FCPX or Not…

[Richard Herd]

[Andy Field] “the rest of us have work to accomplish with tools that do what we need.”

I’d add one more to your list: …with tools that do what we need “and that we know how to use.” That’s a major problem, having to relearn what you already know how to do. The precision editor does a fine job of matching eyelines, btw.

https://help.apple.com/finalcutpro/mac/10.0.3/#ver3363b235 granted apple’s thumbnail sample image is silly. It should be either matching singles or CU to MS.

But wait, there’s more silliness: they might not use the word “tracks,” and they are all big on this being a “trackless” system, but (shhh don’t tell anyone) they actually use tracks. Right click the audio: Make it the primary and wallah it behaves like a track, but you just can’t call it a track. Jim had a clever way to work that I’ve incorporated: you connect the audio to a piece of slug (dang!) I mean “gap clip.” And the audio track (dang!) I mean “primary audio only media” is a non-moveable tra–. There I caught myself. It’s…it’s…it’s… I’m at a loss for nomenclature, here.

The only update I’m waiting for is to color code “roles.” In other words, I want all my dialogue to be Blue and my score to be Red. All is currently green.

[Sandy Shapiro]

of course i have seen the cost. and compared to fcp studio, it’s “little” in terms of cost too. the point is moral rather than financial. they sell a product by advertising that you can upgrade, then they pull the plug on the upgrade.

ive spent 5 figures on their products. avid and premiere offer discounts to editors to bring them to their team. why wouldnt apple do the same to their current (or now past) client base?

[Richard Herd]

[sandy shapiro] “Why? Why introduce FCPX and discontinue a perfectly working wheel – FCP7? The latter was starting to dominate the field!”

Unfortunately, we just don’t know. I assume the answer is FCP had a lot of license agreements from software acquisitions, by Apple. Apple bought the underlying code of FCP from macromedia, for example.

You’re completely entitled to your feelings. Please Note: Avid had serious problems a few years ago. It was part of the reason FCP won a lot of market share, well, that and the mac pro. At the time I recall a bunch of arguments over media management and organization.

IMO, Premiere is less of a pro app than X, but I haven’t used 6.

I’ll say it again: the actual cutting of pic in X is pretty sweet, and also organizing footage is much better with keywords. I think its a misnomer to call it “metadata” unless that data follows the export (dang!) I mean “share.” For example, I label scene, shot, take as keywords. That is, “Scene 1” then “WS” then “take 1.” As I select keywords to reveal the corresponding footage, wallah! it’s all nice and neat!

Use whatever makes you happy, obviously. I hope you have a million happy clients!

[Richard Herd]

5 figures, ouch! I imagine that causes a lot of angst for many people. I imagine it is the root of all acerbic hyperbole regarding X. Also note that expenditure depreciates for 5 years (last I checked). From the point of view of purchasing software and hardware, you ought not feel like you need to buy anything until the depreciation runs its course.

If that’s today, Avid on a PC is tough to ignore, from purely ROCE point of view.

If that’s, 2016, you get to sit back and watch this crazy show.

[Sandy Shapiro]

Thanks for the thoughts and insight, Richard. And of course, I wish you many happy returning clients as well.

[Richard Herd]

[sandy shapiro] ” and like to hear its selling”

That was funny! Apparently apple is buying back some stock too. https://money.cnn.com/2012/03/19/technology/apple-dividend/index.htm

[Shawn Miller]

“[Richard Herd] IMO, Premiere is less of a pro app than X, but I haven’t used 6. ”

Just curious, Richard. Why do you say this?

[Bill Davis]

[Andy Field] “Listen to your users…and you’ll see the folks in broadcast and film back on board

Andy Field
FieldVision Productions
N. Bethesda, Maryland 20852
“

And in doing so they may damage the potential of FCP-X irreparably.

Too many people are still hollering for it to be more and more like the editing systems we’ve had for decades.

I don’t.

I want it to develop into something better.

The fundamental reality of X is that they took a one trick pony – a video editing application – and cleaned it up, cleared out the cobweb code, and bolted it to a sweet little search engine.

Last time I looked, the elevation of “search” into brain dominance all over the world has been the single most transformative occurrence in society in a generation.

Search is what makes the modern internet actually functional on a day to day basis. Not for “computer professionals” who could always manipulate the bits they needed, but for every day people.

I completely understand why all the professional editors here are so inflexibly stuck in obsessing on the fact that it doesn’t “edit” the way other software does.

But editing is only one part of the game in the new connected world saturated with a zillion videos produced every second.

FCP-X elevates “edit” more towards parity with concepts such as search, sort, find, alter and deploy.

THAT is what is going to be transformative in the long run.

Largely because it’s how my life operates every day today. And yours too.

I need to discover? I search. I need to target? I sort. I need to deliver? I deploy.

X does all of this inside the same tool that lets me cut, rearrange and perfect.

If it’s just 50% as good an editing software (and I suspect it’s going to be 90% some day!) but becomes 80% better at the search and soft and manage stuff – it’s going to rock the wider video world.

Because search is increasingly what powers modern communications today for all of us.

That’s what I see.

If I’m wrong nothing much will change in editing in the next decade.

If I’m right – pretty much everything will. Whether we all like it or not.

Time will tell.

“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

[Jim Giberti]

[Bill Davis] “Search is what makes the modern internet actually functional on a day to day basis. Not for “computer professionals” who could always manipulate the bits they needed, but for every day people.

I completely understand why all the professional editors here are so inflexibly stuck in obsessing on the fact that it doesn’t “edit” the way other software does.
“

Which is why they’ve got half of a professional program Bill.

I’m not inflexibly stuck.
I’m very flexible, which is why I dove into FCPX and why, after doing a lot of work in it for half a year, I like half of FCPX.

The half they left out is the ability for professionals to use the proven, world class, talents and techniques that they’ve honed for decades, within their new X paradigm.

If Apple doesn’t respect those invaluable skills learned over, probably, millions of hours of their users professional careers, then they’re just arrogant wonks.

And if they are arrogant enough to think that our professional skills aren’t worth supporting, then we should support Adobe so that we have a strong, software-only company that’s builds programs based on their users needs.

It’s called a professional relationship and Apple seems to think that that’s a top down arrangement.

[Sandy Shapiro]

Apple is a multi-billion dollar company, this might also might be the problem. They don’t feel the need to keep the small professional market. Who knows, they might start building cars next and abandon FCPX.

When X was released I was excited. I like a challenge if the end results bring me from point A to B in a faster and stronger manner. Thinking in new ways is what makes us better editors. NLE was a big leap from the Steenbeck. I do understand we have to evolve. However, X simply falls short. If Apple released a new prince and discontinued their old king, don’t you feel the prince should be worthy of the thrown? That’s another reason I’m miffed. They threw away alot of our high-end tools and just focused on the flash. If they offered a bridge and incentive for FCP Studio owners, that to me would mean they’re thinking about our needs, business and market base. A multi-billion dollar company can’t do that? They simply don’t care…at this point.

The rumors of the macpro tower’s demise is another story. Have you ever tried cutting Alexa Pro Res 444 on a new Imac packed with Ram? Doesn’t work so well. I have been looking at PCs. I can’t believe I would ever say that…