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Blog: The Future of Editing
Tuesday was a whirlwind day. Started off early at a breakfast meeting with the top level executives of Avid and ended with the always entertaining Supermeet. Ok, maybe this year’s Supermeet was a little more entertaining than most.
Let’s start with the morning. For the first time I can truly say that “Avid is listening.” I’ve seen the moniker on their site in the past and I kind of laughed. I mean this is Avid we’re talking about. The company that tells us how we can purchase their software and hardware and if we don’t like it we can go somewhere else.
Ok, maybe that’s how they used to do things, but it was clear from our meeting today, Avid is truly changing the way they do business. It seems to have taken a while for it to really sink in but there is a definite shift in the tone coming from the company. There is a real willingness now to open up the software to third party hardware as we have seen from last year’s Matrox reveal to this year’s AJA Io Express.
First off, it was impressive to me that not only was I meeting with their PR folks, but the CEO and many of the top management and marketing team. One on one for about 90 minutes and I was free to ask any question. Generally I’m used to having many layers of separation between me and the head of the company that makes my NLE. Of course being a Final Cut Pro guy with a bunch of AJA Kona cards, my primary interest is seeing Avid continue their migration to open up the software to even more hardware options not only from AJA and Matrox, but Blackmagic Design as well. Obviously Avid would not answer me directly on any of the hardware questions, but I get the sense that their migration towards openness will continue at some point in the future.
Then there was Apple and the SuperMeet presentation. As expected, the new Final Cut Pro appears to have been built on the foundation of iMovie. But there’s nothing wrong with that, the interface is actually very efficient. You will have to re-think your way of operating, but there’s nothing wrong with taking the iMovie base and building upon that.
What Apple actually chose to show was quite nice. Background rendering, Magnetic timeline with the audio always moving out of the way, and “open” timeline with no hard tracks that appear and disappear as needed, pitch corrected audio skimming, improved color correction, Audio fade controls much better, simple retiming in the timeline, color matching with single click and of course, no more transcoding / mixing and matching of formats in the timeline. These are all the super cool, wiz bang features that are the hallmark of any Apple marketing event.
The two highlights for me were Audition and the Magnetic audio. Audition allows us to essentially create a floating bin of multiple clips to insert into the timeline and with simple keystroke try out each shot in the timeline.
But Apple was presenting to 1500 video editors, many of whom look past the slick marketing demo and want to know about how it works under the hood and with all the rest of the pro apps that we all use every day. That’s probably why with each new item presented, about half of the room was very excited and the other half was quiet. The only uniform applause throughout the room seemed to be for the price, which garnered about half a standing ovation from the room. So now it’s just $299 for Final Cut Pro only and there was no mention of the rest of the suite period. I guess part of the marketing strategy is “well it’s so cheap now nobody can complain.”
The big question among the pro editors I spoke to after the presentation was what didn’t we see?
Multi format, multi frame rate, multi codec playback. We were told it’s now supported, but it was not shown, at least not that I could tell.
Tape Capture / Layback. Is this still supported internally to the application or has Apple taken the stand that they do not need to support a videotape workflow at all internally? Not only is tape still being shot by many production companies, there are millions of hours of videotape archive material that has to be ingested for projects, such as the feature documentaries we cut today.
In fact what about the capture cards / boxes from AJA, Blackmagic and Matrox? No mention of or appearance from them.
Filters. Do filters still work in the new FCP? As in our old filters that all of us already own and any potential new third party filters for the new FCP X? How will FCP interpolate and handle archive projects that include filters?
Titling. What does the new font tool look like? In the presentation a lower third was shown but it was never explained how it was created.
OMF / XML / EDL Export / Import. Can we still use XML to move projects to After Effects and other platforms as needed for finishing and other work? How easy is it to move the projects around?
Alpha channel / composting modes. How do these work in the new FCP? Some very nice looking effects were shown in the demo but were they created in FCP or elsewhere? Don’t know.
Large project management. How will FCP hold up under a large project such as the documentaries we currently cut. My feeling is that the new FCP is well suited for shorter projects but not long form, it seems like it would simply break if you threw a feature film or documentary at it. Can’t imagine scrolling through 200 hours of filmstrips to find my shots. With some of the organizational tools it might be manageable but hard to tell.
What we were presented definitely felt like a 1.0 release and Apple certainly set that bar throughout the event by comparing the launch of X to FCP 1.0. The original changed the face of NLE editing forever and they believe X will do the same thing. It certainly does with the interface and the price. Apple will absolutely build more market share for the product because at $299 every single hobbyist, school, and anyone who wants to edit video will purchase the product. That very well seems their goal with the price.
How those numbers will translate into pro editors, television series, feature films, etc remains to be seen. Would have been nice to hear from Walter Murch or the Coen Brothers last night to get their thoughts on how X will improve their workflows on feature films. The reaction among the pro editors and others I chatted with after the show was tepid at best. I think an encounter by one of the folks was somewhat telling.
Editor: Nice presentation but what about those features that weren’t shown? What about capture cards, filters and how it might perform with bigger projects.
Other person: This Final Cut Pro isn’t designed for you.
Maybe that’s what Apple is banking on. So many new folks coming into the industry who don’t know about or need capture cards. That’s who the new Final Cut Pro X is designed for. Those who will never have to retrieve an archive tape, handle more than a few hours or material at a time or interface with other applications outside the Apple brand. So Apple will “win” the NLE battle simply by sheer numbers of installed users. As they pointed out in the presentation, based on installed user numbers alone, Avid and Adobe are “fighting” for second place.
It’s impossible to give a true assessment of how good / bad the new FCP X really is since this is the only time any of us will see it. Unlike those “fighting for second place” Apple is not on the show floor so we cannot ask any questions or test out the interface for ourselves. Only those very few select beta testers know for sure what is and is not included in the interface.
The potential is there for the application to be a reinvention of non linear editing. But a one hour presentation left me and many other pro editors scratching our heads with many more questions than answers. Apple went for the slick, we want to know the down and dirty. At least we can go out on the show floor today and talk to those “other two companies” who are fighting for second place and actually address workflow questions.
So what’s my verdict? Apple went “All In” on this one event and came out swinging with a patented, marketing presentation full of slick features. I think they hit a double. Nice hit, but not near enough power to bring it all the way home. The biggest beneficiaries of the one hour presentation will most likely turn out to be Avid and Adobe. Sure Apple will sell millions of copies of X, but those other two A’s my very well come out ahead.
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19 Replies
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Thanks Walter.
Chris Tompkins
Video Atlanta LLC -
Thank u for this detailed article Walter
During these past 2 days we have read all kind of comments and comparisons and assumptions and filling in the blanks!some say fcp X is an Imovie pro,other say it has a Smoke look others say it’s a Sony Vegas imitation,etc…some say Apple abandoned the pros,others are sad cuz it’s too cheap,some others are just too lazy to learn and wants a “faster horse”…
As I see it ,Apple people got exactly what They intended from the demo!they made a huge buzz about their new product,editing forums are crowded with comments about the new flashy features,and they got the marketing ball rolling!… I wonder why none of this happens when adobe or avid has new product!that’s what apple people does,that’s what they excell at!
I frankly don’t see what’s wrong if apple is able to deliver a brand new product that appeals to prosumers and still be able to fulfill Pros expectation!who said pro stuff should be ugly and complicated or else it’s labeled as consumer application!as long as fcp is up to the job I don’t care if it looks like “windows movie maker”
After all ,we are gonna wait until June , download the new X , we will love it ,and a year later we will be nagging why the magnetic timeline only works only on audio and not on video as well!
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Were you able to see if it was a single-window interface (like Motion)? I’d hate that.
And did they mention anything about the Browser window (if thats still what it’s called)? I don’t know if I’m liking that film-strip view. I prefer the list view. I hope you can still do list view.
And that feature about adding keywords to a portion of a clip – doesn’t necessarily seem better than adding markers to a clip and adding a note to the marker. At least you can read that in list view. If an amateur doesn’t bother doing that now, why would they take the time to do it with this new keyword feature?
It was a nice presentation, but it hasn’t stopped me from considering a purchase of Avid 5.0
Rob Grauert, Jr.
http://www.robgrauert.com
command-r.tumblr.com -
I got to see a better vimeo clip of the demo today and I think I Get It. Personally, I under-utilized the second window in my personal editing style, I tend to throw everything down into the timeline to work on, and the demo looked like the way I work now, kinda. I also found echoes of my user experience with Discreet Edit 6, which was pleasant. It looks like a modal interface where everything you don’t immediately need for a particular task stays hidden, the same way the icons in the apple desktop dock appear and disappear at will.
One thing FCP has always got right is, there is more than one, sometimes more than three ways to do any particular thing you need to do. One of them is bound to be the way you like to do it. It is currently about as friendly to keyboard-centric users as it is to mouse-pushers, and anything in-between like me, and that’s good. I can’t imagine Apple threw out that concept for x. And careful listening to the spiel will confirm that you’ll have all the keyboard shortcuts you want, that there can be a second monitor, and a few other things people are already wailing about.
The stakes of this show were astronomically high, so, you are the Apple demonstrator: you are not going to demonstrate any aspect that is not yet 100 percent bulletproof. This thing is still a work in progress. The parts that work, that I’ve seen so far, I know are going to help my particular needs quite a bit. And for that price I’m willing to take a flyer on it. They didn’t address all my questions and needs that night either. But they proved that they haven’t been making vaporware the last two years. This is significant, whatever it is. It may be a double, but it’s for sure they are still in the game at this point. Now we have to find out what inning.
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[Mark Suszko] “I got to see a better vimeo clip of the demo today “
Care to post a link?
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I’ve seen a 2 part video on fcp.co,it was pretty decent
https://fcp.co/final-cut-pro/news/333-fcp-x-presentation-the-bootleg-experience -
Interesting take on it Walter. I’m surprised by your assumption that X won’t handle a large project – the thought that Apple seems to have given to metada seems to contradict that to me. We’re moving into a world where metadata is all important, and they seem to have nailed a lot of the issues.
As to cutting 200 hours of material – hell, I’d love to have filmstrip view of clips on the docs I’ve worked on!! How many hours spent shuttling through material to find shots – I think this will speed stiff up immesurably. Couple this with keywording and the way this will let you organise material I can see this being a real boon for docs.
From what I’ve seen this will potentially be a real sea-change in the way we tell stories. I’d be happy to see third-party tools for tape ingest (especially if it can run in the background) and even output, though I think omission of this unlikely.
But all this is conjecture – roll on June is my feeling!
Jason
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Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.*the artist formally known as Jaymags*
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I don’t wanna spoil any remarks, but in Motion you can actually build your own double/triple- window interface and save and manage it.
So I don’t know what’s the problem if final cut X has the same approach,
Actually it would have been quite strange if the Supermeet had opened with the news that final cut X can export cmx 3400 edls AND has a multiformat magnetic time lime. And then another marketing guy pledging they would always support Grass Valley edl’s as well.
wouldn’t make much sense, wouldn’t it ?René A. Hazekamp
portfolio https://www.renehazekamp.com
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[rene hazekamp] “Actually it would have been quite strange if the Supermeet had opened with the news that final cut X can export cmx 3400 edls AND has a multiformat magnetic time lime. And then another marketing guy pledging they would always support Grass Valley edl’s as well.
wouldn’t make much sense, wouldn’t it ?”It would make total sense to mention it at some point during the presentation or in some sort of a press release after the presentation. Final Cut Pro X still supports XML / OMF / EDL Export Import for example.
As for the multiformat timeline, they told us it supports it but never actually showed that one which was surprising for me. They pretty much showed everything else they mentioned, but did not put together a multi-format timeline.
As I mentioned in a previous blog on my website, in the Avid booth I watched a demo where the artist started a 1080 / 59.94 timeline.
Into that timeline he placed:
1080i / 59.94
720p / 50
720p / 60
1080p / 23.96
and a few others.The codecs were
DVCPro HD
HDV
XDCAMThen he hit Play and the timeline just played. Not only that, he had complete control of the interlace interpolation of the all the clips, meaning he could adjust the look of the 720/50 and 1080p / 23.96 footage to play more smoothly in that timeline. All in realtime. And not only a single track, but a multi-track timeline. This was all playing through an AJA Io Express.
That’s the type of multi-format capabilities I’m looking for and now with the Baselight plug-in, I would not have to worry about if a completely mixed up timeline like that would be supported by Color or Resolve, I can stay right in FCP. I’m waiting to see if the multi-format capabilities for FCP X are really real this time as this would be a HUGE timesaver for our documentaries.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media -
[Rob Grauert] ” Were you able to see if it was a single-window interface (like Motion)? I’d hate that.”
Yes, that’s what they showed, though then a report came out after the presentation that you could set the interface up with a Viewer / Canvas and perform 3 point editing if you choose. I don’t know, they didn’t show that.
[Rob Grauert] “And did they mention anything about the Browser window (if thats still what it’s called)? I don’t know if I’m liking that film-strip view. I prefer the list view. I hope you can still do list view.”
There is still essentially a browser. Open up iMovie on your machine to see what it looks like. It’s essentially the same. In fact, as pointed out in another thread, play with iMovie 11 to preview the new FCP since it already has some of the features that were presented to us last Tuesday.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media
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