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Time for an FCP X update?
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[Andy Field] “sentences never heard in FCP 7 either (can’t put a track below track 1? Seriously? just add more tracks…)”
OK, let me be more precise for all those who don’t understand the difference between FCP-X and FCP-Legacy.
When you add a track in FCP-Legacy – yes, you get a new track where track ONE currently is. But it rachets all your tracks up so that 1 becomes 2, 2 becomes 3, etc.
In X. The Primary storyline – which can be thought of as “track one” has special attributes that no other tracks has – including clip to clip magnetism and a special reporting relationship with the Timeline Index.
So when you “add” a track in X, the process is VERY different compared to “adding” a track in Legacy.
In X, new “tracks” (actually connected clips) can be located above or below the primary. Video and audio can also be placed independently above or below each other without the older style “above the line is video and below the line is audio” conventions of most NLEs.
Also, unlike in legacy, video and audio aren’t ALWAYS treated as discrete elements. In X, most clips arrive reflecting the way they were created, which is to say video with embedded audio – just like typical single system field files. The default is to keep sync sound, IN SYNC, Always. You have to take specific action to break the sound and video apart. Which makes tremendous sense in most modern workflows, IMO.
New editors coming to X seldom understand all this up front.
This is part of why the very concept of “tracks” is seen so differently in X than it is for legacy editors.
Releasing “tracks are just tracks and that’s how I organize my stuff” thinking – should help an editor “get” X more rapidly. Again, IMO.
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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FCPX already does most of what I want so I don’t really care about new features. Not that I don’t like getting them and I do have a list things that’d be cool to see but nothing I can’t work around. I’m not in any rush.
What I do want though is bug fixes and stability. Make what’s there right now stable. Take as many updates as you need to do that. Then bring on some new features. Not a dozen new things that introduce a zillion new bugs though… Just one or two and then concentrate on stability again.
I’m very happy with those ‘boring’ updates. Bring ’em on.
Jeff Kirkland | Video Producer | Southern Creative Media | Melbourne Australia
http://www.southerncreative.com.au | G+: https://gplus.to/jeffkirkland | Twitter: @jeffkirkland -
Also, does it worry anyone else that BMD is stretching thin and getting into everything?? I mean, it’s dizzying to look at their product pages.
As Avid found out, the money is in the hardware. You make no profit giving away software products. Software needs to sell hardware. Or at least that’s what it looks like from where I sit…
Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter -
[Scott Witthaus] “Also, does it worry anyone else that BMD is stretching thin and getting into everything?? I mean, it’s dizzying to look at their product pages.
As Avid found out, the money is in the hardware. You make no profit giving away software products. Software needs to sell hardware. Or at least that’s what it looks like from where I sit…”
You raise a good point. I do hear grumblings from camera owners about things that are still not fixed. I guess in the end, it all depends on how many resources they have and how many are committed to the product.
Hey, at least they won’t get pulled away from their primary task to work on IOS stuff… as has happened at Apple. I guess time will tell.
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” – Winston Churchill
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I guess I am trying to figure out what BMD is and what would be the priority?
Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter -
I’m all for stability and performance improvements. If we could make the decision for one over the other, I think most people would want a rock-solid version of what we have now.
That said, I’m not sure the FCPX team has to make that choice. Are the same people who fix code bugs and improve performance the same people who design new UI and features? I think if the team was only interested in stability improvements, chunks of the team would be sitting around with nothing to do.
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[Marcus Moore] ” Are the same people who fix code bugs and improve performance the same people who design new UI and features?”
I would think there is a UX team and a coding team that work closely together to be sure the UI is coded and works as planned. Bug fixes and stability I would think would be on the code side.
Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter -
In competition with Adobe they don’t need to hurry to bring features, since Adobe tries to catch up with FCPX and not the other way round.
In terms of days since the last update, yes, it has slowed down, but 10.1.1 is so good and stable, there is no need to rush updates just for the sake of changing things…..
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[alban egger] ” In competition with Adobe they don’t need to hurry to bring features, since Adobe tries to catch up with FCPX and not the other way round.”
In all fairness, I think all NLEs bring something different and bring something new to the table. Any trivial look into the programs will reveal that.
That’s about as vanilla, generic and ‘politically correct’ an answer as I can give! 😉
Dennis – Adobe guy
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When’s the next PPro update coming Dennis?
Steve Connor
Mellowing slowly
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