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and finally……
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[Marcus Moore] ” What spin are you talking about Franz?”
Marcus,
NAB 2012:
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/335/31581
“Apple notes that there are now more editors working with FCP X than with Final Cut Pro 7.”The spin I’m referring to is the way that statement is crafted (interesting that sales aren’t mentioned); people forget the specifics and it gets confused and remember as this in 2014:
[alban egger] “FCPX has already sold more copies than all FCP versions together.”
In retrospect what is interesting about that statement from Apple is that implies they sold less than maybe 250,000-400,000 copies of FCP7 (including upgrades). Wow.
Franz.
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Well, I’m not sure how they could have been clearer about the benchmark they’d achieved. People are always going to misquote or mishear. I’ve head seen lot of people conflating Adobe’s CC subscription numbers with Premier Pro adoption, or in the last thread when someone conflated AVID total products with AVID numbers- it’s just something you can’t avoid. People like you and I just need to make sure we correct people when we can!
As to numbers, I remember FCP7 was considered a fairly minor update at launch, especially after the heady days of Final Cut Studio 2. I know it took a lot of my client YEARS to upgrade. And again, I’ll go back to the point I’ve made repeatedly that our market may not be as large as we think it is; looking at if from inside.
One other thing I’ll just jump back to, since I re-read our conversation that you linked. You mentioned FCP licences proportional with Mac sales. I think that’s a bit of a red herring. Apple had a strong presence in professional arts then as it does now (at one point just about the only people who were using them)- but a majority of the growth in Macs over the last decade (from about 2.5% to about 12% today) has come from “consumer” adoption- people who have migrated from PCs but aren’t in any way the market for Final Cut. So I’m not sure why you think FCP growth should be proportional with Mac sales.
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Franz,
It’s all tea leaf reading. So don’t take any of it too seriously.
From a long view, the only thing that’s proved (in the fullness of hindsight) to be settled are the first year blathers who staked out the “Apple has abandoned pro editors” crap. They were shortsighted and wrong. Period.
There are still voices that don’t take X seriously. But fewer and fewer. Now it’s doing exactly what legacy did. Evolve and EARN its way into top tier use. As it should.
The MOST interesting thing as one of the early adopters is to see around the web the handles of guys who truly excoriated it on multiple groups for months and months, and who are now either confirmed X editors or who have it in their toolkit and use it when it fits a project.
All that V1 angst about magnetism, no tracks, embedded audio etc, etc – the stuff there from day one that caused people to light their hair on fire – is now a big yawn for everyone except Aindreas.
And even he’s struggling mightily to articulate, then proselytize, then rage against, his interior fantasy dogma for the church of evil apple. I guess it sucks to Rage Against the Machine only to discover so many people kinda think the machine actually works pretty well.
; )
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.
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Marcus, Bill,
I’d agree this is more evidence that FCP X is playing in the same (smallish) sandbox as other NLEs.
I have more thoughts on those numbers I may post later.
Franz.
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There may be some case to be made that FCPX isn’t as impenetrable, or at least an easier migration from iMovie- so some people who may have stuck with that product in the Legacy days have been tempted by the familiar interface (and likely price) to move over to FCP X. I know the fcp.co board are getting busier and busier with new users who are coming from iMovie.
As for numbers- I’m going to email AppAnnie this weekend to see how much it would cost for their stats on ProApps. The number could be at least be partially crosschecked against the Apple 1+ million number from April. It could shed some more light onto the question of growth-curve.
Look forward to your further thoughts.
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[Marcus Moore] “There may be some case to be made that FCPX isn’t as impenetrable,”
Heres the thing. In my informal contact with a lot of X users that span from migrating pros to noobs, it’s been crystal clear from day one that X is, by far, the EASIEST NLE to grasp for beginners.
The class of editor who has the most difficulty with X have always been those who have long established professional workflows and who need to jettison so much muscle memory and re-think things.
It’s the 15 – 18 year old “first worlders” of today who “get it” the fastest. And that’s irrespective of whether or not they’ve ever touched iMovie. It just makes sense to them. The import makes sense because the’ve NEVER had just one kind of camera to deal with, but have grown up in a stew of iPhones, go pros, dads DSLR etc. The database makes sense since they’ve been used to calling up data via google since they could text. The magnetic timeline makes sense since drag and drop is their language. And share to the web is more comfortable to them than print to tape. (Tape, what the hell is that?)
Time is FCP X’s best ally. IMO.
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.
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So other than the fade/out behavior, the way I’m copying/pasting Keyframes is pretty much it? Bummer. I knew that behavior was there and did a search but all I saw was the text fade behaviors. But there it is. I just missed it. But anyway, I definitely have the need to cut/paste Keyframes of all sorts all the time.
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[Bret Williams] “But in Motion I have to open the keyframe editor (can’t seem to copy from the layer), toggle to animated Keyframes, decipher which Keyframes are opacity ones amongst the jumble of other Keyframes being graphed all over the place”
There are lots of cunning things you can do to make keyframe navigation really quick (Curve Sets, for example, are really powerful and save a lot of time) but to answer that specific point, you can simply toggle to Opacity (rather than Animated) which will show you the fade keyframes only and avoid having to sift through any others.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
[Bill Davis] “Heres the thing. In my informal contact with a lot of X users that span from migrating pros to noobs, it’s been crystal clear from day one that X is, by far, the EASIEST NLE to grasp for beginners.
“Spot on, Bill.
I teach X basics to my graduate students and I can confirm that it gets picked up WAY faster and easier than Legacy or especially Avid and Premiere. Some of my students come in with a knowledge of Premiere but after seeing X in play make the switch. I don’t force them; they are free to cut on their system of choice, but many choose to drop Premiere and use X. I just added Motion to our edit lab and that will be interesting to watch, versus students trying to learn AE. Apple got something very very right with X that probably is difficult for traditional NLE editors to see clearly through the haze of our “experience”.
[Bill Davis] “Time is FCP X’s best ally.”
Exactly. I have said many times that Apple didn’t make X for us old guys. What I see with the newbies is what Apple, in my opinion, was playing for all along.Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter -
Maybe you would know why I keep trying to make a clone of an mobject layer, it comes out different. IOW, smaller scale and often turned at an angle. Example… see the black arrow pointing left and right. It’s working great. But then I press K to clone it and the clone is the smaller tilted/twisted version. Both are in the same group. Maybe I need to clone the group? Motion seems to have just as many 3D quirks as AE. Add a mask to a layer and it breaks the 3D chain, etc.
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