FCPX is so completely weird, it makes Motion look sane. And no one will hire you by the hour for either of them.

[Dave Jenkins]

I am cutting my first project in X and so far it’s more stable that FCP7. I like it a lot better than Premiere Pro CS6. I don’t fully understand the program yet but I like some things and I think if they continue to improve it, it could become a good edit system.

Dajen Productions, Santa Barbara, CA
MacPro Two 2.66GHz Quad Core – AJA Kona LHe
FCS 3 OS X 10.7.4
FCP X, Adobe CS6, Logic Pro, Squeeze, Filemaker

[Derek Andonian]

[Bill Davis] “Anyone can tear down anything. It’s easy. Building stuff? Not so much.”

That’s actually my view of the whole FCP 7 to X transition:

Apple tore down the old Legacy version very quickly, and doing it wasn’t hard for them at all.

Now, building something equally good to take its place… THAT’s the part they haven’t quite figured out yet.

😉

______________________________________________
“Up until here, we still have enough track to stop the locomotive before it plunges into the ravine… But after this windmill it’s the future or bust.”

[Bill Davis]

[Greg Andonian] “Now, building something equally good to take its place… THAT’s the part they haven’t quite figured out yet.

😉
“

No problem with this perspective. I totally get that it misses the mark for many specific editors needs, tho I also suspect that while it presents real problems many editors, particularly those who are uncomfortable or unwilling to alter their habits – a significant number of editors have formed their opinions as the result of widespread misunderstanding of the intrinsic X workflow.

You say they “haven’t quite figured out” something equally good yet. And I’d agree. X at less than 2 years, isn’t nearly the comprehensive video editing suite Legacy was at 10 years of development. But as many here (including myself) who were with Legacy from version 1 – I can tell you that X at less than 2 years old is MILES ahead of where Legacy was at the same age.

And you’re starting to hear story after story right here about people who have taken the time to learn it who are having excellent success with it in real world editing circumstances.

I know for a fact that the complex multi-cam stuff I was able to do with it a few months ago would have reduced Legacy V 2 into a smoking puddle of goo.

So again, I’m curious as to what it NOT doing that you need it to do? I’m genuinely interested since for a lot of us, it’s doing everything we need and a whole lot more.

I’m not arguing that it’s perfect. And it’s certainly NOT equal to what Legacy had become after a decade of refinement.

But what I find it to be is a kick ass solid general purpose video editing tool built to solve the most common editing issues I face in day to day use.

So what’s it “missing” from your perspective? I’d genuinely like to know.

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.

[Bret Williams]

As for FCP X vs. Legacy, yeah, legacy has more depth as far as integration with workflows and other tools, but it just doesn’t seem like a professional tool in todays world so what’s the point? I mean, it felt archaic 2-3 years ago. I’m using FCP X whenever my clients will allow it. I do a lot of corporate outsource work, so if they don’t need the project files (recurring shows and such) I do it in X. I guess CS6 is pretty capable, but lags behind 7 in some ways, ahead in the “use any format”, but then is a hassle when it comes to rendering output and finishing stage because it doens’t have it’s own codec. ProRes is still the codec in X. So in playing with both (Avid is out, been there, done that, bored) I’m using X when I can.

I feel X is more of a professional tool for a few reasons:

X has big boy scopes. Lots of them. But just one at a time 🙁
X can handle just about any format I use natively
X can actually use a still bigger than 4000pixels
X has a real title tool where you actually type right there on the screen & monitor
X has grown up color correction with primary/secondary and masks inner/outer. No mask tracking 🙁
X deinterlaces properly and at the raw media level – not a filter
X has pretty awesome audio filters that actually work
X has awesome sub frame audio trimming (down to the 100th of a frame I think)
X has compound clips that do what they should and work the way you expect
X actually ADDS interlacing and pulldown when appropriate and can mix rates seamlessly. Like a 24p in a 29.97i (interlaced pulldown) timeline. Or 60p in a 29.97i timeline
X actually has an Avid-like project management. In many ways better. Just no user mgmt. 🙁
X has the best logging and media browsing tools
X has the best multicam implementation with audio angle sync
X is 64bit, blah blah
X has grown up database features like the timeline index where I can in a few keystrokes, change the duration of every dissolve to the same length, or find and replace title text where I can search all the titles and replace a misspelled word across hundreds of titles if need be
X’s timeline. I’m not so keen on the horizontal magnetic stuff, but I LOVE the vertical magnetics. Stuff moving out of the way is such a ridiculously cool invention for the way I work. Not having to be so precise in the viewer with ins/outs and mapping tracks for 3 point editing takes the editing out of the bin and into the timeline. it’s fun to just scrub roughly in the event, and them just toss it in the timeline with Q key. You’re not going to overwrite anything. Toss it in there and edit in the timeline.

For such a simple looking app, it’s ridiculously deep. It may still be in it’s infancy, and it may never grow up fully, I don’t know. But the more I use it, the more I realize they truly did go back to the drawing board to try to figure some things out.

Just recently I was doing a common effect, where I take the speaker, slide him over to one side to reveal behind him a background with tons of graphics, layers, bullet points, etc. In 7, most likely he’d be on the bottom layer, so to achieve this, I’d have to cut a chunk of him, put it on the top layer, and build my stack of layers underneath him. Kinda messy and prone to error during reedits, color grading, etc. But in X, I was about to do the same thing, when I realized, just slide him aside, and put the stack of tracks underneath the primary. Other times I have stacks of layers of graphics that come out above/in front of him.

Once again, I was kinda surprised at how if I quit thinking like the old ways, I found this new “completely weird” editing software actually makes much more sense than the old methods.

CS6 and Avid are great and powerful and all, and are just continuing down the same path of adding more bloat here, a little more bloat there. It’s actually fun and refreshing to start anew.

Whether Apple takes it seriously and whether it works out, I really can’t say. But who cares. It’s not the end of the world. Premiere may quit support Apple again tomorrow, and Avid might be out of business. Who knows. If Adobe Premiere isn’t the hands down defacto standard editing software after all the years they’ve been at it, and with integration of tools that ARE the defacto standard like PS, AE, AI, then I’m not sure what they’re doing over there. Here Apple makes computers, phones, pads, software and they just spend probably a small resource to make X and after all the hatred, it is still a competitor and growing it’s user base and has a few fresh new ways of thinking. In reality, that’s a bit more impressive than Adobe putting all it’s resources toward software tools every day, all year, and they still aren’t really doing anything new or earth shattering or flat out owning the market. I mean, oh yay, after adding 2.5D 10 years ago in AE, they FINALLY added extrusions! Woo hoo! I was kinda thinking they would’ve added them about 9 years ago ya know?

But anyway….

[Bret Williams]

Welcome Bob. I’m in ATL too and X is making grounds for sure. I’m not sure why you’d be embarrassed to use it in the field. I’m happily editing stuff for the big corporates here. I know of one that is probably going to be installing X soon in their suites alongside 7. Be using it with their omneon(harmonic) mediagrid.

Before reading your post I just wrote an even lengthier one. I forgot I played with Smoke 13 too. But yeah, they’ve got a long way to go if they want the editorial or corporate market. And for what price? I still don’t think they get it. You filled in a lot of holes and reasons I forgot to mention. Nice post.

[Steve Connor]

[David Powell] “I’m really hoping that these problems are just gaps in my knowledge as there are some things I do like about the program, but if Avid ever got bg transcode, I don’t see what advantage this program would ever have other than the $300 entry price.”

It takes a while to get used to and there’s certainly a pain barrier to work through, but like any programme learning the shortcut keys will help.

Steve Connor
‘It’s just my opinion, with an occasional fact thrown in for good measure”

[David Powell]

Well I’ve went through all the edit hotkeys and none of these features that I listed exist. If they did, I’d sure like to know. Perhaps I’ll ask in the technique forum. I’m pretty savvy on how to search the hotkeys list (a function I love in FCP7 and X) and I don’t see an extend edit that corresponds to the playhead in real time, dynamic trimming, or a way to get to “roll” without having to use the mouse. It seems to function much like the smart tool in Avid though still needing more steps to complete tasks.

For instance by hovering a certain height with the mouse using Avid’s smart tool, one can choose weather to ripple or make a gap. In X I’d have to hit the P key then pull the clip back. Its seems like a small thing, but over the course of hours, all those extra moves add up. This was why trimming was/is so much better in Avid then Legacy. But many Legacy users are excited about features that other NLEs were already implementing before X and still do better.

[Steve Connor]

[Aindreas Gallagher] “they can sell it on some level sure – but they service no professional software market of any description.”

Of course it does, plenty of Professionals are using it, I’m not sure why you keep rolling this argument out, it’s simply not true.

Steve Connor
‘It’s just my opinion, with an occasional fact thrown in for good measure”

[David Lawrence]

[David Powell] “I don’t see an extend edit that corresponds to the playhead in real time, dynamic trimming, or a way to get to “roll” without having to use the mouse. It seems to function much like the smart tool in Avid though still needing more steps to complete tasks. “

If you like Avid’s dynamic keyboard trimming, make sure to check out Premiere Pro CS6. I think you’ll be impressed.

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl

[Dennis Radeke]

[Bret Williams] “Premiere may quit support Apple again tomorrow, “

Definitely not. Ain’t gonna happen. Count on Mac support.

As for the FCP X more pro list, I like it. Of course, what one person’s ‘pro’ is not anothers but it is a good list. I will point out that most of these FCP X vs. Legacy features are catch up to the rest of the industry. Then again some are new ideas on old themes (like multi-cam), so it’s all good.