars belief.”

I second that emotion.
“

I think the single little thing that I miss most is the color-coded TC overlay that you can turn on and off in the record monitor. I can’t believe that no one else has something similar. I ignored this for years, but over the last three I’ve come to use it a lot. I find it exceptionally useful.

[Herb Sevush]

[Chris Harlan] ” the color-coded TC overlay that you can turn on and off in the record monitor. I can’t believe that no one else has something similar.”

For my way of working, with unlinked clips, this is essential. The idea of editing without something like this is as appealing as drinking soup with a fork.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Jeremy Garchow]

Herb, do you work truly unlinked or just with linked selection off?

Have you tried premiere with this yet?