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It’s business… not personal
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John, would be interested in hearing why FCPX paid for itself today. If you mean that you didn’t need to transcode, sheesh, those of us using other NLE’s along with FCP have had that luxury for months now. If there’s something more interesting than that in your post, please enlighten us.
With what little I’ve read so far, mainly Gary Adcocks’ very partial first part of a review, it’s clear that I’m going to stay put for now, and let Apple prove that it’s really going to bring out a viable option to what I already have. Some of the workflow changes are very nice, but to give up what I’ve already built for those would mean that I would have to seriously consider Adobe instead.
This board trashed me a while ago, along with others, for even questioning whether Apple was rolling out the right information at the WWDC. Now, Gary’s post clearly states that we were right in asking those questions. He states that FCP 3rd party devs were shunned at WWDC. From the lack of reports, I assumed as much.
I don’t want to be an apologist for Apple, nor do I want to be a blind fanboy. I am a video producer and an editor, FCP is a tool, and though while not at the level of a Gary or other top flight pro, I have considerable investment in Apple, given my business volume and today’s release did nothing to make me want to further that investment. I am willing and waiting to be convinced otherwise. In the meantime, I am not investing one more dime in Apple technology.
Alf
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You’re being far too reasonable John.
Are you sure you don’t want to threaten an immediate move to another platform, accuse Apple of false advertising, or was it a soccer mom video you did?Seriously, it’s so nice to see sane comments. It’s 300 bucks. It uses all your processors and all your RAM, it just emerged and it’s from a company that’s gat a fairly established track record.
If they were going to drop the program they would have dropped it.
If they want to capture the amateur market, they’ve got iMovie.
They have social media output because it’s kind of a big thing in the world now.
They’ve simplified taks because we have the technology to do that now…that’s where the world goes.
It’s not perfect because it’s version 1 of a new app.
Spend $300 or don’t but IMO a smart professional already working in FCP should spend a few bucks and learn the new paradigm.I’ll be amazed if the glaring omissions aren’t brought online in a timeline as reasonable as any of us that have grown with other creative paradigms have seen.
IF they don’t then we’ll all move on. and if you’re an accomplished pro $300 means what?
Apple isn’t that stupid, they’re really not. -
Actually, by ceasing to offer new seats of FCP 7, they in effect ARE forcing expanding businesses to make a choice. Bad move on their part.
Chris
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That’s MY point exactly. Bad move on Apple’s part. In essence they ARE forcing people’s hands at this early date.
Chris
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It paid for itself not because it parted the Red Sea, but because it was used in a professional environment to complete a project, albeit small.
Here’s the case study, if you will…
Movie Studio ‘X” called at 6pm asking if we could cut together 18 clips of fans of their studio doing funny things with their logo to show at a board meeting for fun. As we had been experimenting with X all day, when we opened FCP7 it seemed weird – so we took a chance and imported the 18 .mp4 clips into X. Because we were new to it, it was a bit unwieldy, however this was not a 20 layer project so it worked.
After we cut the piece to about :60, we adjusted and retimed the whole thing a few times. We also used the ‘fix audio’ (I forget the exact name) setting across all the clips to level them out. During the edit we really enjoyed the compound clipping to keep everything neat. We used fade to color and dissolve transitions throughout. Many of our quick keys (shift + , and . for moving 1 to 5 frames) came across from FCP7, which was nice.We submitted to our client who was at dinner. We used the ‘share’ email setting, which turned the clip into a very night looking 2.3 meg file precomposed in an email, which was also viewable on the iPhone.
The client responded that it was just what he wanted, we then use the share/dvd/hard drive setting to create an .img file, which when opened contained the video/audio ts folders. We also created an H264 Quicktime using the ‘movie export’ generic setting under ‘share.’ Dragged the qt’s over the YouSendIt icon in the dock, entered the clients email address, clicked ‘send’. Done.
Not everything was perfect. We use 2 monitors, and during testing earlier today the program froze while video was fullscreen in monitor 2. When we tried to open X up again, it was stuck on ‘loading window layout’ or something like that. The solution – keep everything in 1 monitor for now. It’s how X wants it.
To get back in, selecting the username/library/app support prefs files and deleting didn’t work. You have to delete the folders too. It opened back up – back in business.
We are also not loading AJA drivers until they are out of Beta. My editor had to hot-wire the audio out of the Mac Pro stereo port into the Mackie mixer since X doesn’t see the Kona card.
The project did not need any mixing, so we rode the levels in FCP (normally we would use FinalPlug by WaveArts). The audio meters are cool, too. The editing experience began to feel more natural by the end – to the point where we would collapse compound clips and expand them – each time we would catch ourselves grunting with approval like the technical apes we are.
There’s a lot we don’t understand yet. Gotta figure out the science of certain aspects of why it acts a certain way. Also have to get our heads around file management. Don’t so much mind the events being locked in the “movies’ folder since it’s protected by Time Machine (which might also be a great resource for previous versions of projects since we can’t save anymore). It could be a problem later as the Movies folder is on a 256 gig SSD, which may one day fill up.
I like it. I like it alot. I’ve been dreaming of playing with it since the meet, because I’ve always felt editing would be more fun if it weren’t so clumsy. I’ll have to develop my muscle memory on repetitive functions and learn the psychology behind why certain things are implemented as they are. Using lots of the other native Apple apps, I do like how things are getting more consistent across the board.
Gotta look into that time machine thing for previous edits. That might be awesome.
John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.
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Spoken like a true believer. Right on!
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Thanks John, that makes it easier to understand. Glad it got you that far, though it obviously had issues. Glad you liked it!
Jim, you know, being critical of a product upgrade to a product that I (we all) paid thousands of dollars to implement what with add ons, hardware upgrades, etc. is not meaning that I have some axe to grind with Apple. This product is what I base my business on. This is all about whether and when I upgrade to this new toolset. For now, it’s just something I’m watching from afar. And yes, I’m critical that I can’t open my existing products in it, for example. Maybe someday I’ll feel like paying Apple to learn the new product. For now, I have a tool that does what I need, albeit it slowly (read transcode, etc.). I’ll make my decisions to stay with FCP based on business decisions, like not having to waste time transcoding, which I don’t in competing products (and now I don’t have to in the new FCPX, that’s goodness.). Can my third party add ons work, like Boris or? Since I can’t edit in FCPX and then open that file in FCP to run my 32 bit add on apps (like I can with Vegas, for example). So nothing personal. No flame here… It’s just business decisions…
It was just a week or so ago when many people here were saying, “stop the nay saying, (and worse thoughts than that), you just wait’. Well, I did. And to now say, “well it’s just a V1 product of a new app” is really quite lame. It’s not a V1. It’s X (G). It has a history. A huge user base, given what Larry found out when his servers crashed this morning with over a million hits. There are obviously some great features implemented here, but it’s not baked yet for many of us. And there is Adobe and Avid on their heels, just wanting our (my) business. Let’s hope the upgrades come fast and furious.
Alf
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[Jim Giberti] “They have social media output because it’s kind of a big thing in the world now.”
Yeah, I love the idea that this is a feature that somehow has no place in a pro app. We primarily do post work on feature films, and guess what? We do Vimeo outputs far more often than, say, DPX outputs. Outputting to DPX happens once, at the end (maybe earlier for short clips going to VFX guys). Stuff gets tossed on Vimeo (with a password, naturally) on a daily basis for review by clients.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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To stay competitive in this harsh economic time its necessary to maximize the effectiveness of your tools. Using a hand drill (FCP7) when other are using a power drill (Avid, PP) makes your slower in finishing a project. Take native timelines as an example of this analogy. Transcoding is going the way of the horse and buggy, but FCP 7 is still beating that dead horse. You need to innovate and advance with the times and technology . Staying with FCP 7 really is not an option for many professional editors.
Tom Daigon
Avid DS / FCP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com -
(It’s not an upgrade product.)
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