New FCPX user, what’s all the hate about?

[David Mathis]

I remember when FCP X was first released, like many others I wondered what was going on. Some of the important tools, such as XML, were not there. This was a completely new version so many of the things that were not missing were added back in, except for tracks and the ability to round trip with Motion. My guess the very first version of X was beta. Perhaps how it was launched was a bad approach. It was considered a toy or a pro version of iMovie by others. Dissapointed at first but decided to jump in around 10.0.6, confused at first, then later began to appreciate the software.

Since then, improvements to media management and 3D text, a must have, came into existence. Why the hate continues, I will never know. I guess some people are just narrow minded and will not change their mind.

[Bret Williams]

It was pretty terrible in the beginning. And possibly the worst software launch in history. That lasted about 6 months. Some people just won’t let it go. But it is also vastly different. EXTREMELY different than any other NLE and just doesn’t fit every workflow. But that can be true for any NLE. And you’ve discovered what many of us know. If you’ve used something other than the same NLE for the last 10 years, it ain’t no big deal to learn something new.

I think Apple is focusing on empowering the individual and small facility with 3D type and amazing template capability built into the app while Adobe has left the individual editor behind with subscriptions and a focus on team this and team that. Their hope being to recapture the broadcast and hollywood market.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

The short version in my opinion… it was a bit of both.

Apple botched the launch.
The first version was very unstable. Missed TOO much features. No XML. No attributes. The event Browser didn’t even remember the in and out points you set on a clip. No Library model. No RED RAW support. No Multicam. The list was long.
So yes. The software got a LOT better. I started fiddling with it around 10.0.3 and switched completely around 10.0.6.

Then the other side is that the way it worked was sooo new, completely different of FCP7 (and this wasn’t communicated very clearly to the existing user-base), that people had a hard time getting used to it. Change is hard for a lot of people (including me) and it was also a matter of being open-minded again to concepts you though you knew and were fixed in a way. This is why a lot of people *still* feel a lot of hate for it. There is a minority of people who have used the software a LOT but it’s missing certain stuff or it makes their job a lot harder, so they have a lot of good reasons to not like it.
But you have to get rid of your excisting muscle memory (especially the magnetic timeline) and this takes months. Not talking about the ability to cut, but to ‘think’ the way the program works in a muscle-memory way the way you have it with other programs you have been using for years.

So yeah. Both 😉

[David Mathis]

Bret, very good summary. Adobe is going after a certain segment of the market. My guess is that some have decided not to upgrade every product cycle is one driving force behind subscription only with no buyout option or a permanent license. That could change but going forward perhaps not.

I also agree that FCP X is not the best tool for all workflows as is with compositing tools. Add to that, not everyone needs an entire suite of tools. As long as I am not “forced” into an entire suite of software that I will not use, for various reasons, I am happy with the Photoshop subscription up to a point. That point is lack of a buyout option.

Having a number of options available is always a good thing and so is choice. I am keeping an eye on what happens with Resolve going forward. I hope that the edit page performance is improved. To me having at least two NLE software packages on same system is an ideal situation. May use one to edit and the other for finishing based on a particular workflow. This why I think FCP X and Motion are a good combination with having another NLE for other projects.

Will be interesting to see what happens to the After Effects subscription number when Fusion comes out.

[Noah Kadner]

I’m amused by the resistance to major change from folks who make major changes as their profession.

Noah

FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
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[Tim Wilson]

[Noah Kadner] “I’m amused by the resistance to major change from folks who make major changes as their profession.”

I know that we have a reputation for that, especially outside the COW — but based almost entirely on the first year+, when the specific things criticized where in fact exactly correct.

For the last year or two, I just don’t see much of it at all. Instead, I see a number of editors who have been gradually making the transition as their fast-paced environments have allowed. Doing it all at once was simply never a luxury they had.

Having seen him playfully called out for the opposite, I’ll highlight Jeremy Garchow as Exhibit A. A very flexible dude indeed, whose business has largely been built on adapting cutting-edge technologies, and whose early objections to X were built on specific and ENTIRELY ACCURATE grounds…which are largely being overcome by Apple…

…which amounts to a tacit admission by Apple that Apple had in fact fallen short of the full range of capabilties required for some very mainstream workflows.

So while I won’t argue the point that some people are stubborn about FCPX, I strongly disagree that it’s necessarily arbitrary. There are still key components of X’s workflow that half-baked or entirely missing, even while there are hitherto unimagined advantages — which are irrelevant in the face of accurately described, specific deficiencies.

I certainly acknowledge that your generalization wasn’t directed at the COW per se, Noah, but in objecting to how sweeping that generalization is outside the COW, I think it is far more accurate to say that those people are out of touch with the COW than that any individual in the COW is rejecting FCPX arbitrarily or on principle, rather than based on a crystal-clear understanding of its inadequacies for THEM.

We are many years past a single meaningful thread suggesting that FCPX is inadequate by its nature. It’s in fact remarkable how quickly the tide turned…which I regret to observe that even some folks in the COW have sometimes missed as they characterize this particular forum.

EDIT:

As a PS, I’m going to harken back to the introduction of FCP, which entered the fullness of its first wave in the earliest days of the COW.

(Noting that the COW’s previous incarnation was founded 20 years ago this month!)

There was not one single soul who objected to the IDEA of FCP, or that a cheap, software-only NLE that incorporated meaningful compositing features wasn’t an awesome idea. People WANTED it. The earliest, most enthusiastic supporters were people who HOPED to be FORMER Media 100 users at the earliest possible opportunity.

But FCP was firewire-only, and the then-current crop of fw-output cameras simply weren’t up to replacing DigiBeta, no matter how much the FCP of Bust insisted that it was.

So there we sat. No SDI, no FCP. The COW was indeed adamant on this. Then lo and behold, along comes SDI, and FCP is on its way into broadcast almost immediately, led by COW enthusiasts.

Indeed, I defy you to find a more enthusiastic group of early FCP users than COWs using Pinnacle Cinewave. You won’t find such a group because it doesn’t exist. And, turning the corner into HD, there simply wasn’t a more enthusiastic group of FCP users than the COW at all.

But it took TIME, and it took APPLE recognizing that APPLE’s work was not yet complete to meet the absolutely basic, rock-bottom, non-negotiable feature set REQUIRED for mid-to-high level post. Apple fixed things on its side, became aggressive in their support for third-party IO, and the game changed.

But not before Apple stepped up. And once they did, nobody was more on onboard than the COW, with a “yay” much stronger than their “nay” ever was.

It took until version 3 to version 4 of FCP, though…which was, what’s that you say? Three to four years after FCP’s introduction? Almost exactly the timetable to widescale embrace of X here.

[David Mathis]

Thank you for another great post Tim!

It is difficult to imagine, let alone keep up with the changes during the last 20 years! With technology at the pace of Speedy Gonzalez, the famous mouse, the rate of change and innovation is almost at the speed of light. Editing software was expensive as was storage. Waiting several minutes, even hours, for a simple dissolve to render, that was a pain. Now, little or no rendering time at all.

Love the fact that more than one NLE can exist on a system of your choice and the amount of affordable storage is icing on the cake. Choice is great!

Putting my philosphical objections on subscription only to the side, Adobe has a great amount of progress though work still needs to be done, as with any software. The fact the subscription for Photoshop and Lightroom is reasonable, I decided to jump on board, well for a year. The reason I chose not to subscribe to other stuff in the suite is because my current setup fills my needs very well. Business, not philosphical or personal is my motivation.

To the next twenty years in beyond!

[Michael Gissing]

Hate can so often be a deep emotional response to love spurned or betrayed. There is little doubt that many felt a deep betrayal and a subsequent reticence to trust Apple ever again over X and the execution of Legend. Apple made the break up unnecessarily callous and as Tim points out the early complaints were justified.

Now four plus years later, most of the anger has soften or totally been reversed. But the wounds run deep for many people and I hope they don’t expect any other software vendor to be any more dependable or interested than Apple. Apple do take the cake for reliably jilting their lovers. For some it makes the love affair deeper but for many they take their bat and ball and play elsewhere.

For me I just view any NLE in terms of its relevance to my workflow in post and what editors want to use. X is still barely on the radar in my world. Many of the Legend hold outs are now spruiking Resolve. Others have moved back to AVID or on to Pr. But at least 70% of clients are stuck to Legend like sh*t to a blanket.

It is time to move on.

[Charlie Austin]

[Michael Gissing] “Apple do take the cake for reliably jilting their lovers. For some it makes the love affair deeper but for many they take their bat and ball and play elsewhere. “

I’ll give you Shake and Color… Maybe iWeb too. 🙂 But the fact that everyone got sooo upset about Apple “killing” an NLE that, 4 years later, still works just fine, and can still be obtained with a little digging is kind of silly don’t you think?

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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~

[David Cherniack]

[Bret Williams] “while Adobe has left the individual editor behind with subscriptions and a focus on team this and team that. Their hope being to recapture the broadcast and hollywood market.”

Not an opinion I share. Brett is basing it mostly on the subscription model somehow being disadvantageous to individual editors. But if an individual editor balks at the $600 per year (top charge) cost of the entire Adobe arsenal, then that individual is either an anti-subscription idealogue (go to the Adobe Creative Cloud or Not forum to see them with their war feathers on) or a very low rent editor.

I’m sure Adobe would like to increase their share of the broadcast and Hollywood market and I’m sure they’re doing exactly that. But I don’t see that happening at the expense of losing their individual editors in any major way. That’s been their bread and butter.

David
https://AllinOneFilms.com