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Is the name clouding our judgement?
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[Michael Aranyshev] “The timecode, reel, scene, take, white balance, ISO, F-stop and lens stored in the file is metadata. When software allows me to see and manipulate this metadata but doesn’t allow to pass the changes to other software the changes it made is not metadata anymore.”
Fine.
But when you have the ability to apply a tag like “Favorite” or Rejected” – or better yet, “Part of Series A” or “old product label” or “”needs color grade” at the clip level, that’s every bit as valuable as “metadata” as the reel number or ISO setting. Perhaps more so.
That’s the whole point. The nature of metadata has opened up. It’s no longer just what the camera manufacturer reports, it’s ANYTHING you want to attach to the clip. And extending that to areas such as audio tweaks, color grades, and titling info opens up HUGE new vistas in organization, clip access and workflow.
I know a company who works training dogs for all sorts of purposes including police work and guide dog stuff. They are gleeful about X since they can instantly search and pull up behavior characteristic examples “by breed” in seconds.
The clips are the clips. The metadata is what you make it.
That’s a HUGE change in thinking that only starts when you ask yourself “what can metadata do for me beyond what the camera manufacturer could see.”
Your very language choice above “this metadata” tells me you’re focused on metadata as what you’ve traditionally been supplied with by others upstream of your edit process.. I’m saying that built into X is a new orientation that encourages creating and sharing useful metadata in new ways by allowing the editor to easily make non-destructive decisions and judgements that append to your clips, then flow to others in a more customizable and useful form than was easy to do before.
That’s a huge, important change, IMO.
FWIW.
“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
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[Michael Aranyshev] “1. FCPX did not invent metadata
True
2. FCP handled real production metadata as well or better than FCPX”
Only if you artificially limit the definition of what “real production metadata” is or should be.
Some of us simply don’t want the concept to be so limited. Particularly since expanding it don’t take anything away from the limited traditional uses that you seem to be stuck on.
Metadata as a concept that yearns to be WAY more broad in scope and potential than camera IDs and Reel numbers.
And I feel it’s patently short-sighted to constrain it like that.
“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
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[Bill Davis] “But when you have the ability to apply a tag like “Favorite” or Rejected” – or better yet, “Part of Series A” or “old product label” or “”needs color grade” at the clip level, that’s every bit as valuable as “metadata” as the reel number or ISO setting. “
I have the ability to tag my footage in FCP 7. It’s has Comments, Labels and Markers etc. But that’s not the point. The point is unless tags I apply in the app are available outside of the app I use for applying them they are not really metadata, just “metadata”.
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“Real production metadata” is something that comes from the set embedded in the video or audio file, not in email or on the post-it note. The constrain is not the type of information but the medium it is carried on.
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[Neil Patience] “FCPX was marketed and sold as a total replacement for FCP7, there is no doubt this was Apple’s intention as they removed FCP7 from the shelves the day FCPX was released. No transition no crossover just total replacement.
“Uh…. want to show me a single piece of Apple marketing material that supports this?
It might be true. But your phrasing is based on argument and contention, not fact. The “removed FCP7 from the shelves might have been nothing more or less than the patent license on some lines of internal code that Apple chose not to renew and which was set to expire. There’s no way to know for sure. But just because you believe the above is gospel, doesn’t make it so.
[Neil Patience] “That presumption that somehow that would be OK with everyone at all levels led to a marketing and PR disaster that has seen more editors look in the direction of Avid, Adobe, PCs and any number of other bits of software and hardware.
So I would say Walters point is quite accurate.”
Walter is often quite accurate. But not always perfect any more than anyone else. And he’s usually first to admit when he’s engaging in speculation.
In truth, looking at the the universe of “people who edit video” – narrowing to “people who edit video for money” further narrowing to “people who edit with significant budgets” and further narrowing to “those who edit at the top tier of that sub-group” yep, Apple has pissed some of them off.
But that a pretty small sub-set of “editing” and Apple hasn’t even pissed off all of the people at the top.
Those guys at ABC Sports aren’t pissed off. And cutting “billions of dollars on the line” replays for hundreds of millions of eyeballs is as pro as it gets.
And while I’m just a busy corporate video producer, I’m fully convinced by my personal experiences editing paid work on deadlines over and over again over the past 90 days on X that it’s a great general purpose editing tool.
So I’m confident that it’s going to not just survive, but thrive over the coming years.
But don’t believe me.
Keep talking about what a terrible mistake it is. And by all means ignore it and bad mouth it whenever possible.
If you’re right, I’ll eventually “wake up” and see that I really shouldn’t have been able to do so much work, so quickly, and so profitably with it. But as long as I can. I’m gonna disagree with those who say it’s a poor tool.
That simply doesn’t jibe with what i’m experiencing day to day.
“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
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[Bill Davis] “Only if you artificially limit the definition of what “real production metadata” is or should be. “
This is not one of those “lets make up a definition” moments.
Production metadata means metadata created during production. It doesn’t mean anything you want it to mean so you can buttress your argument.
Something you add as a tag in an editing system, even if it’s quite valuable metadata that will stay with the clip till the end of eternity, is still not “production metadata.”
And given the fact that production MD is important, is used fairly uniformly throughout the industry, and is in every definition of the term metadata, it’s a shame and a weakness that FCPX can’t access it, especially because it is so robust in other ways with MD.
Exclamation point.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Bill Davis] “After a month, I understood the GUI perfectly. Just about what I went through with Legacy back in 1999. “
Took for you one month to understand the legacy GUI?
Took for me 5 minutes.[Bill Davis] “Send me any X sequence you like. I can parse it as fast as I can parse one from legacy. All it takes is understanding the conventions used. What the heck is the difference between opening someones’s sequences buried inside other sequences and opening a compound clip? Nothing, really.
What you’re arguing is the rough equivalent to saying its harder to express ideas in Itallian than it is in English. It’s only harder for someone who doesn’t speak Itallian.
All that matters, is that you learn to speak the language. “
Yes for you after 7 months using FCPX.
Give an FC sequence to an editor coming from AVID or PP and without previous experience in FC and won’t have any problem to understand it.Bill, you can talk and talk, write and write, but that won’t make of FCPX an intuitive application.
Period.
[Bill Davis] “The issue with the X-dismissers is often that they can’t see “editing” as anything other than the way “they” edit.But others with different challenges and needs DO see it very differently.
And we’re not wrong because of that.
You want to thrive in your editing climate. I want to thrive in mine.”
Is not about dismissing nothing but about not being able to do your work.
It seems that for you things can only be white or black: Who is not with FCPX is against FCPX.[Bill Davis] “The larger question is if “Hollywood” editing is more reflective of the overall climate that most people live in, or is my more “general and increasingly web oriented business editing” the more widespread climate?”
The “Hollywood way” probably affects to the 0.01% of the video editors in the world, if not less.
rafael -
Woah Bill where did all that come from ?
Considering I started by saying I totally agreed with you, and you clearly state that there are many levels and “sub groups” of editors, I would have thought that you got the fact that maybe “one size might not fit all” Therefore I find your reply a little odd and some may say a tad over defensive.
For a start:
[Bill Davis] “It might be true. But your phrasing is based on argument and contention, not fact. The “removed FCP7 from the shelves might have been nothing more or less than the patent license on some lines of internal code that Apple chose not to renew and which was set to expire. There’s no way to know for sure. But just because you believe the above is gospel, doesn’t make it so.”
Totally agree with you again – but the truth is you have no more idea that your statement above is any more or less “based on fact” than mine.
Surely its a given we are all speaking in terms of conjecture and speculation ?
Secondly:
[Bill Davis] ”
And while I’m just a busy corporate video producer, I’m fully convinced by my personal experiences editing paid work on deadlines over and over again over the past 90 days on X that it’s a great general purpose editing tool.”Great so FCPX works for corporate video production and you can make money from it – excellent you made the perfect choice for you.
I wish you continued success.However my opinion as a busy broadcast editor with over 20 years experience in post production counts equally to yours, no more no less, as we work in different environments, what works for you may not for me and vice versa.
Thirdly:
[Bill Davis] “Those guys at ABC Sports aren’t pissed off. And cutting “billions of dollars on the line” replays for hundreds of millions of eyeballs is as pro as it gets.”
Again totally agreed – however I regularly cut fast turnaround sports highlights that are transmitted daily to over 100 countries worldwide.
We cut features and highlights that support a studio show that is on air for 8 hours a day 7 days a week and additionally around 20 inserts for each of 3 live news items.
So I have a pretty good idea what it takes to create content under pressure of time and TX deadline.
This is totally done on Avid – different environment different solution. but equally as “pro as it gets”Fourthly:
[Bill Davis] “Keep talking about what a terrible mistake it is. And by all means ignore it and bad mouth it whenever possible.”
I did not say FCPX was a “terrible mistake” or “bad mouth it” – simply that the initial release had been badly handled and hence my agreement with Walters opinion. I was merely speculating that in my opinion his speculation was correct.
[Neil Patience] . . . that has seen more editors look in the direction of Avid, Adobe, PCs and any number of other bits of software and hardware.
To argue against the statement that some sections of the post community are looking elsewhere is surely a lost cause. There are many posts and articles here that confirm that.
[Bill Davis] ”
That simply doesn’t jibe with what i’m experiencing day to day.”Again your experience is not everyone else’s. I could be wrong but it seems your sentiment is “it works for me so my opinion is right”
And finally:
[Bill Davis] ”
“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”So your words are “true” are they Bill ? “respectful” of other peoples experiences ? “needed” and “civil” ?
I respect your experience and can see that for you FCPX is great – however from your reply I am questioning that you are totally practicing what you preach.
best wishes
Neil
http://www.patience.tv -
Bill, Metadata is a generic term.
Timecode is metadata, frame by frame metadata to be exact.
Fcpx has some incredible metadata functionality, but in other ways it’s limited.
P2 has really decent metadata functionality bullt right in to it, and fcpx can actually read a lot of it. The problem is that it goes in to a black box, meaning some of it you can use, others you can’t. So if a piece of preentered metadata is one of FCPX’s black boxes, I can’t search for it like I can other metadata in an event. The only place I can see it is in the inspector, which makes it not so useful.
Real production metadata is useful, very useful. There are people who actually take time before/during/after a shoot to enter said metadata and make sure it matches so it gets passed correctly through the post process.
Fcpx doesnt use all of it. I think it has to do with AVFoundation not being ready, but I am just speculating.
Something as simple as reel numbers don’t get imported in to fcpx without help, even if the reel number is embedded in to a QT movie. Pun intended, but this is a real problem for some people.
I agree with you that there’s some great features and that using the metadata across different event and projects is great, but that’s where the fun stops. There’s a limited amount of that data that can get shared outside of fcpx and few applications can even use that data once it is outside of X.
I do agree the foundation has been built, but let’s not make it to be more than what it is.
Right now it’s a really fast and extremely efficient renaming and description system. I welcome that, but it needs to be opened up even more. I’m sure it will get there, otherwise apple will have wasted a bunch do time for nothing as the sheer amount do metadata that it’s primed for is staggering.
Jeremy
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[Rafael Amador] “It seems that for you things can only be white or black: Who is not with FCPX is against FCPX.”
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
I see ample grey in FCP-X. Believe it or not, there are things I sometimes wish it would do that it doesn’t do yet. I probably praise it too much – but largely as a reaction to so much misplaced hate in the early days that obscured it’s real value. And far too many who can’t get “unstuck” from the positions they initially carved out and maybe they feel they have to defend – regardless of a growing realization that lots and lots of what was said about it initially – have turned out to be totally wrong.
It’s not a disaster. It’s not a lousy design. It’s not iMovie Pro, and it’s not the end of editing as we’ve known it. Period.
I don’t have a problem with anyone who comes here and looks at it objectively and have either praise, concerns, or even outright dislike for it – as long as they can express valid reasons for their thinking.
I do have problems with people who come, make blanket statements about how useless or terrible or ill-designed it is – since I use it every day and I know the truth to be nothing like that.
(I do find amusing the number of posts over the months where folks have said “but it doesn’t do (this) – only to find out that it actually does – that’s been fun to watch!)
End of story.
“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
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