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FCP X – food for thought
What if Randy left because there was no more for him to do?
What if the 3D text bolt-on was the same as the FCP 7 upgrade – something to appease the masses and to look like progress?
What if FCP X is essentially “done” and there’s not much more there than new window-dressing and keeping up with the OS changes?
After all, we (or at least many of us on this forum) aren’t the target user for FCP X (according to the Ubilos interview).
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
60 Replies
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[Oliver Peters] “What if FCP X is essentially “done” and there’s not much more there than new window-dressing and keeping up with the OS changes?”
Are you trying to make people’s heads explode? lol
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[Oliver Peters] “What if Randy left because there was no more for him to do?
What if the 3D text bolt-on was the same as the FCP 7 upgrade – something to appease the masses and to look like progress?
What if FCP X is essentially “done” and there’s not much more there than new window-dressing and keeping up with the OS changes?
After all, we (or at least many of us on this forum) aren’t the target user for FCP X (according to the Ubilos interview).”
Good questions. I’d add – What if Apple’s endgame for video looks like what they did with photography? What if the next step is a unification of iMovie and FCPX into a new app called “Movies” or “videos”?
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David Lawrence
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[Andrew Kimery] “Are you trying to make people’s heads explode? lol”
Well…. There is the weekend coming up. 😉
Bear in mind, I’m not saying these are necessarily bad things nor harbingers of doom. It’s just that it may simply be the way it is. We might never get things like better mixing or better keyframing.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[David Lawrence] “Good questions. I’d add – What if Apple’s endgame for video looks like what they did with photography? What if the next step is a unification of iMovie and FCPX into a new app called “Movies” or “videos””
Agreed. While Photos is nice, compared with even Aperture (which itself lagged behind Lightroom), Photos is truly crippleware.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
I feel like we’ve been over this ad nauseum. Why choose the Photos example and not Logic X? There are a LOT more parallels between Logic X/Garageband and FCP X/iMovie than Aperture/Photos. When Apple folds Logic X into Garageband then we should be concerned. Until then these are just paranoid ramblings.
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Let me be clear that I don’t think anything is going to happen with FCP X for at least 5 years. But I think there is a basic “tell”.
Aperture was originally developed by a pro design team that’s no longer in place at Apple. Same for Motion to some extent. This was all before the iPhone. With iPhone and iCloud, photography creation, sharing and archiving has become a basic component of the iCloud ecosystem. When that was fully in place – and without internal champions for Aperture as a pro tool – Photos became the more suitable and streamlined app to replace both Aperture and iPhoto.
At this point in time, that isn’t the case for video nor for music creation. It probably won’t for awhile, if ever, simply because the platform isn’t quite right. However, I firmly believe that if and when Apple gets to a point where either of those two elements are as ingrained as photography within the iDevice/iCloud ecosystem, then FCP X and/or Logic Pro X are probably gone, with some hybrid streamlined apps in their places.
I’m not sure that’s anytime soon and maybe never. But in any case, I do believe it’s the “tell” to look for.
However, the original point I was wondering about, was this. If FCP X is basically in the form that we have now, is that good enough for the next 5 or 10 years? For those of us asking for more features, like roles-based mixing – should we resign ourselves to the diminishing odds that it will ever occur?
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
With the iPhone 6s touting 4k, as predicted on this forum, how much computing power will be needed to edit it? Can they really squeeze that in to a Photos equivalent video editing program? I transition from Aperture to Light Room and while I love the power of Light Room, I miss the ease and efficiency of using Aperture. May FCPX live on.
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Interesting speculation, Oliver. And I suppose the recent Creative Summit sojourn to Apple where a hundred of us met with many of the product managers and the ProApps development team could have been an elaborate hoax designed to continue the facade that the software is an on-going commercial product with enough value to the company to support the building, and dozens of developers all trained well enough to “talk the talk” with a group of industry pros?
It sure didn’t look like an operation being shut down after running its course to me – but heck – I’m just a silly fanboy so maybe they put a big one over on me and all the others by mocking up everything from the lunchroom to the serious server room I barely glimpsed as the door was shutting and I was walking past – all just an elaborate stage set. If so I’ve got to hand it to the performers. They sure nailed it.Plus they are really going to piss off their growing list of institutional customers. Over on one of the large public Facebook groups just tonight, someone tried the “no pros use X” line – and the result was a hoot. Folks from CBS, PBS, Hollywood, and serious players from all over the world chimed in with reports of whole shops switching to it and the biggest problem with X for some of the biggest operations being cited was not being able to find enough qualified X editors to hire.
No reason to keep going with s product like that, I suppose.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[Oliver Peters] “What if the 3D text bolt-on was the same as the FCP 7 upgrade – something to appease the masses and to look like progress?
What if FCP X is essentially “done” and there’s not much more there than new window-dressing and keeping up with the OS changes?”
3D text was so ‘so what’ and if a third party company had developed it I wouldn’t have bought it. I’ve used it once professionally and think I’ll leave it at that.
As to the overall development of FCPX, I’d say that the software is now at the level it should have been when it was launched all those years ago. And I know all about that because I’ve been using it solidly since then and have had too many totally frustrating experiences to mention. As I look back now I’m amazed at how undeveloped the software was at launch. And I have every sympathy for those jumped away to other platforms.
But as I work on it now I find it is an almost stable proposition, sure it still crashes and goes weird from time-to-time but generally it is as well behaved as my ageing dog ( Springer Spaniel 17 years old ). But it has only been my inertia, call it laziness, that has kept me using FCPX. I just couldn’t bear to have to learn a new set of commands and editing conventions on another editing package.
So really I’d have to agree with you Oliver, that FCPX is basically built and on a general service cycle with each OS upgrade. I would change my opinion if there was a substantial upgrade on the audio side or if the measly set of tools that have been provided for file selection and analysis were expanded.
But either way this is the horse that’s going to carry me through the next few years. I’ve invested too much in plugins to start again and as I sit here editing on the 27″ 5k iMac life isn’t really that bad.
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[Bill Davis] “I suppose the recent Creative Summit sojourn to Apple where a hundred of us met with many of the product managers and the ProApps development team could have been an elaborate hoax designed to continue the facade that the software is an on-going commercial product with enough value to the company to support the building, and dozens of developers all trained well enough to “talk the talk” with a group of industry pros? “
Once you meet the developers, they’ve got you!
It turns out that pretty much everyone building the tools we love — whether he or she comes from Apple, Adobe, Autodesk, Avid or BMD — is smart, hard-working, committed, and passionate about helping their creative customers do the best work they can.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn]
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