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Post NAB piece on the struggles of the big broadcast players in the modern era.
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[Bill Davis] “The Apple bet is that there are more people who want a smaller set of newer tools, than who need to remain compatible with historical broadcast and movie workflows. “
I would take that a step further and say that Apple bets there is a large and growing group of people that edit as part of the job but their job is not to be an editor. Accessibility is more important when the user isn’t spending day in and day out on the software and I think that was a major factor in the rethinking of FCP.
As far as web-centric uses goes, I think FCP X having a leg up depends on the situation. I’ve spent a number of years working primarily with web/digital content for large companies like Viacom, AT&T, Sony, Microsoft, etc., and web-ready files rarely ever came out of our NLE’s. We’d generate high quality exports and hand those off to either our in-house compression team or directly to the client who would then have their own team. We cut on FCP legend and I don’t think using X would’ve made a difference when it came to delivering our final cuts. As an aside, they are still using FCP 7 over there and are leaning towards Pr as that would most seamlessly drop into the existing workflows (a dozen producers and editors are working on overlapping projects year round so change is always deliberate and methodical). I think the updates in CS Next might finally get them to pull the trigger and switch.
On the flip side I was an assistant editor on an indie doc ***shameless plug*** called American Winter about the crumbling middle class in the US which you can catch on HBO/HBO GO ***shameless plug*** cut on FCP Legend where we used Vimeo to share cuts and having a direct Share to Vimeo feature would’ve made my life easier.
As you and Dennis have said, time will tell in the end but the different approaches are interesting. Apple seemed to jump feet first into new workflows and then spent a lot of time ‘adding back’ features that didn’t make the initial jump while Adobe and Avid have been adding new workflow features at a steady pace and are easing into the future rather than jumping into it.
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[Bill Davis] “The $64,000 question has always been whether “the audience” is an entity that can reliably see what they MIGHT want in the future – rather than being constrained by their current habits into thinking that all that will be available is a gussied up version of what they already enjoy.
“That was the 64K question back some years before the turn of the century, and generally asked by people old enough to get the game show reference. I don’t know anybody in the business who doesn’t think 20th century viewing habits in the US will finally flatline sometime soon after the last CSI is taken off life support. You seem to be missing the diversification that has taken place over the last two decades. Networks stream their own videos, and have for some time. iTunes has been selling shows for almost a decade.
Yes, companies that make their profit by owning bunches of affiliates have a potentially serious problem. But their problem is not coming from competition with youtube. Their problem is that they own little or no content, other than news, and, depending on the market, a daily talk show. But that’s still quite a bit of something. What broadcast and cable still have is “live.” SPORTS. Talk shows. Talking heads. Music contests. In fact, contests, contests, contests. And, it is still where you can see content first. A fan of Doctor Who? Well, of course you can download all the shows–and most likely will–but you want to see it “the moment” its available to you. Jim and Pam’s wedding. you wanted to see it when it aired. And the final season of Breaking Bad? If you’re into it, you’re not planning on waiting.
Frankly, to suggest that it is one or the other, youtube or broadcast TV, is just to have not given it anywhere near enough thought. The answer is that its all of it. Radio is still around too, you know. And youtube will have to work really hard to be something more than video’s Pineterst.
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[Bill Davis] “The Adobe camp is betting that their “hybrid” approach “
There is nothing “hybrid” about it. Thoroughbred, maybe. “Hybrid” would be more applicable to any program out there that was gene-spliced with, oh, say, iPhoto.
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[Chris Harlan] “any program out there that was gene-spliced with, oh, say, iPhoto.”
Oh, very nice of you to mention Lightroom!
(ducking head now)
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