[Bill Davis]

[Bob Zelin] “All that really matters to any reader of Creative Cow (except Robin Kurz and Bill Davis) is what is going on with the new Mac Pro.”

Yep.

You nailed it, Bob.

Just like everybody else left here – I’m only concerned with what works for ME.
Which is something everyone here should echo, gleefully.

And my fingers are crossed for the (at this point merely mythical) widely speculated 16″ MacBook Pro revision.
I’ve gotten 4 YEARS out of my current laptop as my day to day editing machine – and it’s been an astonishing success, thus far.

Seriously, when I left my big-assed maxed out MacPro Cheesegrater behind I could not IMAGINE being able to work on ONLY a laptop. But my first MacBook Pro shocked me with its capability. And when I refreshed it in 2015 – I maxed THAT one out – and never looked back.

That little slab of aluminum is still kicking butt having over the past 6 weeks seen me through the single biggest flood of production work that’s crossed my desk since I moved to California more than a year ago. I’m typing this on it right now under a suspended 40″ client monitor.

It’s been amazing.

Can’t wait to see what Apple has in store next. And I really don’t care (within reason) what it costs. Heck, I used to regularly spend more on CRAFT SERVICES for ONE of our corporate video shoots than this laptop cost.. So hardware isn’t really as much a big deal as it used to be.

Times have changed. And I suspect will continue to, faster and faster.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

And just to add grist to the rumor mill…

All of us attending the Creative Summit next week got an email today indicating that those planning on going to the Apple presentation scheduled for Friday will need to pick up a special badge for admission AND will be required to sign an NDA at registration.

What that may mean – or NOT mean – is anyones guess.

 ????

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

[Oliver Peters] “As far as features go, maybe Apple has decided FCPX is more or less done and improvements will be incremental or come in other areas, like machine learning functions.”

Maybe.

But one thing I noted is that after the recent retirement of the longtime FCP X Marketing Product Manager, Steve Bayes, Apple now has apparently revised a good bit of the internal product management team for FCP X.

One of the key players (one with a FABULOUS NAME, I might add!) was a top editor in Ken Burns documentary operations.

So now that things are settling down from the Catelina OS roll out, and the “Metal-ification” of the entire FCP X code base – it will be interesting to see whether these product team changes have any effect on the development effort going forward.

Too early to read any tea leaves on this stuff, IMO. But it’s interesting.

Hopefully, more news after the Creative Summit next week. Apple is doing another specific “talk with the team” event for attendees. It should be interesting IF we can talk about it afterwards.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

[Herb Sevush] “”You will need to point out the benefits of going a bit slower to get the best results because watching, thinking and discussing all go at about the same speed as they always have and should not be rushed.””

But Herb, the extra speed everywhere else is EXACTLY what provides an editor with the extra time for watching, thinking and discussing.

THAT was the magic of the entire FCP X process from day one.

For editors without a team of assistants doing that work – X was designed to get as much of the mechanics out of the way as early as possible, codified in your tagged keyword selections and magnetic assemblies – so that when you’re ACTUALLY EDITING – as little as humanly possibly distracts you from your primary mission.

Making and perfecting the content, itself.

Always job one for every editor.   ????

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

[Michael Gissing] “FCPX update, which seems to be mostly about prep for new Mac hardware, how does the community feel about the pace and improvements to X by comparison?
“

I feel great.

The Catelina migration forced me to dig deep into my OS and clear out years of 32-bit cruft.

Then 10.4.7 seems to have stabilized things even MORE and increased my editing fluidity nicely.

Still, my main laptop is nearing the end of it’s use cycle, so I’m holding my breath to see if the rumor’d 16″ MacBook Pro maybe hits at the Creative Summit and IF so, what its specs might be.

Hopefully, it too will be custom “tuned” to the new Metal environment and improve things even further.

As much as I love one, I simply don’t do anything justifies a new MacPro – which would be overkill for my work. Mobility is WAY more important than grunt to me these days.

Heck, my 2015 maxed MacBook Pro just got me thru my biggest billing quarter in the last 5 years with flying colors. So things are pretty great already.

The 10.4.7 update gave me a more fluid editing experience even on my older hardware.

So I’m really looking forward to the Creative Summit to see if Apple has any year end presents breaking over the holiday season.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

A few.
Sidecar is probably the billboard feature. The ability to use an iPad as an external Monitor with bi-directional communication – so you can annotate video on your machine wirelessly from your lap.

I’m interested in how the latest Retina Screens suss out (as to colorimetry and brightness) for potential use as a super lightweight field/client monitor.

There are a dozen other minor tweaks, but most of us suspect bigger news when the new MacPros ship. With the 64-bit standard and Metal settling in – it will be interesting to see how those architectural changes effect what the software can do in both productivity and features.

I suspect some long time “asks” on the feature side, were pushed to the back burner because the FCP X team didn’t feel they could implement one thing – without slowing down overall performance unacceptably. Now maybe those things come off the back burner and can see the light on machines fast enough to make the experience flow.

Time will tell.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

[Warren Eig] “And will this be the last update for these grater Mac Pros that can run OS 10.14.6? Will FCPX 10.4.8 be Catalina only? I don’t want to spend $5000+ for a new Mac.”

I just don’t understand that.

That old cheese grater is a DECADE old. You should have depreciated it to ZERO long ago. Don’t you EVER want to see what the new AI and Performance enhancing tech rolled out over the past decade, can do?

I was on a Facebook Live chat about 10.4.7 an hour ago and a caller said he found out that the Metal Rewrite is so much more efficient that he can effectively edit on a MacBook AIR now!

I’ve got to believe that the same software that makes THAT possible on marginal OLD systems – should seriously turbocharge a decent modern pro workflow.

“If it ain’t broke don’t try to fix it” – is how you end up facing a sharp cliff like this current 32-bit one unprepared. Moving along to keep reasonably up with generational change is how you avoid it – at least it seems like that to me.

But whatever.

I think Apple pushed 10.4.7 today to let the gnashing of teeth happen a bit before the Fully Metal Compliant (Afterburner aware) ProApps start rolling out soon.

Looking forward to that. And excited to see how close the 2016 rumored 16″ MacBook Pro might be in performance to the present iMac Pros.

Great time to be an editor!

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

[James Culbertson] “Have you cut them loose Bill? :-)”

Yes. Haven’t launched an Adobe app for way more than a year now.

It was uncomfortable. But it also got me unstuck from their approach to always needing to make sure their software was OK for legacy users.

I was a pretty constant Lightroom user, for example. The change caused me to survey a few other photo processors including Pixelmator and Affinity Photo – before I stumbled into Luminar. Luminar is young, but as I’ve explored it’s heavily AI influenced approach, I discovered myself getting better results MUCH quicker than ever before. Particularly on fast turnaround stuff like Corporate Headshots – where you need to rapidly make everyone look OK for a first round (muting obvious blemishes and softening older skin, etc) and then having the control to deeply re-touch just the selects.

It’s workflow with a lot of “start here” automation that you can dive in and tweak ONLY if you need to (so you don’t waste time on the folks without stuff like skin issues or major wrinkles) has been a real joy for a gig like this.

It just feels significantly more modern to me than what I used to do in Lightroom – even tho that’s a great standard proven workflow that got the ball rolling for everyone. I’m sure I’d still be using LR it it wasn’t behind the subscription paywall – but it is. So there you go.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

Well, we’ve known about the 32-bit code compatibility issues for quite a while. So it seems odd to me that folks might need an additional YEAR to get things settled after Catalina rolls out and 32-bit apps become a problem. the active Devs are all on board, and if you are still using odd really old apps whose developers aren’t freshening their code for the new era – seems to me this might be an excellent time to cut them loose and find new, faster and more modern solutions.

I personally was concerned since I lost a LOT of legacy attendant software when I left the Photoshop /Lightroom fold over the subscription thing – but now I’m crazy happy with the speed and ease of tools like Luminar. Tools I probably wouldn’t have found and learned if I hadn’t dumped my legacy workflow thinking.

Just like dumping tracks in 2011 and adopting FCP X, the transition was uncomfortable – but the months and months and months of speed and editorial pleasure since has made it totally worthwhile.

Can’t wait for the Creative Summit – to hopefully see the MacPro and 16” MacBook Pro the rumors suggest might debut!

These new hardware assets running the latest FCP X code and the other modern recently re-coded new tools designed for Catelina, Metal and tge new Apple hardware refresh seem to promise a lot of new productivity.

Fingers crossed!!

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Bill Davis]

Things that bugged me about the Cion were basically twofold. HEAT and DUST.
At the NAB where it was introduced, I remember noticing the front of the camera was a big vented grill, presumably to shed sensor heat.
Since I was living and shooting in Arizona at the time, that was a pretty huge red flag for me. Big holes in a camera case maybe good for cooling, but my brain processed that and thought even if heat isn’t an issue with this design DUST will be.
So I moved on.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.