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This is where X is going…the iPad
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[Bob Woodhead] “but how the heck do you 1099 them? it’ll be a nightmare, I tell you….”
There will be an app for that. 😉
Brave new world….
Andrew Wilson
WestView Digital Video & Design
http://www.westviewdigital.com -
Certainly that is always a potential threat, but it doesn’t have anything specific to do with this piece of software. And it is certainly not new. It seems a rather silly argument to make against using X on an iPad.
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[Chris Harlan] “If rumors are true and A) iPad HD is actually released this Fall, and B) the rumored accompanying pro App released with it is a tablet version of X, and C) EDL support is truly forthcoming, I can see owning iPad HD and X to do rough cuts when I’m on the go, that I can then finish up on Media Composer, FCP Studio, or Premiere.
That might just be useful. So, I guess never say never.”
I think everyone is making the dangerous assumption that these will be DIFFERENT versions of FCPX. Since its release my suspicion has been that FCPX was eventually going to be something that would be designed specifically for the iPad, that also runs on those “old fashioned” computers. Everything about the interface suggests this.
Don’t think for a minute that Apple is going to release an iPad version of FCPX that will make projects that can be opened on FCS, MC, or PP. The software is not designed with a Sony EX-3 in mind. Instead the thinking is that you won’t even NEED a separate camera, since you can just shoot directly from the iPad. To me, this news is just further confirmation that Apple’s idea of “revolution” in video editing is re-making the industry into a Starbucks-capable workflow, where no project is meant to be worked on longer than the time it takes to finish your Venti soy latte.
This is really sad, because this could have been really great if they marketed FCPX (or any other name for it), as a new complimentary product to be used along with the Final Cut Studio. It could have been a remarkable tool on the iPad as a supporting app in the field, and even as a separate interface to be used along with a computer while editing. With Bluetooth connectivity, think about how useful an iPad could be as a surface area. OR maybe it could act just as your bin for FCP, freeing up more real estate on your computer monitor for the Canvas and Timeline.
Professor, Producer, Editor
and former Apple Employee -
Chris, a dangerous assumption? It will have to be different under the hood because of the differences between iiOS and Lion. I’m guessing that otherwise, feature for feature, it will be the same. And, I think your focus is too narrow. I think X is clearly designed for iMac down. The depth of the keyboard short cuts, alone, suggests that it is for more than just the iPad.
As for other programs–the rumor is that they have promised edl support. If that is true, then I just might do an occasional extremely rough cuts on an iPad. I don’t see how this is a dangerous assumption.
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[John Pale] “Might be potential for a good companion program to review location footage and quick rough edits coming from this.”
Oh, actually I see editing becoming a “shared whiteboard”, where everybody in the room has an iPadX linked to a master FCX instance and are furiously fighting it out on the same main story as to where a cut should go, what take to use, you know this would be a great game show. It used to be called “agency work”, but with only one person controlling the timeline-thingy, I know its now called something else. That person, called the “editor” was the only one, usually, who could get voted off the island, but in this paradigm, if one of the contributors started having their ideas rejected more often than not, they could be “fired”. I like it.
jPo
You mean “Old Ben”? Ben Kenobi?
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[Chris Harlan] “I just might do an occasional extremely rough cuts on an iPad. I don’t see how this is a dangerous assumption.
“I also don’t see how this is a bad thing. FCP has already been so accessible that any monkey can get it and use it. As evidence, I point to all the monkeys who DO have it and use it.
The fact is that, in today’s world, $299 is plenty of barrier. Crackers, hackers, and monkeys will in fact now have virtually zero access to it. It was easy to do with disks and serial numbers. It’s impossible with apps. I can tell you from 6 years of going to FCP groups around the country that a whole lot of people paid zero for FCP. At $299, they won’t bother.
In other words, don’t think of how far DOWN the price went. Think of how far UP it went.
So, now that I’ve paid for my FCPX app, and I have an iPad that I love so much that I carry it more places than I ever carried my laptop, well, why wouldn’t I want to use it?
I look at this as a huge deal on set. Have you seen all the great slate apps, Dashwood’s stereo 3D apps, controller apps for Broadcast Pix and Blackmagic switchers and servers? If you were at NAB, you might have seen 3ality’s new 3space rig. It happened to be loaded with EPICs with Leica lenses in 3ality’s booth, but in ARRI’s booth, it was loaded with the new ARRI M cameras.
And it can be controlled with an iPhone. Is that a crisis? Does it mean that 3ality, RED and ARRI are leaving the pro space because you can control them with iPhones? Or Blackmagic, Broadcast Pix and Dashwood because they’re on iPad? No. It means that they recognize pros are using iPhones and iPads, and see an opportunity to exploit that.
I can’t even tell you how many guys in sports trucks have told me they are using their iPads to control their broadcasts. They freaking love it. Any competitor they look at, they’re now going to be asking, “Yeah, yours only costs $60,000, but can I control it with my iPad?”
Now imagine you’re on set, and the metadata from the camera stream is sticking onto the clips going into your newly metadata-supercharged FCPX, coming in full res to your Thunderbolt-connected array. This is definitely coming. Then use FCPX on an iPad wirelessly (wireless iDevice control already available 3rd party, coming soon from Apple) control FCPX on your main computer, working with the full-res clips on your array. No proxies. No need for a “very rough cut.” You can get a full-blown dailies-ready cut with full-res 444 4K RAW files…from your iPad. And, uhm, assuming you can work with 444 4K RAW files…but still.
Just because monkeys can use it too doesn’t mean that ONLY monkeys can use it. And this kind of portable *companion* device for on-set workflows is well out of any monkey’s reach.
Well, except for all those monkeys making Hollywood movies. It can’t be true, but it seems sometimes like as many monkeys are showing their bright red rear ends in multiplexes as on YouTube.
We’ll know when it gets there, but FCPX on an iPad, with all the other pieces that I described, and plenty I know I haven’t imagined, gives Apple a chance to run the table on-set that they’ve never even had a prayer of before.
For the record, I have strongly recommended Adobe Premiere, Avid Media Composer and Sony Vegas on other threads. I think that when people have a chance to look at these — and Media 100 for that matter — they will discover that their entire foray into FCP was a massive waste of time and money. These other NLEs will make them much happier.
That may not be you of course. But speaking within the four walls of a discussion of FCPX on an iPad, and without commenting on the many features that YOU need RIGHT NOW that are missing from FCPX in general, I think that this has the potential to be the coolest thing EVER.
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Tim, for me it would be always be a very rough cut on an iPad. Editing on a single seventeen inch is confining enough, though I DO do it when I have to. My real comfort/enjoyment zone begins with 3 24″ monitors and grows from there.
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[Chris Harlan] “My real comfort/enjoyment zone begins with 3 24″ monitors and grows from there.”
I couldn’t agree more. Editing with one monitor always felt like a parlor trick to me, some needlessly difficult “because I can” thing like batting with one hand. I remember the days when a fully configured workstation from Avid shipped with two monitors, no discussion — this is how you do it, period. Maybe still is, I don’t know, but frankly that IS how you do it. Two monitors, minimum. Both hands on the bat.
The key words for my ridiculous speculation/imagination were “dailies ready.” The final outcome might be a crazily rough cut, ready for some poking around before the real edit starts. But it might be more than a parlor trick if you could integrate it with some of the full-bore pro-oriented assistant apps from people like Tim Dashwood.
In the meantime, there’s a reason why the gold standard for on-set dailies editing is media ready for composing coming straight off the video tap into Media Composer. I’m still learning about on-set dailies grading, but so far I’m especially impressed by ASSIMILATE SCRATCH Lab (pretty please, no more all-caps names!) Tools like this are the right way to do it, and still will be after all that iPad parlor trickery might come to pass.
My points were only that it would be neato, and regardless, that FCPX on an iPad shouldn’t be seen as necessarily a bad thing. If the trend already well underway continues, people will tout their “works on iPad” solutions alongside their “works on a laptop” solutions.
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