FCP 7 Shortcomings

[Chris Gormlie]

My initial feelings where the same, and certainly it sounds like your client demands are very like mine.

However, looking into things a bit more, what Apple have given us in terms of blu-ray ‘authoring’ while on the surface not as WYSIWYG as DVDSP is more than capable of producing BLU-RAY disks on a par with Encore and dvditproHD. The XML nature of the ‘templating’ will result soon enough in a WYSIWYG design plugin.

If you need to expand the capabilities into AACS/ISAN/CMF for replication, there are a number of sub $400 ‘premaster’ solutions that will take care of that for you.

[Walter Biscardi]

[David Cooke] “But No Blue-Ray support in DVD
Studio Pro is the biggest concern. I know NUMEROUS long-time apple users with
smaller shops that are considering switching to the Adobe family, YES a PC! because of client’s asking for them. Apple has been known for being “out there on the cutting edge, being the first to introduce a newer way to do things, and newer
hardware. “

Man oh man, all this blu-ray griping is getting old. Who cares what Apple wants to do. Those folks who switch to Adobe will discover just how crappy Encore is with Blu-Ray. (Read my blog for more)

If you need BluRay professional authoring then buy a solution and pay for it with your first job. I did this 24 MONTHS AGO. We use Compressor to create the MPEG-2’s and if we need a “Play Only” disc, we use Encore. If we need a professionally authored BluRay disc, we use DoStudio that runs on a PC. Yep, it required a PC, my client required a BluRay disc, we purchased the correct professional tool to do the job.

So Apple doesn’t fully support BluRay the way you want them to. And? Get the proper tool for the job or hand your BluRay jobs to someone else who has the proper equipment.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
Credits include multiple Emmy, Telly, Aurora and Peabody Awards.
Biscardi Creative Media

Creative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital.

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[Chris Babbitt]

You’re beginning to sound like a broken record, Walter.

[John Christie]

Walter

I know you’re happy with your solution. But for a lot of people, the “studio” in Final Cut Studio refers to a suite of tools that will solve all their needs. Our company hasn’t done a lot of blu-ray work yet, but we do a lot of menu intensive work in DVDSP. It would be a shame to throw away all the knowledge we’ve learned in DVDSP over the years and switch to another program.

We’ve all looked to Apple over the years to provide us with cutting edge software and hardware.

I started working with Final Cut at version 1.2. It was a killer app with some rough edges that changed the way I edited and changed the rules of post-production.

Remember how excited we all were when DVD studio pro came out? Here was an app that competed with Sonic’s $10 K solution and blew it out of the water for around $499.

Same with Motion, another great app that didn’t replace After Effects, but gives it a run for it’s money. We use Motion a lot. With 12 edit suites it would be too expensive to put AE in every suite, but Motion is put to use every day.

There are some cool new features in FCP 7 that I’m excited about trying. But once users start to look outside the FCS world for different apps to complete a job that FCS used to do, that’s the thin edge of the wedge for developers to un-seat FCS as a leading edge package. We’ve seen FCS accommodate every new shooting format that’s come along in the last 10 years.

Aja, Decklink and even the good old Cinewave that you and I used to use, have given us the hardware bits and pieces we need to edit with state of the art gear.

Compressor has kept up with all the new media formats we have to deliver in.

So that’s why it’s sad to see that Final Cut Studio has lost that cutting edge feel, by not keeping up with the latest disc delivery format. Sure, you can do simple blu-ray in FCP 7, about the same as what I can do in Toast. I expected Apple to wow us once again and change the way we look at post, but that hasn’t happened, yet.

Cheers

John Christie

[Matt Gerard]

Yep. Instead of bitching about what Apple ISN’T doing for you, go find the tool that does the job the way you want. You threaten to leave apple for Adobe? Yeah, good luck with that. You think Apple cares?

Also, if Apple incorporated full BluRAy capablities including BD recorders/players in the MacPro, the price woud go WAAAAYYYY up, as posted in various articles and quoted by many Apple execs that the BluRay licensing is a nightmare, and quite an expensive one at that. Would you crab about it more if they did include it but at a cost of 25% higher price? I think so.

You pick hardware components that suit your needs the best, cameras, lenses, mics, mixers, all that. I dont hear any bitching that your new Panasonic camera doesn’t shoot XDCAM files or vice versa.

I was bummed about no update to DVDSP as well, but you know what I said? “Aww carp, that’s too bad. Now what shot was I looking for? *mark in, mark out, F10…*”

ENOUGH ALREADY! Move on.

Matt

Its more fun to ride a slow motorcycle fast than a fast motorcycle slow…

[Chris Poisson]

To my mind, this whole BluRay issue is like penial enlargement, totally worthless for the most part.

With today’s DVD players, SD discs look just fine, with many of them doing an uprez when playing. So who needs BluRay? I say it’s bunk.

Have a wonderful day.

[Jason Lyons]

While I greatly appreciate and agree with Walter’s position on the Blu-ray issue, there is nothing wrong with expressing the desire and expectation of what a “Pro” app should be. This update has made me continue to question Apple’s long term commitment to their Pro-Apps. To me this update seems to be a pat of fresh frosting on a steadily molding cake.

Final Cut Studio wasn’t even on Apple’s front page as a featured [trumpet fanfare] tada here’s what you’ve been waiting for for 2 years, but instead was treated like a sidelined second thought “… no no no you Pro-Apps stay over here in the corner, yes that’s right Final Cut Studio you and Logic share this space over here we have to sell more iPhones up there on the big billboard.”

FCP Studio is still a functional toolset, and I bet there are many of us who use it as a primary toolset who would be willing to cough up some serious bucks if a tool was offered that would provide support for, to name a few; Greater media management, more true real-time functionality or background rendering , multi-core aware (yeah I know Snow Leopard is coming), native support for things like MXF, XDCAM proxy workflow, robust media management, More customizable user interface………

Remember rumors of Final Cut Pro Extreme?

j

[Mark Maness]

Ok, David… I can’t let this go past me without saying something…

Fine, leave FCP and go to Adobe. FCS 3’s full price is what? $999. Adobe’s Creative Suite full price? $1699.

Hmmm….. That’s $700 difference. Hmmmm…. And it’s not near as friendly or industry standardized as much as FCS has gotten.

So, let me ask you this. How many multi-level BluRay discs do you make for clients? Do you ALWAYS create BluRay disc with lots of menus and lots of features? Or do you do lots of one-offs for client approval?

Listen to Walter, Encore’s BluRay has a lot to be desired. Personally, for the one-offs I use Roxio’s Toast to make my BluRay discs.

As for LiveType, what kind of work do you do that absolutely requires LiveType? Have you tried Motion? Did you know that if you have text that need to changed within you Motion projects, you can do this from within FCP? You don’t have to do any round tripping. Sure, the animation effects aren’t as easy as LiveType’s but they are getting so very out-dated (the ones I see being used).

Before knocking FCS3 down and complaining until you burst a blood vessel in your neck, give it a try… The upgrade is $300 cheaper that Adobe’s. Check it out.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
https://web.mac.com/schazamproductions
schazamproductions@mac.com

[Jason Levy]

I wonder if they finally fixed media manager? I’d buy it just for that and never mind the other stuff.

[Richard Dee]

Quite a few features, including the new ProRes codecs and beter support for timeline into Color are quite good. I think everyone was looking for one “kiiler” feature to really round out the upgrade. If they had just given us background rendering, I think this would have sealed the deal in almost everyones mind. Perhaps Snow Leopard will allow this feature to added with a free point upgrade?