[Bill Davis]

It will be interesting to see how Canon handles the moire issue in the new “still with video” camera they pre-announced alongside the 300. I think I recall them noting that they’re incorporating some of the technology from the 300 into that.

We’ll see.

“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]

[Chris Harlan] “Bill, you totally misunderstand me. The whole reason I started this thread, and others like it, is that I DO want to know what is better or interesting about FCP X. I AM curious about such things. You don’t need to defend your preference for FCP X to me. I think I’ve told you on a couple of occasions that I think it is a good tool for you. AND for many others. I don’t begrudge anyone using it. In fact, I’m intrigued by it. So, I’m just trying to see it for what it is. I think you’ll find in my reply to Jeremy in this thread, that he made me see–and agree to–his POV on several counts. I think you’ll find, if you look across many of my replies, a similar pattern.
“

Fair enough, Chris.

I still finding myself occasionally getting weary of “defending” X against the onslaught of those who imply the since it don’t work for them, then its dreck for everybody.

Those kind of “blanket” statements were much more common in the early days – when nearly everyone was confused by it’s singular differences and translated that into plenty of “but it doesn’t do (feature)” only for all of us to discover time and time again that, well, yes it did (feature), just differently than we were previously accustomed to. Case in point is everyone who yelled initially about the “single window” approach, before we understood that you can do virtually everything that was once done in the Viewer (albeit with some singular reservations like full-screen color correcion) in the Event Browser (and a whole lot more besides!)

Those who take it to task and follow up with the REASONING behind their positions have my respect and I try to be careful NEVER to belittle their opinions, since they may very well know a lot more than I do and have viable contextural reasons why it fails to meet their needs.

My occasional crabbiness in the context of a broad/stroke naysayer is MY issue, not anyone else’s.

And I’m working on it.

Be patient with me, please.

“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] “Really? Price yes, performance, hardly. Sure, you can quickly and imprecisely slam clips together. The rest of it slows to slug-level performance. Build a sequence of about 15 animated titles with every 2-3 overlapping and then let me know how it performances.

And speaking of price, look what DaVinci is doing for FREE compared to what Apple is doing. Not really much contest, I’ve afraid.

– Oliver
“

Neither you nor I are actually allowed to answer this except for ourselves.
Only the open market can establish the final judgement on things of this nature.

I’ve voted YES one FCP-X and will continue to use and explore it.

I expect you will now cease doing so since you’ve clearly judged it to be a “poor value” compared to your other available choices.

I honestly hope you’re happy using them.

Good luck.

“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] “That said, reel ID metadata — one of the most fundamental elements of video metadata which NLEs have been correctly tracking for decades — is critical for interchange, and FCPX isn’t quite where FCP7 was on this.”

You are totally correct sir.

X after 100 days or so, is lacking in quite a few areas compared to Legacy after 10+ years of solid incremental development.

It’s NO CONTEST, really.

And I’ll admit that it’s lacking in these same areas (and even more) compared to it’s primary competitors.

So if those specific capabilities are someone’s baseline deal breakers for choice and use criteria, an editor needs to look elsewhere right now.

I suspect, however, that the FCP-X benefit package (astonishing price/performance ratio, file based workflow integration honoring exceptionally robust metadata capabilities, and access to the planetary class engineering resources clearly enabled by being under the wing of the most economically successful company on earth) will help resolve these issues sooner rather than later.

I’m comfortable with this bet.

YMMV.

“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 don’t know, there are a LOT of variables in play here.

RAM, Processor, OS, etc. etc.

Maybe even footage type and processor transcoding load for all I know?

All I can say with confidence is that on my laptop, configured as it is, FCP-X is running EXTREMELY stably with no issues. I’ve been primarily working with XDCAM EX 1080p 30 files or 5dMk II H-264 files via ProRes and no problems so far with any of them – I’ve got a VERY stable workflow going on the laptop, (knock wood).

Whether that translates to anyone else’s specific situation is up for debate.

“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]

[Chris Harlan] “Why do you think I can’t do “find whatever” in FCP 7? AND put them in a group? I’m getting the feeling that some folks here never used the more advanced functions of “find.” You DO know that you can search keywords, don’t you? And that you can label sub clips? And that you can combine all kinds of searchable metadata like “Linda,” “MCU,” “Blue,” and “Whatevers?”

And that it would gather your search into a single bin? And that you could make a permanent copy of that bin with a couple of keystrokes?

I’m not trying to be obstinate here, but I’m just not seeing the magic.”

Chris.

Look it’s FINE if you don’t see any advantage. Stick with what you know for as long as it works for you. IIRC, you’re one of the guys planning to migrate to either Adobe or AVID for the future. That’s perfectly cool as well.

I suspect with your hesitance to even CONSIDER that there might be parts of the X design that could be superior to what was implemented in Legacy will be a big stumbling block to your learning it. (I personally don’t do well trying to learn stuff that annoys me. It shuts down my thinking and makes me resist the knowledge,but that’s me – your learning style might work differently for all I know)

Some of us have spent years (11 plus in my case) editing in 7, then Switched to X and have found it both exciting and interesting and satisfying. Others find it a pain. That’s GOT to be personal difference or EVERYONE would feel the same about it and that’s just not what’s happening here.

I’m seeing LOTS of things that I’m doing right off the bat in 10 that never became part of my workflow in FCP 1-7. That’s likely because the kind of day to day editing I did wasn’t built around a distributed workflow in a high-end house like many here. I’ve worked primarily in corporate communications and somewhat in Advertising. I’ve had maybe 20% of my work destined for broadcast, not 100% like many here. For the “production” editor who’s focused on speed, efficiency and collaboration as the holy grails of editing, they’re likely much better technical editors than I’ll ever be. I was concentrating on being the “program creator” rather than exclusively the EDITOR. And I get that those types of editors miss capabilities in X that they had in Legacy. But that’s how it is right now.

I also believe, however, that there might be something to be learned from those of us who’ve worked extensively OUTSIDE of broadcast but STILL in professional video editing, since we daily see a whole other slice of the industry. One that’s actually growing a LOT faster than the broadcast sector right now.

I think X fits into MY part of the industry BETTER than 7. Not always, not exclusively, but for what I do, powerfully.

So I’m not really interested in going BACK to 7, no matter how much you tell me that my old tool did what I need just fine. (or even “better” I KNOW THAT. I was in the seat doing that for 11 plus years. Now I’m in the seat doing X. And I’m finding “new to me” capabilities that are HUGELY interesting and satisfying when I sit down to cut a project.

I’ll respect that you don’t “like it” or think it’s “innovative enough” to impress you. Or maybe you feel that it’s “innovations” are stupid and unnecessary. Or that it misses out on what YOU need it to be. That’s fine. Thankfully, nobody will ever FORCE you to use it. But any contention that what I feel about it lame because I simply can’t see how “superior” legacy was is kinda ODD as I’ve likely got more operation time in Legacy than anyone else I know – as a result of my start cutting with less than 2 weeks after it’s intro at NAB 99.

The truth is that I’ve in front of Legacy in ALL it’s iterations regularly for more than a decade and probably completed and delivered in excess of 400 projects with it – so it’s going to be hard for you to convince me that I’m not in a position to judge the strength of it, verses the strength of the X approach.

Whether anybody here want to LISTEN TO or give ANY weight to what I’m saying here is totally up to the individual.

And I’m fine with that.

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

[Bill Davis]

Well, perhaps because I think of it as a CARD ID, now.

And I have about 40 Disk Images of those cards – all TAGGED with their own IDs – that FCP-X handles fluently and flawlessly.

When clips show up in the EventBrowser as “offline” I can see those CARD IDs – because that’s built into part of my metadata strategy. (and yes, I had to think about what would be the best way to TAG that rather than letting the camera manufacture TELL ME what that ID should be.) Then I insert the corresponding Disk Image via any storage media I like down (to a thumb drive CLONE of the original camera card) – and upon launching that – ALL my data re-links to my FCP -X project nearly instaneously.

That doesn’t actually BEHAVE much like a REEL – which required a single, physical presence to be loaded in order for the editor to extract the contents from it. So in my considered opinion, in a world where I might wish to have multiple CLONES of virtual reels, someone else’s idea of what I might need as a REEL ID, might range from simply inadequate to downright STUPID in the context of my preferred workflow.

Does that help you understand my thinking about REEL ID issues?

Or do you just want me to send you some of the old 1″: type C reels in my closet from the early days of my career to prove to you that I have some understanding of what a REEL actually represents?

(sorry, just couldn’t resist)

“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] “I have seen this argument many times in support of FCPX as a “pro” tool, but it doesn’t persuade me.
“

OK. It’s not a “persuader” for you. For the reasons you state. (perfectly good ones in my opinion) Fair on all sides.

I’ll put you down for “to my thinking, I expect resolution independence from ALL editing software as a baseline value.” FCP-X gets the “resolution independent” checkmark, as does PPro, Vegas, and AVID.

No significant winners or losers in that area.

I just appreciate that you’re a clear example of someone who’s keeping an open mind about the program.

You keep acknowledging time and time again that you’re not actively looking to recycle “talking points’ to either promote it or diminish it – but looking for the reality under the surface.

Something I believe is valuable to everyone here.

So I’ll try my best to avoid future thinking that some people here might see file resolution capabilities as a pro/amateur differentiator – and not understand that it’s actually more of a “given” today.

Thanks for helping me be better aware of that.

“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]

The MacBook Pro I regularly edit on with X is:

2,8Ghz Core i7 — stock NVIDIA Gforce GT 330M 512MB

And X runs smoothly and efficiently. I haven’t had a crash or hiccup in more than a month.

Actually, now that I think about it, that’s probably about when I transitioned to LION.

Go figure.

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

[Bill Davis]

[Walter Soyka] ”
What if Bill decides to switch to another NLE? Is he locked into FCPX’s integrated DAM, or can he get that valuable data out of FCPX and into a new DAM of his choice?
“

Walter,

In a world where 10 minutes after anything significant is released – somebody CRACKS it and posts it to the internet, are you really arguing that RAW DATA that is known to flow inside the FCP-X interface freely won’t EVER be “hooked into” for export?

Even if only 500 people want to do that. (to stretch credulity to the breaking point) And some 10 year old in Bulgaria can drive half of THEM to his website to download “X-Data Cracker” for a $10 pay pal re-direct, you can COUNT on it happening.

Pure demand economics at work!

(only partly in jest here!)

(and come to think of it, I’m actually kinda pulling for some 10 year old in St. Paul, MN. It’s winter kids, come in side, get warm and get coding! America’s future depends on you!)

“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