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Falling seriously out of love with Apple
It occured to me recently that out of the entire Final Cut Studio suite, about the only part of it I’m still using these days is FCP.
It just seems that Apple are really dropping behind the curve on developments for the studio and are being left standing by their competitors.
Exhibit 1: DVDSP
Has there ever been a worse piece of software ever invented? I’ve spent hours tinkering with settings, exports and imports trying to get it to burn my videos without it ripping the graphics to shreds. Once, I just gave up on DVDSP and ran the video – a ProResHQ straight into iDVD. It burnt it perfectly right out the gate. These days, we use Encore. For the simple reason it knows that when you burn a DVD, you probably don’t want your graphics to look like crap. DVDSP also has numerous issues around subtitle importing and lack of Blu-Ray authoring which really should’ve been addressed by now and just haven’t.
Exhibit 2: Compressor
Everything it can do, Mpeg Streamclip does better and faster. And it’s free.
Exhibit 3: Color
An incredibly fiddly and inefficient process, which although gives good results is in dire, repeat, dire need of an interface update. And better integration with the rest of the studio. Compare it side by side with Magic Bullet Looks and it’s like something out of the dark ages. Which it is. But it’s 2010 for fox sake, so get with it Apple!!
Exhibit 4: Motion
I’m sure it has its fanboys, but again, side by side against After Effects and Adobe just leave it standing.
Cinema Tools I don’t have a great deal of use for so I can’t really comment on that, which just leaves FCP and Soundtrack Pro (and I will give that its due, although as a novice when it comes to sound design I’m again perhaps not the best one to comment).
I just think Apple need to pull their finger out and make the next FCS update a proper upgrade and address some of the issues they know exist. The studio is starting to look a bit tired and stale and in a fast moving industry like this, users will swiftly move on if their needs aren’t being met.
Thoughts?
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50 Replies
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Complain all you want, FSC has worked great for me. I have been using FCP, DVDSP and Motion since the beginning. No one is forcing you to use the apps.
[Neil Weaver] “Exhibit 2: Compressor
Everything it can do, Mpeg Streamclip does better and faster. And it’s free.”
I disagree! I will bet you my Compressor is better and faster than your MPEG Streamclip.
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Vice President
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group -
Up until a week ago I would have disagreed over color. However having used colorista 2, I am not so sure that colors days aren’t numbered, in my workflow at least.
FCS for me is all about FCP and Prores.
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What other apps are you comparing this to?
Color, while not perfect, is awesome.
Compressor, in my opinion, is the dark horse of the FCP Suite. It is right powerful, but it’s not that easy and straight forward to use. If you know your way around it, it’s great.
I am hardly making DVDs anymore, and no request for BluRays, but that’s just me. I could see how people would need BluRay capability.
Motion, I think you like it or you don’t. I use AE all the time as it’s what I know better. I will send the occasional shot to Motion for retiming/stabilization, but that’s about it. Nothing against it, I just know AE better and can therefore work faster.
For people just starting out in Motion graphics, I think
they really like Motion’s learning curve or so I’ve heard.Now, FCP on the other hand, needs some
retooling for sure. -
Since you’re saying DVDSP is ripping your graphics apart, I can’t help but wonder if you’re encoding to MPEG with DVDSP. Use Compressor (which isn’t slow if you set up your virtual cluster) to create the MPEG and AC3 files. THEN brings those into DVDSP.
As far as the interface in Color…I recall someone saying it was aimed toward long-time colorists who used a DiVinci, which maybe has a wonky UI if you’re not a hardcore colorist, but who cares. Learn it. Buy Walter’s Getting Started with Color DVD and learn it. It’s not that hard… Actually, the interface makes sense if you ask me… I just wish I had a Tangent Wave
And sure, Motion isn’t as good as After Effects. It’s far less capable. But its great for beginners or people like me who hate doing motion graphics, but have to occasionally create some. And a lot of times I watch peoples motion graphics reels on Youtube for “inspiration” I’ve never seen something and thought, “hmm…that can’t be done in Motion.”
I don’t even think FCP needs a make over, but then again, all the people who think it does are better than me. So maybe I’m just missing something…
And besides, you get a lot for 1000 bucks….
…just my two cents
Rob Grauert, Jr.
http://www.robgrauert.com
command-r.tumblr.com -
“I have been using FCP, DVDSP and Motion since the beginning. No one is forcing you to use the apps.”
You’ve missed the point of what I’m saying: Vast chunks of FCS are becoming obsolete. Yes, no one is forcing me to use the apps. And with the exception of FCP and occasional dips into STP, I don’t!
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[Neil Weaver] “Exhibit 2: Compressor
Everything it can do, Mpeg Streamclip does better and faster. And it’s free.”
Have to disagree with that one. Compressor yields better results for us than MPEG Streamclip and if you REALLY want great results, then you step up to Telestream Episode or Innobits BitVice.
[Neil Weaver] “Exhibit 3: Color
An incredibly fiddly and inefficient process, which although gives good results is in dire, repeat, dire need of an interface update. And better integration with the rest of the studio. Compare it side by side with Magic Bullet Looks and it’s like something out of the dark ages. Which it is. But it’s 2010 for fox sake, so get with it Apple!!”
So you’re comparing a tool that has Primary In, 16 levels of Secondaries, Primary Out and a Color FX room to something that is a plug-in for FCP? You can’t even compare the two. One does a good job inside of FCP. The other is an application dedicated to nothing but Color Enhancement.
I find the people who don’t like Color have not taken the time to learn it properly or who simply can’t be bothered to learn a new workflow. And the interface works perfectly for what it was designed for, colorists doing color correction. Not editors who want a “one interface fits all.” Until Resolve comes out, Color is hands down the best color correction tool on the Mac. Of course, if you want to use Resolve you’ll have to learn yet ANOTHER interface and workflow.
[Neil Weaver] “Exhibit 4: Motion
I’m sure it has its fanboys, but again, side by side against After Effects and Adobe just leave it standing.”
No it doesn’t which is why every FCP editor I know also has and Adobe suite that includes at the very least Photoshop and After Effects. However, for creating titles and lower thirds, Motion is much easier than AE.
[Neil Weaver] “I just think Apple need to pull their finger out and make the next FCS update a proper upgrade and address some of the issues they know exist. The studio is starting to look a bit tired and stale and in a fast moving industry like this, users will swiftly move on if their needs aren’t being met.”
People who rely on one company to meet all of their needs will have clients who swiftly move on to those who have properly equipped facilities that can do whatever the client asks for. Apple, Adobe, Avid, Quantel and pretty much everyone else makes great applications, but no one company can provide EVERYTHING one needs to meet all of the client needs. Heck you can’t even get everything you need just running on one platform these days.
In our facility we run the configuration on every system:
Final Cut Pro
Color
Motion
SoundTrack Pro
Compressor
DVDSP
After Effects
Photoshop
Illustrator
Encore
Flash
Telestream Episode ProWe also have:
CatDV
DoStudio (BluRay authoring on an HP Windows machine)and very soon we’re adding ProTools and DaVinci Resolve.
Together all of these applications meet our needs and our client needs.
Complaining that you’re “falling out of love with Apple” really doesn’t solve your workflow needs. You have to look at what is available in the marketplace that can meet the needs of your client and purchase accordingly. A combination of Apple, Adobe, Avid, Windows and Mac are an incredibly strong combination and we use the best that everyone has to offer in our day to day work.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” featuring Sigourney Weaver coming soon.
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Ok, first off – Walter, I bought your Color DVD and found it immensely useful – thank you. However, it was about that same time I got the Magic Bullet suite thinking it would be something I used in conjunction with my new Color skills.
Over time, I found I was getting the results I wanted within FCP through MB Looks without needing to go via Color.
It’s the same with Compressor. Sometimes I’d be spending the better part of a day tinkering with settings and still finding problems with the results that have largely been resolved since using Streamclip. And I’m not alone there – I’ve been reliably informed that one of Britain’s biggest post-production suites does all their compression with it these days too.
As for DVDSP… What can I say that I haven’t already? The final nail in that coffin came the day I got a perfect result in iDVD from a ProResHQ video that DVDSP wouldn’t handle as it was an ‘incompatible format’.
Settings Schmettings, there’s no excuse for that.
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[Rob Grauert] “I don’t even think FCP needs a make over”
Editing is pretty seamless. What it needs is better XML support, better audio filters (STP could be wrapped right in to the FCP interface), better WYSIWYG titling/plugin support, better nesting support and a better clip browser. The timeline interface is very nice and does work very well, though. No need to touch that.
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[walter biscardi] “Compressor yields better results for us than MPEG Streamclip and if you REALLY want great results, then you step up to Telestream Episode or Innobits BitVice.”
And noone mentioned the updated “send to compressor” function added in FCP7. You can send to compressor (and with the telestream plugin installed, actually compress with Episode) WHILE continuing to edit in FCP…and transcoding in Compressor. If you use the CompressHD or MXO2 products with Max, you can transcode in amazing speeds…that is awesome…
I don’t create DVD’s anymore, so the DVDSP isn’t even an issue…do people still deliver on DVD? Seems like a waste since most of us these days are acquiring in some form of HD.
-Jason
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[Jason Brown] “I don’t create DVD’s anymore, so the DVDSP isn’t even an issue…do people still deliver on DVD? Seems like a waste since most of us these days are acquiring in some form of HD.”
Um, yes. Just because you don’t deliver in a format doesn’t mean nobody is. We’re delivering 400 DVDs to a client next week from a project originated in HD.
DVDs are very much alive and well if you’re working with in Post Production today.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” featuring Sigourney Weaver coming soon.
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