FCP-X timeline

[Steve Connor]

Are we really going to have two months of people constantly posting in every thread that Apple have abandoned professionals, based on this brief sneak peak with no real details? You can’t make a judgement based on what we’ve seen so far.

Steve Connor
Adrenalin Television

Have you tried “Search Posts”? Enlightenment may be there.

[Scott Sheriff]

[Paul Roper] “Also, people get used to an interface – it really is very annoying when a software vendor moves something you click on hundreds of times per day to another location for no apparent reason. It’s like a car manufacturer deciding to put the accelerator on the left and the steering wheel under the seat because it looks nicer.”

That is right on target. Not only do people get used to control interfaces, but with most successful designs form follows function. Don’t you just love when two of the most used ‘buttons’ are on opposite sides of the screen?
At one time the major controls of cars were not standardized. The current layout evolved from people learning what did, and did not work.
Motorcycles reached their standard control layout much later. It’s pretty easy to come across a bike with the clutch/brake and brake/shifter/kick starter controls on opposite sides from what is now the ‘norm’. The thing is that when you run into one of these bikes, they are all brands that did not make it and fell into obscurity.

Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com

I have a system, it has stuff in it, and stuff hooked to it. I have a camera, it can record stuff. I read the manuals, and know how to use this stuff and lots of other stuff too.
You should be suitably impressed…

[Cory Caplan]

Phil, I’ve been with Avid since 1997 and both since 2005, but when you say “better media management” (which is a drum I beat for a long time until the last couple years) What modern workflows are you talking about? Everything is shot on compressed media these days, and storage isn’t really an issue anymore, so why would you just not edit directly with the files? Do you really need proxy footage if FCP handles native footage well?

I’m playing devil’s advocate here.. in most of my other posts, you can see that I’m not super thrilled re: “pro” users.

And yes, Apple does completely have the audacity. They prove it time after time. And about 75% of the time, they’re right. (see iPhone, USB vs floppy, and I’m about to hand them digital video vs. bluray, based on my clients [lack of] requests for BR..)

[Phil Hawes]

I’m just commenting on how the product has been marketed.
Obviously I don’t know what the final product is and perhaps neither does Apple. I’m also making sure they know what I think.
As a professional I’ve been ignored by this marketing. Why?

[Scott Sheriff]

[Steve Connor] “Are we really going to have two months of people constantly posting in every thread that Apple have abandoned professionals, based on this brief sneak peak with no real details? You can’t make a judgement based on what we’ve seen so far.”

All I can say is you only get one chance to make a first impression, and I’m assuming Apple knows this. It looks like 64 bit iMovie Pro is the impression they wanted to give.
So, yeah I (or you) can make a judgment on what we have seen so far.

Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com

I have a system, it has stuff in it, and stuff hooked to it. I have a camera, it can record stuff. I read the manuals, and know how to use this stuff and lots of other stuff too.
You should be suitably impressed…

[Paul Roper]

I base my “Apple has abandoned professionals” on what I’ve seen over the past couple of years, not just this presentation. It’s logical really – the profit margin on a top-end $699 iPad (a circuit board, a touch screen and a case) must be huge in comparison to a low-end $2499 Mac Pro (various circuit boards, big transformer, hard drive, DVD burner, aluminium case, etc. etc.). The same goes for their other mass-market trinkets – 16GB iPod nanos can be knocked out for pennies and sold for $179. I even heard rumours of “Final Cut on iPad” recently. This would fit right in with Apple’s policy of gimickry over usefulness.

So why would they continue to develop software that is targeted towards pro users who need the processing power of a high-end machine, when they are probably* planning to stop the manufacture of anything above the level of iMac? The answer is to aim at people who want something more than iMovie but would be afraid of using (& paying for) a professional application – hence the introduction of this new Final Cut Consumer.

*based on nothing more than my feelings.

[Craig Shields]

If you watched any of the videos posted today you would see that they know exactly what the final product is. From what I’ve seen, it seems to be very well thought out. You even have to read between the lines when watching. Take note of the full car commercial video being produced in the demo. The color correction, graphics and lower-thirds were created I’m sure by FC or the rest of the unseen suite.

[Craig Shields]

iMovie Pro? Wow. We didn’t watch the same demo.

[Steve Connor]

I’m going to be in a minority here, but I’ve just finished watching the footage from the show yesterday and in particular the edit demos and I completely disagree with the iMovie Pro comments, IMHO this is a paradigm shift in professional editing as far as the timeline goes at least, the flexibility, power and sheer speed of the new timeline is going to make my days editing quicker and easier.

If the rest of FCP and what remains of the suite is this well thought out then I can’t wait for June

Steve Connor
Adrenalin Television

Have you tried “Search Posts”? Enlightenment may be there.

[Miha Pece]

“APPLE ABANDONING PROFESSIONALS” also seems non-logical. For a company who really wanted to be a major at the end of the chain: selling content, it would be stupid to abandon a tool which is producing this content. But of course, it seems logical to do everything to widen or democratise this production chain.

Miha Pece
editor