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Is FCPX really worth it?
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I read somewhere how Apple is unique in its ways that they are actually happy when an older product of them gets cannibalized by a new one. Like how the iPad is cannibalizing the Mac, and the iPhone cannibalizing the iPod. Just as Steve told in his Stanford speech, that “death is the greatest invention of life. For it eliminates the old, to make way for the new. ”
I think the mental process going on with FCPX is to be as future proof as possible. To leave old standards or languages or workflow behind and completely design a new NLE from the ground up prioritizing the new and emerging technologies that will come. To reel in the ever increasing users of all digital workflow and independent production.
They choose to have this market and in a way, they are also leaving all the people who are so held up in their old ways and are not anymore capable of learning anything new behind. THEY ARE SACRIFICING THE OLD, TO MAKE WAY FOR THE NEW. They’re giving that small group up to Adobe, Avid..cause they know eventually when those people die and their younger new gen execs take their place, they will switch back to the future prooof NLE that is FCPX anyway. And dont even think it will require a whole new hardware overhaul cause it wont. FCPX is designed to be as processor efficient as possible so that even laptops can run it well.
Quobetah
New=Better -
The drama is in the EOL. Without it, most editors would have been curious and look forward to the day that FCX would catch up with FCP.
I think there was no need for drama. Can’t companies like Apple afford to develop two editing applications simultaneously?
Look at Autodesk keeping three 3D packages alive that do the same thing (3D Studio Max, Maya, Softimage), slowly merging three customer groups. Apple could have done the same. -
I think if you have to ask the question, its probably not worth it. We’re not using it here at our facility anyway, FCPX does not do what we need so we wont be investing.
Same for ITV ( large UK broadcast channel ) , same for Turner television. Same story amongst our Engineers, bosses and purchasers coming back from NAB . They’re totally uninterested in it, it’s not disdain or fear.
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[Bill Davis] “Were you even at the Supermeet? You couldn’t have been – unless you had some kind of terrible cold that made you functionally blind and deaf.”
I was there too, I was sitting close to the front on stage right. Yes people were cheering and gasping, but i wasn’t and neither were some of the more seasoned people around me. We understand Marketing hype (Heck we are responsible for Making most of it right), from everything I notice the majority of the cheers gasps and other were from the FCPX Target Market. What I will affectionately call the DSLR market, Those that are trying to start out in the business. But from the majority of the longtime editors as soon as it was done we all starting saying well what about Multicam, What about exports, what about this, what about that, ultimately everything that we currently say we can’t live without.
So yes the NAB meet worked and didn’t work at the same time. it work to get those apple sees at the target Market hyped up, but those of us who go to NAB not to be WOWED but to actually do work and research I think it utterly ended up back firing. before the Meet I kinda was hoping the presentation would be more Akin to a Large scale “Whisper room” that we see all over NAB, but in the end it was just another Apple Marketing gimmick.
So for me the Drama it created was definitely not worth it. I the college environment i have to have budget plans 1 to 2 years out. this whole FCPX has become a major headache because i am now forced to try and figure out what will be the best for our students all while trying to be a fortune teller.
Mike Jeffs
Video Coordinator
BYU-Idaho -
Cool, Thank Shane.
Neil Goodman: Editor of New Media Production – NBC/Universal
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Finally getting around to reading today’s posts. This was a very good question David, even if it’s a bit loaded.
[David Roth Weiss] “Is the magnetic timeline really worth the “crisis” that Apple created?”
Not at all. It’s certainly an interesting idea. If you’re trying to take the process of non-linear editing back to the drawing board, I can see the appeal of this, but in the end, if it doesn’t make it easier to get the desired result, what good is it except as an intellectual exercise? I can make my visual edits fairly quickly and easily in X, but I’m taking much longer to finesse the audio, which is ironic because Apple doesn’t want me to farm that out to protools, but do it all in the app. So why isn’t it easier?
[David Roth Weiss] “Is FCPX really important enough to justify Apple’s decision to essentially throw away everything that came before it?”
Apple is certainly a master in the game-changing business. Time after time, they make big bold moves, and they’ve changee the world as we know it. Final Cut Pro was certainly one of those things. It changed the face of editing, making it affordable and functional.
Final Cut X is not even close. It’s like they re-invented the car with an innovative new engine and classy styling, but they didn’t know when to stop re-tooling things, and they put the controls in different places so nobody could drive the thing without a great deal of difficulty.
Apple has certainly had mis-steps, but has it ever had quite the same liability for their user base? Apple deserves all the hate aimed their way.
[David Roth Weiss] “And, will the tangible benefits of X really prove valuable enough over time to justify forcing hundreds of thousands of editors to retrain and possibly retool?”
Not at all. I’m intrigued by the new interface and I’ve tried hard to make it work. You’ve all read my posts. I can’t understand why they took all of these great, innovative tools, and basically cut the balls out of the thing by putting it in this awkward interface. I figure they will find ways to make it better, but only by creating more tools that would never be necessary if they never went with the magnetic timeline.
Best case scenario… Apple will give us back our ability to use a professional monitor and multi-clips. We will be given back our ability to round-trip for audio and color correcting. Someone will figure out how to use xml to go back and forth between 7 and X. One by one, Apple will address every little missing thing.
Finally, some genius will figure out how to get their new parent/child timeline paradigm to look and act like the good old track based editing that still works so much better for us, so that we will be able to make it work either way.
Everyone keeps talking about what a small share of their business are the pros like us. I’ll tell you that they can sell all of the ipods and ipads they want, but there’s value in having such a high-end user base that uses their tools. I consider the $2k plus that I paid for my MBP to be an investment in an awesomeness that gives me some of the same creative power as the people that inspire me. I’m editing on the same program that Walter Murch used to edit Cold Mountain (or did). Even Final Cut Express users knew that what they’ve learned to do on their stripped-down application would translate should they ever decide to upgrade to the pro app.
That’s all gone, and I’m sad because of what FCP8 could have been.
I’ll continue to use X, but I’ll mutter dozens of little curses while I do it, wondering when they’ll finally fix this or that. Eventually I’ll make the jump and start trying to use Premiere, which I got for a very good price… thank you Apple. I’d still rather have FCP8.
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FCX. She tempts me, abuses me, beats me up, makes me feel worthless, then in the end she comes around, helps me get my work done, gives me hope and I can’t stop thinking about her.Mark Morache
Avid/Xpri/FCP7/FCX
Evening Magazine,Seattle, WA
https://fcpx.wordpress.com -
[Mark Morache] “Everyone keeps talking about what a small share of their business are the pros like us. I’ll tell you that they can sell all of the ipods and ipads they want, but there’s value in having such a high-end user base that uses their tools.”
Absolutely. A friend of mine (who has little experience in editing)is getting into short docs shot on her Nikon D7000. When I suggested using FCPX (which I felt would be perfect for what she was doing), she vehemently opposed the idea. All the negative reaction from pro editors had tainted her view. Even though she wouldn’t know EDL or OMF from a a hole in the wall, she was determined to use what “the pros use” and as far as she was concerned FCPX wasn’t it.
And I couldn’t convince her otherwise, even though I thought FCPX was perfect for what she was doing, DSLR documentaries loaded to the web. I guess all of us, no matter our film-making level, dream of playing with the big boys…and that is where Pro Editors are so important to the Final Cut brand.
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The idea that there was “immediate strong negative reaction” to the FCPX launch from the people in the room is revisionist history — THAT’s revisionist history.
The thread that launched this forum came DURING the presentation, moment by moment (“now they’re letting us in, now the Apple logo is on the screen, Walter Biscardi just walked by,” etc.). There was unquestionably positive reaction, but quite a bit that was not. Here are some sample quotes:
- I maybe speaking too soon but if this is all there is to FCP X then i am extremely disappointed.
- Looks like the new iMovie to me. I have been editing for almost 15 years, I can edit with Final Cut Pro as it is fine, like a DEMON. It needs finishing tools, not a bunch of iMovie like sh*t. The new stuff in Final Cut is silly foo foo stuff for ProSumers.
- Color? That’s for professionals mate, has nothing to do with Final cut (any more) 🙂 Why’d you need Color, when it’s Color Corrected (or Balanced) on ingestion 🙂
- I’m calling LAME DUCK. Sounds like a ProSumer Gimmick So far.
- This one is going to be a tough one for apple to pull off from here on.
- Hmmmm…. I am sure senior members will chime in soon but for me, apple has not been very convincing.
- For people upgrading for iMOVIE, this is jaw-dropping. For people having to DOWNGRADE from Final Cut Studio, this is a Nightmare. Steve Jobbs can suck it. At least it might bring the industry back up to a better wage since Apple isn’t going to mess with the Pro Market anymore.
- I can do without everything I have seen so far.
- Anything Automatic sounds like a nightmare!!! Hopefully it will be able to be disabled.
- they are DEEED. So glad we invested in AVID last year. So Glad..
- Holy crap!!! Premiere/After Effects here I come
- [Dropping Color, STP, etc] would be just consistent with their recent moves. Shake dropped, DVD Studio Pro on deathbed for years. We can’t say we couldn’t see it coming….
That was from the very first thread, driven by people in the room.
I spoke to people that night and the next morning who had been part of Apple’s previews in February who were HORRIFIED by what they saw…but reserved judgement until they saw the shipping product…and were even MORE horrified.
The explosion didn’t happen until people started using it. But the fuse was lit for some people as early as February. This is all easy enough to find online from some of those folks.
Not that the largest response to the original presentation wasn’t positive. It was, no question. But the facts are that many people in that room weren’t convinced.
The fact is also that many of the people cheering in that room stopped cheering when they saw the product.
You can look it up.
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[Clint Wardlow] “And I couldn’t convince her otherwise, even though I thought FCPX was perfect for what she was doing, DSLR documentaries loaded to the web. I guess all of us, no matter our film-making level, dream of playing with the big boys…and that is where Pro Editors are so important to the Final Cut brand.”
This isn’t an entirely unrealistic reaction. I frequently work on projects started by non-editors. Having FCP on both ends made it easy to take their project and continue the edit. In her situation, starting with FCP X would make it much more difficult to hand it off to a professional editor down the line if she wanted or needed to do that.
Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Clint Wardlow] “A friend of mine (who has little experience in editing)is getting into short docs shot on her Nikon D7000. When I suggested using FCPX (which I felt would be perfect for what she was doing), she vehemently opposed the idea. All the negative reaction from pro editors had tainted her view. Even though she wouldn’t know EDL or OMF from a a hole in the wall, she was determined to use what “the pros use” and as far as she was concerned FCPX wasn’t it.”
I am not undermining the talents of your friend and I’m totally just throwing this out there, but there’s a dichotomy here.
Are “the Pros” using DSLRs to make movies? Yes, they have been used in movies and TV, but don’t you think there’s a similarity here? From a production standpoint, DSLRs are completely hobbled, and to make them not so hobbled, you have to bolt on a bunch of third party do dads to make them work sort of like a digital video or film camera, and even then they are still not really up to par. Yet, they are all the rage and obviously good enough for some. Don’t get me wrong, we use them as we have to. They are in demand. Also, we don’t make movies.
Also, nary 30 days after the release of a brand new “interchange language” there’s already applications that can translate to XML The Elder including this one released yesterday:
https://assistedediting.intelligentassistance.com/ProjectXto7/
Is it really about the tools, or is it just perceived attitudes about those tools?
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