Bill Davis
Forum Replies Created
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[Steve Connor] “[Steve Connor] “I don’t think there’s any Mac user whose happy with the state of Mac Hardware at the moment (well perhaps one!)””
What’s the point of being unhappy? Why should I be?
I’m blasting through my clients work super quickly and easily on my laptop. It’s quick, solid, dependable and just works.
For me, FCP X (now that I know it like the back of my hand) makes things easy.
I know there are others who have different needs or requirements – and would love Apple to follow the more PC requisite path of forever and ever beefing up their hardware for more and more speed, but while I acknowledge that’s an approach needed by some – that just hasn’t been an issue for me.
I’m getting the day to day work my clients ask for done super efficiently and quickly, and therefore concentrating on getting the content workflow stages right – not the hardware stuff. Which is what I really want.
Apple has said they’re working on something new and modular. And that will be interesting. But for now, my existing rig is working for me really, really, REALLY well.
It’s the fastest and most efficient system I’ve ever used for my type of video creation.
I kind of see this like Oliver’s thread above on the control surface thing. I didn’t even imagine it was a problem that I didn’t have one of those – until he brought it up. Then I suddenly realized that it STILL wasn’t a problem for ME after he did. So I just didn’t have to be concerned – at all. Things making you worried about abstract things that don’t ACTUALLY effect you – is kinda a part of life now. It’s largely why I watch less and less cable news. It’s a suck on happiness. I still try to be aware of the landscape – but if something is only marginally relevant to my success – it gets put on an upper shelf for when I have time to deal with it.
Because of my San Diego move, I lost my optical fiber connection and am now on wired Gigablast from Cox. Getting accustomed to how the new upload benchmarks apply to me is a thousand times more important to me than a faster rig on my desktop.
YMMV.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
The guy across the street from my new place LOVES to work on his stripped down Street Rod Drag Racer (little to no original parts under the skin.)
He gets great joy from applying his hard won mechanical knowledge to creating a machine that, once he gets it to the strip – might blow away the competition in a race.
I get that. It’s where he loves to spend his time, money, and attention.
And I acknowledge that a lot of editors facing larger rasters and more and more complex composites similarly feel the need for the biggest engine possible under the hood – to grind through their work via brute strength. It’s how the game was played for the longest time.
I’ve just come to see things a bit differently.
For me now, the larger engine doesn’t seem to result in an appreciably faster car. (Witness how fast electric cars are off the line compared to gasoline technology, perhaps?)
I just need to get the work my clients ask for, done as smoothly and as efficiently as possible.
And that’s been getting easier and easier and faster and faster, not because of the rig I’m using, really. But because of the design of the tool I’m using. Organizing is faster. Assembly is faster. Revision is WAY faster. And everything just works dependably.
I can’t see the reason to chase my tail regarding hardware so much anymore.
Others with different needs, will need different approaches. But engine size is no longer an obsession for me.
I totally understand that facility editors, those with major compositing needs, heavy in shop collaboration systems – and plenty of other editors with differing needs will op for other solutions that meet THEIR needs.
But my practice is now largely download content – arrange and create the work – upload the results – and collect electronic payment in return.
This tool does that beautifully. So I’m content.
YMMV.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
This is why ProRes Raw or similar “expanded latitude” video technologies might change the way we approach a lot of this.
When it eventually moves beyond Atomos and DJI, the ability to brightness correct via masks on live video will potentially change the game.
Time will tell.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
MT2 was released back in 2016.
It added (among other things) color coding to Roles and a lot of other enhancements such as an expanded timeline index.
MT2 is a big part of why versioning in X feels about 50 times more efficient to me than what I faced as a “pre-X” editor.
Oddly, I have a project right now where the client is asking me to version and re-version and re-re version and – and I can just wait all day for the flurry of notes to subside – then just make all the actual changes in the last half hour before I call it a day.
Bravo MT2!
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
Yours is way cooler, but here’s a crop of a 360 Theta snap I took on July 23rd 2017 at ComiCon Hall H .
It was the anniversary for the show Supernatural – which features classic rock a lot, and in the brightest part of the image, the blown out lights surround a stage where Kansas was playing “Dust in the Wind” live.
Wrap around video covered about 160 degrees of that HUGE hall.
These kind of big money shows are getting really outrageous.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
I suspect Apple has many of the things that make X, X patented. The magnetic timeline, the range based keywording system, etc. etc.
If Adobe has managed to re-create all similar functionality into something that won’t cause THEIR existing user base to scream at them in anguish for 3 years – more power to them.; )
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Shane Ross] “I was wondering how you’d slobber all over Apple and spin emoticons into a genius move and something that professionals would TOTALLY use”
(Smiling) Shane, so comforting to have you around to remind me of my place.
And yes, I had (once again) apparently forgotten it.
I had utterly forgotten once again that only Professionals EXACTLY like YOU have any use for these tools. And how nobody else really matters.
This is a very sad realization because it means now I have to go in and disappoint my wife, who coincidently is a professional classroom teacher who’s been locked away from a career she adored for decades as an instructional specialist – because in the US teachers salaries are CRAP.
Imagine her delight last year when she hooked up with a large concern in China interested in paying her to teach English to Chinese kids via telepresence every day in her down time.
SHE saw the Apple demo and instantly locked into the fact that for her youngest students, the newly animated lip movements in MeMojis might make an engaging tool for instruction of her younger students. (Mouth Position being fundamental to pronounciation , after all)
But of course, how silly of me.
ONLY serious FILMMAKERS like you should ever be allowed to have a voice on the validity of research into communications tools for the world’s professionals.
Cuz if you can make a MOVIE – the rest of life’s skills are all peripheral. .
It was thoughtless and venal of me to think of the stupid amateurs like the people trying to run small businesses, do scientific research, make livings via training, or (god forbid), TEACH children with these tools, – when you and the SERIOUS EDITORS have needs that are so much more important.
I’ll try to better remember my place in the future.
Hey, maybe I’ll get a nice t-shirt printed up for my LA train trip for the Off the Tracks thing…
If it ain’t for HOLLYWOOD – it ain’t for s**t!
Has a ring to it, no?
; )
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Oliver Peters] “Another interesting thing was the comment in the eGPU section that the live, real-time 3D scene that was being spread across the whole stage, was being driven by an eGPU connected to a MacBook (not MBP). One has to wonder how beefy of an eGPU ☺”
On the Metal2 breakout session I watched, they had not one, but 4 eGpus attached and running metal shaders doing highly complex “trillions of polygons” rendering and the performance boost was pretty wild.
IIRC, on a crazy complex frame render adding one eGPU to the stock machine took it from 45 seconds – to 12 seconds – Adding 3 additional eGPUs took that down to 2.5 seconds.
No wonder they are so hot for AR and VR. Theres a monstrous gamer world hungry for more and better realism – and developers that need to work fast.
And if they can do that stuff for them – they can do it for us poor video schlubs as well.
That Animoji and Memoji stuff looks silly now.
But if you can literally pop up your personal avatar to do a talking head demo in the near future – change it’s dress and appearance to iconically address safety, sales, engineering and finance – with a keystroke – then what could you do with all that “talking head shot on location” money you don’t need for Project X anymore?
It starts as fun and games. Then suddenly somebody’s saving REAL money.
Thats how I see it anyway.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
In WWDC, the noun is obviously “developers’, and developers generally don’t do hardware. Of course, hardware is relevant to the extent it presents standard capabilities developers can target.
I watched a bit of the Metal2 session after the keynote and it looks like Apple is still pushing at core computational performance hard. That should bode well for video pixel crunching in the long run.
I’m also curious to see what happens to the aging stuff like Open CL and Quartz Composer.
More than ever, it seems if you aren’t re-versioning EVERYTHING across the platform – then the legacy stuff tends to hold back performance more and more. There may be increasing tension for users who want to keep doing what they’ve been doing – verses those that demand more and more performance.
Sure, “hot rodders” are often happy jamming bigger and bigger engines into aging car frames, but most commuters know that over time, fresh car models stand to sell more units than aftermarket tuner kits.
My 2 cents.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
If you try to do it practically, bring a boatload of black duvytine or the equivalent.
The only way to make transparent sheet goods look actually clear – is to use unbroken negative fill to knock out anything that the angle of incidence/reflection shows – including the camera, lighting and crew.
FWIW.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.
