Defending Apple

[Chris Kenny]

[Walter Soyka] “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.”

It’s not quite that simple, though. FCP X doesn’t have tracks you can stick clips onto, while you wait for the user to show up and explain what the connections should be. It literally doesn’t have conventional tracks above the first. Some of the items on what is (visually) the “second track” are connected clips, and can’t for instance, have transitions placed between them, because, since they’re linked to their underlying clips, the timing relationships between them could change if those clips were moved or cut differently. Other items there are secondary storylines, which are effectively tracks that group a specific related set of clips… but don’t run the full length of the sequence.

In order to emulate a normal multitrack editing app, as far as I can tell FCP X would have to import each track above the first as a storyline including all of the clips on that track and linked to the primary storyline at the first frame of the sequence. Unless I’m missing something, this seems to mean that with any sequence originated in FCP 7, there’s no path to a sensible FCP X sequence. Any imported sequence would be perpetually stuck in, effectively, a sort of ‘track emulation’ mode in FCP X.

[Walter Soyka] “If the global HDCAM shortage didn’t get broadcasters to change their delivery specs, why should the emergence of EDL-less FCPX?”

Apple thinks pretty long term. We are talking here about the company that, a decade ago, shipped their shiny new OS with a graphics engine so sophisticated that it took three years for hardware to show up that provided decent performance for it.

Anyway, in terms of deliverables, exporting EDLs shouldn’t be a huge technical challenge, because you’re going from a sequence format with more information to one with (much) less. And even with respect to importing EDLs, the single track case shouldn’t be a huge technical challenge. It’s really multitrack edits where things get tricky. The primary storyline in FCP X basically is a conventional track; it’s the stuff you can layer on top of it that’s not.

[Walter Soyka] “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.
“

Not as much as you might think. Read up on the motivations for creating the US interstate highway system. It was, in significant part, a reaction to some military efforts (most famously in 1919) to determine how easily troops could be moved cross-country by motor vehicle, which discovered that the answer was “not very”.

Cars also, it’s worth pointing out, required significant new national infrastructure in the form of gasoline production and distribution facilities.

—
Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.

You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.

[Walter Soyka]

Chris, respectfully, I think we are veering off a bit here. I’m trying to make a couple very broad points here about continuity and infrastructure. We are disagreeing about the details, but do we also disagree about the main ideas?

[Chris Kenny] “In order to emulate a normal multitrack editing app, as far as I can tell FCP X would have to import each track above the first as a storyline including all of the clips on that track and linked to the primary storyline at the first frame of the sequence. Unless I’m missing something, this seems to mean that with any sequence originated in FCP 7, there’s no path to a sensible FCP X sequence. Any imported sequence would be perpetually stuck in, effectively, a sort of ‘track emulation’ mode in FCP X.”

That would be fine by me. I don’t care what they have to do to make it work.

The key point is that a degree of backward compatibility is necessary. FCPX is not just a product — it’s a de facto part of the FCP platform. This “clean break” disrupts the platform and the users that helped to build it.

[Chris Kenny] “Apple thinks pretty long term. We are talking here about the company that, a decade ago, shipped their shiny new OS with a graphics engine so sophisticated that it took three years for hardware to show up that provided decent performance for it.”

You see apparently see that as a positive here, but I see that as a negative. Apple could have designed a more gradual roadmap that would have made OS X a bit more usable up front.

Do you want to wait three years for FCPX to get back to where FCP7 was in some respects when it was EOLed?

[Chris Kenny] “[about roads] Read up on the motivations for creating the US interstate highway system. It was, in significant part, a reaction to some military efforts (most famously in 1919) to determine how easily troops could be moved cross-country by motor vehicle, which discovered that the answer was “not very”. Cars also, it’s worth pointing out, required significant new national infrastructure in the form of gasoline production and distribution facilities.”

Naturally, as motor vehicles become dominant over horse-drawn vehicles, the infrastructure had to change to favor them. My point was that cars were “backwards compatible” at “launch.” They acknowledged and worked within the existing infrastructure of the day, then grew WITH that infrastructure.

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

[Chris Kenny]

[Walter Soyka] “The key point is that a degree of backward compatibility is necessary. FCPX is not just a product — it’s a de facto part of the FCP platform. This “clean break” disrupts the platform and the users that helped to build it.”

But given these fundamentally different approaches, in my opinion the way to provide backwards compatibility is to simply have people keep using FCP 7 with old projects. The way OS X allowed people to keep using OS 9 apps, but didn’t try to make them ‘native’.

[Walter Soyka] “You see apparently see that as a positive here, but I see that as a negative.”

I see it as something that has certain costs, but fundamentally enables Apple to do more interesting things, sooner.

[Walter Soyka] “Do you want to wait three years for FCPX to get back to where FCP7 was in some respects when it was EOLed?”

I don’t think most missing features will take that long.

—
Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.

You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.

[Ben G unguren]

[Chris Kenny] “I think it’s far more likely that Apple knows exactly what’s missing from FCP X, and is working on adding it… but saw no reason not to ship as soon as they had something useful to a decent number of users, even if it wasn’t useful to all users yet. This would be consistent with past Apple practice.”

In other words:
PUT YOUR TRUST
IN APPLE

In other words:
PUT YOUR [career, funds, facilities, future, reputation]
IN APPLE

All is well. Apple will take care of you, wherever they are. Now back to bed, everyone, off you go….

[Chris Kenny]

[ben g unguren] “In other words:
PUT YOUR [career, funds, facilities, future, reputation]
IN APPLE”

It’s more like “If you a tool that already works, that you’ve been using for a long time and like, and you see promise in a new tool from the same vendor, then maybe you shouldn’t abandon that vendor a couple of days after that new tool ships just because it doesn’t have all the features you need yet”.

—
Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.

You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.