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What a f*****g nightmare!
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Ok, so I just ordered both FCP 5 studio and TIGER. I am backingup, but should I maybe upgrade FCP 4.5 to 5 leaving panther as is for a while or the other way- Load TIger, leaving FCP 4.5 for a while?
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[Jerry Hofmann] “Marco’s suggestion to use the second SATA bay for an “ease into it” solution running Tiger and FCP 5 is exactly what I’ve done. I still have a 10.3.8 system running 4.5… But I’m finding bugs in 5 and sending them to apple for their perusal. Yeah it sounds like beta testing and from a point of view it is. But the grass isn’t greener anywhere guys. I’ve been running NLE’s since there was NLE’s and it’s never been different.”
Well, I gotta differ here on the opinion that “upgrading an NLE has never been different.” I used an single AVID MC system from 1994 – 2003 and through all the upgrades, there was never a need for a separate HD or huge concerns about the upgrade process – little adjustments, yes and an occasional phone call (AVID tech assistance never made me feel like I was getting the run-around but it did cost $2500 a year) but the software/hardware in all of its incarnations always felt in general like a professional tool, even when one upgrade required reformatting all existing MediaFiles using a utility AVID provided. Upgrading FCP however seems to have far less hand-holding – but consider the price difference!
I now have an FCP station running 4.5/10.3.9 and although FCP 5 (actually Final Cut Studio) and Tiger are sitting here next to me still in the packing box, it never really occurred to me to think about installing them until my current projects are complete – who has the time for the learning curve if you have imminent deadlines, let alone major de-bug issues? And because of the price differential, I have never expected FCP to be more stable than an AVID MC, so one better have more patience than would be expected using an AVID product. It’s great that the FCP feature set induces comparisons to its bigger cousins but to me there is a limit on what one could expect from Apple.
At the risk of being unfair or even just flat wrong; Apple is a generic Software/Hardware company, not a Video Production equipment company and its upgrades seem more like what you’d expect of a computer company rather than a video equipment company – end user beta testing. Imagine buying a Grass Valley switcher (10-15 years ago anyway) and experiencing anything but flawless operation straight out of the box (you did do a LOT of studio-wide analog aligning on a weekly basis though.) :>)
Finally, although I’m glad I checked into this COW forum to see if the dust is starting to settle on the upgrades, I don’t know how I would be able to use the 2-boot drive scenario. Both of my d2 G5 drive bays are populated per the advice I gleaned from this forum when I first bought the system – I bought a second SATA drive right away just for FCP direct use media while the original 160 is for apps and non-FCP media. But the 2-boot drive concept certainly seems sound even if no AVID editor I know of would put up with a Media Composer upgrade that caused this much grief.
ren
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[Ren Hinks] “But the 2-boot drive concept certainly seems sound even if no AVID editor I know of would put up with a Media Composer upgrade that caused this much grief.
“Ren –
I have been with Avid products since they came to the market and I think you have a bit of rose colored glasses look going. Yes, avid is a great product and led the way, it took more than a few tweaks and adjustments for upgrades.
First was the tens of thousands of dollars for a major hardware/software upgrade. Second was the annoying habit of waiting weeks and weeks and weeks after Avid sales pressure to then get your software and hardware. Avid support is mostly worthless, except for the old Softimage/DS group out of Montreal. The only reason to pay the $2500 is for software upgrades each year…especially when using a Mac based system. Hmm, that equals 2 more purhcases of FCP5… I was a beta site for many versions of Avid DS and I can tell you, not all the bugs get washed out in beta testing. Hell, pop over to the XpressPro bulletin board and check on the Domain Copy bug or the runaway playback bug that has haunted that software for several versions. Avid editors are puttingup with that! Oh, and talk to the early adopters of Adreanline…especially on the Mac platform…not a pretty picture. Early DS v 6.0? ouch. So to say FCP5 is unique in quirks duing a major software and OS change is not totally accurate.
That being said, I still think it is wise to do the upgrades when your business model demands it, not because its new and cool. And especially not during active projects!!! Don’t get caught up in all the cool NAB demos…have patience and let the others take the beating!
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[Scott Witthaus] “I have been with Avid products since they came to the market and I think you have a bit of rose colored glasses look going. Yes, avid is a great product and led the way, it took more than a few tweaks and adjustments for upgrades.”
[Scott Witthaus] “I was a beta site for many versions of Avid DS and I can tell you, not all the bugs get washed out in beta testing. Hell, pop over to the XpressPro bulletin board and check on the Domain Copy bug or the runaway playback bug that has haunted that software for several versions. Avid editors are putting up with that!”
Yeah, it’s possible that I’m a bit nostalgic :>) but I only worked with MC, not Xpress and never took the system to Adrenaline. In the first couple of years after I migrated away from tape based editing and tried several other brands before settling on AVID, it seems now in hindsight that AVID was then (93-94) competing with hardware based systems and couldn’t tolerate too many software based problems in order to get editors sold on the AVID NLE.
My discussions with editors were primarily at the annual International Users Group meetings that AVID hosted for several years – mid-90s. Perhaps one remembers best what was at hand – Beta testers are LOOKing for bugs, editors are not.
AVID said at one of these Users Group meetings that one needed to allocate $10,000 a year to keep a MC up-to-date – they were right up front about it. And the tech help, which at that time was bundled with the software maintenance program, really saved my butt one night at 1:53 AM so I can’t agree about it being worthless. But to keep my post on-thread, I’ll just convey this: as annoying as it was that AVID didn’t “qualify” it’s app for a MAC OS upgrade for at least a year and sometimes longer, their policy seems to mirror what folks are saying here – wait for the dust to settle. Their board sets were cutting edge but the OS it ran on was not bleeding edge. Apple’s policy throws a monkey wrench at that mindset by tying the app upgrade directly to an immediate OS upgrade.
ren
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Well I can remember several bugs that were in Media Composer software upgrades. 5.11 could not produce accurate edls. there was a version of 6 (6.2.1?) that was full of bugs making it virtually unusable. In fact just about all of version 6 was terrible and everyone breathed a huge sigh of relief when version 7 came out. That was one of their best. But what about borders in 3d? Remember that? Plus there were a number of things that even Avid admitted didtn’t work properly, and there was NEVER a fix because the fault was in the hardware. Remember you needed 6 slots to drive an Avid. At least our problems can be solved by software updates;-)
Still I agree Final Cut Pro 5 does sound a bit dodgy. And I was surprised as to how little they have updated the interface.
Seems more like version 4.6 to me.Apple Certified Final Cut Pro Trainer
R E D N A I L – M E D I A
https://www.rednail.com.au
email: sean@rednail.com.au
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