Quite nice article summing up whats new in FCP X – looks good to me

[Ben Holmes]

I’d take a look at the screenshots here:

https://www.loopinsight.com/2011/04/12/first-screenshots-of-final-cut-pro-x/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+loopinsight%2FKqJb+%28The+Loop%29

I’m also glad Apple has said ‘stay tuned’ about the other apps – but I’m assuming they’ve unbundled them now – good. I probably wouldn’t bother with Motion at all if it wasn’t included in FCS, I’d use AE all the time. And no one asked me for a DVD in about 2 years….

There’s also a couple of (bad) videos here – nicer to see it moving:

https://provideocoalition.com/index.php/ssimmons/story/fcp_x_is_shown_to_the_world._flashy_things_are_seen_questions_are_asked/

I feel more positive after seeing this – the screenshots will only add flames to the ‘iMovie Pro’ fire – an accusation that just doesn’t seem fair. Look at the context sensitive windows and hints of HUDs in these – this is how a modern GUI SHOULD work, not a bunch of windows. Looks smart to me.

I’m not going to be a fanboy and say I’m ecstatic about everything until I’ve seen a proper demo in use, and I’m going to take it on faith that XML, multiple audio outs etc. as well as compatibility with third party hardware and IS coming (and I won’t be switching until it is), but all in all, I’m glad we have a new approach.

I’ve spent 10 years in a single interface. As scary as a brand new one looks, the only question I want answered is 1) Will it fit my workflow and 2) Will it do it quicker? Whether or not people like the new colours, or think the GUI looks like iMovie is irrelevent – but in the absence of anything else to say, that’s all anyone will complain/rave about for now.

Apple would do well to ensure some proper demo videos get onto the web PRONTO. A few hardware companies (AJA, BM especially) announcing immediate plans to be compatible will help – but I really don’t think that’s a big concern. Apple wouldn’t go to any of this trouble for an app that can’t leave the desktop.

Ben

Edit Out Ltd
—————————-
FCP Editor/Trainer/System Consultant
EVS/VT Supervisor for live broadcast
RED camera transfer/post
Independent Director/Producer

https://www.blackmagic-design.com/casestudies/detail.asp?case=therydercup

[Steven Gladstone]

The cheap thing – well, really, who is going to NOT buy it now? I wonder though.
1. Is it now so inexpensive that people who have Adobe Creative suite or Avid, won’t just pick up FCPX
2. Will this force Adobe/Avid to drop it’s price – although I think Adobe just went to subscription.
3. Is this a true representation of price of FCP, if it isn’t bundled with all the other apps.

About the “Magnetic” timeline. Great, but Damn it is about time. My previous system (DPs Velocity) had that 9 years ago, and it has been bothering me that FCP didn’t just do that automatically.

Steven Gladstone
https://www.gladstonefilms.com

[Keith Mottram]

The good for me was 64bit and background rendering. Everything else was interesting more than of interest. And I’m left asking the following questions…

Where is the source window? What support does it have multicam? what are the 3d options? Can I still edit to tape? Can I still produce EDLs? Are these new flashy import modes distructable- ie can I remove stabilisation afterwards?

There has been lots of chatter on other forums about whether it is pro not pro or imovie pro etc. the thing is there is a lot of different flavours of pro and it might well be the perfect tool and pay a lot of pros bills, but most of the anouncements make scant difference to my work. I cannot really make a decision until I’ve used it, but the argument that we have to change our ways is kind of bollocks if the shows we work on dont. If I cannot use it in a ‘conventional’ way as well as the new bells and whistles way, no matter how ‘awesome’ it is, I feel I might be doing more Avid jobs…

[Paul Jay]

I’m really wondering about 3th party plugins.

Will it support AudioUnits ( including visual representation of the plugin )
Will it Support FXPlug?

Beside this i’m pretty positive aswell.
I just hope it doesn’t cut like iMovie. Because the latest iMovie is terrible 😛

[Marcus Smith]

Firstly thanks for the insight and posts NAB folk.

The biggest question for me are simple “under the hood” fundamentals like a proper render cache management system and a media management system at the least. You can have as much real time playback and background rendering as your like, but artists and plugin developers will always push the envelope on resources and you will always need to render and / or manage your incoming media from other programs like AE in a session.

Did anyone see evidence of an intelligent render cache management system or any clever media management tools?

Thanks,

Marcus.

[Ernest Ratliff]

My only concern now is if I can still input from tape.

[Ben Edwards]

Just a few thoughts. On the iMovie look partly we are saying more is done with the mouse than used to be. Although up to a point keyboard shortcuts are the holy gravel (Avid certainly used to have things that were only available thought them) there are things that it is quickest or easier to do with the mouse. I realised this when I started using Sony Vegas. Basically we have got into a ludite mindset that does not see the potential (in terms of productivity) in fully exploiting a GUI interface.

The question we should be asking is does it allow us to cut as quickly as Lightworks. [tangent] And on the Lightworks front I realised a cool trick it had up its sleeve in terms of keyboard shortcuts (apologies for tangent). You can define any key as a function key. So as well as Alt/Ctl/Apple/Windows…. you can also define a letter as a function key (bear with me). This means that you can set things up so V is a function key to toggle video tracks. So you hold down V and tap 1-9 to toggle video tracked 1-9. I find this a lot easier to remember than Ctl 1-9 CTL is arbitory, V for Video makes sense. [tangent] Anyway back to the main flow.

In terms of 3td party plugins they almost certainly will not work. Not because we are going from 7 to X but because we are going from 32 to 64 bit. At the very lease the vendors will have to recompile the 64bit versions.

Regards,
Ben

—
Ben Edwards – Freelance Filmmaker
https://www.funkytwig.com

[Mark Suszko]

X has to be a lot of things to a lot of different people. No 2 users are exactly alike. For example, making DVD’s is a HUGE part of what we do in my shop, we now ship more DVD dubs than we do tape. And that’s a good thing. Our particular customer base is not going to be “cloud based” for some time yet, so we still need to make SD and BluRay HD disks. So BluRay is a concern for me.

I am really glad and excited about a lot of the new realtime features, because having to transcode and render everything just to get started is a huge time suck to our operation, and we were staying away from mpeg4 and AVCHD format aquisition because our NLE couldn’t keep up with those codecs. Now, no longer an issue. When clients bring us their AVCHD or MPEG4 stuff they self-shot, it still may not have been shot very well, but we’ll be able to make the best out of what they give us, and fast.

We also cut breaking news, so being able to edit even as the source is still ingesting, that’s huge for us. I can see a lot of news operations going with x expecially for the low price entry point and the metadata feature that are finally becoming competitive with Avid. Avid’s meme was that it is a powerful meta-database first, with an NLE attached to it. There are projects that need exactly that, and there are others that don’t. X is now dipping a toe into that world with the new metadata features.

[Jason Myres]

[Ben Edwards] “I would rather make my living on the basis that I am good at what I do rather than I am the only one that can afford the tools.”

This.

JM

[Paul Jay]

You can give anyone a guitar. Doesn’t mean music comes out..