For those of you still on the fence – check this out

[Bill Davis]

Interesting.

A list of features that may or may not make it into some potential future version of the software?

Makes me wonder if they recently hired the marketing team from RED. ; )

I have no quarrel with Adobe’s marketing team being super aggressive with stuff like this, but I’m also kinda surprised they don’t seem to feel that the current product is so strong that this kind of aggressive “pre-announcing” of distant potentials is needed.

In the end, people will cut on what they find comfortable.

The “big suite” team will split between Adobe and AVID. The Vegas people are loyal to a fault, so they won’t go anywhere. And FCP-X will get everyone who wants something different from what we’ve all had for the past 12 years.

It’ll be interesting to see how it all works out.

“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

[Dominic Deacon]

[Bill Davis] “A list of features that may or may not make it into some potential future version of the software?”

Vague isn’t it? That said I’d pay damn good money for that rub-a-dub feature right now. Is there anything similar available now?

[Jerry Alto]

[Bill Davis] I’m also kinda surprised they don’t seem to feel that the current product is so strong that this kind of aggressive “pre-announcing” of distant potentials is needed.

Bill- How did you feel about Apple’s intro of FCPX at NAB.

‘STAAAAAAAAAY TUUUUUNNNNNNEEEDDDDD!

Apple was trying to launch a new version of a product that totally disregards many the basic needs of their MOST LOYAL CUSTOMERS.

What a DISASTER!

Jerry

MacPro 2.93 Quad
FCP7
Sony Z-1
GV-HD700

[Dennis Radeke]

I have to agree with Bill on this one (and I am an Adobe employee) that going with Adobe on an unannounced feature doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. 😉

That said, I do think it underscores what Adobe is about and how we’re different: we WANT to COMMUNICATE with our users. This isn’t Adobe’s marketing team being super aggressive, this is Adobe being super open to inform you and allow you to make decisions that benefit you. (Get the emphasis on ‘you’?)

Bill – once we feel the product is so strong, we won’t make any new versions. 😉

As for RED, they were ‘marketing’ for Apple if you recall but we’ve worked with them in the same open fashion as we do with our customers and RED saw the superior RED workflow with us and have gotten behind it because it is good for their customers too.

Dominic – I’m with you, it is a very cool feature and I hope it makes it into a version soon but I don’t honestly know. Fingers crossed!

Dennis – Adobe guy

[Bill Davis]

Quoting:

Bill- How did you feel about Apple’s intro of FCPX at NAB.

‘STAAAAAAAAAY TUUUUUNNNNNNEEEDDDDD!

Apple was trying to launch a new version of a product that totally disregards many the basic needs of their MOST LOYAL CUSTOMERS.

What a DISASTER!

Jerry

MacPro 2.93 Quad
FCP7
Sony Z-1
GV-HD700

I understand your feelings. And I’m sympathetic that you feel it was a “disaster” for you.

For me it hasn’t been. It’s been an extremely interesting and largely exciting exploration of something new and different.

To my thinking, Apple, with FCP-X has introduced something very interesting to the timeline in a way that’s unique. Modularity. The “connected clip” essentially provides an alternate to the stacked track in that it collapses the track structure into discrete modules that have their own internal structure – and the “magnetic” nature of the timeline, allows you the option to keep those modules contiguous should that meet your needs. (You can obviously make them discontinuous via “gap clips” but that’s your option, not the fixed default choice.)

I find that fascinating. It’s expanded my thinking about what the structure of an editing display might be.

At the core, there’s plenty of room in the marketplace for both these approaches – and hopefully many more!

“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

[Bill Davis]

Dennis,

I also applaud “openness” as a general way of doing business. And I admire Adobe for clearly putting a premium on this kind of R&D effort. It will clearly move the high dollar “feature film” oriented end of the industry forward.

And for those who aspire to work in that space, a move to Adobe might be a very smart move.

I am cautious, however, that that’s going to be the bulk of the “day to day” editing done over the next few decades. A few hundred feature films make a whole lot of money, but for every one of them, there are likely tens of thousands of “everyday” business videos created to drive financial results. I suspect that FCP-X is targeting this larger, more diverse group of productions with X.

So good luck with the part of the industry that regularly does ADR and has the time to do 3D wireframe analysis of scenes – if I worked in that space, Premier might well be my next editing software. But I’m just a lowly “day to day” editor that works largely in corporate messaging. So different strokes.

BTW, since you’re inside Adobe, if anyone from marketing ever asks for consumer feedback, please let them know that I actually considered the “switch” back in the first weeks of the FCP-X launch – but after quite some time on the Adobe web site I got put off by the complexity of the “bundling” options. The stand alones seemed high priced compared to the bundles but the array of bundles seemed way too complex for me to make an easy decision as to what would best fit my needs. (I couldn’t rapidly figure out which one represented the most “I need that” combined with the fewest “I don’t need that” options and it made me spend a lot of time trying to figure out the nature of the products I was unfamiliar with so that I could even TELL if I wanted it or not. . I absolutely respect the business need to drive incremental sales – but as that moved toward customer confusion, it became a barrier – and the decision “window” closed for me.

For what it’s worth.

“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

[Darren Kelly]

I guess what I was trying to say is, Adobe has held similar SNEAKPEAKS in the past, and the stuff usually ends up in their software.

Apple is still trying to make a product that functions, while Adobe is adding features that Apple can only dream about.

DBK

[Dennis Radeke]

Hey Bill,

Thanks for the response – I appreciate it!

At the basic level, we believe that building the right tool has broad appeal and that focusing on a mix of everyday and high-end features is the right approach for us. Up until recently, you would have said the everyday editor was a Premiere Pro editor as that has been our core for many years. We want to continue to serve them even as we focus on making the tool more acceptable in the high-end. A good feature isn’t necessarily a high-end feature – it’s one that everyone uses. That defines our direction.

Regarding the switcher campaign. Totally accept your input as valid. Our focus is trying to include a right value for lots of different customers. Again it’s customer centric. Old Adobe customers, new ones, competitive switchers, etc. As a result, we do have a lot of options and if that’s a turnoff, I can’t fault you.

Cheers,
Dennis

[Nick Toth]

[Bill Davis] “And FCP-X will get everyone who wants something different from what we’ve all had for the past 12 years.”

It hit my mid-life crisis perfectly…

NT

[Bill Davis]

Darren,

Sorry, but you are absolutely incorrect with your assertion that FCP-X represents something that “Apple is still trying to make function.”

It’s a perfectly well-functioning editing platform right now.

I’ve delivered two projects out of it in the past 72 hours. One “sizzle video” for a national corporate conference – and a donor education initiative for a SoCal regional blood bank.

I’ve found it agile, creative, useful, and while not flawless, it’s code is amazingly “self correcting” in that while I crashed it a few times it consistently re-opened rapidly and near flawlessly without a single dropped edit decision. (In fairness, I say “near flawlessly, because occasionally I’d find an odd type treatment re-set to a default style, but nothing that took more than a minute to correct)

It clearly is not the perfect tool for every editor. But to imply that it doesn’t function shows that you’re either reading about it too much and using it too little, or there’s something wrong with your configuration or machine capabilities.

Period.

“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