[Andrew Richards]

[Paul Dickin] “It seems to me that the section I’ve emphasised is an excellent description of a basic FCP X timeline.

This being so:-
i) There is no ‘Project’ as such to define a timeline – its description is all being recorded by the OS and CoreData.
ii) FCP X is just a GUI and a toolkit to build and modify these AV Foundation ‘mutable compositions’.”

But that emphasized section can also describe traditional timelines. How these compositions are presented to the user via the GUI is all happening “above” the framework level, on the UI level.

AVFoundation is the media handling guts, but the decisions that direct the assemblage of the compositions are all input at the UI level and stored via CoreData in the Project database. I can’t see any structural dependency between the Magnetic Timeline UI concept and AVFoundation or vice versa.

[Paul Dickin] “The very different essence of an AV Foundation mutable composition I think requires as different a control GUI, as say an aeroplane does compared to a car. Joy stick compared to a steering wheel ;-)”

Don’t get caught up in the CompSci jargon. A “mutable composition” only means that the arrangement of the media being arranged might change, as in editing. The traditional timeline represents a “mutable composition” just as much as the Magnetic Timeline.

[Paul Dickin] “As to the linearity of time. Musical notation has traditionally had to deal with the progress of time in a flexible way – how fast do the pages of a pianist’s sheet music have to be turned during a Chopin Prelude for the fast and slow movements. The old NLE timeline paradigm is very inflexible in this respect”

Tempo is pace, and what is inflexible about a single scale timeline written on paper (sheet music) is flexible when you can zoom the scale on a NLE timeline. This is true for both traditional and Magnetic timelines. For your music analogy to hold, an NLE timeline might shift from 60fps to 24fps and back within the same timeline. This isn’t done on either style of timeline, both ask for a FPS time scale as a starting parameter, and rightly so.

Best,
Andy

[Andrew Richards]

[Michael Gissing] “I see no reason why AV foundation versus quicktime should make any difference to how a GUI displays something as basic as a timeline.”

Nor should you. AVFoundation is Apple’s new framework for dealing with time-based media. It replaces their deprecated QuickTime frameworks and is Apple’s preferred framework for handling time-based media moving forward. It does four basic things: read media, play media, assemble media, and export media. It allows a developer to do these things without writing their own code to do so. There is nothing about calling upon AVFoundation that would necessitate the Magnetic Timeline.

Best,
Andy

[Andrew Richards]

I’m not going to engage in a discussion with anyone who can’t produce their own thoughts. If I wanted to comment on the list you posted I’d do it on the original author’s post.

[Andrew Richards]

[Richard Cardonna] “If you have nothing intelligent to say don’t say anything.”

Says the guy who copied and pasted someone else’s words without any attribution or embellishment.

Best,
Andy

[Andrew Richards]

[Steven Gonzales] “Yes, shareholders. Apple, since it doesn’t pay dividends, owes them share appreciation. This need may override support for marginally profitable markets in favor of mass market share.”

Yes, but their stock price hasn’t been stagnant for a decade like MSFT. If you bought Apple ten years ago, you’re doing pretty well now. I don’t follow finance that closely, so maybe I missed it, but I haven’t heard of Wall Street complaining Apple has too diversified a product portfolio.

Apple makes very little profit on the iTunes Store, it is all about selling iPods. They make very little profit on software, it is all about selling Macs. Growth is the driver of Apple’s stock price, and they are growing their mobile business very rapidly. Even the Macs are selling at an accelerating rate. Investors will probably continue to like this, in general.

I don’t think FCP7 is a victim of anything more than Apple’s historically decisive hand in dealing with legacy products when they’d rather move on for whatever reason.

Best,
Andy

[Andrew Richards]

I agree with all of this, and I have attempted to argue as much previously. I got flamed to no end. I wish you good luck in this thread.

Best,
Andy

[Andrew Richards]

[Steven Gonzales] “There is much discussion here of why Apple would behave in the manner it displayed with the FCPX rollout. This reminded me of a link I recently spotted which discussed Apple’s outstanding shares, or how many mouths it has to feed. “

To which mouths are you referring? Shareholders? I’m not sure I follow. Apple doesn’t issue dividends, they hoard cash and then use it pseudo-monopsonistically.

Best,
Andy

[Andrew Richards]

[Andrew Richards]

[Chris Kenny] “it wouldn’t be hard for third-parties to replicate and even improve on Cinema Tools functionality.”

Cinema Tools started as third party tool (Focal Point Systems’ FilmLogic), and it will be replaced by a third party as well.

One of the other silly assumptions being treated as fact around here is the idea that third parties wouldn’t think of building support or tools to work with FCPX just because a bunch of people are complaining on the Internet…

Best,
Andy

[Andrew Richards]

Plagiarism…

Link if you’re not going to think…