[Alan Okey]

[Shane Ross] “How do you think they can make something that costs $1000 into something that costs ten to twenty times that? There is a reason Smoke costs more. FCP shouldn’t try to be Smoke….Smoke is Smoke. If you want what Smoke does…get Smoke. “

You completely missed my point. I’m not saying that FCP should be Smoke. I’m saying that Apple could learn a lot from the integration of tools in Smoke. Smoke is just an example, not a panacea. You’re right, Smoke is a much stronger finishing tool than it is an editor, and its editing interface is bizarre if you’re not familiar with it. I’m not holding Smoke up as the Golden Standard or the shining example of a perfect product, I’m just using it as an example of the benefits of having a wide and deep toolset in a single application versus round-tripping between poorly integrated separate apps for everything. I would like to see Apple take the opportunity to integrate some of the new tools that they’re developing for their companion apps into FCP itself rather than always insisting on this stupid round-tripping workflow that is anything but seamless.

[Shane Ross] “You want to compare apps you need to compare FCP to Avid and Premiere. Does Premere integrate After Effects? No…round trip. Does Avid integrate….oh, wait. Avid doesn’t have anything like AE or Motion. “

I don’t need to compare FCP to anything from Adobe. I’d much rather hold FCP to a higher standard like Smoke than to compare it to Adobe’s lackluster video products. I don’t care if Premiere isn’t integrating AE. I really couldn’t care less what Adobe is doing. There has to be a better way to integrate tools into FCP to make it a revolutionary, not evolutionary product that creates a new standard for how a software-only editor should work. No one else is currently doing that, and Apple is in a better position to do it than anyone else. Apple is in a prime position to push forward with something new, not merely to continue incremental development in a suite of separate apps.

[Shane Ross] “Motion is still young…it takes time to grow up. How long did it take AE to implement those features? “

The Motion developers ought to know better, because many of them came from the Combustion development team. AE is hardly a benchmark product for anything. All AE has going for it is its ubiquity, which translates to lots of third-party plugin development and user group support. Trying to do just about anything interesting in AE requires a third-party plugin. Zaxwerks, Mocha, etc. You still can’t actively work in the node/schematic view, it’s just there for show. The interface still sucks, but at least it’s not bright platinum like FCP.

My beef with FCP’s interface is primarily its color and its tiny buttons and widgets. A UI should ideally be unobtrusive and get out of the way. It should be color-neutral and dark enough to reduce eye fatigue and not influence color perception. A bright platinum UI is unprofessional and gaudy. Tiny buttons and widgets are cumbersome. I think some simplification is in order. Combustion and Toxik are fantastic examples of a task-based UI. The UI changes according to the selected task at hand, and it stays out of the way. Using a million palettes is not the answer to streamlining an interface. That’s why AE’s UI sucks so much, and FCP isn’t far behind. Color’s “rooms” are a welcome relief – they focus the user on the task at hand rather than trying to pack every single tool onto the same screen.

[Alan Okey]

[Brent Dunn] “Yeah, I don’t have a problem converting my XDCam files to ProRes, but it would be nice to skip this re-wrapping step.”

FYI, they are two completely separate processes. The process of rewrapping to QT (whether you use FCP’s Log and Transfer or Sony’s XDCAM Transfer) doesn’t transcode clips to ProRes, it merely makes the mp4 files into Quicktime files than FCP can import. The rewrapped Quicktimes still use the XDCAM EX codec.

Transcoding to ProRes is a completely separate (and optional) process. Apple doesn’t force anyone to use ProRes.

[Alan Okey]

[Dave Jenkins] “Let’s hope there is more than what where seeing now. Something under the hood. “

Hope springs eternal…

[Alan Okey]

[walter biscardi] “Wish the FCP interface looked / operated more like the Color interface. “

I wholeheartedly agree.

[Alan Okey]

[chris gormlie] “There is nothing in this release that makes me go ‘wow i will use that’. Pretty much everything in there feels like it should have already been there. It feels like a long overdue large point release. “

That’s a very concise and elegant summary. My thoughts exactly.

[Alan Okey]

I just thought I’d mention that my integration comments don’t apply to Color, at least as far as trying to pull Color into FCP.

I think having a dedicated grading app with a task-specific interface is hand over fist better than trying to integrate Color into FCP as a plug-in. I can’t fathom why some people complain about Color’s interface – it’s nearly perfect. I don’t want it to look more “Mac-like.” I really wish they would bring back the dark menu bar, as in Final Touch. I don’t think one should have to resort to third-party haxies to do this.

The major improvements to Color seem to be the real high point of this release, providing everything works as advertised.

[Alan Okey]

Ah, Bag. Thanks. I guess “world” would be a bit hyperbolic.

😉

“I told you a million times to not exaggerate!”

-Rik Mayall, The Young Ones

[Alan Okey]

[Wayne Carey] “Apple still stands by the statement that Steve Jobs made saying they will never fully support Blu-Ray because they feel its a stepping stone in the advancement of HD to the Internet. “

Do you have a link to any articles actually attributing this quote to Steve Jobs, or are you paraphrasing? I was under the impression that the only public statement by Apple or Jobs regarding Blu-Ray was that it’s a “world of hurt,” and he was referring to licensing issues. Just curious, because in all of the discussions about this issue I’ve read, I have never come across a reference to anything like what you’ve written that wasn’t rumor or speculation.

That being said, I agree that Apple probably feels this way about Blu-Ray, but I wasn’t aware that they had made any public statements to that effect.

[Alan Okey]

[Jason Brown] “Anyone know if DVDSP will support Blu-Ray in the new studio?”

No, DVDSP does not do Blu-Ray authoring.

From Apple’s website:

Blu-ray–compatible H.264 encoding

Compressor now includes a setting that allows you to create Blu-ray–compatible H.264 files that can be imported directly into third-party Blu-ray disc authoring software.

[Alan Okey]

DVCPRO HD and Apple ProRes are both excellent high-quality codecs that don’t require crazy storage space or disk throughput speed.

FCP absolutely chokes on large stills, so it’s best to reduce/prep any stills first in Photoshop prior to importing them into FCP. Downscale your stills to the minimum size required for panning/zooming across the desired section at 100%. Work with .tiff files for the best quality.

Another issue you may run across on occasion is vibrating or shimmering video when using large stills scaled to less than 100%. This effect can be alleviated by using a slight gaussian blur or anit-aliasing filter.