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The interface is still annoying
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[Mark Dobson] “I have to really question why I still use it for professional work”
Because it helps you do it and because you pürobably deep down are very much aware that no other NLE will be perfect for every project?
[Mark Dobson] ” But for me, the spinning ball, force quit, trash preferences and relaunch is very much part of my work pattern.”
I have no issues at all. No beachballs, no crahse4s for weeks, no trashing of prefs needed. I use it on a 2009 MacPro and a 2011 Macbook both with 16GB RAM. FCPX is much more stable than FCP7 ever was since 10.0.2.
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i think it’s pretty obvious your name should be Bill Davies. It sounds notably better.
https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics
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[Aindreas Gallagher] “granted apple have a problem here, but inarguably their core problem is that they are not actually reacting to vibrant user comment, they are reacting to fundamental paid editor/facility market rejection – we both know that the action of editing currently shows little sign of operating within FCPX. If anything opinions have hardened, or in a sense worse, it has begun fading from view?”
I don’t really know if it’s fading from view. I think that there are probably people evaluating all kinds of options now that FCS is dead (long live FCS).
Some will wait and revisit later, some might see some good in it and hang around, some might be completely pissed at Apple’s seemingly cavalier decisions, some might know more than we do.
I don’t hold as much contempt for the timeline as many do here. I think it’s a good start, it needs some more capability, but it doesn’t need to revert back to a wholesale track system. I’ve said all along, we just need a little more control of things, and Apple has started to deliver little by little…but that’s just me and my thinking. I am one of those crazies that didn’t need PIOPs in FCPX for chrissakes because I thought FCPX’s employed methods were pretty good. It was the editor that needed to change. I was ready for a change.
[Aindreas Gallagher] “I actually recently offered (vaugely not right really, not Andy’s machine) to install FCPX off my license in one of my primary client’s edit suites – I just wanted to see it perform with some stuff – they exist massively with C300 and 5D stuff, some Alexa. I wanted a sneaky in anger run with it, I wanted to get annoyed and truly desperate using it, and these guys are nearly entirely online, its a sweet fit – no go. Sure – they’d never go for something that slapdash, but on the whole its either FCP7 with fingers in the ears, a little PPro, and not a lot – or FCP7 formally transitioning to Avid. Particularly in advertising.
Its real baby steps though – a senior editor at a major american advertising firm with a london shop pointed out that the issue is that, in London, it became quite an FCP town – quite a few high value commercial editors in London, and the shops that pitch them are, in many cases, FCP based.
As the smart egalitarian tool, FCP won large in London. Avid was half beaten into the ground.”
Yes. That sums up even my experience, even. I don’t think there’s a facility that would be of sound mind that would simply do a massive switch to FCPX. It’s simply not ready, and that’s OK. @RadicalMedia might be the exception, but my guess is that they run a little of everything. I know personally, we physically can’t walk away from the previous decades worth of FCS archive. We will need to limp FCS along as long as there is a computer to run it.
X also takes a bit of time to learn. While I see it as a strength, it might prevent it from being picked up quickly in larger environments. People will buy it on their own, experiment, and if they like, they will ask for it (that Craig Slattery and the BBC story is a prime example of that). So while it might not be a no-go at first blush, it takes more than a cursory look, at least in my opinion. I’ll swim with the squid, calamari is good.
As much as I like the direction of FCPX, I can’t really employ it quite yet, although I will say, 10.0.6 is really close. Dangerously close, really.
[Aindreas Gallagher] “Do you know anyone making a formal move to FCPX your end? Even in a limited seat capacity?”
The people I have seen and spoken with are simply too busy to do anything at the moment. What seems to be mostly true is that Ex-Avid folks are going back to Avid like an old slipper.
The FCP v3 and up folks are looking at Pr, some really like it, some say that it’s just like FCP7, right up until it isn’t and “discard” it in frustration. Nothing a little teething won’t take care of, I’m sure.
Same with FCPX, everyone is still looking but not acting. I don’t know anyone who has started using it full time. You are right in one sense about the “fading from view”. There has been so much blood spilled over FCPX, that people aren’t even looking at it comprehensively. It happened right here in this thread. The perception is so out of whack that it was said Apple is “playing games”. In reality, they have delivered a truly high powered portable workflow in Thunderbolt, and made an announcement about a MacPro-y thing that will show up later next year.
THAT, my friend, is a PR problem as Apple is delivering on hardware, and even said something was coming and gave a target date, yet they are perceived as playing games. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I guess.
I think with the release of FCPXML v1.2, we will start to see some workflow additions pretty soon that might garner some attention, especially on a “facility” level, but that is just rampant speculation. The SAN control and custom metadata blob exporting is approaching off the charts good for an internal system to the NLE. It’s not ultra sexy, though, I mean who cares about that level of workflow? Pros? Pfff…
Jeremy
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[Jeremy Garchow] “I don’t hold as much contempt for the timeline as many do here.”
My complaints could easily be fixed. I generally object to the “rubberiness” of the whole interface. I think it would be quite easy to fix this. Because it hasn’t been done (or there is no user option) I suspect Apple intends it to be that way. Period.
[Jeremy Garchow] “I think that there are probably people evaluating all kinds of options now that FCS is dead (long live FCS).”
FCS continues to save my bacon. There are very few FCP X jobs I do that don’t touch FCS in some way. When you look at things like media relinking (in custom ways under user control), nothing beats FCP7 at this point in time. In an effort to make everything locked down, they sacrificed flexibility. FCP X is just as closed down as Media Composer and, although it’s laudable, it also cripples many workflows.
My Apple friends tell me that I’m simply using workflows that try to accommodate others’ lack up upgrading to modern software. That may well be the case, but it’s the real world we all live in. Editing is largely a collaborative, team sport.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “My complaints could easily be fixed. I generally object to the “rubberiness” of the whole interface. I think it would be quite easy to fix this. Because it hasn’t been done (or there is no user option) I suspect Apple intends it to be that way. Period.”
Yep, I hear that, although I find that ripple deletes seem much faster. Much less sliding, much more speed.
I also think that keyboard navigation control would help here so that I don’t have to fight the layer interface. Select a clip and hit a key to bump it up or down non destructively. If I hit twice, it will move up two “layers”, etc. Similar to how the overwrite to primary command works now, but with less overwriting. That command is quick.
I also think new Mac hardware is going to help here.
[Oliver Peters] “FCS continues to save my bacon. There are very few FCP X jobs I do that don’t touch FCS in some way. When you look at things like media relinking (in custom ways under user control), nothing beats FCP7 at this point in time. In an effort to make everything locked down, they sacrificed flexibility. FCP X is just as closed down as Media Composer and, although it’s laudable, it also cripples many workflows.”
I think that with FCPXML v1.2, you will see plenty of third party workflow enhancers that will allow reconnects and interchange if that’s what is needed.
[Oliver Peters] “My Apple friends tell me that I’m simply using workflows that try to accommodate others’ lack up upgrading to modern software. That may well be the case, but it’s the real world we all live in. Editing is largely a collaborative, team sport.”
Yessir, it is. You are right that it doesn’t account for the flexibility that FCP7 had, although that same flexibility could get you in trouble. It’s a double edge sword.
I am confident that the further development of XML will help in these situations and allow reconnections to externally created proxy files, for instance.
Jeremy
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Select a clip and hit a key to bump it up or down non destructively. If I hit twice, it will move up two “layers”, etc. Similar to how the overwrite to primary command works now, but with less overwriting. That command is quick.”
But Jeremy, while that certainly satisfies the editor, doesn’t it wreak havoc with compositing? Since X has a pretty rigidly hierarchical render process, won’t wanton “bumping up” cause all sorts of issues for real-time playback?
Seems to me that if Apple were to make it more trivial to alter the rendering order of an entire timeline, even to help timeline operations work more fluidly – it would also be forcing a LOT of calculations into the metadata post processing queue – potentially slowing up everything else.
X is sorta “trackless” but it’s also extremely hierarchical.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[Bill Davis] “But Jeremy, while that certainly satisfies the editor, doesn’t it wreak havoc with compositing? Since X has a pretty rigidly hierarchical render process, won’t wanton “bumping up” cause all sorts of issues for real-time playback?”
I don’t see how. I can do this very thing in Ae (a compositor, not real time, I might add) and it is handy.
It is more exact, it is less loose.
[Bill Davis] “Seems to me that if Apple were to make it more trivial to alter the rendering order of an entire timeline, even to help timeline operations work more fluidly – it would also be forcing a LOT of calculations into the metadata post processing queue – potentially slowing up everything else.”
It’s one clip (or selected clips) not an entire timeline. It saves a lot of clicking and dragging, but it’s the exact same result. Are you saying we shoudln’t be able to click and drag a clip to the proper stacking order either? I guess I don’t understand what you’re saying.
If I have three clips stacked, and want a forth above the first clip, but below the second clip, I now have to add that clip as connected clip as the fourth in the stack, select it, shift drag the clip down in between the first and second clip and wait for FCPX to finish it’s animating, and let go of everything correctly.
I want to be able to hit q, shift-down twice. Done.
[Bill Davis] “X is sorta “trackless” but it’s also extremely hierarchical.”
Right. That’s what I want control of, the hierarchy. You only have two choices now when adding a clip from the Event Browser and that’s to go in the primary (d or w) or as a top layered connected clip (q). Then I have to kind fo draaaaaagggg thiiiinnnnggggs around to where I want it.
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[Don Walker] “In agreeing with Oliver are you giving up on X?
“Absolutely not Don.
But the points he made I agree with and would really like to see addressed.
We’re talking about primarily performance issues and (like in the Motion round-tripping) still some logical, basic functionality. -
OK, I see where you’re coming from.
My thinking is probably “infected” from the constant need to work with long monolithic stacks of clips. For example, I do a lot of client “window dubs” that consist of a group of clips over which is a long timecode generator.
In X, it’s much better than the mess for so many years in 7 when moving any clip single would force the entire timeline into re-render , but if I change the layer position of the TC overlay – then X has to recalculate a lot of relationships as well.
Once again, it’s task and workflow specific. If I’m working with lots of discrete stacks as you note, it’s not a big deal. If I’m working with global elements like overlays – then stack re-ordering isn’t quite so trivial at all.
Once again, the context to the type of project you do most is what makes something easy or complex.
And so it goes.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[Bill Davis] “Once again, the context to the type of project you do most is what makes something easy or complex.”
I guess.
A tc reader filter would help. I don’t know what you’re using, but you must be generating your own tc and never touching the sequence.
I still don’t quite understand why there’s no tc reader in FCPX, and why the custom ones are broken.
As far as stacking order it’s important. If you don’t want things ruined, don’t ruin them.
Keyboard shortcuts would help here, as you don’t have to use them.
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