Quiet in here…

[Marcus Moore]

Yeah. I think we’re going to be into a slower period for a few months- development-wise.

Though we might see another FCPX update in a month or so, I’m inclined to think it’s going to be another maintenance update, since they didn’t pre-announce any new features with 10.0.7 [which they did for 10.0.3 and 10.0.6]. It could be a ramp up to a substantial update at NAB in April. I’d like to think so since I’m going to be there this year…

[Michael Gissing]

I think Joseph is right. Many have moved on. I am finishing my PC build and installing CS6 & da Vinci Resolve when the software gets here tomorrow. The transition from FCS3 to CS6 will then happen until FCP Legend is no more. The majority of my clients are doing the Legend to CS6 move so I have waited for 18 months to see which way the market is headed. In my area & client base FCPX hasn’t made any impression yet and even if it does, I don’t see it being useful for grade & finish work anyway so I will just be getting AAF, XML & media. My AVID clients have remained with AVID and a few FCS people have gone to AVID so da Vinci & CS6 makes more sense than AVID to Legend. DnxHD will be my main codec from them so PC is fine. However the surprise is that a remarkable number are staying with Legend.

It made no sense to me to do anything with my late 2009 MacPro for CS6 or da Vinci so I have left it set with Snow Leopard and FCS3 and built a specific Win machine. Everything I have read about CS6 says the Win version works better and the choice and price of CUDA graphics cards make it a no brainer. I also have an editor who wants to hire the MacPro later in the year to edit a feature once most of my work has transitioned to CS6 & da Vinci for finishing & playout to HDCam (yes it is still the delivery requirement I must supply). So there is no incentive to upgrade Mac OS or change anything about the hardware.

So if it is quiet, I think that is because after nearly 20 months of FCPX we have a better idea where it is designed to sit in various workflows. Regardless of whether it gets a toe hold in my area of broadcast docos, I think I have seen enough of the development direction to realise it isn’t suited to me for grade and finish work and whether I will ever need to have it in house, even as a means to output XMLs or AAFs we shall see.

[Craig Alan]

In education, the debate is alive and kicking. There is a lot of money on the line: What NLE should we teach/invest in? Labs have many computers and funding is often tied to teaching “professional practices.” Do you really want to be teaching a program that the “industry” does not embrace? Or is FCP X the future and new editors should get on board?

The problem with FCP X from an educational P.O.V. is that it is so fundamentally different than other NLEs. Adobe Premiere Pro, AVID, FCP 7, all have interfaces that are variations on the same playing field (the track based timeline). Not so X.

The ‘browser’ component of all these programs is different and it was what made FCP legacy more Mac-like than the other choices. AVID has its own very specific way of organizing media. I don’t think the debate about FCP X is about its media organization — most seem to agree that in many ways this, or some evolution of this, will be the future. With missing features coming out fast, I think the only real debate about FCP X legitimacy is the lack of traditional tracks. I think magnetism can be seen as a worthwhile feature that each NLE will most likely offer in some form, most likely not by default.

An ex student of mine recently enrolled in film school. The film school, which offers a BA, has rejected FCP X. They are teaching AVID. He is learning AVID. He has a Macbook Pro. He has a copy of FCP X on his Macbook Pro. Guess what program he used for an assignment that was due sooner than later (not for his editing teacher)? FCP X. He likes FCP X; he’s learning AVID; he is most comfortable in FCP 7. It is not particularly practical to teach 3 or 4 different editing programs at most schools. Thus the debate goes on. If FCP X became widely accepted in pro circles, it would be an easy pick. It has a faster learning curve for anyone who has never edited before. It can be tiered with Imovie. It is fast and very appropriate for 99.99% of school projects. It is fairly cheap to install. It’s default behavior to allow all media to be constructively and destructively available for all projects/users is misguided, but it is no longer hard to find workarounds from the gurus. But if the industry rejects FCP X, schools will most likely reject it too.

This forum is the best most comprehensive most informed place to follow the debate that might be old news for most of you. But it is still relevant and I think needed.
I have decided to give FCP X a try. I think AVID is a bit too hard for many students, though I recommend it to students who express an interest in the field and do have copies of it. That left premiere and FCP X, both not really established in Hollywood. But both are gaining traction in broader professional circles. Will AVID be the lone survival in Hollywood? I doubt it. Time will tell.

MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170, Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Lance Bachelder]

I left and built an uber PC just for CS6 and Vegas. I’m talking multiple SSD’s, nVidia GTX graphics etc…

After using Premiere on some paying gigs I can honestly say it’s the worst piece of crap I’ve ever seen – even simple things require so many extra clicks, windows, dialog boxes – just a horrible NLE.

After watching John’s new FCPX videos I moved my latest show from Premiere to FCPX and NEVER looking back. It really is great software at this point and can only get better with each update.

I predict FCPX will soon be back on top in the “pro” editing world as more folks see just how deep, yet easy and fun it is to use.

Happy to be “back” and looking forward to my new BTO 27″ iMac and Pegasus drive 🙂

PS – Yes I’m still running my PC but only for Sony Vegas 12, Blu-ray authoring and Cinnafilm Dark Energy.

Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Irvine, California

[Charlie Austin]

[Michael Gissing] “So if it is quiet, I think that is because after nearly 20 months of FCPX we have a better idea where it is designed to sit in various workflows. “

Hmm. I just thought it was because everyone had a long weekend. Weird. 😉

————————————————————-

~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~

[Julian Bowman]

I love this specific forum because it has become a catch all for a lot of useful information and debate and (with one exception) intelligent and informed opinion on editing and NLEs as a whole.

I find it funny when the ”change its name’ threads periodically appear, usually from acolytes with thin skins it seems.

In the end I have pitched in with FCP X mainly because OS updates were starting to make 7 dodgy on my machine and because CS6 had just as many flaws (to me) as X but all my plugins and that side of my investment worked with X.

This debate about X being a new paradigm yada yada, just don’t get it. They have chosen a slightly different way of doing stuff, renamed everything needlessly, added some cool new features but at the same time removed a load of really sensible stuff and seem to be coding it based on home users rather than long term editors (not saying it doesn’t have professional elements, just doesn’t seem designed at its core with professional real life use at its heart). So I’m here, for better or for worse (damn 8s father sending her to that convent!!!) and I really hope Apple spend the next year sorting out the stupidness that is inherent:

+/-3db
Don’t stop playing in thumbnails when I jump forward in them
sequence tabs rather than the current limp version
Clicking anywhere on the timeline jumps to that point – have a specific area to be active and one not active for those of use mouse jockeys who click on screen to deselect stuff or just refocus ourselves
Clear all filters/effects
Favourite filters / effects folders we can compile
Redesign the truly horrible (IMO) key framing system. I hear complaints about 7s but this one is torrid (can give many examples, not going to here, but something I do a lot and used to enjoy has now become a frustrating exercise in head/wall banging)
Audio cross fade filter
Jump forward 1 second not 10 frames (truly truly abhor this change, actually effects me many times each edit)
Sequences (projects?) section as a list instead of this obsession with silly thumbnail film strip things so I can see 20 on the screen at once, not 4
Clips in timeline can have one image in the clip instead of multiple headache inducing images or none – great we have a choice (about 7 in fact) but why not the choice for one little image per clip – all or nothing? Really?

And so on, my list of irritations got so long I gave up.

Anyway, if it wasn’t for this forum (despite the best efforts of one individual to be as pompous condascending passive aggressive and generally irritating and nausea inducing as possible in an attempt to drive everyone away) I would never have even considered FCP X and wouldn’t have been as informed as I am.

So hopefully This forum will just remain and people will stop feeling insulted by its name. Great forum, and X didn’t change the world, just pissed a lot of people off, me included and I’m married to the little minx now.

FCP X – 2 steps forwards, 2 steps back, does a little shimmy when I wanted it to do a little swoosh

[Marcus Moore]

Agreed. It’s been quiet in here for a few days.

And just to counter Micheael- and I’m not saying you’re wrong or anything- just two different sets of anecdotal evidence.

With my client base. One of them is fully on FCPX now, another is in the process of moving over, and a 3rd is considering the FCPX switch after reviewing the Magic Feather videos.

The rest of my client base here in TO is hanging onto FCP7 for the time being.

[Aindreas Gallagher]

[Julian Bowman] “Redesign the truly horrible (IMO) key framing system. I hear complaints about 7s but this one is torrid (can give many examples, not going to here, but something I do a lot and used to enjoy has now become a frustrating exercise in head/wall banging)”

that I really agree with – they need to re-think the keyframing apparatus. I once even tried to mock up some kind of improvement:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/335/43315

It’s the problem with out of range keyframes that strikes me in this incarnation – because the whole keyframe apparatus is slapped onto the clip like a leaning tower of Pisa, trimming the clip can very easily hide, and make inaccessible, keyframes – unless you actually extend the clip again to reveal them and pull them back in. Thats not exactly ideal.

https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Aindreas Gallagher]

[Lance Bachelder] “even simple things require so many extra clicks, windows, dialog boxes – just a horrible NLE.
“

just out of curiosity – I remember you were taking the mickey out of Phillip Bloom for even considering PPro 6 three months or more ago – you said he was “just” a camera guy I believe, although Stu Maschwitz is extremely positive on PPro too – and I remember him most for coding Magic Bullet, and setting up the orphanage – but when in your absence did you take a positive stance on PPro – to the extent that you were happy executing paying work on it?

Also I kind of don’t get the “windows” issue – Larry jordan recently has spoken quite a bit about how much he really does like Adobe’s take on the single brick editing interface in PPro, where say the tilde key hover can explode any onscreen tab to fullscreen? also – what are the instances of these dialogue boxes you are talking about?

for myself I’m really unhappy with the archaic project format options PPro presents for new editing projects.

Seeing three flavours of DV, two flavours of DVCPRO HD and the ever glorious HDV is just confusing and depressing. every single time.

It would literally put you off the thing – its a bad time machine of editing formats in presentation terms. you nearly wouldn’t notice…

native AVCHD. native AVC INTRA, native ARRI, native Canon XF, native RED 3D – how did you get on with these formats by the way? How is it with AVC on the win side?

still though – if adobe really have actually crafted a true version of an open timeline, and you would think they need to given they have no native intermediate codec, surely we should be almost seeing a simple classy request for frame rate and dimension, almost like Avid, but instead of DNX, they are saying, our open timeline coding backs it up.

Or – they could include an intermediate codec option for the timeline – If they could actually be bothered to craft or buy one. hello cineform.

Still – I’m easily confused – I don’t get why they are asking me if I want a HDV sequence?
Why aren’t they just saying “here – have the timeline to end all timelines, it eats everything, just declare frame rate and dimension, we’re so sure of it, we never bothered to code anything like PRORES.”

Because who in God’s name wants a HDV sequence? Given Adobe have apparently constructed a timeline that needs no codecs?
just insane video cards and a landfill of RAM – which is fine, but if I turn up with that, don’t ask me if I want a HDV preset.

That would make anyone cry.

Am I being stupid about this?

Anyway – thought I should slag it a little too. I really like the timeline though. And the custom GUIs in effects. And the fact that they mean it, and are trying like hell to deliver for professionals.

cheers,

https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Steve Connor]

[Aindreas Gallagher] “Because who in God’s name wants a HDV sequence? Given Adobe have apparently constructed a timeline that needs no codecs?
just insane video cards and a landfill of RAM – which is fine, but if I turn up with that, don’t ask me if I want a HDV preset.

That would make anyone cry.

Am I being stupid about this?”

Not at all, I’ve tried to like PPro and there is MUCH to like about it, but like you I don’t understand why you still get a list of these codecs every time you start a project. It feels brand new and a very old all at the same time. (Unlike Avid which just feels old, but in a good way if you’re an Avid Editor!)

Steve Connor
‘It’s just my opinion, with an occasional fact thrown in for good measure”