[Alan Okey]

[Neil Sadwelkar] “By the way, is there a help menu in FCP 7? Does that not take you to a pdf any more? “

Nope. That’s what the fuss is about.

What if an editor is cutting on a laptop in the field where there’s no Internet connection and he or she needs to read up on a tool or feature? Screwed, that’s what.

I think this is really shortsighted of Apple, and I’ll be surprised if the situation doesn’t get rectified inside of 6 moths from now. They must be getting hammered with complaints. If not, they soon will be.

[Alan Okey]

[Paul Harb] “Apple has been in such a position for the last 6 years to really dig into the high end media creation market, and they just seem to keep taking steps backwards. From the really small 2 year update to FCS to saying with a straight face that you dont need Shake, you can do it all in Motion.”

Here’s a post in another thread I made a few days ago that’s relevant to this discussion:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/8/1046432

Here’s an excerpt:

As for compositing, Apple bought Shake, an old industry workhorse, years after it had become entrenched in the compositing world. Since Apple bought it, most effects houses have moved away from it to newer tools that are being actively developed by companies with much greater knowledge of the compositing/VFX market – products like Nuke, Fusion, Combustion, Toxik, etc. I really don’t think any pro compositors are expecting Apple to produce anything that will compete with any of the products I mentioned. Apple just doesn’t develop and sell $3000 apps. Motion doesn’t compete with After Effects, let alone high end compositing apps. I’m not waiting breathlessly for “Phenomenon,” the rumored next-generation compositing app from Apple that will replace Shake. My opinion is that Apple isn’t interested in anything above the prosumer level market. Apple is more likely to come out with iComposite than a real competitor to high end compositing apps that already exist.

In hindsight, I should have left out Combustion. Autodesk seems as intent on killing it as Apple did with Shake. A million fiery deaths in hell are not enough for Autodesk.

[Alan Okey]

[Dave LaRonde] “You soon learn why good roto artists make The Big Bucks. “

If only!

Roto is considered the entry level position in a compositing pipeline. They even have a term for it: “Roto Monkeys.” Doing roto in the compositing world is like being a runner in the editing world. Someone on a compositing forum that I frequent has a signature that reads “Roto: it’s a job, not a skill.”

Sad but true.

[Alan Okey]

[Ville Pirilä] “Imagine your world (and profession) without the Final Cut suites and solutions and place yourselves in a world without any of the Apple prosuites,FCS,Shake etc.

Would you like that world? “

I would get along just fine in that world. Professionals had a choice of tools before Apple deigned to become involved in pro video, and if Apple dropped dead tomorrow there would still be other companies providing tools. I wouldn’t give Apple too much credit here – their primary motivation is to sell more Macs.

This isn’t an “I hate Apple” rant. I think Apple is an amazing company that makes some fantastic products. Their OS is outstanding, and their consumer technology is second to none. I don’t think that they are as strong in serving pro users, nor as committed to them. I acknowledge that Apple has drastically lowered the price of entry for professional video software, something that benefits everyone. However, I feel that they still have along way to go toward better serving the pro market. I question their commitment to doing that.

Apple had no experience in high end compositing before buying Shake. The first thing they did was to kill support for other platforms. It’s not hard to see what Apple’s real agenda is for selling Pro Apps. They want to sell more Macs, and I can imagine that the profit margin on Mac Pros is pretty sweet.

The Pro Apps that Apple has written itself and not bought from other companies (Motion, for example) are fairly lackluster when compared to tools from companies who have been making pro apps for years. I don’t think Apple really caters to video professionals, nor do they ultimately care to. From a developer’s perspective, pro customers are a pain in the ass. They expect regular updates, regular bug fixes, responsive tech support and personal service. Apple is a huge company geared toward making great consumer level technology. The pro market is too small of a niche for them to take very seriously. Apple cares just enough about pro users to sell more Macs, make headlines in media publications and issue press releases that drop a lot of media pro celebrity names.

I believe that Apple’s main focus is in bringing multimedia creation technology to the widest cross section of users, not merely catering to a small niche of professionals. It was quite telling to see Randy Ubillos, father of Adobe Premiere and chief development architect for Final Cut Pro get up and excitedly demonstrate the new iMovie at the last MacWorld Expo. This is where Apple’s heart truly lies.

If I didn’t have Final Cut Studio, I could simply find other tools to replace it. I started out using Adobe Premiere back in the 90s, and clients were happy enough with my results to pay me for my services and recommend my skills to others. If Final Cut Pro hadn’t come along when it did, I imagine I would have gone on to use Avid products.

As for compositing, Apple bought Shake, an old industry workhorse, years after it had become entrenched in the compositing world. Since Apple bought it, most effects houses have moved away from it to newer tools that are being actively developed by companies with much greater knowledge of the compositing/VFX market – products like Nuke, Fusion, Combustion, Toxik, etc. I really don’t think any pro compositors are expecting Apple to produce anything that will compete with any of the products I mentioned. Apple just doesn’t develop and sell $3000 apps. Motion doesn’t compete with After Effects, let alone high end compositing apps. I’m not waiting breathlessly for “Phenomenon,” the rumored next-generation compositing app from Apple that will replace Shake. My opinion is that Apple isn’t interested in anything above the prosumer level market. Apple is more likely to come out with iComposite than a real competitor to high end compositing apps that already exist.

To get back to your question, I really believe that in the end, it’s talent that differentiates the artist, not what tools they use.

[Alan Okey]

[Erik Lindahl] “Never the less, I came to ask my self, why doesn’t all the applications of this package share filters and effects between them selves? Why do they have the Core Image, Core Video, FxPlug and Audio Units technology and architecture and don’t use it full out as they could and should? This would potentially be a true “killer” feature of the package but for a reason beyond me they aren’t doing this. “

I think I love you…

This is my number one beef with Final Cut Studio. I’ve posted several rants on this already. It’s beyond me why Apple can’t make Final Cut Studio a smoothly integrated collection of tools instead of a poorly patched together collection of separate applications with separate development paths. Two or three version ago, I could understand – the products were new. But today? it seems like they’re much more interested in adding new bullet points to their marketing brochures by adding new features instead of focusing on seamless integration between applications and standardizing tools and options.

I suspect that the main reason for this is that Apple rarely develops their own Pro Apps from the ground up, they buy out technologies from other companies and make them appear “Apple-like” on the surface. They aren’t rewriting code from the ground up, they’re taking something made by someone else and rebranding it.

The irony of this is that Apple’s consumer apps (iLife) end up being much better integrated and standardized froma UI perspective than their Pro apps. Pro users really get the shaft from Apple on a number of different fronts: greater time between new releases and bug fixes, poorer integration of apps, greater inconsistency in user interfaces and tools, etc.

Let’s face it – the main reason Apple made such a splash with Final Cut Pro was price. Avid makes great tools, but they insist on tying the customer to their own hardware dongles and artificially stratifying their product line by video format. There’s no software-only HD product in Avid’s lineup. Changing formats in the Avid world means upgrading to a new product line. This worked for many years, but Final Cut Pro came along and upset the apple cart (so to speak) by offering much greater scalability and fewer artificial limitations to working worth different formats. The only hardware dongle required for Final Cut Pro is a Mac, which underscores the fundamental difference between Avid and Apple: Apple is a hardware company. Apple sells FCS at a low enough price to attract pro PC users to jump ship and buy a Mac. Apple writes great software for consumers, but they don’t write great software for Pro users. They buy it from someone else and tweak it. The result is great value in pricing but poor integration between applications and a fundamental lack of understanding about developing software for pro users.

I don’t ever see this changing at Apple. If Apple were really serious about pro users, they would need to untether the Pro Apps division from the consumer division and give them the resources to develop new applications from scratch. They would also have to change their attitude regarding how they deal with customers. They would need to free the developers up to do extensive research by interacting with the pro user community, not just a select group of beta testers. This approach is counter to Apple’s insistence on secrecy, which insulates them from customer feedback. This behavior is the polar opposite of what pro users desire and expect from software developers. Pro users want to feel like their opinions matter, and that the developer is really listening to their complaints/suggestions and acting accordingly. This is not the way Apple is used to working. The way that Apple releases new versions of their products every few years is a bit like Moses coming down from the mountain and handing out the new version of the Ten Commandments. It’s not a give-and-take process, it’s very authoritarian – My Way or the Highway. This may seem unfair to some well-intentioned developers in the Pro Apps division, but it’s the public face of Apple that many pro users despise. To be fair, there are companies who are far worse than Apple in this regard (like Autodesk, a software company, no less!), but Apple could go a long way toward improving its relationship with its pro customers.

[Alan Okey]

[nayim saati] “They want copys of the footage so they can watch at home and pre-cut the footage on paper ( stupid, i know but the client iws always right).”

Whatever method you go with, insist on a timecode window burn on the footage, and be diligent about labeling reels so that you know and the client both know the source of the footage being reviewed. You don’t want to go through the agony of dealing with client selects when they have absolutely no clue about using proper timecode reference. There are plenty of options to make sure that the timecode overlay doesn’t overly impact viewing the footage in a negavtive way, i.e. reducing font size, adjusting opacity, repositioning the timecode window, etc. Hopefully your client will be receptive to being educated.

[Alan Okey]

[Drew Lahat] “Yup, this was somewhat disheartening news, but really not surprising for Apple. “

I don’t think Apple is any worse than other developers in this regard.

The final Power Mac G5 lineup was released in October of 2005. Professional desktop computers generally have a 3 year replacement cycle in many industries. The latest Final Cut Studio is being released almost 4 years after the last G5 was released. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for Apple to leverage the capabilities of modern hardware in order to improve its software. At some point it’s no longer possible for software developers to improve performance and innovate with new features if they are constrained by legacy hardware support. Apple needs to draw the line somewhere, and I think a year later than the industry average is fairly generous.

As it is, the newest FCS doesn’t take full advantage of the latest available hardware. I personally don’t want FCS to be held back any more than is absolutely necessary by compatibility requirements for obsolete hardware.

No one is forcing G5 owners to upgrade from their current systems. If your current G5 and Final Cut Studio are dependable tools, then there’s nothing to complain about. If you need new features or better performance, then you need to make an investment in newer hardware as well as software to obtain it.

It’s not a devious planned obsolescence plot by Apple, it’s simply the nature of computer technology. Today’s top of the line system is tomorrow’s trash. There’s no fighting it. You must either make do with what you have, or decide that it’s worth it to you and your bottom line to invest in new tools that will help you to expand your capabilities.

[Alan Okey]

[Daniel De Avila] “So what does shooting at 60fps progressive (59.94fps) give you that 30fps progressive (or 29.97fps) doesn’t? “

60p is double the temporal resolution of 30p. When downconverted to interlaced SD, 60p becomes 60i, but 30p remains 30p as each field will represent the same moment in time. Visually speaking, 720p60 motion looks like NTSC 60i motion, and 720p30/720p24 look like SD 30p and 24p, respectively..

720p60 is useful for sports and other applications in which finer temporal resolution is desirable. Generally speaking, the higher the temporal resolution (frame rate), the more “live” material will appear. 24p video was created to emulate the film look because 29.97i has a “live” look that many directors have found unsuitable for dramatic material.

Some directors like James Cameron are intent on challenging the universal acceptance of the 24p standard for film/digital cinema projection because they feel that the temporal resolution of 24 frames per second is too limiting and imposes too strict of a workflow to avoid annoying motion artifacts when moving the camera. It will be interesting to see if their efforts are met with any acceptance.

Personally, I dislike the look of anything with a temporal resolution greater than 30p for dramatic material – it just looks too “live” to my eye. 24p and even 30p provide just enough of a detached, romanticized quality of motion to psychologically separate the viewer from the material, in my opinion.

[Alan Okey]

[Omar Estrada] “but then states that this setting will be use for Playback Output Video 1080i60 and that the Edit to Tape will be the same as playback?. kind of confusing for me”

It’s because there’s not a 1080p24 broadcast standard. Native 1080p24 footage is converted to 1080i60 with 3:2 pulldown for broadcast or HD tape formats (with a few exceptions).

Edit and finish in 1080p24. Only convert to 1080i60 w/3:2 pulldown when needed.

[Alan Okey]

[Erik Lindahl] “All are areas Apple SHOULD excel in with Shake, Motion, Logic and Sound Track Pro in their back-pocket.

And something like a UI that works is important for the over-all experience and efficiency when working. I don’t understand why this hasn’t been unified across the Studio Applications (Color I get won’t be very “Apple-friendly” for quite some time since it is a coloring-suite). FCP is quite buggy in it’s appearance and function at the moment actually. “

Erik – I couldn’t agree with you more, especially about the UI. Check out my other post / rant in the forum:

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/8/1045063