My take on FCPX or Not

[Mark Morache]

Well thought out.ut.

My order of CS5.5 is in the mail as I post this. Premiere is not the Photoshop of NLEs, but I can’t pass up the value, and I like having more tools.

I haven’t used Avid for about 6 years now. Frankly it always felt like I was driving the family minivan when I used it. It may be different now, I always associate Avid with safe and dependable.

FCX isn’t the family car. I’ve actually been having fun using it, but I’m getting worn out and frustrated with the workarounds and bugs.

So what’s more likely to happen. WIll Adobe make Premiere the Photoshop of NLE’s, or will Apple will make FCX the coolest professional editing app that will revolutionize the industry the way FCP has?

I’m not placing any bets, but neither company is out of the running. Apple has such a great track record for innovation, it’s why I’m not giving up on them. I’m looking for every chance I can to work with FCX, but I’m also investing in CS5.5, and meanwhile I’ve also got FCP7 which is 32bit, but it’s a rock and I know exactly what I can do with it.

Mark Morache
Avid/Xpri/FCP7/FCX
Evening Magazine,Seattle, WA
blogging at https://fcpx.wordpress.com

[Craig Seeman]

[Richard Johnson] “ADBE has a market cap of 12.7 billion USD”

[Richard Johnson] “When I look at Avid as a company though, I see storm clouds. It’s a much smaller company with a market cap of 420 million USD and it’s a smaller company that has a history of, well, not doing great as a company.”

And neither company makes most of their money from NLEs.
Certainly neither does Apple.

But Apple can sink more into the development of FCPX then either of the above companies and it would pocket change or maybe the stuff found under the couch cushions. Apple’s motive though is to use FCPX to boost the sales of Macs so their potential ROI on the R&D is much greater even if it doesn’t come close to matching iOS devices.

When the PC industry sales are in decline and the largest one of all, HP is about to spin off or sell their PC division because margins are so low, Apple’s computer (yes, COMPUTER) sales have been on the increase and Apple’s looking to make FCPX a “hook” to increase that further.
https://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2011/may/24/apple-sales-growth-pc-market

Understand that increasing sales doesn’t necessarily mean targeting the “high end” as a primary target but FCP1 was originally the “DV” editor. It’s popularity fostered 3rd party support and those 3rd parties help lift it into the higher markets. It’s those 3rd parties that will help determine whether FCPX sales more Macs. Apple has to supply them the APIs and hooks to do that.

I think Apple is a very motivated developer.

They each have different business models. What sales does Premiere drive, After Effects, Photoshop, Flash servers? What sales does Media Composer drive, Isis 5000, Unity, AirSpeed? I’m sure Adobe would like Premiere to be an important sales leader as Photoshop or After Effects are. I suspect Media Composer is primarily a “seat” for their much more expensive “heavy iron” products.

For Apple FCPX has the job to further accelerate their computer sales. Apple’s NLE (FCPX) may well be a much more important “hook” into their computer sales. If anything I suspect Apple sees FCPX as a seat that sales computers in a Thunderbolt accessorized facility at much lower cost than Avid.

[Walter Soyka]

[Craig Seeman] “I think Apple is a very motivated developer. They each have different business models. What sales does Premiere drive, After Effects, Photoshop, Flash servers? What sales does Media Composer drive, Isis 5000, Unity, AirSpeed? I’m sure Adobe would like Premiere to be an important sales leader as Photoshop or After Effects are. I suspect Media Composer is primarily a “seat” for their much more expensive “heavy iron” products. For Apple FCPX has the job to further accelerate their computer sales. Apple’s NLE (FCPX) may well be a much more important “hook” into their computer sales. If anything I suspect Apple sees FCPX as a seat that sales computers in a Thunderbolt accessorized facility at much lower cost than Avid.”

I agree that Apple is a very motivated developer, but as it always does in this debate, the question comes back to who their target market is, and I am not very confident right now that Apple understands or cares about professionals’ needs.

I think we had a bit of a golden age for the 10-year span from around 1998 to around 2008. All the surprises during that timeframe were good: the OS9/OS X transition, the PowerPC/Intel transition, FCP, Nothing Real, Silicon Color, XServe and RAID, Proximity’s artbox, fast iteration on the Mac Pros.

Since then, many surprises have been bad. Shake’s EOL. XServe/RAID’s EOL. Color’s EOL. Final Cut Server’s EOL. Ever-slower Mac Pro updates. And then there’s FCPX itself.

FCP grew as it did in part because of third-party support, but Apple excluded all but a select few third-parties during FCPX development. The APIs aren’t ready, which suggests to me they were a very low priority during development, rather than a valued, integral part of FCPX’s architecture.

Apple previewed FCPX at the meeting of the National Associate of Broadcasters, then released it without video I/O or interchange, and simultaneously ended FCP7 with no transition period.

There are glimmers of hope, both from Apple (OpenCL, FCPX’s metadata and rendering engines, and ThunderBolt) and third-party developers (Autodesk Smoke and DaVinci Resolve) — but I’m having a hard time looking at all this and divining Apple’s strategy on media professionals.

This muddy collection of facts stands in sharp contrast to the clear trajectory Apple shows around mobile devices (iPod, iPhone, iPad, plus the iTMS, the App Store, and iCloud). Apple has created tremendous uncertainty among their post production customers, and in the process, destroyed a lot of trust and good will that they spent the last decade building.

I rely on both Macs (I’ve got 7) and PCs (I’ve got 3) in my shop, but the FCPX-or-not debate has made me realize that I’m now far more dependent on Adobe and Maxon (both cross-platform) than I am on Apple. I’m currently budgeting a small render farm, and I had always planned on going with Macs for operational simplicity. I’ve reversed course. I can get significantly more power for the same cost with PCs. That means I’m also considering PCs the next time I refresh my workstations (within a year).

My question for the forum is this: what do you think we can look for from Apple over the next 6 to 12 months to indicate if they are truly dedicated to the professional (or “complex workflow”) market or not?

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

[Paul Dickin]

[Walter Soyka] “The APIs aren’t ready, which suggests to me they were a very low priority during development, rather than a valued, integral part of FCPX’s architecture.”
Hi
I think it likely that nothing these days at Apple gets ‘fast-track’ development ‘in isolation’.
When the joint iOS/OS X development is ready (in terms of Apple’s long-term OS goals) then things get shipped – another post-2008 change of policy-direction… 🙁

[Walter Soyka] “…what do you think we can look for from Apple over the next 6 to 12 months to indicate if they are truly dedicated to the professional (or “complex workflow”) market or not?”
Nothing, if your workflow is headed anywhere else than final delivery via Apple’s cloud to iPads or a forthcoming coloursync-managed Apple television set.

For those who persist in retaining legacy workflows (like most of current post production) then Apple will most likely just be happy to take their % cut of sales to the customer via the iTunes store.

[Douglas Morse]

Final Cut Pro X will never have native OMF support, reasonable Blu-ray or DVD authoring, and only mediocre encoding options. Proper dual monitor support (let alone broadcast monitor) is dubious.

You’re wasting your time waiting. Many of us are going to Premiere Pro. I won’t say ‘without looking back’ because I am still looking at Final Cut Pro X or Final Cut 7 (and wondering about Avid) but the more I think about the NEXT version of Premiere (and this one is quite excellent and in many ways an improvement over FCP 7) the more I know that this is the correct choice.

[Aindreas Gallagher]

[Paul Dickin] “or a forthcoming coloursync-managed Apple television set.”

that’s an interesting thought tho – someone said ages ago that FCPX may represent an initial marker for Apple’s broader ambitions in terms of media delivery to the customer – and what that media might actually be? there was some crazy talk of Apple fashioning just in time assembly of media objects at the set terminus… they’ll need something to differentiate the television people say they’re working on – were FCPX to become important in the assembly and delivery of new media objects appropriate for apple’s content delivery systems, then maybe that would have an impact?

I still basically do think it’s an Edsel tho.

http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Craig Seeman]

[Walter Soyka] ” the question comes back to who their target market is, and I am not very confident right now that Apple understands or cares about professionals’ needs. “

They’re targeting the broad “middle” and with the help of third party developers may creep up the ladder.

[Walter Soyka] “but Apple excluded all but a select few third-parties during FCPX development. The APIs aren’t ready, which suggests to me they were a very low priority during development, rather than a valued, integral part of FCPX’s architecture. “

I suspect they’re not ready because they’re having a combination of issues which may also be related to Lion. There comes a point where for various reasons they have to let a product out the door, ready or not. FCPX, as I’ve said before, really seems like alpha, not beta, software. There are features that just aren’t implemented and some of them aren’t specific to higher end pros. API/Plugin issues is one such issue.

We’ll never know why it was released in the current state but Apple is working on the missing features.

[Walter Soyka] “Apple previewed FCPX at the meeting of the National Associate of Broadcasters, then released it without video I/O or interchange, and simultaneously ended FCP7 with no transition period.”

Which is why I suspect there was some internal problems which may not have been purely technical, for the handling of EOL as well as FCPX release.

[Walter Soyka] “but I’m having a hard time looking at all this and divining Apple’s strategy on media professionals.”

I think the strategy is fairly clear, it’s the tactics that went awry. FCPX is designed to sell Macs. It doesn’t do that in its current state though. That’s going to change assuming the third party developers don’t fold. This is a major financial loss for those developers otherwise.

[Walter Soyka] “in the process, destroyed a lot of trust and good will that they spent the last decade building.”

But that “trust” is always measured against future sales for a business. I’m sure Apple did the calculus but they may have got the answer wrong or, something went wrong internally.

[Walter Soyka] “I had always planned on going with Macs for operational simplicity. I’ve reversed course. I can get significantly more power for the same cost with PCs. That means I’m also considering PCs the next time I refresh my workstations (within a year).”

[Walter Soyka] “My question for the forum is this: what do you think we can look for from Apple over the next 6 to 12 months to indicate if they are truly dedicated to the professional (or “complex workflow”) market or not?”

This is why I think FCPX is part of a bigger equation for Apple and it’s tied to both Thunderbolt and whatever becomes of the MacPro. I think they anticipate something that persuasively affordable. Of course I have no idea if it will work but, again, FCPX is about driving Mac sales. Whatever they do will have to have equal or more power than MacPro but have a point of entry down around the higher end iMacs. That’s why I think it’ll be a workstation with limited PCIe and Internal storage. Connectivity to storage, video I/O, networking, will be through Thunderbolt and it’s why Thunderbolt is in everything from MacBook Air and MacMini on up. It’ll be an entirely modular system designed for low cost and much wider appeal than the MacPro is now.

[Aindreas Gallagher]

[Craig Seeman] “that’s why I think it’ll be a workstation with limited PCIe and Internal storage.”

that sound OK. sort of modular like a red or something. so one would really just be buying umpteen processor cores and GPUs to hook up to storage and a display.
if they make it 1U we might as well call it macproxserve. (you’d have to say the ‘prox’ bit like ‘proxy’)

http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Jamie Franklin]

[Richard Johnson] ” At that point I’ll make my FCPX or Not decision.”

Having the freedom of a real canvas in FCP7, could you see yourself using that storyboard? Can you see yourself hopping for a ride on a superlocamotive on rails…

For me, not being able to import or build a sequence to my own specs on launch, restricting my resolution to locked aspects, give me pause to open the dang thing…but then, once in the timeline, I feel like a painter that just had all my brushes taken away and I was given a sword to paint with…Bob Ross found his niche (showing my age) in the painting world…but it’s like they shaved his fro and took away his ability to place happy little trees wherever he wanted…

[Craig Seeman]

[Aindreas Gallagher] “that sound OK. sort of modular like a red or something. so one would really just be buying umpteen processor cores and GPUs to hook up to storage and a display. “

Yup. Consider that an iMac with i7 QuadCore is about $2300. Drop the monitor, allow for up to 12 (or more depending on when it comes out) and a 16 lane PCIe slot (or two) to allow for some GPU options. Internal storage would be one SSD (super fast booting) and one hard drive.

You could have a box that might even have a starting price below the top iMac (because you have to add your own monitor). Depending on what you connect to the Thunderbolt ports, you have a computer that can be anything from a modular desktop to a rack mount server. Eventually they’d add the optical version of Thunderbolt for a blazing fast large pipe for media networking. Given the shape it can be flat like a MacMini (but obviously bigger) or stand upright on its side. For Apple it would mean a single design which could have much wider use than the current MacPro. You might even say the hints for this are already there given the Mini comes in a server edition. Obviously the Mini is too underpowered for professional use.

Given that FCPX is supposed to sell Macs, if/when they get it up to a versatile NLE, this presents a low cost point of entry for a facility.