Bill Davis
Forum Replies Created
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Hi Todd,
This is just a generalized comment.
The last 4 years I’ve been associated with first the FCPWorks and then the Lumaforge Team at NAB – and as you might know, they happen to be based around FCP X. (No, this post is NOT about that, at all.) It’s a post about what I’ve seen in the rapidly changing topology of facility video distribution, in general.
I’ve had to make a HUGE change in my thinking about wiring systems. Virtually all of the editing systems for live content creation and manipulation has rapidly evolved AWAY from baseband video running on Coax or XLR sources – and now the lions share of the workflow systems I’ve used for capture, editing, and mastering is all digital signals over IP, now.
It’s been a HUGE perspective change from what I”ve been doing for the past 30 years. Very little of this gear even “speaks” baseband video anymore.
These are typically BlackMagic hardware instillations. But I think AJA is playing a similar game.
This REALLY seems to be increasingly the way all video will be handled in the future. Everything a network mounted computer peripheral – with the key connective skill managing machine IP addresses.
You may already be totally there in your thinking, but the last 4 years of transition have been so stark to me that I thought it was worth a mention.
If I was wiring ANYTHING today. The central thought of mine would be that if I was doing ANYTHING like I would have done it 4 or 5 years ago – that ALONE would cause me to be concerned that I was designing something for the past – and not for the future.
Just my my 2 cents. YMMV.
Good luck on your journey.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Matt Kemp] “I’m used to tools like Lumetri, curves adjustments, gamma controls and other features which are pretty basic in Premiere, After Effects and Photoshop, all of which I use extensively. “
Uh, X’s new color tools include curves, (hue vs sat, hue verses hue – and more!) – AND they have a really awesome way to translate on-screen visual clicks into adjustment points that let you manipulate only the colors present in your shot that are important to you.
It also has lift, gamma, and gain.
These work in Rec 709 and ALSO Rec2020 – clearly preparing for the ProResRAW environment they knew was coming but that the market was a bit surprised by.
So again, what do you feel is still missing in X verses how Premiere Pro works today?
Can you help me understand what’s possible in PPro that’s currently not Possible in the current build of X?
Thanks.
Oh, and while you might personally “feel” that X is only good for modest projects, but it appears others feel a bit differently. Check this out.
The first few paragraphs seems to indicate it’s a bit larger a project than what you conceive of as in X’s “wheelhouse?”
Just an observation.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Matt Kemp] “But the multitude sub-standard features such crappy keyfaming, colour correction and the ridiculous iMovie effects and title functions keep this at the prosumer level, which as far as I can tell is exactly what Apple intended. Sure, I’ve loaded up on all the third party extensions which help a lot (Color Finale for example), but as far as I’m concerned any app which relies on third party plugins to bring it up to par with Premiere or other NLEs doesn’t deserve that much credit.”
Just curious, why did you mention Color Finale, rather than the re-build of all the color tools in 10.4?
Seems to me you would have concentrated on the stuff INSIDE X, rather than on the external plug ins?
What, precisely is “crappy” about the 10.4.1 (current) color tools in X?
Or maybe for clarity – what do the competitors – either Premiere or AVID do – that X doesn’t – in terms of grading inside the NLE environment?
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Matt Kemp] “Imagine if we had all the best bit of X and all the best bits of 7 in one package. It would be an incredible piece of software.
As it is, using FCPX always leaves a bad taste in my mouth one way or another, whereas Premierem even though it’s slower and in a lot of ways feels more old fashioned than X, gives me the warm and fuzzies because it makes me feel I’m working with pro kit.”
Hard to argue with any of this.
It’s largely how an editor “feels” about the software. Each has plusses and minuses. Which of those lights up YOUR emotions determines which path will feel best to you.
I value the feeling that I’m moving into what I suspect will be a different digital video future – as rapidly as possible – and I’m very willing to give up lots of “comfort” in order to achieve that.
Another editor will much more highly value the “warm and fuzzies” (as you term it) of familiarity.
It’s the central polarizing principal of all of this, I suspect.
And it’s as natural (on both sides), as breathing.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Matt Kemp] “5 years later, a whole range of amazing new features and functionality introduced to FCPX.
And keyframing is still complete shite.
What a joke.”
Definitely still lame.
Also definitely still NOT getting in the way of X’s adoption by large swaths of general editors very much, based on the public sales evidence.
So we just keep waiting and hoping the bigger and more important stuff that DOES seem to drive tool adoption for X – eventually gets to a place where more agile key framing becomes something Apple feels like addressing.
Until then, X editors have all learned to do it, when it’s required, with the very modest tools we have.
Such is life.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Simon Ubsdell] “And I will reserve the right to be as critical of it as I would be of any other piece of software.”
I publicly deem it a Menace – but yet I embrace it.
“FCP X – Or Nots… very own Chaos Candidate!
How contemporary.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Dominic Deacon] ” But surely that’s the fun. If you’re going to have a decent debate you need some zealots to fire up the moderates or it gets boring fast.”
????
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
Wow,
From “isn’t important and nobody will EVER use this POS.”
To the “dangerous scourge of all things righteous in editing …”
Now it’s a “MENACE?” Holy Heck.
In 7 short years. That’s some monster progress right there.
Hint: Last time I looked, nobody here was forcing anyone to use this tool. If you don’t like (or, maybe irrationally fear?) X – Don’t use it.
See how simple that is?
(I wonder if this was somewhat triggered by that modest thread about NBC using X in NY and LA. Are non-X editors scared that it might keep spreading in influence and leave them behind? Relax. It’s not THAT hard to learn should doneone ever decide their attitude toward it might have been a bit – misguided.)
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
I’ll challenge the use of “buggieness” as adiscriptor here.
It works consistently as designed.
It’s a RAM buffer that holds your most recent storylines, and as such, yes, loading new ones will eventually flush older ones – particularly if you work on very large and complex projects. In that case, you might not have as many alternates as you might like to switch between.
But if you do commercials, explainers, or similar short form videos of the type incredibly popular in lots of folks modern work, you might have EVERYTHING you need right now.
Buggy means the code doesn’t work as it’s designed.
This does.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
Uh for those watching who might have never actually used X,
If you open, say, 3 separate timelines in succession, you can switch between them with the timeline history navigation buttons at the top of your screen…
You can cut and past between them exactly like from pancake timelines.
They’re just displayed sequentially, not stacked. Other than that. No difference.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.
