FCP7 to FCPX XML Translation from Philip Hodgetts

[Rafael Amador]

Things start to smell different.
That sounds great.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Gary Huff]

Must be magic to all those people who said it couldn’t be done because of the incredibly complex and nuanced way that FCPX dealt with the intentions behind your video data…

[Michael Hancock]

You mean people like Apple? 🙂

—————-
Michael Hancock
Editor

[Gary Huff]

Apple’s explanation for not including it was marketing speak for “we didn’t care enough to actually try.”

[Mark Morache]

[Gary Huff] “Apple’s explanation for not including it was marketing speak for “we didn’t care enough to actually try.””

I’m thinking that’s not quite true.

For all the things that come across when moving a project from 7 to X, some things don’t. Offering users an incomplete conversion might have created just as much complaining from the ranks, or perhaps more.

I’m sure they wanted to have a clean cut from legacy as they wrote X, and who would have been happy if they held back on anything new in X to make sure that the legacy projects could be imported.

Legacy projects can still be opened in FCP7. That makes the conversion process less necessary.

Meanwhile, I’m jazzed about the ability to convert 7 to X, for just 10 bucks. (and a good bit of massaging.)

———
FCX. She tempts me, abuses me, beats me up, makes me feel worthless, then in the end she comes around, helps me get my work done, gives me hope and I can’t stop thinking about her.

Mark Morache
Avid/Xpri/FCP7/FCX
Evening Magazine,Seattle, WA
https://fcpx.wordpress.com

[Walter Soyka]

[Gary Huff] “Must be magic to all those people who said it couldn’t be done because of the incredibly complex and nuanced way that FCPX dealt with the intentions behind your video data…”

Somehow, I expected this post from you after our last exchange [link].

Read Philip Hodgett’s blog post about developing 7toX [link] — he describes how hard the translation was to do. A few quotes:

• “Turns out it’s harder going forward than back.”
• “I’ve often said, in the last few months, that I would not want to be the person developing a Final Cut Pro 7 to X translation tool. I was telling the truth because I could hear the salty language that came from Greg’s work area: there’s no sugar coating it, this is the most complex piece of software we’ve ever written.”
• “These were two very different applications, with different data structures and two very different design mindsets. Translating from one to the other is difficult.”
• “There are some things lost in translation, as a perfect translation isn’t possible between two very different languages. (Imagine translating Spanish into Mandarin, when you natively speak English and you’ll get an idea.)”

So I’d say that my post my post [link] where I said “Going IN to FCPX in a meaningful way is a whole other matter, because the same FCPX-specific information I mentioned above doesn’t exist in other apps or formats and must be guessed or deduced by the translation application” — the one that spawned your “magic” comment — was exactly right.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Gary Huff]

[Mark Morache]Offering users an incomplete conversion might have created just as much complaining from the ranks, or perhaps more.

Yeah, can you imagine if they’d done that with Final Cut Pro as a whole?

[Gary Huff]

I never said it would be easy, but it’s certainly not impossible. And there may be mistakes, but that’s going to happen whenever you move a project from one NLE to another.

Just because it “guesses” wrong, doesn’t mean that it’s a problem. If you can import a project and it play back right, even if the foundation isn’t exactly as you would have laid it if you’d used FCPX in the first place, it’s still a success in my book.

[Rafael Amador]

Two guys from outside has done what the people which should know better than nobody else both applications said it couldn’t be done.
Whatever the way we analyze it, is a slap in Apple’s face.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Craig Seeman]

[Rafael Amador] “Whatever the way we analyze it, is a slap in Apple’s face.”

Apple’s marketing really botched this. Had they simply mentioned the road map on some of these things, even if they couldn’t reveal the details, that would have helped. Had they simply said, “we’ll build out the XML so it can be handled by a third party developer” instead of what appeared to be “impossible” it would have helped. Granted people would have grumbled given the wait, knowing what was coming, what was possible, would have gone a long way.

That this is only a 0.3 release seems to speak that Apple has a lot in mind that it considers much bigger than this. FCPX is coming along fine and they do seem to be moving quickly to re introduce what has been missing but the marketing is a botch. It’s driven people away. It’s create mistrust. Apple is certainly getting the App in order. They have to get the marketing in order as well.