-
Some thoughts on the FCPX Forum
-
[Rafael Amador] “What you should find strange, is that from so many people involved in FCP Forum in the COW for years, only David, Jeremy, Craig and your self are backing FCPX. I understand that FCPX fits your needs”
I feel the need to clarify something here.
I am not “backing” fcpx. As a matter of fact, I have repeatedly said we can’t use it on a daily basis. Of the five capable edit stations in the shop, only one has FCPx on it, and thats mine.
I am giving it an honest to goodness look though, this is true. The only way I can figure out if it’s going to be good enough to use, is to use it. When someone says “it can’t do this”, I like to go prove it one way or another. This is true of any software I use, not just the recent fcpx release. Also, I never make rash decisions when it comes to my livelihood.
The reality of why we can’t use it right now (besides the absence of interconnection/baseband video out/etc, which I call the FAQ problems, those are “addressed” by the FAQ):
– Our shop is getting to a point where we need central storage, at some point all of use work on everything that passes through. We are a small company and shared storage is a major purchase. As a matter of fact we are beta testing a new product from Sonnet that is a mix of fibre and Ethernet all based around an NTFS windows server driven by metaSAN. FCPx does not work at all with this system, so strike one.
– FCPx isn’t quite stable. In the time that I’ve played with it, it hasn’t felt stable enough to use. It crashes sometimes, there’s a few buggy quirks, but to its credit, I haven’t lost anything due to the constant saving.
– Format support needs improvement if fcpx wants to be a modern NLE. Hopefully this will change once developers get a hold of the hooks, but this remains to be seen.
Now, this is what I see as potential from FCPx and this why I am giving it a chance:
– Event/project sharing and collaboration seems to be built in. If you look at the structure of the events and Projects, it seems that sharing is going to be a feature and not an after thought of fcpx. This is going to be important for us. Also, Apple recognized this and started FCServer which was basically an organization and metadata application for FCP7. They of course killed it, but I imagine that some of it is going to make it in fcpx.
– Organization. Oh man, the organization in FCPx is awesome. We have a younger editor in our shop, and he does not organize very well, he brings everything in unnamed and unorganized. We have been training him to stop this process because when we get the projects from him, we have no idea what is what. At the very basic level of organization, if he did this with FCPx, we could at the very least sort by date. Also, I think FCPx suggests to you to assign meaningful names to things. In my opinion this is good, and will teach GOOD habits (and the process is extremely fast). I am a pretty organized editor and fcpx will make it even easier for me.
– Speed. Its fast. It’s modern, and feels like the NLE is finally in the 21st century of Mac computing.
– Tools. Better audio filters, better text tools, scopes, and overall quality of the tools. Sure, the color board is kinda weird, but it does work and work well. Blows the doors off the 3way CC and brings a lot of of the basic Color options right to the fcp timeline (masks, secondaries, keying, etc).
– Apple recognizes trends. Call it good, call it bad, but they have a pretty good sense of where things are going. You have to remember, they weren’t the first company to release an mp3 player or a smart phone, but look what happened when they did. At the recent Avid event that I watched online, one of the Avid reps got up and assured the crowd that they would never change the basics of how the Avid interface works, and everyone applauded. I found that statement to be a disappointment. We are at a point of great change. Sometimes it’s hard to see when you’re standing in the middle of it, but things are moving fast.
So, I’m not backing it, just giving it a serious look. We simply can’t stop using FCS3 at this time.
If we do decide to switch, then we are going to have to learn a whole new system anyway, so in that regard fcpx is no different.
Notice how I didn’t even mention the magnetic timeline?
[Rafael Amador] “Apple is telling me to go to re=education and forget all the shit i’ve learnt in 25 years.”
Really? How?
-
“And the necessity for that is itself a sign of what this forum descended into.”
Or risen to. This forum contains the most intelligent, thought provoking analysis on the nature of editing that I have found anywhere. The price of that is a little friction. There are no free rides.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions -
People who want to learn about the program are being discouraged. There’s a lot of name calling going on. One can discuss what FCPX can/can’t do without that. Also there are people who are interested in the business/industry models and all they get is flippant “left the pro market” type responses. Very deep analysis with that (sarcastic).
-
[Herb Sevush] “Or risen to. This forum contains the most intelligent, thought provoking analysis on the nature of editing that I have found anywhere. The price of that is a little friction. There are no free rides.”
Agreed.
-
Thank you, it’s nice to be appreciated.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions -
[Gary Pollard] “There’s actually a: “People are actually USING and liking this. How dare they?” mindset from some here. “
I think some of that comes simply from Apple’s silence. Why is the whole FCP X thing such a big deal? Because it came from Apple. I for one don’t want FCP X to become a competitor in the pro market. Why? Because I don’t like the game Apple is playing. They call it Final Cut. They call it Pro. And both statements are untrue but they can get away with it because of who they are. I for one would only wish that they would just say we are transitioning out of the pro market, in words not just actions, and let us all move on. I think Apple’s arrogance and the way they handled this whole thing is creating a lot of the tension.
Robert Brown
Editor/VFX/Colorist – FCP, Smoke, Quantel Pablo, After Effects, 3DS MAX, Premiere Prohttps://vimeo.com/user3987510/videos
-
It was marketed to professional editors at NAB. It has features that are targeting to professional editors as noted frequently in may discussions including the recent Keycode Media event. It is missing important features that both “professionals” and “amateurs” need. It is not currently usable in many professional workflow. One can’t assume Apple won’t target “professionals.”
One can assume the marketing was premature relative the current feature set. It’s clear they have been marketing it in “professional” circles despite its incomplete state. That’s a marketing issue and yes that’s a problem. But the marketing seems to indicate the intent of the product.
-
I’m not entirely clear why you can’t assume one thing but can assume another.
bigpine
-
Tim,
I’m sure you intended to answer my comments but I don’t think you have although I do expect you do have the answer.Analytics I’d look at aren’t the number of posts. They would be the number of first time posts as well as the number of people who’ve posted. If it’s just a small group of people using the forum heavily it’s not bringing new eyeballs. Basically one might measure Unique Views and Total Views. Also what percentage of views actually come back for a 2nd view after some time passes.
Basically the metrics might be new participant posts and repeat views from new viewers. I suspect you believe these numbers are good too but “traffic” and “posts” don’t tell the story when it comes to bringing in new people vs driving them away.
-
That FCPX was marketed to “pros” is not an assumption. FCPX was marketed at a meeting of professional editors at the NAB SuperMeet. As to whether it will meet those needs at some point is an assumption but Apple’s marketing has been to “pros” hence the moniker matches their marketing attempt.
Although it’s a bit more subjective regarding third party support but if one believes AJA (and others) makes “professional” i/o devices, they’ve stated and intent to support. It may be subjective regarding Boris, GenArts, RedGiant, Automatic Duck (and others) are developers of “professional” plugins but they’ve all stated they intend to support.
As to whether FCPX reaches significant market share in its targeting market is, again, admittedly debatable, but given Apple’s marketing and developer promises, the target would be something one might call “professional” (and admittedly that’s a term with many means). To apply my own definition, it’s targeting some segment of the market who are inclined to spend money to buy tools in order to make money from use of the product.
If you want to say I’m making an assumption, OK, but I’m basing it on Apple’s marketing and developers known to support a “professional” market. That NAB (really SuperMeet though) generally is dominated by professionals I think is reasonable. That companies such as AJA, Boris, GenArts, RedGiant, Automatic Duck also market their tools to “professionals” is also reasonable.
I guess one could argue that all the above developers would love to widen their market beyond “professionals” and Apple is certainly doing that . . . but that’s not to the exclusion of “professionals.”
As mentioned elsewhere, what Philip Hodgetts and Alex4d have explored also leads me to believe there’s “professional” intent (whether it succeeds is another story).
If I’m making an “assumption” at least I’m providing evidence for it.
_______
The assumptions against FCPX being targeted to”professionals” as I understand it.
Missing or poorly implemented features which may or may not be addressed later (see above developers).
Apple mistakenly marketing to professional editors.
That the interface looks like the “consumer” app iMovie.Personally I find none of the above very persuasive that the FCPX is not targeted to “pros” although it certainly may not be targeted to pros to the exclusion of amateurs. Some have stated that trying to do both is the crux of the problem but even this does not mean “pros” are aren’t part of the mix of the target market.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up