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Defending Apple
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[Chris Kenny] “That’s not really a good illustration of your point. The QuickTime X player app has such a limited feature set because Apple didn’t have a fully-featured post-QuickTime media architecture to leverage for it. But Apple has been working on such a thing — FCP X is actually the first significant app that uses it.”
How’s this from USA Today:
“I’m shocked,” says Paul Harb of Beyond Creative Productions, who was co-editor on the recent films The Expendables and Rocky Balboa. “I’ve never seen a company take a piece of software, say this is the next evolution, and make it feel like 20 steps backward.”
https://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2011-06-21-final-cut-pro-apple-wednesday_n.htm
Apple has failed – I HOPE they fix it – I HOPE they make a credible statement, and fast. I have lots of money invested in FCP, but if it is going to be a toy editing system then forget it. I also HOPE I am wrong.
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This is all very familiar to anyone who remembers the OS 9 -> OS X transition.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Chris Kenny] “This is all very familiar to anyone who remembers the OS 9 -> OS X transition.”
This is only familiar in that OS X was a major technological advance that was critical to the future of the platform, but that was unusable in the real world until its third major release.
Otherwise, this is the exact opposite of the OS 9 to OS X transition. Apple recognized what a big shift that was, and supported both operating systems in tandem during the transition.
Apple sold OS 9 and OS X side-by-side. OS X had Classic mode for years. OS X kept Carbon, so developers could easily move from OS 9 to OS X.
If the FCP7/FCPX transition were analogous to the OS9/OSX transition, FCS3 would still be on sale, FCPX would open FCP7 projects, and third-party developers would have been involved during FCPX’s development.
Either Apple didn’t know how big a deal the FCP7/FCPX transition would be, or they did know and didn’t care. Either scenario suggests that they are out of touch with the professional post industry.
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 -
[Walter Soyka] “If the FCP7/FCPX transition were analogous to the OS9/OSX transition, FCS3 would still be on sale, FCPX would open FCP7 projects, and third-party developers would have been involved during FCPX’s development.”
I agree FCS3 should remain on sale, but recall that it can run on the same system as FCP X. This is sufficient for a transition. Having FCP X open FCP 7 projects, now that I think it through, would be like demanding that OS X be able to run unmodified OS 9 apps natively.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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I like this one (it’s almost not OT)
https://gawker.com/5809978/listen-to-richard-dreyfuss-make-apple-sound-evil
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Chris, I have a lot of respect for you, both for sticking to your guns here, and for seeing the potential in FCPX amid all the negativity. Cheers for that, and thanks for some interesting discussion.
I must admit, though, I’m having a hard time understanding why you’re trying to convince everyone that it’s not that bad.
You and I agree that FCPX has some great features, and we agree that FCPX has tremendous potential for the future — but it is simply not acceptable for the market leader to EOL their existing product and throw down a 1.0 release that flat out excludes many of the professionals that elevated Apple to their place in the market in the first place.
[Chris Kenny] “I agree FCS3 should remain on sale, but recall that it can run on the same system as FCP X. This is sufficient for a transition. Having FCP X open FCP 7 projects, now that I think it through, would be like demanding that OS X be able to run unmodified OS 9 apps natively.”
In light of the Randy Ubillos thread above [link], and I assume you’re suggesting that you can’t build the connections for a magnetic timeline from an FCP7 project (or an EDL, for that matter).
You’re probably right — and that makes the problem way more serious than I initially thought.
If what you’re proposing is true, Apple has just orphaned all our existing projects, and we will never see FCP project or EDL import, or XML-based round-trip with any external application. Very, very scary.
It also suggests that Apple doesn’t realize (or care) how much we value continuity in our businesses.
For what it’s worth, Apple shoehorned Classic into OS X, somewhat awkwardly running it in a VM. It was a hack, but it was worthwhile during the 9/X transition. I’d certainly give up the magnetic timeline in imported projects to have the ability to open older projects a few years from now when we’re all running Mac OS 10.9 and FCP7 no longer installs or runs.
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 -
Boy, those are great points.
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[Walter Soyka] “You and I agree that FCPX has some great features, and we agree that FCPX has tremendous potential for the future — but it is simply not acceptable for the market leader to EOL their existing product and throw down a 1.0 release that flat out excludes many of the professionals that elevated Apple to their place in the market in the first place.”
So, Apple comes up with a radical new way to edit video, and… what? Never ships a product based on it, because it’s not directly compatible with the old paradigm? That doesn’t sound like Apple to me. The truth is, Apple is what is today in large part because the company has the guts to do things like EOL market-leading products when they think they can do something better. I get that people want the kind of innovation that flows from that, but without having to deal with any of the transition headaches it causes, but you just can’t have both. If you want incrementalism there are lots of other choices. Personally, I feel it’s extremely valuable for the industry to have a company that doesn’t feel constrained by it.
[Walter Soyka] “If what you’re proposing is true, Apple has just orphaned all our existing projects, and we will never see FCP project or EDL import, or XML-based round-trip with any external application. Very, very scary.”
EDL might well be screwed here. Though frankly, the industry should be a little embarrassed it’s still in use in the first place. Formats capable of carrying more data could be just fine, assuming third-party tools are willing to support a couple of key elements of the new approach — and with Apple’s market share they probably will be. Plus, if Apple really goes and does some of the Python stuff it looks like they might be doing, the kind of workflows that could enable would be so far beyond simple EDL/XML interchange that they could grow a whole new and radically different ecosystem around FCP X.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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I strongly agree with Walter Soyka, and I wonder what Chris Kenny’s agenda is on this forum.
As I have stated in almost every thread pertaining to the issues, the problem is NOT FCPX. It looks cool, and I have lobbied for a new editing paradigm to replace the tired “Source-Record” metaphor left over from tape editing in the 1980s. So Apple has begun that shift to newer ways of working. And frankly, if they DO intend FCPX to be a strictly prosumer app, and decide NEVER to add the pro features we’re arguing over, so be it. That’s their business model. Fine. We don’t have to buy it or use it.
EXCEPT, they have taken the actual pro app that works off the market! On the same day! How can you possibly apologize or excuse that and call yourself a pro anything?
As I have been pointing out elsewhere, we have no assurance, and very little reason to believe that “FCP7 will live on” as Larry Jordan said on his site. Why? Because, first of all, you can no longer even acquire a legal copy! The sellers on eBay are unauthorized vendors, and how do you know they are not simply using those serial numbers and then selling you the hard copies for a tidy profit?
Secondly, when in the history of software have you ever seen anyone post regular updates for discontinued products? Have you never had an issue with FCS when upgrading to a new OS? Doesn’t anyone recall the quirkly behavior many of us had when the ProKit 6.01 update was released (intended to be mainly Logic Pro fixes), that caused Compressor issues? That was a common enough problem that Jon Chappell posted a workaround on his digitalrebellion site.
Why do you have faith that FCP v7.0.3 will work flawlessly in Lion and beyond, while we wait for months or years in hopes that FCPX will eventually open our archived FCP7 projects, and do all the pro things we need?
The point here is that they took the app we want to use off the market. Until Apple assures us in writing that we can keep editing in FCP7 indefinitely, or until they bring FCPX up to its pro functionality… why shouldn’t we be worried?
Why shouldn’t we be annoyed that, after a decade of investing in Apple software, upgrades, new hardware every 2.5 years and incessant training — that it now looks like we may have to kiss our work goodbye and start over on another pro platform?
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[Chris Kenny] “So, Apple comes up with a radical new way to edit video, and… what? Never ships a product based on it, because it’s not directly compatible with the old paradigm?”
Apple is not the first software company to completely re-engineer their internal data model for a product in order to provide amazing new features.
They might be the first market leader to do it with no apparent concern for the ability to handle legacy data.
I’d rather manually magnetize a timeline, re-connecting all the non-obvious connection points in an edit by hand, than not even have the option to import an old project at all. It may be tedious, but so is conforming an offline, and I’ve done enough of those. If manual magnetization is necessary, I’d do this, too.
[Chris Kenny] “EDL might well be screwed here. Though frankly, the industry should be a little embarrassed it’s still in use in the first place.”
I do agree that it’s silly that EDL is still necessary some 40 years after its development — but it is. An EDL is required for many broadcast deliverables (along with tape masters). If the global HDCAM shortage didn’t get broadcasters to change their delivery specs, why should the emergence of EDL-less FCPX?
On some glorious day in the distant future, someone will export the very last EDL. In the short term, it’s here and it’s a legitimate professional need. Apple’s arrogance will not change that overnight.
[Chris Kenny] “Formats capable of carrying more data could be just fine, assuming third-party tools are willing to support a couple of key elements of the new approach — and with Apple’s market share they probably will be. Plus, if Apple really goes and does some of the Python stuff it looks like they might be doing, the kind of workflows that could enable would be so far beyond simple EDL/XML interchange that they could grow a whole new and radically different ecosystem around FCP X.”
The industry just did this exactly this with Apple — look at how widely Final Cut Pro’s proprietary XML was adopted.
By the way, AAF is an interchange format developed by an industry consortium specifically to handle interchange. Apple is conspicuously absent.
I am not suggesting that Apple should stop innovating. I am saying that they way they’ve chosen to innovate in a vacuum is disrespectful to the customers who gave FCP its legitimacy in the first place.
I’ve seen the Henry Ford “faster horse” quote thrown out a lot with respect to FCPX. I think it’s important to note that both horses and cars used the same roads.
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
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