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Why should I pay for your obscure-use scenario?
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Most of the backlash has to do with metadata conversion (importing, sharing – even the ability to use a separate tape capture app). Personally I’m somewhat impressed with FCPX. The under-the-hood performance jump is off the charts. I watched someone scrubbing around and doing elaborate RT effects on an iMac with media that was on a consumer NAS drive. And I like the modular philosophy. Allowing FCP to get bogged down with all that easily breakable junk is what held it back in the first place. I agree with you on that point. I really don’t see why metadata conversion needs to be built into the program you use to edit with. Automatic Duck made it possible for me to switch from Media100 to FCP years ago. I’d actually rather experts on metadata translation be the ones making it happen instead of some cubicle drone at one of the world’s largest corporations.
But I disagree with your view on the future of the post production business. All the arcane things the pros still use that should have been obsolete for years now (tapes, broadcast monitors, SANs, even interlaced video formats) provide something an indie with a DSLR and iMovie can never provide: Confidence. The people who control the purse strings don’t know or care if a $50 hard drive can store what HDCamSR tape can (sans the $80k deck), or that a properly calibrated Vizio TV is probably better for color grading than any uncalibrated broadcast monitor. They just want to make sure that when things go wrong (and they always do), nobody blames it on them for being cheap and not going with “the best.” That’s the barrier that the “indies” (as you call it) will have difficulty breaking.
Sean
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Jesus Christ Chris, I mean, Jeeesus Christ. What was that? “ten days that shook professional”?
You sound like Tolstoy meets a coffee house in shoreditch?
http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics -
“I’d hope the modular system would police itself for ongoing compatibility and inspire third-party tools.”
Quotes Chris Stevens.HAAAAAA hahahahahaha. Oooooo. Wipe. My. Eyes. Ohhh, she’ll be policing alright – self regulating bio-mimetic compatibility defense mechanisms built right in. real Hal 9000 those API hooks are.
http://www.ogallchoir.net
promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics -
So you want us “pros” to have to pay $500 to get our tracks out split (hardly an “obscure” feature, even for the most mundane project), and then have to pay a la carte for features that other NLE’s have standard, plus not be able to open the multitude of projects we have created? AND we have to wait and see if someone actually takes the time to make a plug -in or if Apple deems a feature worthy of putting back into the app? No thanks. As someone who makes a living as an editor, I am glad I have 23 years of Avid experience to fall back on, since FCP7 has now been deemed EOL by Apple and FCPX is absolutely not suited for the types of programs I work on.
The win -win is that us “pros” will be hired to do the jobs that require NLE’s with the “obscure” features and the “indies” (whatever that means anyway) will get the projects that can be done with a crippled NLE like FCPX.I think in the long run the indies are getting a bad deal. Final cut studio was about the same price when you add in compressor and motion and Automatic Duck to the price, and you also got a decent color corrector, an ok mixer and DVD Studio Pro to boot. -
[Tom Olsen] “It is called Final Cut Pro, not Final Cut Indie. “
Nor is it called “Final Cut Broadcast”. Some people here seem to think that being a “pro” is the exclusive domain of broadcast editing.
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[Chris Stevens] “Get editing before the ‘indie’ gets even.”
Getting even by working for less wages than flipping burgers for a living? ‘Cause that’s what you are setting yourself and your fellow ‘indies’ (if there are any more) up for with the hyperbole in your post …
And ripping off a Tyler Durden rant from Fight Club when discussing missing features in a editing app from the world’s most know luxury consumer electronics brand… oh the irony! Awesome!
check out my shorts: https://vimeo.com/marttiekstrand
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[Stephen Bakopanos] “Nor is it called “Final Cut Broadcast”. Some people here seem to think that being a “pro” is the exclusive domain of broadcast editing.”
Well that’s just silly. I don’t believe there are any amateur broadcast editors, so it would seem your hypothesis is wrong.
However there are plenty of amateur film editors, and the term “indie” is just a euphemism for amateur.
Either you get paid, or you don’t. It’s just that simple and there is no in between. If you’re an unpaid amateur, you can sugar coat it all you want with terms like indie, but you’re still an amateur. If you get paid, your a professional.Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.comI have a system, it has stuff in it, and stuff hooked to it. I have a camera, it can record stuff. I read the manuals, and know how to use this stuff and lots of other stuff too.
You should be suitably impressed…“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” —Red Adair
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[Chris Stevens] “I think it’s a mistake to assume that Apple chose to strip-down the FCPX feature set out of malice for a ‘pro’ user. From my perspective, as an ‘indie’, it looks different: What has happened is that Apple has concentrated on providing a solid foundation for editing, while (relatively) niche functionality has been implicitly outsourced to third-parties… Apple did the same thing with iOS. Rather than attempt to provide a complete feature set themselves, they implicitly outsourced that to third-parties. Consider that the iPad didn’t even ship with a calculator app. Let’s wait and see how the industry addresses the plug-in possibilities here.”
I would feel better about this if Apple had explicitly involved third-party developers (as they have done with iOS).
Apple has been just as secretive and closed with important third-party FCP developers as they have been with customers and users. Only a select few were privy to pre-release development. If Apple were seriously focused on professionals, I think they would have done a much better job involving major developers in the process.
New to the forum, but i think this conversation is exactly on point….for a couple reasons.
1) Apple wants out of the Mix/Grade game
Sountrack Pro flopped (i don’t know anyone who uses it for anything other than quick and dirty clean-ups), and they probably deemed Color wasn’t worth the money they were putting into it. They clearly want to get out of the Mix/Grade game.If that’s what you need, Apple is going to make you go to 3rd parties. Automatic Duck is doing backflips, but the price point will not remain at $500, or due to 10-fold volume, somebody is gonna seriously undercut them.
Regardless, the workflow from Cut to Mix to Grade didn’t get cheaper with FCPX, it got more expensive…mostly because Apple doesn’t find it profitable, and didn’t want to support it with volume sales that they (probably rightly) assumed 80-90% of their consumers didn’t use anyway. Get over it. The software solutions for professional workflows will roughly double or triple (my estimate). But really, software costs that amount to a grand or two a seat are less than a drop in the bucket for total post costs.
2) Apple is now focusing on “platforms”, not software.
iOS is the perfect example. It’s been beyond successful for them, and at this point, i think it’s a universal corporate strategy. They’re not going back, and they’re not giving in. Name the last time Apple backtracked on something bold. If we like FCP as a general platform, we better hope this works. They’ll terminate the platform before they’ll move backwards.3) The backlash is due to the exclusion of 3rd party participation from an earlier stage.
Apple chose the splash. They kept the wraps on this development (in classic Apple style) so they could make headlines with something “revolutionary” that no one had seen before. The only way you can do that is to keep non-Apple involvement in development to an absolute minimum. Otherwise forums (like this one), would leak everything.However, the shift to reliance on 3rd party support without 3rd party access to early designs leads to a half-baked release. FCPX really can’t do anything right now, it’s a bare platform. I can cut (granted in a new way), but i can’t Mix or Grade to anything resembling a professional standard.
That DOESN’T mean it wont happen. Just like with iOS, Apple just laid down a pot of gold for developers like Automatic Duck, Black Magic, Red Giant, Aja, etc. I bet these people are hiring. They’re racing for solutions. But they’re also at least 6 months to a year away.
They obviously underestimated how the pent-up demand for the new platform would turn to vitriol and massive backlash at a half-baked release. They fanned the flames for this for at least a year…and then didn’t deliver something that was ready to go.
It’ll be interesting to see if cooler heads prevail, and wait for the 3rd party developers to catch up before they jump ship. I’m betting the vast majority of gaps in the professional workflow will be filled within 12-18 months. The only question is whether Premier/Avid is superior enough to FCS3 to make that year matter.
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“It’ll be interesting to see if cooler heads prevail, and wait for the 3rd party developers to catch up before they jump ship. I’m betting the vast majority of gaps in the professional workflow will be filled within 12-18 months. The only question is whether Premier/Avid is superior enough to FCS3 to make that year matter.”
I think you’re underestimating the anger that’s out there.
I don’t know about anybody else but I’m not an Apple guy, I’m an editor. I owned 2 different PC NLE’s, both of them EOL’d, before I came to FCP about 7 years ago. I was looking for stability and assumed Apple was a mature company. I have no interest in Steve Jobs and could care less about Apple as a cultural icon. Since the introduction of FCPX last week I have heard constant refrains about how Apple always “eats it’s young”, they always start out with under developed programs and then add functionality, they are always secretive. I don’t give a s**t what they always are, their behavior this past week is intolerable.
If Microsoft tried something like this, tried bringing out a version of Excel that was incompatible with all previous versions, they would get annihilated. That’s because they deal with large businesses who wouldn’t put up with this sort of behavior. That’s why Windows isn’t cool, and why wintel machines are 90% of the PC market.
Apple has just EOL’d my workflow and software investments. My business plan calls for equipment upgrades next January. Unless FCPX blows me out of the water at that point, and I don’t think even the most ardent supporter thinks it will be fully on par with Avid and PPRO by then, I will be back in the land of wintel. And I don’t think I will be alone.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions -
“Apple has just EOL’d my workflow and software investments. My business plan calls for equipment upgrades next January. Unless FCPX blows me out of the water at that point, and I don’t think even the most ardent supporter thinks it will be fully on par with Avid and PPRO by then, I will be back in the land of wintel. And I don’t think I will be alone.”
You’re 100 percent right. Apple obviously dropped an atomic bomb on any previous FCP workflow, and started from scratch. They also dropped a big FU on anybody who was married financially to their existing workflow. They’re betting that what comes of it a year from now will be compelling enough to reestablish FCPX as the industry standard for the foreseeable future.
They’re bitches because they didn’t tell anyone this was coming, and provided no roadmap for the future for companies like you to use for planning.
Additionally, they’re not reliable. They’re arrogant. If their product isn’t the best in any market, they axe it. If the package that comes out of this is clearly inferior to Adobe/Avid offerings, they may very well make the decision for you, and axe the platform themselves. (then again, they may just not tell anyone, and let it die slowly on the vine for 3 years).
But that’s what they do. They’ve ridden the secret and nuke strategy to the 3rd highest market capitalization of any company in the world. Getting upset about it is like getting upset that a tiger has stripes.
Now they’ve asked for an industry wide referendum over the course of the next year or two. And how they’ve handled it has basically destroyed any effect of customer loyalty on the process. It’ll probably just come down to people like you making rational decisions based on the competencies of the various platforms. I’m just saying it’ll be interesting how long people will wait to make up their minds, and if the anger they’ve created will factor into that timeline.
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