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Final Cut Pro in Ads – Everything Changed
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[Christian Schumacher] “Notice also, that Apple is heavily investing in its own processor A5.
Isn’t that what is gonna be inside the Macbook Air? “Can you have Thunderbolt without an intel processor?
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[Andrew Richards] “The data model is significantly different, iMovie vs FCPX. Conceptually, FCPX has several significantly more complex structures like clips connections, compound clips, subframe editing, secondary story lines, and auditions.”
I’d wager the FCPX data model is a superset of the iMovie data model.
FCPX’s new parent/child data model is exposed in FCPXML. Since FCPX can import iMovie projects, but not traditional FCP projects or EDLs, I assume that iMovie also uses this parent/child paradigm.
Implementing the parent/child model gives you the magnetic timeline “for free” — you don’t need to write any special logic to ensure that clips keep their proper relationships because those relationships are actually the structure of the timeline itself.
That’s the part that I’m arguing is probably common — the actual underpinning of the timeline itself (both the basic data model and the code that implements the user’s ability to interact with it).
Of course I’d agree that FCPX builds on what’s available in iMovie, but they seem to share a common foundation, and I wouldn’t assume they were designed and implemented independently.
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 -
Craig,
Thanks for this. Good info.
Franz.
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[Aindreas Gallagher] “Is that the only bit? What about the my little pony yellow selection boxes, the skimmable clip lozenges, the very actual identical buttons for going into iPhoto and iTunes, because that’s where we keep royalty free music and the Getty images.. Amirite??”
Sharing UI art is not in away indicative of shared code underneath. If you are arguing the UI brushstrokes came from the same hand, I don’t disagree. If you think that means all of what’s happening underneath is the same, you are simply wrong.
[Aindreas Gallagher] “Then there’s the crop tool, the ken burns effect.. Everything up there, the actual operation of audio handling and visualisation of audio and peaking – All these things aren’t like iMovie – they are identical to iMovie “
UI look and feel, even what the buttons do, is not the same as how it is being done. The APIs that FCPX is necessarily using to be 64-bit require new code under that similar UI skin.
[Aindreas Gallagher] “This thing is made out of iMovie spare parts with a bunch of buggy new stuff soldered on.”
That metaphor doesn’t even work. Software development is not Scrapheap Challenge.
[Aindreas Gallagher] “Its essential goal is to appeal to, and monetise, the consumer video enthusiast base.”
Is it? I agree Apple has a consistent iApp/App Pro marketing tiering, but if all they wanted to do was take more money from iMovie users, they’d be better off selling them theme packs. Much higher margins there.
Best,
Andy -
[Walter Soyka] “FCPX’s new parent/child data model is exposed in FCPXML. Since FCPX can import iMovie projects, but not traditional FCP projects or EDLs, I assume that iMovie also uses this parent/child paradigm.”
I don’t. I assume it can import iMovie and not legacy FCP is because iMovie uses such a flat and simple timeline. Easy to translate. Final Cut Express could import it too. The vast array of structures they’d have to translate to deal with tracks, nested sequences, etc, make importing legacy FCP projects a very different story.
[Walter Soyka] “Of course I’d agree that FCPX builds on what’s available in iMovie, but they seem to share a common foundation, and I wouldn’t assume they were designed and implemented independently.”
Even if FCPX is iMovie evolved, calling the completely new APIs and implementing a vastly more complex data structure must be all new code. Even if you are right, that isn’t much of a shortcut to FCPX. Think invertebrates to mammals, not chimps to humans.
I would be much more willing to entertain the idea that FCPX is going to donate a lot of code to some future 64-bit iMovie than the idea that current iMovie donated very much at all in the way of code to FCPX.
Best,
Andy -
[Jeremy Garchow] “there’s still a market for bigger/fast computers, even outside the video business. Although, it’s constantly shrinking.
“Oh, I agree with that completely. I just sometimes wonder if the new Apple does. I don’t know if you remember the thin client vs desktop arguments of the ’90s with companies like Oracle championing thin Client and companies like Microsoft and Apple championing Desktop. A lot of us felt that thin client was a bit 1984-like, with Big Brother dolling you out bits of software from a centralized mainframe. Now granted, purchasing apps is not renting software by the minute, which I take as an improvement over the old Oracle model, but iCloud gives me pause.
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[Andrew Richards] “The vast array of structures they’d have to translate to deal with tracks, nested sequences, etc, make importing legacy FCP projects a very different story.
“Isn’t an EDL an even simpilar timeline?
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[Chris Harlan] “Isn’t an EDL an even simpilar timeline?”
It’s very restrictive in it’s simplicity. 🙂
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[Andrew Richards] “I don’t. I assume it can import iMovie and not legacy FCP is because iMovie uses such a flat and simple timeline. Easy to translate. Final Cut Express could import it too.”
True, but remember that the iMovie timeline is magnetic, pointing back to the parent/child paradigm. It’s trivial to go from Apple’s relative timeline to a traditional absolute timeline, but decidedly non-trivial to go the other way.
[Andrew Richards] “Even if FCPX is iMovie evolved, calling the completely new APIs and implementing a vastly more complex data structure must be all new code. Even if you are right, that isn’t much of a shortcut to FCPX. Think invertebrates to mammals, not chimps to humans.”
Absolutely agreed. iMovie to FCPX would be a big leap, and I’m not convinced that’s what happened.
Let me clarify — I don’t think that Apple’s modern NLE development started with iMovie and then rolled into FCPX.
I am suggesting that Apple put a lot of shared effort into the structure and user-facing components that underpins both applications. I think they were being developed simultaneously from a common base.
In other words, Apple has one idea for how an NLE should work. That same idea — and many of the same tools — is expressed very simply in iMovie, and more richly in 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 -
[Chris Harlan] “Isn’t an EDL an even simpilar timeline?”
Yeah, but EDL isn’t a singular format. There is variation in how they can be formatted, so supporting import is made difficult by the unpredictable formatting. If it were easy, someone would have put out an EDL to FCPXML translator by now. Either it is harder than it looks, or has too limited a market, or both.
Best,
Andy
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