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Life After FCP 7 – Avid, FCPX or Premiere?
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[Bill Davis] “Apple, in completely jettisoning their own Quicktime underpinnings for AV Foundation and Core Services – kinda did the real estate equivalent of a “scrape” rather than a re-model.
Apple now has brand new “state of the art” plumbing, AC ducts and electrical underneath their brand new building. That building is smaller and much more modest than the old mansion, but there’s plenty of land to expand into – and over time, they have freedom to build with new ideas.
Their competitors are betting that the existing infrastructure of their platforms will serve their needs long enough to make better business sense.”
That’s not accurate. Just because the user-facing elements of Premiere Pro and Media Composer look the same as they did a few years ago doesn’t mean that the underlying code is old. Adobe and Avid have both gone to great lengths the keep the user experience the same, while changing all the technology underneath it. They offer continuity to their user bases as a feature.
Adobe overhauled their the plumbing in 2007, developing MediaCore to eliminate their dependency on QuickTime. Premiere Pro 1.0 was a ground-up rewrite of Premiere, and Premiere Pro CS5 was a 64-bit re-write of Premiere Pro. That was in April of 2010.
Avid has been quietly rewriting Media Composer for years, piece by piece. Both Avid’s Open I/O and AMA indicate serious architectural changes.
There’s more on this in a good blog post by Philip Hodgetts: Three companies, three different approaches to 64 bit [link].
Apple may be trying to leapfrog the competition on user experience, or on data model — but with respect to infrastructure, they’re playing catch-up.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Walter Soyka] “Apple may be trying to leapfrog the competition on user experience, or on data model — but with respect to infrastructure, they’re playing catch-up.”
Thanks for the link. Interesing.
So would it be fair to extend the “plumbing” analogy to aver that with Avid and Premier, they’ve been working inside their houses to remodel not only the shape and color of the structure, but they’ve been installing new plumbing and wiring on an incremental basis as it is needed? This has resulted in a house that has the same basic shape and functions (compatibility) but more modern internal services available.
Apple, at some point, looked at their huge mansion that had to accept that while their “visitor load” was significantly larger than the A’s and likely was serving a much broader range of visitors, the infrastructure hadn’t developed as rapidly. So rather than taking the path that the A’s took to retrofit – they decided to “scrape” and start over.
They essentially choose to build the new building based on their assessment of what modern visitors would likely want and need in the future.
The other buildings still largely look like their did over the past few years. But Apple has a new building that some people love and other hate. But that inarguably has been refreshed with new building techniques that while not as “standard” – appears to be built on the premis that theres a better way to do primary functions (perhaps like heating and cooling”) than the traditional AC systems and boilers of the past?
Or are you saying that the engineers at Adobe and AVID were simply “smarter” than those at Apple and found a way to keep everything that had been built over time, and make it just as capable as the rebuild that Apple was forced into?
That seems to be the big knock on Apple. That they didn’t “really ‘have to scrape anything – and that if they’d just done it like Adobe and AVID, they could have gone as far as fast and never missed a step.
If so, this is a pretty large inditement of their “vision.”
And they seem to be a company who’s “vision” is precisely what’s propelled them to such amazing business success.
Do you think they got it totally “wrong” Walter?
Just curious.
“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] “So would it be fair to extend the “plumbing” analogy to aver that with Avid and Premier, they’ve been working inside their houses to remodel not only the shape and color of the structure, but they’ve been installing new plumbing and wiring on an incremental basis as it is needed? This has resulted in a house that has the same basic shape and functions (compatibility) but more modern internal services available.”
Extending this analogy, I’d say that Apple built a brand new house. Adobe and Avid built new houses, too, but they kept the same layouts and decor. Adobe did it all at once, building an identical-looking house with modern infrastructure on a new lot and inviting people to move. Avid replaced the entire house with all new materials, room by room, while the occupants weren’t looking.
[Bill Davis] “They [Apple] essentially choose to build the new building based on their assessment of what modern visitors would likely want and need in the future.”
I think Apple built the NLE they themselves would want to edit on — their platonic ideal of what an NLE should be, irrespective of the current state of the art.
Back to your analogy, I don’t think Apple built their house with their visitors in mind at all. They built their house they way they wanted it to be, and if you want to come visit, you’re welcome to. Just take your shoes off by the door.
[Bill Davis] “Or are you saying that the engineers at Adobe and AVID were simply “smarter” than those at Apple and found a way to keep everything that had been built over time, and make it just as capable as the rebuild that Apple was forced into? That seems to be the big knock on Apple. That they didn’t “really ‘have to scrape anything – and that if they’d just done it like Adobe and AVID, they could have gone as far as fast and never missed a step.”
Apple, Adobe, and Avid have all done rewrites.
Apple took the opportunity of rewriting to also completely re-imagine what an NLE should be.
Adobe also did a bit of a re-imagine going from Premiere to Premiere Pro a few years ago, but it was largely evolutionary, and not nearly as expansive (or jarring) as Apple’s.
Avid has limited their re-imagination to a couple of technical innovations, keeping the user experience largely the same.
These were all decisions. Apple proudly chose to break with tradition; Adobe and Avid have proudly chosen to keep with it. Each approach has merit.
[Bill Davis] “And they seem to be a company who’s “vision” is precisely what’s propelled them to such amazing business success.”
True, but totally irrelevant. In this context, given that FCPX is a blip on Apple’s revenue radar, do we really care what their market cap is? Does success in mobile translate to success in editorial? Not automatically.
All any of us care about is how well their products fit our needs — which is part of why FCPX has been so divisive.
[Bill Davis] “Do you think they got it totally “wrong” Walter?”
I don’t think that Apple did right by their customers in the transition, but in terms of design philosophy, I don’t think it’s necessarily an issue of right and wrong. It’s just different — and that’s ok.
I keep going back to Oliver Peter’s post about the fracturing NLE market [link]. When you look at Avid, Adobe, Apple, and Autodesk (apologies to also-rans Sony and Grass Valley), they have different strengths (and different weaknesses) that indicate different philosophies.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Walter Soyka] “[Bill Davis] “And they seem to be a company who’s “vision” is precisely what’s propelled them to such amazing business success.”
True, but totally irrelevant. In this context, given that FCPX is a blip on Apple’s revenue radar, do we really care what their market cap is? Does success in mobile translate to success in editorial? Not automatically.
All any of us care about is how well their products fit our needs — which is part of why FCPX has been so divisive.
“I think it is only fair to point out that Jobs and/or Apple’s “vision” has also–at times–led to near catastrophe.
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I think it’s good to know multiple NLEs and platforms, though I am pushing for FCP X. Since it real ease I (as I did when Motion came out) spend less time dealing with the software and more time with the creativity. For projects where I’ve used FCP X, I’ve been significantly more productive than in FCP 7 and can play more, due to both the interface/workflow and AV Foundation I am sure. Don’t get me wrong it has some growing up to do, but I like where it’s going.
For what they’re worth here’s my collection of why I am in favor of FCP X. For the cow posts in the links below you can see my name for the reference posting. In the end, do what works for you and able to work individually and/or collaboratively in a creative and efficient way. At the end of this post is a copy/paste of just some of the conversation I had with another editor – just another perspective.
For the record, I don’t think it’s iMovie Pro though due to the interface/resemblence I think that just makes good business sense on Apple’s part. iMovie was for more advanced under the hood the FCP 7, the latter just had more “Pro” (which such as charged word lately) features.
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/335/8623
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/335/9499
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/335/10981
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/335/10945
https://digitalcomposting.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/x-vs-pro/
https://lonelysandwich.com/post/7033868135/fcp-the-new-class
https://library.creativecow.net/adcock_gary/FCPX/1
https://www.philiphodgetts.com/2011/09/fcp-x-color-management-secret/
https://www.philiphodgetts.com/2010/08/introduction-to-av-foundation/
Email:
Hmmm. Those same sentiments were out when Final Cut Pro came on the scene many years ago and it did make it into the “big” studios. In recent months I’ve already seen Adobe and Avid “silently” follow Apple’s footsteps with product releases and mentions of future products/features. I think the same way Apple is managing to consumerize the enterprise business with the iPhone and iPad, we will see the same happen even in the studios as video and data become less separate and people demand a workflow between devices that Avid may not be able to offer since they don’t manufacture hardware nor have a business model that has vertical integration the way Apple does. Who’s to say, but everything I thought would happen is happening and one of the most important things is that developers love the FCPX programming architecture and for that very reason, along with the masses that will adopt FCP X i think it will be hard pressed for studios and execs to find a good monetary case not to go with an Apple-based workflow. It just won’t make financial sense except to keep around what they’ve already invested in just to get their ROI.
We’ll see what happens, though it’ll take some time. I’ve seen some code revealed by programmers of what’s hiding in FCP X and I am blown away by what’s to come that they haven’t turned on yet.
In any case, I think choice and competition is good.
Tangier
On Jan 31, 2012, at 12:11 PM, other Editor wrote:
Probably too little too late to recapture the attention of the feature film industry -I know of two studio features (in addition to the tv shows we’ve all heard about) that just bailed on FCP and are going to post with Avid.
So, FCP becomes a nice little prosumer editing tool used by small boutique, educational/industrial producers – I think Apple is fine with that.End Email.
Keep on cutting!
Tangier
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[Tangier Clarke] “So, FCP becomes a nice little prosumer editing tool used by small boutique, educational/industrial producers – I think Apple is fine with that. “
I disagree. If that happened it would be a severe climbdown for Apple.
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