Prognostications on FCPX compared to OSX and iOS from Alex4D

[Chris Harlan]

[Oliver Peters] “For the most part Avid users have typically been happy with the product and never saw any reason to change. “

I don’t know. There was a period of time around the later days of MC 2.8 when the frustration with the lack of development seemed fairly palpable. Not everyone felt that way, of course, but I’d say there was a fair amount of discontent.

[Oliver Peters]

[Chris Harlan] “There was a period of time around the later days of MC 2.8 when the frustration with the lack of development seemed fairly palpable.”

That has more to do with how Avid was pricing and marketing Adrenaline hardware than with the software itself. More an issue of FCP+Kona versus MC+Adrenaline, I think.

OTOH, if you talk to broadcast news editors or film editors, they probably could care less. Plus, lots of folks were still on 2.8 even after Avid was long past that in version numbers.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Chris Harlan]

[Walter Soyka] “FCPX is unique, and FCPX has enormous potential — but that is not the same as saying that FCPX is unique in that it has enormous potential.
“

Now that line just dances!

[Chris Harlan]

[Oliver Peters] “That has more to do with how Avid was pricing and marketing Adrenaline hardware than with the software itself. More an issue of FCP+Kona versus MC+Adrenaline, I think.

OTOH, if you talk to broadcast news editors or film editors, they probably could care less. Plus, lots of folks were still on 2.8 even after Avid was long past that in version numbers.
“

That’s undoubtedly true, but in the promo world, at least, there was visible frustration about MC’s inflexibility. In that sphere, FCP 5.1, 6, & 7 ran circles around MC. Something as simple as easy panning and scanning of HD in an SD delivery, back when most of the TV world was still 4:3, made FCP a no-brainer over the center-cut only world of media composer.

[Chris Harlan]

[Walter Soyka] “[Jeremy Garchow] “But maybe all of this [FCPX awesomeness] is an after thought?”

I’ve used brackets to editorialize and summarize. I’ll appeal to Chris Harlan, forum line judge, if it’s in-bounds or not. 🙂
“

Oh heck, you use one tennis metaphor and you’re done for.

[Bill Davis]

[Dennis Radeke] “For the article, I will only comment and say that I don’t think anything the author listed there as something that Apple can do that the competition can’t do as well.

Dennis – Adobe
“

I presume this is totally true, Dennis.

This is just a place where we air our opinions.

I try to post opinions based, not on what I’ve read about or heard about, but rather on what I’ve personally tried and seen to be true.

I have what I’d consider “qualifying experience” on two pieces of software – FCP Legacy and FCP X.

I have no experience on your fine software. I know many others feel strongly that it’s a great tool, and have done so for years.

Others will have to judge whether what I’ve experienced over the past year – the continuing transformation of my work from larger project to smaller, from tape and disk delivery to exclusively file based, and the elevation of search and export to equal weight as a productivity tools compared to my prior focus nearly exclusively on timeline operations – is as relevant to them as those factors are to me.

And they’ll also have to determine if your companies approach – which many appear to feel gives people much of the historical conventions of Legacy software, but with modern additions – or whether Apple’s approach to totally strip away the old in favor of a compete new approach – suits them best.

X verses Legacy is all I’m qualified to post about since those are the only two applications where I have the “seat time” to back up my contentions.

And people here will judge independently whether or not the kind of work I do is more like – or more unlike – what they do day to day.

I wish you and Adobe continued success.

Simple as that.

“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

[Andrew Kimery]

[Bill Davis] “And for that to be a successful long-term strategy – they’ll have to find a way to continue to make their users feel simultaneously “comfortable” and also secure that they’re not missing something else by not heading as rapidly into the new territory that Apple was willing to redesign their vehicle to get to.

I can see your point. Maybe Apples’ competition are heading there just as rapidly, via a path I can’t see. But it puzzles me how they can do that easily if they keep believing that “job 1” is taking care of existing customers who are driving traditional sedans and can only use the superhighways they’re used to traveling on.

That’s certainly the fast way to travel. But if “on road” is the main value you peruse, then you can only end up where the road builders decide you want to go.”

I think you are setting up false dichotomy where the only way to change and innovate is to blow the whole thing up which just isn’t true. The past 5 years or so Avid and Adobe have been making huge strides into new workflows (including file based and the cloud) but it just doesn’t get as much fanfare as what Apple does.

To me all the NLE makers are creating automobiles (to keep going w/the tired and flawed analogy we all love to hate). The basics are all there (wheels, engine, drive train, breaks, etc.,) but the differences have mainly been in types of tech used (gas vs diesel vs electric, rotary vs in-line 6, etc.,), features and performance. I think the biggest thing that FCPX did, that the others didn’t, is taking a very new approach to the UI. While all the other cars have a steering wheel, clutch, break, & gas pedals (left to right), a gear shift under your right hand, etc.,. where as FCPX’s car uses something radically different… like voice controls and an iPad (or whatever).

My point is, if you keep everything that’s new about FCPX but put a more traditional GUI on it and everybody would love it. I think the single most controversial thing w/FCPX-car isn’t the new, high performance tires or powerful electric, direct-drive engine it’s that when you sent down in the driver’s seat theres no steering wheel, pedals or gear shift. The new control scheme is different, it works… but is it necessarily better?

[Bill Davis]

[Walter Soyka] “FCPX is unique, and FCPX has enormous potential — but that is not the same as saying that FCPX is unique in that it has enormous potential.
“

As always, Walter, I find your thinking fascinating. And there’s a lot of your analysis that I might agree with.

But I’m not actually saying that FCP-X is unique because of it’s “potential.”

I’m saying it’s unique in that the dev team was willing to take larger risks in it’s revision – not just because it has some arbitrary measure of more potential – but rather because the team shifted the target for the entire program away from many of the skills that made traditional NLEs a historical success: movie-era A/B roll conventions and studio style collaborative workflows, etc. – and re-focused it on the needs of todays content creators.

I think those started with individual empowerment – internal search agility – and export designed to ease i”publish to the web” needs. But I suspect the underpinnings in the program as it works right now show us a lot about how it will continue to evolve.

Love or hate the now exhausted metaphor, but the puck has moved dramatically.

The only question left is which program is best moving toward where that will be.

Im still betting that X has the fundamental stuff “righter” than it’s competitors.

Since I’m in tired metaphore-land.

I actually find X good, fast and cheap.

It’s very hard to argue with the last two with anyone who actually uses it professionally – it is certainly cheaper and I’ll stand up and swear to anyone that it’s been a wholeLOT faster for me that the program it replaced. So everything rests on the “good” thing.

And for my work, it’s not just good – it’s absolutely great.

So I’m happy – even if others aren’t.

FWIW.

“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

[Bill Davis]

[Andrew Kimery] “The new control scheme is different, it works… but is it necessarily better?”

I’m pretty sure a lot of pilots felt exactly that way when the moved away from flaps run by cables and created modern planes that are largely “fly by wire” systems.

Somehow the airline industry survived.

And germain to our discussion, Apple’s competitors are also clearly hard at work doing their own revisions to move away from their versions of the traditional “cable to flaps” system.

So that kinda says to me that the trend is solid, even if you don’t prefer one particular implementation over another.

“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