[Bill Davis]

[Herb Sevush] “In fact, with all of this so called ease of distribution, X has had precisely 1 upgrade in the last 6 months, and that after a rollout that can only be described as catastrophic.”

It was only ever “catastrophic” among an inside group of people who relentlessly began tearing down aspects of the software they had NO CLUE about. Go back and read all the early threads about how X didn’t do “insert function” only to have people respond that, well, yes, actually X did that function perfectly well, just not in the same way it had been done in legacy.

The big lesson I learned from the X rollout, was to shut up, think before I posted. And try to see what the “intent” of the changes were before I exposed my (admittedly vast) ignorance to the world.

I can say this with confidence, since in the first week here on this forum, none of us had any really clear idea about what the new software was trying to do differently.

I remember taking a self imposed “holiday” from the discussion in the early days, precisely because I was resorting to guesses and opinions that were based on my “impressions” of the software, rather than how it actually worked. As I started to build expertise in operating it, I finally started to understand it’s design, and found that while it hurt to lose my 12 years of operational expertise in Legacy, there was a LOT to like about the new software.

Then when I had to travel and edit on my laptop for some work in Southern California and X helped me be amazingly productive while away from the studio – it started to slowly reveal that it was a new tool that could have a very important place in how my business was evolving.

In fact, the very article this thread is based on is sticking with me.

It talks about software as a constant work in progress – and how rather than yesterday’s start-build-finish model of a program, it’s more a “start – get to useful status – then revise and refine for a much longer lifespan” model.

And that’s *fascinating* to me.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Bill Davis]

See my NFL analogy above.

The “puck” is important only as long as you define “the whole game” as “hockey”

The moment you see that larger question of “what should the game actually be” then you open the world not just to hockey, but baseball, rugby, and even curling.

And the world’s a better place, IMO, for the choices.

Once upon a time a “timeline” was one thing as implemented in fifty different programs that essentially make it an unbending standard.

Now there’s another kind of timeline. A magnetic one.

And you get to choose whether you like it better or not.

That’s progress, IMO.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Bill Davis]

[Oliver Peters] “Or you can just pick up and throw the puck into the corner that it wouldn’t have otherwise gone to ;-)”

Or maybe change the tradition of the shape of the “sports object” from classically round to vaguely ovoid and create …. the NFL!

(grin)

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Bill Davis]

[Herb Sevush] “I wonder where the X roll-out fits in?
“

I would imagine – perfectly.

If the article’s premis is correct, (and I think the author is totally on to something here) then the only real value of any “release date” is how it effects a companies marketing efforts.

Once upon a time (like last year!) Totally finished software was what you needed for a golden master to send to the plant to press and box and put on the trucks.

With the App store, that’s all gone. When software masters live online – they can change every 5 minutes if there’s a good reason to do so.

It may seem like a slap at customers – but as the author implies – it’s probably the best way to get enough “real world” data to understand how any complex code will fare in the wild is to put it out there.

Release dates kinda become “good enough to begin public testing” dates and with remote updating in play, you can much more rapidly begin to address the world of actual (not test lab) users concerns.

You’re not actually buying “a software program” any more. You’re buying into a software ecosystem that you expect to evolve and improve over time.

And that kinda defines ALL the software I currently rely on for any serious work.

Interesting read!

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Bill Davis]

Interesting, Simon.

I would have thought that a fundamental issue like allowing too much light to hit the photo sensor would result in a “blow out” of the luminance data in all the channels – but if there is less luminance sensitivity in an individual color channel and data that can be re-claimed and used to recover pixel luminance states, that’s very useful to know.

Thanks for taking the time to mention it.

(learning is a life long task these days – thankfully!)

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Bill Davis]

I believe you are catching on to the new “gestalt” of FCP-X.

Welcome to the game.

It’s occasionally annoying, but it’s also kinda fun to stretch ones thinking into new areas.

Enjoy the ride.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Bill Davis]

[David Roth Weiss] “Randy Ubillos was probably given a slim budget for FCP X that was a fraction of what was required, and the old adage, “You get what you pay for” applies.
“

Oooh – CONSPIRACY THEORY! … can I play?

(particularly as to the “fraction of what was required” idea since they somehow managed to deliver solid and fundamentally re-imagined software with exciting new capabilities that needed just a couple of tweaks in first 90 days to become a solid working tool for general purpose video editing)

So Apple fields a tight crew of talented people – gives them a limited budget — and they produce a targeted product that works great – presents outstanding value and capabilities for the vast majority of it’s users at a killer price – but makes some old guys who don’t like the change really, really grumpy – and that defines … FAILURE!

Interesting “world view” guy.

Okay, teasing mode off.

David, I’m really interested in your thinking here.

If Apple is operating a consumer unfriendly “you get what you pay for” model – how exactly do you account for Motion 5?

Which as I explore it more and more seems to be like shelling out $49 bucks and getting the software equivalent of a small bright red 90 miles per gallon Mercedes Benz convertible in return.

Just wondering?

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Bill Davis]

[Walter Soyka] “Why the rushes to market before lining up their partners?”

Maybe it’s just a continuation of the Apple habit of generating exceptional value by DRIVING the market rather than reacting to it?

Part of that Gretzky/Jobsian tradition of skating to where the puck will be — is that you’re more likely to own the best corner and have your store established up before the folks start arriving in flocks?

Just wondering out loud.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Bill Davis]

[Kevin Patrick] “FCP X users are so unhappy that it appears (at least to me) that FCP X is the only software that I’ve come across that has a dedicated forum for “discussing” it. “

So with a hundred million plus web sites out there – the fact that there are enough “inside baseball” types to generate a few dozen regular posters who want to focus on the sliver of the pro video editing landscape represented by FCP-X rebuild surprises you?

Okay then.

[Kevin Patrick] “But, I could be wrong. If I am, I’m sure you will set me straight. Or at least try. You are going to try, aren’t you?”

I think I just did.

Ever hang out on Usenet?

If not, look it up.

Proof positive that since the dawn of the on-line era there have been vast numbers of splinter groups of people quite willing to hang out and chatter about things the most of the rest of the world largely finds not worth their time.

Those of us here who participate do so because we’re super-interested in the topic (and probably because we’re argumentative by nature and have strong opinions about stuff.)

As it has ever been, and as it will ever be.

Just don’t think that because we enjoy it so much and obsess about it, that mean in any way that what we say here is actually *important* in the larger scheme of things.

(although I did actually pick up an honest to goodness new client last week from someone in my city who stumbled across what I’ve written here – so who knows – maybe what we do here has more impact that I thought!)

For what it’s worth.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Bill Davis]

Just so you realize that in digital video files, once the luminance value of a pixel gets set to 255 (full white) theres’ simply nothing there to “recover.”

If someone actually shot that sky as overexposed, the fanciest algorithm in the world won’t fix anything.

All it can do is to re-color pixels so that it “implies” a sky that wasn’t originally recorded.

Just how things work.

FWIW.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor