After a year has perception of FCPX changed?

[Walter Soyka]

[Marcus Moore] ” think it speaks to a larger, dare I say philosophical?, question of what a workstation is. You go back even 5 years and the processing advantage between a MacPro and an iMac was miles apart. Now you see demos of people working with 4K material on a MacBook Air via Thunderbolt.”

I talk about this a lot when we discuss workstations here.

There’s a distinction between computing power and throughput. You used to need a workstation to get both. Now, courtesy of Thunderbolt, you can pretty much get the throughput without the computing power.

Moore’s law means that processing power per unit of price grows exponentially, but video requirements grow stepwise at a much lower rate. Computing power (capacity) has utterly outpaced our needs for video (demand). Straight editorial simply doesn’t need workstation-class computing performance in 2012. Workstations have outgrown video editorial.

However, I think it’s myopic to suggest this means Apple can reduce the relative computing power they offer on the desktop without affecting our industry. Thunderbolt is still a relatively narrow pipe when compared with server- or workstation-class PCIe, there are still applications with high RAM requirements, and there are still applications (especially compositing or 3D applications) that can soak up every cycle of processing power your machine can offer.

Expectations rise at the same rate as capabilities, so once we can deliver a better visual or a tighter turnaround, that becomes the new norm.

There is no such thing as enough processing power, and I think that if Apple only moves forward with throughput without corresponding advances in computing power on their desktop machines, they’ll lose whatever portion of the high-end (read: high-expectation) markets adjacent to editorial that they have left.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Alban Egger]

Another question is: have FCPX and CS6 changed your perception about FCP7. FCP7 was the holy grail to many. I always disliked it, because when I started using it (2008) it was already an old software. Others, like Edius, already used P2 and h.264 natively then. But to be able to collaborate I pretty much had to use FCP7 in my market.

FCPX came and I switched within 2 weeks. And never looked back. I edited docs, music videos, TV-shows, used it in Live-environments…it just works great for me. So my first perception was correct: it is a very versatile and deep application which hasn´t even scratched the surface yet. BUT I acknowledge that there are a few quirks still. But then there are some tools I would´t want to live without anymore.

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?

[Chris Harlan]

Hey, that was classy and inspirational.

[Derek Andonian]

My opinion of it HAS changed since it first came out.

When FCPX was first released I thought, “This program is an unstable mess, and on top of that it’s basically a souped-up version of iMovie”

Now, my opinion has changed to, “The stability issues have gotten much better and a few new professional features have been added, but it’s basically a souped-up version of iMovie.”

Even if X becomes rock-solid, without a beach ball in sight, there’s still the issue of the hassles created by the “features” of the magnetic, trackless timeline.

Last year at the SuperMeet, Apple trumpeted FCPX like it was brand new and revolutionary, and it wasn’t. Most of the core functionality in X already existed in iMovie before FCPX came out.

The paradigm of FCPX, which originated in Apple’s consumer-friendly free editing app, was NOT DESIGNED to tackle the complex needs of professional editors who have deadlines looming, and that’s why so many pros feel frustrated with it.

I remember seeing a post by someone in another thread who said, “You just have to think a few steps ahead of it.” Then another poster responded with a line that sums up my feelings about X really well:

“I want to edit, not play a game of chess with my NLE.”

______________________________________________
“THAT’S our fail-safe point. Up until here, we still have enough track to stop the locomotive before it plunges into the ravine… But after this windmill it’s the future or bust.”

[Bill Davis]

[Chris Harlan] “Give me something concrete. I bet you can’t find it.
“

When I use X on my laptop – every single edit decision I’ve made previously in my event brewer – no matter which events or projects those were created for – can be instantly available to every single project I choose to create from that point on – with all my pre-edit decisions as to trimming, color correction and key wording intact.

That capability didn’t exist in Legacy that I ever uncovered.

The X approach is infinitely more flexible and clearly superior in my view.

And when you’re out on the road with Legacy, how exactly do you handle Capture Scratch management? I don’t recall a way to have a dozen projects with a dozen capture scratches associated with those projects live simultaneously – the default state of X with multiple Events available along side multiple projects as the default.

I can be editing away on one Project, realize I need footage from another project, or another event, mount a drive, and edit the new material into my timeline in seconds. No launching prior projects, no shut down and re-launching FCP legacy edits.

In fact, in Legacy I couldn’t even SEE the contents of a timeline when I had another one launched! I could open an exported MOVIE – but that give me NO reference to the original timeline since movies and their parent timelines were always cut off from each other. I remember spending lots to time looking for clips by opening and closing FCP-Legacy projects until I could find the one that had the clip I was looking for if I couldn’t remember the ID tag I’d used and wanted a visual reference.

Legacy had no visual reference other than shuffling through bins and scanning thumbnails for the open project ONLY.

Former projets were just “dumb icons” on the desktop. Unless you create and maintain some kind of clip database outside the program, each edit defaulted to a “closed book” state.

In X, all your prior work can be open and available for visual search with a few clicks – all from within the live app.

I could go on, but those are a few of the important things off the top of my head.

“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

[Jules Bowman]

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

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.

Despite being frequently told I’m scared of leaving the safety zone of the past I am not. Watch me for a week in my life you will see I love exploring the new and trying stuff out to see if something is better. But no one will convince me that a track less NLE is a step forward. Even apple have put in things to make it mimic tracks more. I will always, in the back of my mind, consider FC10 but I won’t play with it until I have nothing else to do with my free time because at its core it doesn’t appeal to me. Throw into the mix it is reportedly buggy, that one needs to learn it and all it’s workarounds, that it has poor window layout options, and personally I really dislike the aesthetic of the design and look (too many thumbnails and Nintendo-esque looking design choices for me) then it is still second from bottom on my list of choices, just before iMovie.

PP is far more like my preferred and intuitive way of editing and so I am drawn to it. I really love the flexibility of the windows layouts and they have helped me speed up things. I love that it seems to work with no rendering needed on my machine. But it too falls short when compared with FCP. I don’t know or understand what is under the hood, and don’t need to because I read and when others who know more than me say it is good I believe them. In fact I don’t doubt under the hood FC10 is better than FCP. But PP is missing a lot of the sensible and intuitive short cuts and ways of working that made FCP a true joy. 3rd party plugs also have serious issues at he moment. At least transitions do and unless it sorts that it will never be as good as FCP to me. Not through technical limitations, but through ease and joy of editing. You know, the really important part of the editing process.

For me of the two PP is the one I believe will end up being my replacement. I think no matter what apple fix in FC10 they have thrown the baby out with the bath water and by chasing a certain market, one which is perceived to be broader, they are excluding another market where people who edit simply don’t want to do it their way because the ‘old way’ wasn’t old, but rather very good and far from broken.

I have said before FCP has a halo effect because it was used by Pros. And I mean top end names who the world hears about, not pros as in me and Steve and Craig and bill who earn money but no one knows or cares about (apart from our mums of course). I bought into FCP because of that. And as is mentioned in this thread already that halo effect is going. Some of the market apple have chased are already looking down their noses at FC10 because they chucked the baby out with the bath water and the Pros (definition above) aren’t interested.

A lot of arguments are that FC10 appeals to one stop shops, to a new generation of editors, to the web 2.0 dynamic etc etc, but on the whole people are not as 22nd century as marketing departments need or want them to be. It’s not the £200, £500 or £1000 cost that is the biggest consideration when people who will edit long term and possibly for money make their choice, it is the thousands of hours of their lives they will spend learning and working with that tool and how that tool fits in with both potential collaboration (even if that is getting a job in the future) and perceptions of where that person wants to get to and how they are seen.

What hasn’t changed over the last year is that apple decided to leave the game and start another one.

World series baseball doesn’t include the world.

Cricket does.

[Bill Davis]

[Greg Andonian] “Last year at the SuperMeet, Apple trumpeted FCPX like it was brand new and revolutionary, and it wasn’t. Most of the core functionality in X already existed in iMovie before FCPX came out.”

Oh come on Greg. This is like arguing that because a Jaguar and a Yugo have engines, steering wheels and brakes, and so “share the same core functionality” that nobody can really tell the difference between driving the two.

Here’s a news flash, since you clearly don’t use X very much. Nobody actually competetent can do in iMovie the same level of editing they can do in X. In modern grade school terms – one of these things is NOT like the other.

But more than that – the real differences is more subtle.

I was kinda BORED editing in Legacy. The changes were all minor and incremental after all those years of development. It had gone as far as that mode of editing needed to go, perhaps.

X was willing to blow up the boring past for the promise of a more interesting future – and that’s precisely what it’s been for me.

I’m having more FUN editing. I’m getting more work done – faster – and easier than before I switched to X.

Every month I use it, I find more to like – and that’s after 11 straight months of increasing success with it.

So sorry, but if the best argument you can muster is the same one from week ONE of X’s existence when nobody understood it… (it’s just iMovie Pro, dude) … than I feel for you.

11 months on and you’re brain is largely where it was 11 months ago?

That’s just kinda weird, IMO.

“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

[Jules Bowman]

Bill, I think the problem is that you just ‘dont get’ FCP.

[Bill Davis]

[Michael Gissing] “then expect me and other to call you for it. It isn’t true in my experience or many others but you repeat it without foundation.
“

OK,

Then explain why you think it should be “hated” at all?

It cuts. Really, really well, in fact.

It doesn’t do everything, but what it does, it does really, really well.

So what are the flaws that give lie to my points?

What is the big issue that make so many people see X as such an affront to the industry if it’s not actually an emotional response to having something important taken away.

After all, you’re not watching from the sidelines disengaged. You’re here in the mix making the same emotional appeals and arguments that I am.

So what’s your non-emotional rational for saying X is so flawed? What’s missing? What lack of features are stopping you from considering it?

I keep asking that of a lot of folks, and all I get back are some vague stuff about how it doesn’t do everything that Legacy did. And we’ve already agreed to that on all sides.

It’s a new tool for a new era, in my opinion. What should it have been? Where is editing going in your estimation and why does X miss the mark for that?

Truly interested.

“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

[Michael Gissing]

Bill I was calling you on both your claim that there are haters and the majority of haters hate change. I think that is just bullshit. So why are you now asking me to say why there are haters and what doesn’t work for me. I covered all the issues of why it doesn’t suit my grade/online sound post workflow when Alan asked me many posts ago.

I think it suits you to assume anyone who says it isn’t for them or doesn’t fit workflows is automatically a hater. That is fallacy number one.

Fallacy number two is that people hate because they can’t deal with change.

As long as you continue to peddle this myth, expect me to call bullshit.