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Where we are: No need for debate
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[Kevin Patrick] “I certainly meant to disrespect to Ben either.”
It appears that I am also bad at typing, as well as humor.
What I meant to type was …
I certainly meant no disrespect to Ben either.
If I had to mistype one word, just one word, why did it have to be that one?
I think I need to create a Signature that always includes an apology for what I’ve just typed.
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[Walter Soyka] “I agree that FCPX is still under development and that there’s more to come, but getting back to Simon’s iMovie/FCPX discussion from another thread, they’ve had more than 4 years, and probably closer to 5 or 6, to think about how their new timeline data model can work with the rest of the world. I’m drawing the conclusion that interchange is a very low priority for Apple, since a lot of other development has advanced dramatically in that time — and interchange hasn’t.
Openness wins, and I find it disconcerting that Apple doesn’t seem to be valuing it more highly.”
Walter,
I actually don’t think this is accurate. They had 4-5 years, yes. But most of that time was in parallel development with not only the video centric core technologies like CoreVideo and OpenCL – but while simultaneously devoting huge resources to iOS.
It stands to reason that any development team likely had to pause and wait for the plumbing to finalize before they could move on installing the fixtures.
I also think that’s why everyone is so frustrated with interchange. As Phil Hodgetts noted to me recently, “none of the third party developers could really get going until the primary code base was locked.” And that didn’t take place until just shy of 4 months ago.
If X doesn’t have useful and interesting additions in it’s first year on the streets – that’s one thing and worthy of remark. That people are still dinging it for not having a full blown 3rd party ecosystem in place in that short a period is pretty sketchy, IMO.
It’s working pretty darn well now for me as a 1.0.
Only time will tell which of those limitations will fall away, in what order, and how soon.
One thing Apple has said, crystal clearly is that this is their editing platform for the next decade. They know ALL the editing spaces from beginner to hollywood moviemaking awfully well. So I think that has to be seen as representing a pretty clear long term commitment to the product.
Finally, on the “openness” concept. Maybe. We all recall that the Mac itself, ITunes and iOS have been about as closed a set of systems as is possible in the modern era. They all succeeded quite nicely – not because they were necessarily “open” but rather because they identified a problem (sometimes that people didn’t even recognize that they had) and solved them in a fashion that lowered barriers to both ease of use and user satisfaction.
All of those initiatives are now vastly more profitable for Apple than video editing. But I think they also understand the long time Apple lesson that cutting edge software that solves real problems for lots of people still drives hardware sales.
FCP-X maximizes today’s hardware. That includes a de-emphasis on “big iron” desktop systems and more emphasis on laptops and likely iOS devices in the future. Mirroring precisely what the largest group of people in the marketplace are voting to purchase.
I don’t know if professionals will be editing video in 10 years on 30″ iPad-like touch screens and using Siri 5.0 to whisper “cut clip – move to end – and paste” but it’s certainly easy enough to envision.
Just not with any other software platform outside Apples — that I can see right now.
Yours for an interesting future…
; )
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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I’m seeing people having trouble even finding tape stock these days.
I saw an audio guy on the net about 6 months ago pleading for a source for used Ampex audio multi-track stock, to no response. Then just two weeks ago, a producer I work with had to buy SD DVCAM tape stock and mentioned that we’re down to a single physical tape vendor in Arizona – and they don’t stock much.
How important will “print to tape” remain when there’s no tape to be had outside a few specialists in LA and NY?
Just asking.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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[Bill Davis] “It stands to reason that any development team likely had to pause and wait for the plumbing to finalize before they could move on installing the fixtures.”
This is where we differ. I’d consider the fundamentals of interchange — dealing with the data structures underlying the application, and getting data in and out — to be plumbing. The user interface is a fixture, and yet that’s ready to go.
I’d also consider the APIs to be part of the plumbing. If they’re still not released to developers, can we really assume they’re actually there waiting to be used in FCPX 10.0.1? This is conjecture on my part, but I’m worried that Apple is now going back and shoehorning developer APIs into the FCPX architecture for a future release.
In other words, they’ve built the house, and we’ve already moved in — but now they are re-plumbing it behind the walls.
[Bill Davis] “I also think that’s why everyone is so frustrated with interchange. As Phil Hodgetts noted to me recently, “none of the third party developers could really get going until the primary code base was locked.” And that didn’t take place until just shy of 4 months ago.”
Software engineering doesn’t happen overnight. FCPX didn’t go from 0% to 100% completion between June 20th and June 21st. Apple has been designing this application for years, and they had to design the data structures and build private APIs for themselves before they could build the entire application.
Information about the data structures (FCPXML) was released three months after launch, but that same data structure must have been fixed some time ago for Apple’s devs to actually write an application around it.
Further, Automatic Duck and Noise Industries had launch-day products. Presumably this require more than 5 minutes of work.
[Bill Davis] “If X doesn’t have useful and interesting additions in it’s first year on the streets – that’s one thing and worthy of remark. That people are still dinging it for not having a full blown 3rd party ecosystem in place in that short a period is pretty sketchy, IMO.”
I’m not dinging FCPX for not having a full-blown third-party ecosystem. I understand that takes time. I’m dinging Apple for failing to offer the foundation for that ecosystem. FCPX’s deficiencies wouldn’t be so bad if third-party developers were better able to work on them.
Again, I’ll point to Adobe’s recent 64-bit rewrite of After Effects. They treated third-party developers as partners and worked with them in advance of the release of CS5 to ensure that they could have products ready when CS5 launched. The fact that major developers heard about changes to FCPX’s architecture at the same time that users did is incomprehensible.
[Bill Davis] “I don’t know if professionals will be editing video in 10 years on 30” iPad-like touch screens and using Siri 5.0 to whisper “cut clip – move to end – and paste” but it’s certainly easy enough to envision. Just not with any other software platform outside Apples — that I can see right now.”
I’d agree that Avid is pretty unlikely to change their interface, but Adobe has recently announced the Touch Apps. Apple is really not the only one exploring alternate options.
[Bill Davis] “Finally, on the “openness” concept. Maybe. We all recall that the Mac itself, ITunes and iOS have been about as closed a set of systems as is possible in the modern era. They all succeeded quite nicely – not because they were necessarily “open” but rather because they identified a problem (sometimes that people didn’t even recognize that they had) and solved them in a fashion that lowered barriers to both ease of use and user satisfaction.”
The Mac is very open — it’s built on UNIX and uses all sorts of standard protocols. If not for this, we may not have Smoke and Resolve on Macs today.
I agree that the other products are very closed, but I’d point out that they are consumer products where Apple themselves provides the ecosystem.
FCP was a professional product that interfaced well with many complicated external standards, and that flexibility and openness allowed it to grow and flourish in all segments of professional and non-professional post.
[Bill Davis] “It’s working pretty darn well now for me as a 1.0. Only time will tell which of those limitations will fall away, in what order, and how soon.”
I’m glad it’s working well for you, and there’s a lot in FCPX to like. I am confident that FCPX will improve over the long term. In the short term, though, I have deep concerns about how Apple is treating the ones who built the original FCP ecosystem and helped FCP to grow.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Craig Seeman] “I think you’re making an assumption that the current state is the final state. FCPXML is just a first step. It’ll get there.”
You’re making an assumption too.
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FCPX has not been EOL’d. That’s not an assumption. To believe any aspect will not longer be developed is an assumption. This does not mean EDL or older forms of XML will be integrated. I have no idea if that will ever occur. That integration itself has been completed though is an assumption.
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The tape stock shortage probably has more to do with ramifications of Sony’s tape manufacturing plant being wiped out by the tsunami in Japan. Otherwise there would indeed be a surplus of unused instead of the frenzy to find it. ‘Frinstance, LA continues to pester Canadian HDCAM & SR sources such as Western Digital for tape. The Canadian government still specifies tape for possible mastering. Defence requires it.
RBG
Rob Brandreth-Gibbs
Bravo Zulu Productions
Vancouver, Canada -
[Craig Seeman] “To believe any aspect will not longer be developed is an assumption… That integration itself has been completed though is an assumption.”
Agreed — but again, I was trying to talk about the current state of affairs, not what will or may someday be.
Shy of multicam and “broadcast-quality video monitoring,” none of us have any idea what Apple is working on and what they are setting aside.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
Totally concur. But as I’ve noted before here, somewhere in my studio is the last blank Ampex 456 audio tape I ever bought. The last Hi8 multitrack audio tape, The last 1″ type C videotape, Beta SP tape and even the last VHS client dub tape.
This time around I’d kinda like to NOT to have another partial box of doorstop media as a reminder of the inevitable day I suddenly stopped needing them for good.
(Fingers crossed)
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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[Walter Soyka] “Agreed — but again, I was trying to talk about the current state of affairs, not what will or may someday be. “
Yes, currently still lacking. We’ll have to see how things progress in the next update.
[Walter Soyka] “none of us have any idea what Apple is working on and what they are setting aside.”
And compounding the issue is that we don’t know for sure the frequency of updates. In FCP legacy a two year pattern more or less was typical. FCPX saw its first update after about three months. That’s not enough to discern a pattern though.
In other words it’s not just “getting there” but will features relating to communication fast enough to respond to the market? Keep in mind there’s still no round tripping (as done previously) with Motion (or Logic and we’ll have to see what Logic’s update includes).
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