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FCPX from an Editor who used it on Iditarod 2012
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[Walter Soyka] “Does it really matter to us as users if something is being implemented in the OS or in the app, especially when it’s coming from the same developer and they can do whatever they want?”
It’s just a point of possible information. Understanding why something might be happen is independent of whether I like it or not.
[Walter Soyka] “Also, Adobe and Avid implement broadcast monitoring without writing operating systems.”
But Apple writes both Operating Systems and NLE software to sell hardware unlike the above. They may want to use technologies as part of their echosystem which depends on the OS doing certain things rather than the apps as “stand alone.”
[Walter Soyka] “AV Foundation is a new feature in Lion, but they used a private version for FCPX on Snow Leopard.”
And maybe that was the first rush move that they might not have wanted to make but had to at the time. I suspect they may drop Snow Leopard support fairly quickly as far as FCPX support is concerned as things are moved.
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[Walter Soyka] “Adobe and Avid have also recently written and/or re-written their own low-level media handlers (comparable to AV Foundation), too.
“Yeah, but the OS department and the ProApps department are each in their own veiled castle walls, right?
Do you think adobe and avid have such segregated development departments? My guess is no.
I do feel like 10.0.3 was released to get fcpxml out and released to the world as quickly as possible, and the rest of the inconsistencies be damned.
I hear what you’re saying about all of that, Craig. It’s an apt speculation.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Yeah, but the OS department and the ProApps department are each in their own veiled castle walls, right?”
I don’t assume that — as I mentioned, FCPX on Snow Leopard uses AV Foundation as a private library. AV Foundation wasn’t available publicly on OS X until Lion, right?
I do agree with Craig’s analysis that Apple is likely spreading development over the OS X and FCPX teams. I’d also agree with Simon that Apple’s biggest challenges with FCPX don’t seem to be tied to OS-related features.
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 -
[tony west] “Quick turn around live sports related stuff like this is right in the X wheelhouse.
“
This have been told here long ago and I think is widely accepted, but what this means for the people that is not on sports and news?
I’ve said many times that i wish I would have had FCPX years ago when I worked on news & sports, but that’s not my job anymore.
rafael -
[Walter Soyka] “FCPX on Snow Leopard uses AV Foundation as a private library. AV Foundation wasn’t available publicly on OS X until Lion, right?”
Is AVFoundation available publicly? ;). Just kidding.
Just because fcpx uses AVFoundation doesn’t mean that the ProApps Development team, and the SnowMountainLionLeopard development team talk, or are allowed to talk, accept when needed. Maybe things are different under Cook, who knows.
Monitoring is certainly tied AVFoundation, and it seems to be why it’s still in beta as it still needs work on the OS level.
Jeremy
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[tony west] “They want to cover themselves and that’s cool but no matter how big their show is, and I don’t know many people bigger than Oprah, at the end of the day they are leaving that truck with 4 tracks of audio.”
That might be the case for your truck, but on the large unscripted stuff I’ve worked on, there are definitely more than four audio/video ISOs available–usually one for each lav, a couple of booms, and a static room mic. Of course that’s in a studio, so its easier to manage.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Just because fcpx uses AVFoundation doesn’t mean that the ProApps Development team, and the SnowMountainLionLeopard development team talk, or are allowed to talk, accept when needed.”
There must be some coordination, right? Otherwise, how could the ProApps team know they could depend on the AV Foundation / OS X team to develop specific functionality? If there were no coordination, wouldn’t the ProApps team would have to do as other NLE developers do — write it themselves if they want to make sure it gets done?
It makes good sense to develop as you and Craig are describing. It’d be wasteful for Apple as a whole to develop a video API for a single specific app, when they could develop media frameworks available on the platform as a whole instead.
But this is all Inside Baseball speculation.
All that matters to what Aindreas has dubbed Ubsdell’s Pants Down Theorem is that Apple as a whole — no matter which divisions are responsible for what — may be late delivering features overall, and are certainly rushing stuff out the door without sufficient QC. To whatever extent they may continue doing so, they are damaging their credibility badly.
Craig’s comparison to the plate spinner is very apt. They’ve got a lot going on, and maybe that’s the wrong approach. Jim seems right to call 10.0.3 a step backwards, and Simon seems right to suggest that the most important priority for 10.0.4 should be improving the fundamentals: performance and stability.
Getting those right first, and then adding features (while prioritizing their functionality and reliability over their rapid introduction) could change the whole nature of the conversation about FCPX.
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 -
[Walter Soyka] “There must be some coordination, right? Otherwise, how could the ProApps team know they could depend on the AV Foundation / OS X team to develop specific functionality? If there were no coordination, wouldn’t the ProApps team would have to do as other NLE developers do — write it themselves if they want to make sure it gets done?”
You mean like that one time a QT/iTunes update really screwed fcp7 up real well?
Sure there’s coordination, AVFoundation has been in iOS for a while, but is there mutual interest and development? Maybe. Maybe not.
[Walter Soyka] “All that matters to what Aindreas has dubbed Ubsdell’s Pants Down Theorem is that Apple as a whole — no matter which divisions are responsible for what — may be late delivering features overall, and are certainly rushing stuff out the door without sufficient QC. To whatever extent they may continue doing so, they are damaging their credibility badly.”
Yes, they are rushing. They rushed the announcement, they rushed the release, they are rushing the updates. They either have completely lost their minds, or they know what’s coming. Once people get what they want, all of this speculation will be over and done. Finished. Yep, they will have lost a few loyal soldiers along the way, but it’s the cold and calculated cost of doing business.
You will also notice the rushed updates have been decidedly pro features. As Craig alludes to, these features are to get those words out in to the lexicon to let people know, for now, they’re still playing. The next few updates will need to show how serious they are about it. The beachball/slow down syndrome is popping up all over the interwebs more now than ever.
Apple won’t be able to keep that up for much longer.
Is iMovie 64 bit?
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[Jeremy Garchow] “You mean like that one time a QT/iTunes update really screwed fcp7 up real well? Sure there’s coordination, AVFoundation has been in iOS for a while, but is there mutual interest and development? Maybe. Maybe not.”
I don’t mean to be constantly argumentative, but I do consider this a bit of a different case.
QuickTime was already mature by the time FCP was built, so FCP was able to lean on it very heavily. By the time that QT iTunes rental disaster occurred, FCP itself was pretty mature, too. That release didn’t just bork FCP; it hurt all QuickTime-dependent apps. As I recall (and how could I forget), any QuickTime render in AE that took longer than exactly 10 minutes would fail. Ouch. It was definitely bad QC, but maybe not a coordination issue.
AV Foundation and FCPX have both been under simultaneous active development for years, and Apple must have had to decide which team would develop support for specific features (like broadcast monitoring). How could FCPX have ever shipped if those teams weren’t working closely together?
[Jeremy Garchow] “Apple won’t be able to keep that up for much longer.”
They’ve kept it up for this long…
[Jeremy Garchow] “Is iMovie 64 bit?”
Nope. I also think iMovie is based on QuickTime, not AV Foundation.
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 -
[Andrew Kimery] “Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see how uploading files for client approval or keeping files online so you don’t have to batch capture from tape are workflows exclusive to FCPX. One place I worked at was emailng MPEG1’s for approval in ’01 and at another they started media managing the FCP projects archival purpose. As you can imagine, it made revisiting old projects significantly easier (especially when many times the changes were just a new logo there and update the date here).”
Andrew,
I freely acknowledge that large TV operations and post houses have had capabilities like this for a long time. At the cost of building out zillion dollar infrastructures and maintaining teams of engineers to keep it all running.
Now anyone can have the same basic capabilities for $299 and the cost of a MacBook Pro.
That’s a significant change in paradigm, IMO.
FCP X is clearly not designed to replace a broadcast play out system… at least at this point in it’s development!
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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