Andrew Kimery
Forum Replies Created
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[Joe Marler] “This was true before widespread use of 4k cameras. The nMP was released in 2013, and probably some design work done in 2012. In 2012 few people envisioned that by 2017, 4k acquisition would be this widespread. Back then people thought the limited 4k distribution and playback infrastructure would diminish the need for 4k acquisition and editing, leading to slow adoption.”
It’s an old cycle though. DV (and MPEG-2 DVD) was a drag on computers until the early 2000’s (an editing PC I built in ’99 had a hardware card designed to improve real-time DV playback). Computers got faster, storage got cheaper and fewer people need to do the offline/online dance with SD. Then HD came out and all of a sudden our computers were ‘slow’ again and offline/online came back. I remember HDV just being a slide show on most computers back then. Now we are seeing the same thing with HD and 4K.
And it’s not just the frame sizes it’s the codecs as well. Even when computers could play a very compressed codec back okay like HDV (MPEG2) or XDCAM EX (MPEG4) a less compressed codec like ProRes or DNx would still perform better. So that was trade off (and still is today). Even with the Mercury Playback Engine you’ll still get better performance using ProRes or DNx than you will using camera native codecs, but if using the camera native codec is ‘good enough’ then people will go that route. That’s certainly what I have done.
6 or 7 years ago I’d always know what cameras were using during production so that I could properly setup FCP 7 or Avid. These days when I’m using PPro I generally don’t need to know. The last three docs I’ve worked on with PPro I couldn’t tell you what cameras were used other than it was a mix of DSLRs, some higher-end handicams and the occasional Alexa shoot.
[Joe Marler] “I’ve seen countless cases where recreational editors are mystified at why their computer became so slow at video editing — “it’s only a GoPro/iPhone/DJI clip”, they say. “
A recreational editor isn’t going to drop $6,000 on a beefy computer though. They’ll being using an iMac or MB and cutting with proxies or optimized media in FCP X which is exactly what Apple intended.
[Joe Marler] “If Apple knew this was going to happen back in 2012, and if they weren’t going to release an updated nMP until 2017, they might have designed the nMP differently with more upgrade options. “
Steve Jobs’ vision for Apple since day one has been to release sealed box, computing appliances and the Mac Pro was the last hold out against that philosophy. I don’t think Apple would’ve changed the design of the nMP because Apple’s solution to the problem is to use proxy editing. If Apple wants a faster nMP all they have to do is release a faster nMP.
Maybe Oliver and other’s are correct in guessing that Apple will release another MP. Maybe the product cycle will be once every 5 years or so (big leaps as opposed to incremental improvements).
[Oliver Peters] “Right now, that’s only two films ☺ But in general, that’s because they are either working with actual FCPX proxy files or externally generated “proxies” for editorial.”
I had to refresh my memory, but “Focus” was cut at online rez. It was shot in anamorphic 2048 x 1536 ProRes 4444 and then converted/ de-squeezed to 2048×1152 ProRes 4444 for editing. They had 145 hours of footage so that’s around… 25TB of data. I think working w/online media was one of the feather’s in X’s cap on that project.
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[Jason Watson] “I do often wonder how much (if at all) the subscription oriented approach of other industries has eased Adobe’s move? Have services like Netflix and Spotify made the idea of having access to more content but not owning it had an easier one to get on board with in respect for software?”
I don’t think I would attribute it to Netflix and Spotify, but I do think the think the general demise of the traditional ‘buy a perpetual license and upgrade for a discount down the road’ business model over the last decade or so has helped Adobe’s choice with CC go from shocking to normal. Ad supported, freemium (micro-transactions), and/or subscription is the direction things have moved (hardware-locked like Apple and BlackMagic is there too, but it’s not as common). Apple has been a primary driving force behind this thanks the ‘no paid upgrade’ policies in both the iOS App Store and the Mac App store (as well as no longer charing of OS upgrades). Customers quickly got used to paying once (or paying nothing) and getting free updates for life which obviously puts software developers in a crunch (hence the rapid rise off non-traditional business models).
The fluid nature of business models and consumer acceptance is interesting. For example, 10yrs ago or so, not too long after the iTMS store started up, Jobs mentioned that no one wanted to rent their music. And at the time he was correct. Streaming sites like Rhapsody were struggling compared to the iTMS (and even CD sales) yet today streaming music is the growth vector and digital downloads are the new (if less successful) CD.
So what changed? Technology did. With the rise of feature phones and smart phones streaming music became portable where as before it was mainly tethered to your computer. People like to listen to music on the go so it was that missing ability, not the rental model itself , that was the hurdle that needed clearing.
[Bill Davis] “Not the same at all.
You stop paying Netflix or Spotify, you don’t get separated from your ability to use or adapt the Intellectual Property you’ve created and should therefore own.
You just lose access to somebody else’s IP.
Again, not the same at all.”
The business model is totally the same. A subscription is a subscription. You offer a subscription plan. Adobe offers a subscription plan. Apple offers a subscription plan. Blizzard offers a subscription plan. GenArts offers a subscription plan. Microsoft offers a subscription plan. Vimeo offers a subscription plan. LA Times offers a subscription plan. Your ISP offers a subscription plan. Etc., etc., etc.,. They are all subscriptions to different things, but the subscription business model is the same.
With regards to owning the IP, that depends on the situation does it not? Work for Hires, for example, do not own their work. For the area of the industry I work in I cannot think of a time that I wasn’t in a work for hire situation. The producer, director, production company, whatever, is the owner, not me. Even though I’ve created it someone else owns it.
With regards to getting “separated from your ability to use or adapt the Intellectual Property you’ve created and should therefore own.” What about when you rent post/production gear? Or when a client hires (aka ‘rents’) you for a job? After the agreed upon term/duration is up what happens? Do you get to access to the rental gear indefinitely free of charge because losing access to the gear means losing access to your IP? Does the client get access to you indefinitely free of charge since losing access to you means losing access to their IP?
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[Bill Davis] “Tim Cook sent a crystal clear message a bit ago with the world and Wall Street all watching.”
Nothing is crystal clear with Apple. ????
Flash storage, video on mobile devices, streaming music services, e-readers/digital books, smaller iPads, bigger iPhones, etc., all things denounced by Apple… right up until the point Apple decided to dive into those market segments. And as we’ve seen with X and the nMP, even when Apple makes a definitive sounding statement the actual product might not be what you were expecting (or wanting or needing).
Maybe Apple really has been waiting years for low power GPUs to come to market at the same time as an Intel CPU with an onboard ThB 3 controller… Or maybe they’ve just been waiting to see if demand dips so far down that they can just let the MP drift into the night.
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Are the new AMD GPUs what’s kept the nMP locked in stone for nearly 4yrs? I don’t think so. Whatever Apple is waiting on (assuming they are waiting on anything) is a mystery to all but a select few in NorCal. Since 2010 the only Mac Pro releases have been in 2012 (a slightly faster 2010 cMP) and in 2013 (the nMP). This is obviously not the market segment Apple is spending much time with, and to Bill’s point, why should they? For a lot (I dare say most) of the people that need to edit on a somewhat regular basis a ‘normal’ desktop or laptop is adequate.
In 2002 I remember our Smoke operator using an SGI Octane because an off-the-shelf computer just wasn’t good enough. Now Smoke runs on a laptop. Apple has never been a ‘big iron’ computer maker and these days off-the-shelf workstation computers are basically ‘big iron’. Mobile devices are the new laptops, laptops are the new desktops and desktops are the new workstations. That market segment certainly still exists but it is getting smaller, not larger.
15-20yrs ago many of us here were the beneficiaries of the DV Revolution and/or the desktop NLE revolution? Working out our homes (or small offices) w/o the need for $100k Avids and $70k Betacams? That downward pressure trend never stopped, we’ve just aged out of Apple’s target demo.
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For the longest time I thought about buying it for $99 just for Boris RED. Now I’m glad to see my procrastination has been rewarded! lol
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[Neil Sadwelkar] “Actually, not quite. I’ve found that is sequences use newer features and/or effects not present in older versions, then opening a bin from a very new version (like 8.x) in a very old version (like 6.x) can cause unpredictable results, ‘Assertion failed’, or sequences simply don’t open. “
Thanks for the info Neil. The last time I mixed old and new was a couple of years ago (8.3 and 6.5) and everything worked fine. But we weren’t using a lot of things unique to 8.3.
[Oliver Peters] ” That’s a tricky balance, which is why MC First went away and why MC Free (or whatever they call it) has been so long in coming.”
Exactly. If it’s free and ‘good enough’ some people will be happy with it and never get another Avid product. If it’s free and crappy then people will be unhappy with it and never get another Avid product. I’m assuming people remember Avid Free DV
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[Oliver Peters] “However, updates don’t often break existing projects either, so plusses and minuses.
“On a related note, I think bins created in the latest version of Avid are still usable in Avid 5.5 (which came out in 2011, IIRC). In terms of backwards and forwards compatibility I don’t think any NLE comes close to touching Avid. Of course as someone brought up a while ago that could be part of Avid’s dilemma because users don’t necessarily have to update in order to trade projects/bins with each other.
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For those looking for some back story, I found a relevant blog post from Alex4D.
https://alex4d.com/notes/item/app-store-subscriptions-imovie-fcpx
Long story short, last year Apple changed the rules in the app store to allow for subscriptions so people started speculating at all the possibilities because Apple.
There is also a more general interview with Phil Schiller from The Verge where, “He suggests many enterprise apps could move to subscription, and that professional apps that require “a lot of maintenance of new features and versions” would be a good fit.”
Just your usual ‘kremlinology’.
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Anything is possible, but I don’t see Apple doing this unless they do something like make X cross platform. They are a high margin hardware company and X requires a hardware sale in order to use it (Hackintoshes are few and far between) so that keeps them happy.
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[Bill Davis] “Everything else that Premiere is today started from that. Maybe that’s not worth mention in the world of Adobe as it sits today. But it’s still the truth at least as I understand it.”
Adobe didn’t commission Premiere but they bought it outright so the end result is the same. It’s not revisionist history, it’s a company promoting their product as the company’s product (as opposed to the individuals that worked on the product). It’s no different that Apple never mentioning Ron Brinkmann or Nothing Real in press releases about Shake or Microsoft never mentioning PrimeSense in press releases about the first generation Kinect (MS didn’t buy PrimeSense, but they licensed key tech them).
If Adobe was focusing on the individuals that made PPro and they never mentioned Randy then I would agree with you, but they are focusing on the product itself and the end users.