General question: Apple’s approach to FCP/Final Cut Studio

[Matt Devino]

I don’t think anyone would complain about Final Cut Studio eventually becomming one program. I would love it if it was as simple as having each program in a tab at the top of your screen, and when you click on, say the Motion tab, the app switches quickly to the Motion environment with your full sequence still intact in the timeline.

I definitly feel your pain about the round about nature of the Studio, after having spent some time on an Avid DS Nitris. Although I think I can pretty much do all of the same things the DS can with a beefed up system with a copy of Studio 2 and Shake for 1/4 of the price. I think Apple will eventually get there, but they will always market to the largest common denominator, unlike Avid who has always marketed from the top down.

Of course this is probably why Apple will continue to gain strength as the next generation of editors use Final Cut because it is much easier to get your hands on than an Avid with the same capabilites. I think you can see evidence of this already with Apple’s continual growth, and Avid’s laying off of employees and moving more into broadcast recently. Plus, what does Avid have left to offer the Feature Film market? There are 5 year old Avid systems that are still in use in cutting rooms because they have everything a feature editor could need. But I digress, and don’t get me wrong I’m not an Avid hater, I use it all the time. I’m just stating an observation.

[Rafael Amador]

Alan,
I don’t see much point to compare a 1.200 U$ with a 20.000 U$ application. I like the approach of Apple: Good affordable tools for everybody.
I don’t understand why, living in Europe, I have to pay the Autodesk software almost a100% more expensive than living in some other countries. I can not even up-date the Combustion 3 that I boutht 3 years ago while I was working in the USA. A bit of the same its happens with Adobe.
Rafael

[Paul Dickin]

Hi
The multi-program rot started in the early 1990’s when Adobe chose to buy COSA After Effects from Aldus rather than fix Premiere 3’s miniscule Motion window.
Presumably since the moment they decided to discontinue Premiere for the rewritten Premiere Pro Adobe has been concentrating on a damage-limitation excercise to better integrate their associated programs. So they maybe got a head start over Apple in this matter.

Avid got a head start too, with their underlying media asset database thinking.
They are continuing to think in a future-proofed way:
“…outgoing CEO David Krall said they were focusing on

[Chuck Spaulding]

There are many problems with integrating applications together to form a suite of tools [especially for Apple who didn’t create any of them].

One serious problem that the FCS2 suite does not address is the latency associated with such a serial workflow.

For the most part Adobe workflow provides them the ability to share data at the file level, memory level, image processing level and interface level. They actually move the application to the data rather than the data to the application.

If your working on an element in Photoshop and then want to composite it in AE the data is cached into memory and AE simply continues on from there. The only change is at the interface level. This greatly reduces latency and provides consistency between interfaces.

Some of this is evident in Motion3, which is a more open and extensible application whereas FCP is closed. When you search for assets in Motion you are searching at the finder level in FCP everything is at the project level internal to FCP itself. To gain access to assets in a FCP project you need to export the information [XML], in a sense that’s what your doing when you “round trip.” Not very efficient and this is something that has to be developed from its inception which is what Adobe did. They didn’t simply re-write Premiere, they completely redesigned their entire image processing layer that all of their applications use.

I think fundamentally that’s the difference between a software development company like Adobe and a hardware company like Apple. Apple will continue to purchase new applications in order to sell hardware but never reach the level of integration between applications that Adobe or Discreet will.

[Paul Dickin]

Hi
Thanks for that thought-provoking post.
I hope Apple sees it as the ‘reality chuck’ it is 🙂

Reading between the lines it seems some in the Filemaker Pro development community are taking hope that OS X 10.5 Leopard will finally allow multi-user (concurrent) sharing of datasets.

If that is so then that may open the way for Apple to develop other Pro Apps that can share their data without (or with less) latency…

[Tiborius]

I have recently started work on FCP, coming from Avid.
There are lots of things I love about FCP, but then there are basics that are poor (color grading is a joke, why is the sync-lock always on?, insert and overwrite edit jumps controls to the timeline away from your clip, difficult filter and motion tabs).

Apple obviously is working on these issues, and I was delighted when they came out with ‘color’ just as I start to train on FCS.

But after a wee play I was disappointed that ‘color’ is not integrated into FCP.

Personally I don’t mind ‘motion’ not being inside FCP, and ‘live type’ works O.K as an external app (although it would be better as a tab of FCP),
but color grading is something that needs to be done inside your suite.
It is only done in an external suite in a very expensive workflow (TVCs or Film), and then it would be done in an expensive suite, not a pro-sumer edit system.

I really like being able to color grade as i go, fixing shots for the offline edit, so the approvals process goes more smoothly.
If I use the ’round trip’ approach I have to trash all my early test grades in FCP (which are impossible to find as they get lost between other ‘filters’ you apply, don’t get me started about hidden filters!), I don’t get to color grade graphics, and to add further insult, it can’t do anamorphic!

As smart as it is, and revolutionary in many aspects, it still feels like I have paid to beta test an unfinished bit of kit; note how anamorphic images stretch when capturing, and trimming, and in color e.t.c.

I will continue to use Final Cut, but will also keep working with Avids for certain jobs that require it.
The best option is sadly to constantly mail, and talk on Apples forums about fixes and ‘enhancements’ to get Final Cut up to spec in a few years time to really be an unbeatable kit.

I do like it, and enjoy the fresh ideas and techniques used in FCP, but it is a pro-sumer kit price-wise and in it’s workings.

[Jesus Hermida jiménez]

alguien puede ayudarme a resolver un problema?
hay montado un proyecto en premiere que hay que terminarlo en final cut pero la EDLs que me envían no la puedo abrir en mi final cut. alguna pista?

gracias