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Lightworks
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[Herb Sevush] “I wonder in which FCPX upgrade they will figure out they need to address it?”
I had a fairly involved conversation with Apple folks in preparing my reviews. I brought up the deficiencies in audio mixing and was told some of the problems would be tackled in the future through metadata. To which I replied, “Huh? People who mix often do it ‘live’ by playing the audio, moving virtual faders and LISTENING in real time. How do you do do this with metadata?” (I know about the “roles”.)
I didn’t get any answers or explanations. They implied that they could have done an FCP7-style mixer panel if they had wanted to, but didn’t. They also indicated there was a certain level of complexity caused by the compound clips – and potentially compounds within other compounds.
I have the impression they have boxed themselves in by the design of the application.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Andrew Richards] “I’ll be damned. It even places the playhead for you, and you get the colored line indicator of the selection duration. One click, JKL from there.”
Better! We’re down to two clicks. Now they just need to fix the range selection bugs and it might start getting usable… 😉
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl -
[Oliver Peters] “…they could have done an FCP7-style mixer panel if they had wanted to, but didn’t. “
Steve Jobs: “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done. Innovation is saying ‘no’ to 1,000 things.”
Why should they ‘put back’ all the functionalities they ‘haven’t done’? They’re proud they’ve said ‘no’ to all that stuff. 🙁
[Oliver Peters] “How do you do do this with metadata?”
I guess the same way as a radio DJ or presenter has their audio ‘mixed’ when they speak – the music levels are dipped automatically. Designate a primary audio track in metadata, and everything else gets taken down automatically… -
[Paul Dickin] “Why should they ‘put back’ all the functionalities they ‘haven’t done’? They’re proud they’ve said ‘no’ to all that stuff. :-(“
Which is why I’m less optimistic than others that the many missing features will make it back in. I simply don’t accept the argument that they couldn’t put everything in because they ran out of time or because it’s a 1.0 product. Some of the choices were conscious design decisions.
Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “I didn’t get any answers or explanations. They implied that they could have done an FCP7-style mixer panel if they had wanted to, but didn’t. They also indicated there was a certain level of complexity caused by the compound clips – and potentially compounds within other compounds.
I have the impression they have boxed themselves in by the design of the application.”
[Oliver Peters] “I simply don’t accept the argument that they couldn’t put everything in because they ran out of time or because it’s a 1.0 product. Some of the choices were conscious design decisions.”
I completely agree. Conscious and potentially fraught with unintended consequences. The response Apple engineers gave you is telling as Larry Jordan’s report that none of the user feedback from industry pros who were given advanced copies was incorporated. Why would Apple ignore obvious deal-breaking deficiencies any advanced user would immediately call out during user testing?
My biggest concern is that Apple has painted itself into a corner at a deep level with this design. I’ve seen this happen before on large software projects. Initial assumptions driving development may not get tested against unexpected usage patterns. Thousands of man-hours and millions of dollars later, a project may wind up so far down the assumed path that it becomes impossible to turn around. Then you show your application to real users and get the rude surprise that your usage assumptions don’t pan out. What do you do now? Projects developed in secret are especially vulnerable to this kind of trap.
I get the impression that the UI/object model was never stress tested against the real-world needs of complex projects. Apple’s response re: compound clips is especially interesting. I’ve found that complex object groupings and manipulations are fragile. One of the easiest ways to crash the program is to try to do something unexpected with an object or container. I really wonder if the model scales.
I hope I’m wrong about this. I want to believe that Apple can fix it. I guess we’ll have to wait and see…
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David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl -
[David Lawrence] “I get the impression that the UI/object model was never stress tested against the real-world needs of complex projects.”
On another issue, I noted that the projects (sequence settings) seem to be locked at 4K DCP frame sizes. So I specifically asked about Epic 5K projects. They apparently didn’t test any Epic media. BTW – Epic 5K ProRES files do work in these 4K timeline. (They are scaled or cropped to fit.)
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[David Lawrence] “My biggest concern is that Apple has painted itself into a corner at a deep level with this design.”
This assumes that Apple even wants to cater to the “traditional pro” market anymore. I know I’m not the first to say it but it’s worth repeating. Apple didn’t make a mistake if they intended to focus primarily on a different kind of editor.
-Andrew
3.2GHz 8-core, FCP 6.0.4, 10.5.5
Blackmagic Multibridge Eclipse (6.8.1)
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