Do you think ‘Sneak Peek’ was a good idea?

[Bret Williams]

If that wasn’t jaw dropping, what is? Nobody said jaw dropping was a good thing.

I think Apples point was to put an end to speculation. Too many people were ready to jump ship to Premiere to edit h264 or Avid for similar reasons. I have been playing with CS5 premiere since my mAtrox now supports it. And fairly recently they also announced support for avid mc. Jumping ship was looking easier than ever. I think if nothing else, the sneak peek bought the some time.

[Sohrab Sandhu]

[Bret Williams] “If that wasn’t jaw dropping, what is?”

For me ‘Jaw Dropper’ is something unexpected(Pleasant preferably) & i am sure it is the same for everybody else here.

So lets take this argument a little further.

64 bit application was unexpected?

Native support for H.264 was unexpected?

Background rendering was unexpected?

New UI was unexpected?

Better audio tools were unexpected?

Not trying to belittle apple’s work(Not that i really can), but one has to be caveman if he thinks these things were unexpected.

2.66 GHz 8-core, ATI Radeon HD 4870,
FCS 3, AJA Kona Lhi

“The creative person wants to be a know-it-all. He wants to know about all kinds of things: ancient history, nineteenth-century mathematics, current manufacturing techniques, flower arranging, and hog futures. Because he never knows when these ideas might come together to form a new idea. It may happen six minutes later or six months, or six years down the road. But he has faith that it will happen.” — Carl Ally

[Craig Seeman]

[Sohrab Sandhu] ” I was really hoping for something completely out of the box.”

So you expected this and got it too. It’s certainly out of the box. There is no box. Mac App Store instead.

I don’t think people expected Magnetic Timeline and Smart bins or whatever they’re calling it. I don’t think people were expecting $299 either.

[Andy Mees]

I can’t imagine anyone was surprised by Smart Bins.

[Craig Seeman]

I wasn’t expecting anything beyond facial recognition in smart bins. I didn’t think they’d attempt two shots etc. Of course we don’t know how well they’ll work (iPhoto certainly doesn’t think my cat is a face to recognize) but they did go beyond my expectations in their attempt at least.

[Andy Mees]

I get you … yeah, the depth of the shot analysis / automated metadata tagging was surprising … and by extension that does lend itself directly for use with the “Smart” collections. Good stuff.

[Arnie Schlissel]

On the whole, I think the Sneak Peek was a good idea.

Before this there was a small but loud group threatening to switch to Premiere if Apple didn’t update FCP to do things like edit AVCHD/h.264 natively. That chorus is no longer singing. (Of course, it’s also possible that they’ve all switched, and are to busy trying to figure out PP to post on internet forums.)

I would like it more if Apple had followed up by posting a page or 2 detailing FCP-X’s features and some specs, maybe even a draft of the manual or quick start guide.

But Apple is a company that is secretive by habit, such openness is probably very difficult for them to accommodate themselves to.

What would you rather have? An Apple that tells us nothing until it’s carved in stone? Or a Red that glibly announces any speculative project that they dream up with a note that all specs & prices are subject to change? Truth is, I’d rather not have either extreme, there has to be a happy middle.

Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
https://www.arniepix.com/

[Richard Herd]

The draw dropping part was the magnetic-get-out-of-the-way thing and the selectable areas where you can then apply effects, to the selectable area, and if you want to make an audition between 3 changes, play them and pick the one you want. All done right there in the not-a-timeline. The way footage is marked up is awesome. Apple is not inventing the l-cut and j-cut but it will very nice to edit (and finish?!*) in the way they showed in the preview.

*Which brings me to the color timing and color sync topics, both draw dropping.