Apple presents at NAB 2012 – declares sincere friendship.

[Andy Field]

Craig, you seem well intentioned, but it’s baffling why you are such an apologist for this Half baked FCPX software. Your posts wax poetic on what the software might someday be while editors need something that works now. FCP7 works now but I for one won’t update another piece of system software or Quicktime component now fearing Lion 1 point something might break the editing system that powers and funds my business. FCPX doesn’t do half of what the previous version did professionally (we’ve detailed it ad nauseum) Yes it does some things faster (no transcoding….and…well that’s about it) And the – as one video reviewer graphically put it — “kick in the weiner” – not opening old timelines effectively killed FCP as a professional platform for 90 percent of the editors who loved the program from version 1 through 7.

Seriously Craig, is Apple hiring you to cheer lead this slap in the face to the professional community?

Andy Field
FieldVision Productions
N. Bethesda, Maryland 20852

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Aindreas Gallagher] “Well, it, FCPX, and it’s dead forebearer FCP7 – that’s a lot of dead software Jeremy, it’s a lot of prior skills, and a lot of dead earth in a limited software field. “

Nothing lasts forever and technology dies fast. As a matter of fact, FCP had a pretty good run.

Your skills shouldn’t die with FCP7 though, right?

[Aindreas Gallagher] “But apple say for example – shoved in absolute tagging – thereby virtualising the incoming footage and making it in effect a sprite – it doesnt go anywhere, it is replicated like a cloned wart into multiple tags and sections of it are replicated into other multiple tags or even pre-determined smart collections.”

So what platform are you moving to?

[Carsten Orlt]

Andy, you seem well intentioned, but it’s baffling why you are such an hater for this new baked FCPX software. Your posts wax poetic on what the software is not while editors work with it now. FCP7 works now but I for one won’t update another piece of system software or Quicktime component now fearing Lion 1 point something might break the editing system that powers and funds my business. FCPX doesn’t do half of what the previous version did amateurishly (we’ve detailed it ad nauseum) Yes it does some things faster (no transcoding….and…well that’s about it) And the – as one video reviewer graphically put it — “kick in the weiner” – not opening old timelines effectively killed FCP as a amateur platform for 10 percent of the editors who loved the program from version 1 through 7.

Seriously Andy, is Andreas hiring you to cheer lead this slap in the face to the amateur community?

All the best to all you nerds :-))

[Chris Harlan]

Andy, I most definitely share your opinion of FCP X, but to be fair to Craig, he has been very straightforward about acknowledging many of the downsides of FCP X. He definitely sees a lot more in it than I do–and, I agree, he is quite the booster–but over the long hall he has been fairly even-handed with his views. I say this in spite of his calling me both a profanity-prone caravan salesman, and, I believe, a cockroach. I’ve certainly learned a few things from discussing and/or debating with him (I have now called him a cockroach, as well) and his zeal has made me take extra looks at FCP X. Unfortunately, the extra looks did not help much.

[Craig Seeman]

[Andy Field] “it’s baffling why you are such an apologist for this Half baked FCPX software. Your posts wax poetic on what the software might someday be while editors need something that works now.”

I have FCP7 for now. After spending 12 years on Media Composer, even with the changes, I can jump back quickly enough if I had to. I’m just not that worried because Apple, despite having made mistakes, generally gets things right eventually. I just don’t think Apple would have marketed it as “professional” unless they intend for it to meet that market (or more likely what they believe that market will be in the future).

I’ve said that I think Apple’s marketing department blew it because they appeared to be selling “the present” and not “the future.” Also they allowed for no transition period as they did when going from OS9 to OSX.

[Andy Field] “FCPX doesn’t do half of what the previous version did professionally (we’ve detailed it ad nauseum) Yes it does some things faster (no transcoding….and…well that’s about it)”

Which is why I’ve said they’ve built a good engine in a go cart body. I suspect they’re going to do a lot of body work over the next couple of years.

[Andy Field] ” not opening old timelines effectively killed FCP as a professional platform for 90 percent of the editors who loved the program from version 1 through 7.”

Because they were focused on the engine and didn’t want to invest R&D in this. Bad move but apparently they did investigate and weren’t happy with the results. They don’t seem to believe an imperfect but simple timeline import would have been useful. Maybe they had problems with the way clip pointed to the media files as well as how that relates to a timeline which doesn’t use anything like the previous time structure. Sometimes a companies fails to execute a feature and they have to accept that and move on with the project.

[Craig Seeman]

I won’t ever claim FCPX in its current state is a great NLE. It not only fails in many professional uses but in many “prosumer” functions as well. I’m frustrated as heck at what it can’t do or doesn’t do well.

But damn it does some things so well (as far as how I really want to work) that I have to think it’s simply incomplete. If it made sense as a prosumer or amateur product I’d be more worried. It just seems they were able to reach some targets and did next to nothing in other areas. It’s uneven. That is has some potentially useful “high end” features leads me to believe Apple will bring the rest along. Some things were probably easier for them to implement than others.

Given Alex4d’s investigation, whether some things were dropped or not yet developed, you can get a sense that Apple knew they were missing some targets and decided it was going to get out the door in its current state.

Even with it’s limited feature set it’s really solved a couple of workflow situations. I recently had a job which was supposedly both live streamed and recorded by the camera person. Well something went wrong with the camera recording. The server recording of the stream existed though. They were H.264 .mp4 files. The turn around had to be blazing fast. I downloaded the .mp4 and imported them into FCPX. No time to transcode. I didn’t even create ProRes versions of the media in the “background.” I dropped the files in and FCPX created an “Other” timeline in ProRes at 640×480. After some quick cuts only editing, I exported a 35 minute piece out to ProRes in under 4 minutes. I then used Matrox MXO2Max and encoded that 35 minute piece to H.264 .mov in under 10 minutes. I then FTPd the file to a client.

So at $299, for the price of many plugins, FCPX succeeded at a job that would have taken longer in FCP7 (but maybe not longer in Premiere Pro with CUDA).

I can’t help but believe this powerful engine in the go cart body is going to get a much improved body as time goes on and they can implement things to Apple’s satisfaction.

Apple has a history of having an “all or nothing” approach to features. When we think of the iPhone’s biggest single asset, it’s the apps. The first iPhone had no app store (nor was I interested in buying one). I think the same development will happen with FCPX. Is there any reason to wait for that? No if you need to move beyond FCP7 now. At $299 it’ll be pocket change for people to move back when (if, if your more skeptical) the time comes.

I certainly can’t speak for a big facility where costs are magnified but I can stay with FCP7 until FCPX matures or move to Avid and neither would cause me great stress. I just don’t think Apple would invest the R&D into FCPX without having a long range plan . . . not yet executed.

As to cockroaches, I could have sworn this forum was created in the mind of Franz Kafka. As to profanity, I hear a lot of you cursing in my head. I won’t even tell you what I think happened to Chris Kenny.

[Chris Harlan]

Craig, as I’ve said before, it’ll be cool if you are right. I think Larry Jordan’s expressed view tonight is right, and that a pretty good picture will emerge with the first or second update.

[Craig Seeman]

[Chris Harlan] “I think Larry Jordan’s expressed view tonight is right, and that a pretty good picture will emerge with the first or second update.”

Yup. And I think when he called FCPX schizophrenic he pretty much mirrored my thoughts on its uneven development. Some features are “pro” and some are like “why can’t you execute a simple function”

My own guess is the next update will be mostly bug fixes and the one after that will be the first round of features.

An example of how uneven it is is that the product left the house before all the APIs needed for developers.

It’s like ordering a meal in a restaurant and the outside of the food is nice and crispy like you like it but the inside is uncooked.

One of the things to look for in where Apple’s FCPX “philosophy” will be heading is the first feature update. Will it be functional features or “razzle dazzle” (or some combination)? Basically it will expose their priorities as well as their difficulties.

[Gary Huff]

[Craig Seeman]Because they were focused on the engine and didn’t want to invest R&D in this. Bad move but apparently they did investigate and weren’t happy with the results.

Please stop spreading the myth about Apple’s perfectionism. It’s a myth, they aren’t really like that. I would be willing to bet that opening legacy FCP projects was never a part of the design and it was just a decision, not something that was considered at any given stage and then removed due to technical reasons.

[Craig Seeman]

[Gary Huff] “It’s a myth, they aren’t really like that. I would be willing to bet that opening legacy FCP projects was never a part of the design and it was just a decision, not something that was considered at any given stage and then removed due to technical reasons.”

Alex4d had dug into the resources in FCPX and has found a fair amount of interesting things. Certainly open to interpretation.

https://alex4d.wordpress.com/2011/07/18/secret-fcpx-xml-multi-user-editing/

It depends how one interprets this

We know from Apple’s Final Cut Pro X FAQ that XML workflows will be supported. There references here too. In a file that describes the XML import function (Final Cut Pro/ Contents / Frameworks / Flexo.framework / Versions / A / Resources / en.lproj / FFXMLImport.nib), there’s the option to import media and Final Cut Pro Classic markers and effects:

_Check Box (Include Effects)
Zcheckboxes
_.Check Box (Import media referenced by the XML)
[Button Cell]AccessoryView
_Button Cell (Include Markers)\File’s Owner
_&Check Box (DEBUG: Export after import)
_Check Box (Include Markers)
ZDisclosure
_Button Cell (Include Effects)
_(Button Cell (DEBUG: Export after import)
_#Text Field Cell (Advancecd Options)[Application
_0Button Cell (Import media referenced by the XML)
_Static Text (Advancecd Options)