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Bob Zelin wasn’t too kind to X
This is from Bob Zelin’s NAB roundup. Too harsh?
“BOB ON NAB NLEs
[Ed. note: We asked Bob for his observations on NLEs in a follow-up email. As someone who designs and installs systems for a wide variety of customers using all kinds of products, he has a different perspective than many other folks who talk about this. Here’s what he wrote us.]
I can only say from what I observed. People seem to care about Adobe CC Premiere. There is a loyal client base of AVID Media Composer and Symphony, and they want to see how Media Composer integrates with any product that you are showing at NAB. And DaVinci Resolve is the third program that everyone wants to know, “How does your product work with DaVinci Resolve?”
But you don’t see this with FCPX. NO ONE was showing FCPX workflow. (Softron was, and I was at the Maxx Digital booth, and almost no one cared. ) Perhaps I am wrong, but most of these companies are not taking FCPX seriously, and are not making sure to show or promote workflows for FCPX.
On the other side of the coin, every shared storage company says that you can use FCPX with their shared storage system – but no one is “banging the drum” like they are for Adobe or AVID or DaVinci.
Just my observation.”
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67 Replies
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[Bobby Mosca] “On the other side of the coin, every shared storage company says that you can use FCPX with their shared storage system – but no one is “banging the drum” like they are for Adobe or AVID or DaVinci.”
Well, given that FCPX was not really designed for collaborative workflows from the start, and that its adoption by larger facilities and larger workgroups has been very slow, why would shared storage manufacturers want to throw their R&D resources at it? Where’s the value???
Like ALL the other companies in the shared storage sector, our Platform and Platform Studio DO support FCPX, but, like all others in this sector, we’re not going to be throwing lots of resources at it until it proves itself in the marketplace as a REAL contender for the many companies who REALLY need shared storage and collaborative workflows.
David Roth Weiss
ProMax Systems
Burbank
DRW@ProMax.comSales | Integration | Support
David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.
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What was harsh? Just sounds like an observation of Bob’s stated matter-of-factly.
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[Andrew Kimery] “What was harsh?”
Obviously they have never experienced Bob when he really IS being HARSH!
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Yea, for real. That wasn’t harsh at all! He just laid out what he saw. I love talking with him when I get a chance…he’s always candid and real.
Great read, btw…i wasn’t able to go and I enjoyed the article.
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[Jason Brown] “Great read, btw…i wasn’t able to go and I enjoyed the article.”
I think Bob’s articles are better than the show. 🙂
I’m glad that we’re dispensing with this angle fairly quickly. Bob was in fact showing X the entire show, when he wasn’t doing his staggering research.
His first draft really didn’t cover NLEs — not that there’s much here. I, as his editor, had asked for his observations precisely because he really doesn’t care. If you want shared storage for the video app on your Blackberry, he’ll figure it out.
But that’s why I said right there in the article that the sidebar was nothing but me putting together some thoughts from his email.
I hope nobody here is shocked that Bob observed that there wasn’t much demand for X shared storage…even though every vendor does in fact support X, and most were ready to show it when requested. Or, more accurately, IF. And there just wasn’t much interest.
This really is a remarkable article, and I look forward to talking about anything in it but this. LOL
EDIT: And yes, not harsh about ANYTHING. My only disappointment in the article as his editor was that I didn’t have to edit out any profanity. LOL
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Bob was making an observation, nothing more. I do not see this as harsh by any means.
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My own week at NAB, including a couple of super busy days in the AJA booth, confirm Bob’s observation. While the occasional 1-person-shop Editor may have been using FCPX, not a single facility person I talked with was using or interested in FCPX – it was 90% Adobe CC with Avid and FCP7 making up the difference. And the FCPX7 folks were all talking about the switch to CC.
The only other “NLE” getting any buzz at all was Resolve 11, which I can’t wait to try out…
Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Downtown Long Beach, California
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1680680/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 -
NAB is for those of us 2% who are in broadcast or film production. The high end stuff. With church production thrown in there. A majority of people who edit with FCX…heck, a majority of people who edit give a HOOT about NAB. And about the high end solutions shown there. The low end stuff geared for them isn’t worth showing there because…well…those users don’t go to NAB. It’s all about BROADCAST…and that is a narrow niche.
Pretty big convention for that narrow niche, however…
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
[Shane Ross] ” It’s all about BROADCAST…and that is a narrow niche.”
That was true for many years, and is still true where you were and the people you know. It’s still true for shared storage.
The rest of the lower south, not so much. Flights are cheap, rooms are cheap, admission is free. Tirekickers abound. I’ve worked booths, including Apple’s in 2003, where I’d have killed to talk to more than the occasional pro customers. I’m certain that this is why Apple stopped doing NAB when FCP was at its pro peak. They weren’t reaching enough people in those booths that they weren’t already reaching in the mall. They were doing the real business in the suites, which I’m sure they still are.
You wouldn’t believe how many people came up to me in the Boris FX booth asking what’s a plug-in. And in the Avid booth: “So, what’s Symphony? Is that kind of like Final Cut?” Dude, I heard that all day.
You only really meet these guys at the front of the room, and in booths with big theaters, but there’s also a meaningful number of people who are town for typical Vegas stuff, see the shiny lights, and talk their way into a free pass into the show because it looks cool, kind of like when they saw CES on the news.
Now, once you get away from the lower south, and before you get to the satellite trucks, it’s still a pretty hardcore crowd. But there are definitely people who want to LITERALLY kick the tires of the satellite trucks. “Can I see inside?” The guys working that end of the show have got to go insane.
I don’t think this influx of non- or new pros is either an accident or a bad thing. I’m just saying. Ever since people stopped wearing ties, man. It all went to crap. LOL
re: pros in general, though, there’s not an enormous overlap between FCPX pros and collaborative workflow-shared storage pros, even three years along. X has other appeals and other strengths. I doubt that very few installations that have X on a network were built solely to accommodate their X-centered infrastructure. That’s what it’ll take to get X front and center…
…but to Bob’s point that EVERY shared storage vendor supports X, I’d bet that most of ’em had it on at least one Mac in the booth, right?
[Lance Bachelder] “The only other “NLE” getting any buzz at all was Resolve 11, which I can’t wait to try out…”
I think this is why Bob and others in the shared storage game were getting so many questions about Resolve. It’s got an incredibly compelling collaboration story that’s going to be interesting to see play out. If the editing toolset is even close to what it looks like, it could move the storage sales needle soon.
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Agreed. You can take his advice or leave it. Bob is a wise and respected guy, but it’s just one opinion. I like to make up my own mind.
Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter
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