Could Creative Cloud discourage plugin developers from embracing Premiere?

[Aindreas Gallagher]

that’s an interesting point. If there’s one thing X has, its a billion plug-in dudes churning stuff out for half nothing. Although there was a poster here – might even have been seeman, saying that certain X developers are a bit dis-enchanted because the customer base doesn’t appear willing to fork out very much money. that the price ceiling is quite low. I think the baselight dudes might have referenced that in explaining why they weren’t mad keen to develop an X baselight.

I guess maybe it depends on what kind of things get made for premiere, and who the customer base turns out to be. If its largely the FCP7 base, then you would feel they are going to fork over for certain things they want that they had in 7. Creative Cloud or no.

As in, the premiere base could possibly turn out to be more lucrative to a certain class of plug-in developer than X. possibly.

https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Walter Soyka]

[Greg Andonian] “It seems to me people aren’t going to want to spend a lot of money on plugins for software that they’re only renting. That’s like doing major renovations on an apartment, if you think about it…”

Personally, the plugin sets I use actually cost multiples of the price of the host apps. I spend money on plugins to save myself time, the benefit of which I can pass on to my clients as lower prices (spend less time on the job) or higher quality (use the saved time to iterate and improve elsewhere).

See a recent post of mine on the Ae forum [link] where I described three ways to accomplish a specific effect.

Option 1: use the expensive plugin that does exactly what you want out of the box, no muss, no fuss.

Option 2: use a cheaper plugin that doesn’t do exactly what you want out of the box, but can be made to do exactly what you want with a little time and effort.

Option 3: use standard effects that don’t do exactly what you want out of the box, but can be made to do exactly what you want with a lot of time and effort.

I don’t think that a low cost barrier to entry means you can’t sell expensive plugins on a platform. I do think that anyone who bought into a platform solely because it was inexpensive is simply not a candidate for a high-end, high-cost plugin.

In other words, while a low-cost host app may itself sell more copies, that doesn’t automatically mean an increased market for advanced plugins for that host app.

Also, and again speaking only for myself, I think of Creative Cloud as a different way to pay for the upgrades I’d be buying anyway. I envision continuing to use Adobe applications after the end of the month or the end of the year, and I’d plan on continuing to subscribe just as I’d plan on buying Creative Suite upgrades.

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

[Craig Shields]

Why aren’t there more plugins for Premiere? I asked that question last year at NAB without satisfaction. Was there more plugins released at this years NAB? Some of the transitions that worked easily in FCPX had crazy work-a-rounds in Premiere.

[Aindreas Gallagher]

because we were all over in FCP7 land, and all the developers were over there with us. Then a lot of them plunked down for X based on the assumption that the FCPX market was going to be huge, but, that said, quite a lot of developers have announced PPro compatibility recently. Also x has some pretty serious architectural shortcomings in how plug-in GUIs can operate onscreen and in the inspector.

some interesting stuff has started to appear for PPRo – I’ve posted it before but, this dude for instance.
https://vimeo.com/63217761

https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Oliver Peters]

This argument has at least been a problem for the plug-in developers of FCP X. Lots of folks buying $10-$50 plug-ins for X. Not that many buying full versions of FxF Pro, BCC or Sapphire for X. Filmlight specifically told me X users have baulked at paying $1K when the host was only $300.

The AE and ProTools user is different. They live and die by their plug-ins. I don’t think it’s an issue of price with them. OTOH, if the CC subscription is the only option, then why buy plug-ins if you run the chance of not renewing the subscription. This will tend to drive plug-in purchases according to the needs of specific jobs, rather than as an investment in your company.

Editors tend to approach plug-ins differently, so what drives an AE users is different than what drives a PPro editor. I think the editors will tend to be less likely to spend anything on plug-ins in general, beyond what comes with the program.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Aindreas Gallagher]

[Oliver Peters] ” if the CC subscription is the only option, “

are we mad to think they could actually do that? I can’t decide if I’m barmy to be concerned about it – simply because adobe can’t say anything about upcoming licensing terms.

I mean – 80% of the user base is currently on perpetual license? As in someone posted that adobe announced 20% of the customer base were on the cloud?
It’s inconceivable they could try and literally force three quarters of their customers onto bank direct debit hire purchase right?

that would be a PR Fubar of Olympic proportions wouldn’t it?

https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Walter Soyka]

[Oliver Peters] “The AE and ProTools user is different. They live and die by their plug-ins. I don’t think it’s an issue of price with them. OTOH, if the CC subscription is the only option, then why buy plug-ins if you run the chance of not renewing the subscription. This will tend to drive plug-in purchases according to the needs of specific jobs, rather than as an investment in your company.”

Great point. As you know well, but as I often forget to disclaim, I’m a designer first and an editor second, and that colors my perspective.

Interestingly, GenArts Sapphire can be rented by the month — but that still costs >3x as much as a Creative Cloud subscription’s monthly fee.

[Oliver Peters] “This argument has at least been a problem for the plug-in developers of FCP X. Lots of folks buying $10-$50 plug-ins for X. Not that many buying full versions of FxF Pro, BCC or Sapphire for X. Filmlight specifically told me X users have baulked at paying $1K when the host was only $300.”

But is this really just about price, or is this about needs and use cases?

In other words, are FCPX users not buying FxF/BCC/Sapphire/Baselight because they are too expensive relative to FCPX itself, or because they don’t need what those plugins do and thus wouldn’t benefit from having those tools?

There are so many variables here beyond price that may be coming into play, from the architecture of the app itself to the broader user base Apple is aiming for. Please consider the following to be sweeping generalizations, all with notable exceptions:

FCPX has the color board for free, and Resolve reads FCPXML and is free.

FCPX/M5 reduces the amount of rocket science necessary for developers to help editors create cool visuals, encouraging rapid development of relatively limited-scope plugins which can be sold profitably at a lower cost. A “little” plugin that does 80% of what one of the “big” plugins does but that sells for 20%, 10%, 5% or even 0% of its cost may not leave much room in the market.

FCPX/M5 lets regular users, not just developers, make effects which they can re-use or share.

FCPX is not (often/currently) used in interchange situations where having the same plugins in a different host would be beneficial.

FCPX users may prefer preset/template-driven effects rather than more flexible control-driven effects.

FCPX’s architecture restricts developers from exposing the complexity of their advanced plugins.

FCPX users who have never used another app may have no idea what FxF/BCC/Sapphire can do or why they might be worth the price.

FCPX users may not be doing the sort of compositing or effects work where FxF/BCC/Sapphire really shine.

FCPX users may have needs for FxF/BCC/Sapphire, but may find those needs better-filled in another host like Ae anyway.

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

[Oliver Peters]

[Aindreas Gallagher] “are we mad to think they could actually do that? I can’t decide if I’m barmy to be concerned about it – simply because adobe can’t say anything about upcoming licensing terms.”

I have had all indications that there will continue to be perpetual licenses. Nevertheless, Adobe had a lot more success getting people signed up for the Creative Cloud than they had expected. A client site where I freelance called yesterday and asked for the cost to upgrade their group perpetual license (5 seats). The Adobe rep told them the only option that they could offer at this time was a Creative Cloud Team subscription. They were also told this at NAB. I presume we will have a definitive answer by the time of the Adobe Max event, but for now, the waters are a bit cloudy.

Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Mark Dobson]

[Oliver Peters] “his argument has at least been a problem for the plug-in developers of FCP X. Lots of folks buying $10-$50 plug-ins for X. Not that many buying full versions of FxF Pro, BCC or Sapphire for X. Filmlight specifically told me X users have baulked at paying $1K when the host was only $300.”

The thing is – it all builds up, all these small bespoke plugins to do specific little jobs and I think that without buying any huge packages that I probably spent between $2K to $2.5K on plugins for FCPX.

One of the more expensive is Magic Bullet Looks which I used to use painfully in FCP7 because of its secondary correction capability but I’ve hardly used it at all since purchasing for FCPX, firstly because initially it was really buggy and secondly because it only deal with a setting for one frame for each clip, no key frames which is pretty limiting.

A lot of these also have versions for Premiere, but these NLEs are pretty self contained nowadays enabling basic FX to be done in App.

The time to have got Premiere was when FCPX came out – they were offering some excellent transition deals from FCP7. I’m not about to sign up for the cloud. I just researched getting the new photoshop and whilst initially attractive to pay $20 a month ( roughly ) at the end of 3 years I could lease purchased the product but am still committed to paying Ad infinitum, which is nice business model for adobe and not so great for it’s customers however they spin it.

I suppose, probably naively, anyone who bought plugins for Premiere would be able to transfer the licence over to FCPX should they want to jump ship.

[Oliver Peters]

[Walter Soyka] “But is this really just about price, or is this about needs and use cases?
In other words, are FCPX users not buying FxF/BCC/Sapphire/Baselight because they are too expensive relative to FCPX itself, or because they don’t need what those plugins do and thus wouldn’t benefit from having those tools?”

Plug-ins are often an impulse buy. If you want a larger package it’s generally based on need or to have one comprehensive set to cover all the bases. MB Looks probably falls more into need than impulse, whereas the various Motion template-based effects are probably almost all impulse. As a general rule, editors aren’t big plug-in users the way designers are, unless they are just looking for something unique or special to set their work apart from others.

[Walter Soyka] “FCPX users may have needs for FxF/BCC/Sapphire, but may find those needs better-filled in another host like Ae anyway.”

Agreed. Their performance is terrible in FCP X versus AE. I really don’t consider X to be a very good host for effects, though it has an edge with transitions. The various stylized “look” effects do function reasonably well within X as long as they are Apple’s.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com