Bill Davis
Forum Replies Created
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In the order of your post:
Until FCPX offers feature parity with Avid, FCP7, and PrP, many editors can’t simply choose one or the other because of the paradigm it offers.I find that analysis spot on. However, I’m simply advocating the wisdom of not spending over much time stuck in a mode comparing an 11 year old program which has evolved step by step from insignificance to world-wide professional acceptance – to one that’s been gestating for a couple of years at best, and only “live” for a couple of months.
The temptation is HUGE. And FCP-X clearly compares woefully if that’s the standard you must hold it to. My argument is that it’s clearly hard for many (tho clearly not you, personally to accept the reality that the designers NEVER intended FCP-X to be an evolution of FCP-7 – it’s it’s own beast – Accepting that is the required first stage to = judging whether it has unique value on it’s own.
This debate, largely driven by a palpable cloud of anger, loss and fear – (all reasonable emotions in anyone who sees a critical tool that feeds them in “jeopardy.”) has been way more about the LOSS of 7 than about the reality of X.
And I simply think that misses WAY too much of what’s going on here.
Your comment: FCPX forks off from previous NLEs in the fourth generation (software-only, new abstract editorial model).
I don’t think that there’s anything inherent in the self-organizing, trackless, magnetic, relative timeline in FCPX that gives it new capabilities that the previous standard manually-organized, tracked, absolute timeline had. Am I missing something here?Maybe not. Perhaps providing “new capabilities” is something they simply decided to rationally de-value – at least in the early days of the software – and instead elevated OTHER features that they felt would be potentially more valuable to a future superior sustainable business model higher on their “critical” list.
What might those be?
We’ve heard a LOT about the underlying relational over flat-file database underpinnings.
Those may be important if this turns out to be a “feature race” in the long run. If so, they merely valued long term profits over short term ease of development. It’s a RARE view in business these days, I’ll admit – but Apple is pretty singular in having enough return to make any shareholder happy – so they have room other companies simply don’t to hold a long range view if they so choose.But maybe there are simpler forces at work here. What about cloud deliverability? Apple is making HUGE bets (and reaping equally huge profits) by moving to an “all virtual” business model. Packaged goods are disappearing from Apple stores in favor of the App Store model. (Perhaps it’s instructive to note here that FCP-X was the very first product in the App Store that broke into the “over $100” price category. Perhaps code (and therefore feature) “slimness” was a factor in the FCP-X release strategy? It would be interesting to see the “features per lines of code” comparison between FCP-X, FCP legacy” and the other NLE products. (I doubt that metric even exists, but it WOULD be interesting)
Or perhaps they actually did that odd duck RESEARCH – and found that the growth curve is truly not in the high-end priests of the industry – but a larger body of day to day worker bees that are more and more tasked with doing functional video work in this new economy. To me that WOULD be sad. But maybe it’s truly an inescapable reality.
I don’t presume to know the answers to these questions, myself. I just know that FCP-X is a big bet. That bet is that the game is changing. I think that’s correct. The game is changing BIG TIME.
And once you acknowledge that, the REAL game is to try and figure out what the new game will be and how you can position yourself to best capitalize on it.
Every minute spent moaning about what’s lost (or even WHY it was lost) in the transition from FCP-7 to FCP-X is, IMO wasted time. The key is to understand what Apple saw coming that led them to make this huge break – whether it was driven by market forces, editing interface visions, database possibilities, economic forces, cloud deliverability, or just orneryness – the key is to focus on whether this upheaval presents possibilities for jumping forward over the ever increasing competition.
But that requires limiting distractions. And for me, this debate is remaining far too long in a place where people seldom interested in a rational discussion of the whys and wherefores – but rather just REACTING angrily to a changing game.
The game IS changing.
Walter, I truly appreciate your desire to look beyond the surface. That will be one reason I think you’re left standing when many who are so palpably resistant to even considering what might be better about FCP-X, and, more critically, what it’s revision might mean in a larger sense, will be left behind.
Peace.
“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’Conner
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Walter,
First off, I want to say how much I appreciate the first line you posted. All too often here posters (myself firmly included) simply read and react. I’m honored you gave my position careful consideration.
In that spirit, rather than toss off a quick reaction, I’m going to give your ideas the same consideration you honored mine with.
More to come later for any who are still interested.
“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’Conner
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Denis,
Thank you. And I must say I agree with everything you say.
Apple has decided incremental change was not going to move the bar far enough forward.
So not only did they ‘scrape’ but they decided to build what they see as a “house of the future.”
Often, these fail. But when they succeed, they change everything.
Whether, in the long run this is moving from the horse to the car (transformative) – the steam car to the gasoline car (evolutionary)- or from the gasoline car to the electric car (arguably too disruptive regardless of any potential benefits) – is precisely what remains to be seen.
“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’Conner
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Jim,
THAT is an attitude that will serve you exceptionally well, always.
“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’Conner
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Walter,
I understand your point, but I think you’re defining it too narrowly.
You say “All FCP users must either continue work on EOL software, or migrate to another platform (be it Avid, FCPX, Premiere Pro, or something else entirely).” and that is certainly ONE way to interpret it.
Another equally valid view is to say “All FCP users must make the choice to continue using traditional editing paradigms as represented by Avid, FCP-Legacy, Premier Pro, or something else entirely, or accept that to move into a world where superior data flexibility and new capabilities NOT POSSIBLE under legacy software architecture is finally possible, they must accept that they will lose current capabilities as they adapt to the new architecture.”
Your statement is true. So is mine. The perspective shift is the ENTIRE argument here, IMO.
The core is that people are miffed (some incensed!) that Apple has changed direction. The real question is whether the team behind FCP-X is right or wrong in thinking that making such a FUNDAMENTAL architectural change will be a better bet than merely building more rooms on the old mansion.
Sometimes remodeling is smart (as Avid, PP and Vegas continue to do. Sometimes people with a nice piece of property decide that the old house is getting long in the tooth and a scrape is required.
I don’t think this is anything more than that – with the attendant hue and cry of those who had come to like the old design, very, VERY much – albiet after years and years of repair, remodeling and patchwork.
As to your second point, I couldn’t agree with you more.
Well said.
“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’Conner
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Precisely Walter.
They’ve jettisoned the old code in the quest for a newer approach that they believe will allow better performance and capabilities in the future.
But it certainly has disrupted the present.
The only questions left, IMO, is who needs to stay where editing IS for very defensible and sensible business reasons – who is ready to buy into the possibilities that FCP-X might hold for a better future – and who’s going to get STUCK unable to decide what they should do – and for how long.
That’s a pretty simple array of choices.
IF you edit, you HAVE to take one of those three paths. Apple has decided that for you. Like it or not.
By now, anyone who’s been listening should have the objective data they need to make their own decisions. Which is precisely why the non-feature or capability oriented stuff (like the name calling) is getting so tedious.
Those paths should be pretty clear by now. Time for people to make up their minds and move on, IMO.
Sticking around merely to tell people that their viewpoint – whatever that opinion might be – is somehow “wrong” is self-indulgent at this stage, 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’Conner
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Wish I had a dollar for every time it happened to me.
I used to do roadshow seminars of video editing concepts for a national magazine, and there were a few times I went functionally BLANK when confronted with a simple question from the crowd.
Heck, one time in Pasadena early in my lecturing career, a lady in the crowd of about 300 raised her hand and asked me to explain the difference between encoding and transcoding. And I realized I had absolutely NO idea what to say to her. Yeah, I knew I KNEW the difference, I just couldn’t get my brain to a place where I could articulate it. Thankfully someone in the audience took pity on me and saved the day – but I still get cold sweats remembering the surge of panic.
That’s the presentation game. The moment you start to convince yourself you’re finally getting pretty good – something happens to take you down a few pegs.
It gets easier the more experience you accumulate – just like life.
“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’Conner
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Criss,
You can’t open “legacy” projects in FCP-X because the underlying database structure is COMPLETELY different.
Constraining someone to using one finger is fine for a game like TAG – but when you decide to change the game to “cats cradle” a “one finger” constraint is INSANE. The simplicity of a flat-file query based program like FCP-legacy – bears little relationship to the spider web relational database structure of FCP-X.
Perhaps someone might someday “parse” the new database and do a simple “import” of one field – like “clip content” into a single field like the viewer in X. But the idea that you can POUR a timeline’s worth of flat file decisions into an equivalent structure in a spiderweb – where everything MUST connect to everything else in order to properly function is imaginary thinking at best.
What do people think? Apple just decided to piss off people by not taking the time to “code” legacy support into the software? That’s INSANE. They knew perfectly well that it would have been a HUGELY positive feature. So the only intelligent rationale is that it was functionally IMPOSSIBLE to build what they wanted while simultaneously maintaining direct compatibility with the prior software architecture.
That people can’t understand something this simple, astonishes me.
And so please, everyone, stop harping on how terrible the lack of legacy support is.
YES. It’s a MAJOR bummer. And, from what I understand, it’s also an inescapably reality that must be faced if we want the potential new capabilities of what the developers hope FCP-X will become as it develops.
Time to move on.
“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’Conner
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David,
It’s not about your opinions. It’s about the relentless TONE that you and a few others here have adopted.
I understand that, since I found myself going in the same direction and had to elect to stop myself.
Honestly, go back and read your last 100 postings. Count the personal pronouns.
Much of what you and a core group of other professionals here on the negative side have written tends to be peppered with “I”s and “You’s” with the arguing very loaded towards personal attacks. (A good example being the post quoted herein.)In fairness, I found myself being drawn in the same direction, so I’ve tried to concentrate on work (And learning about how X actually works!) for the past few weeks and have taken a break from whatever I was contributing to any personal hostility here.
What’s really sad is to come back and see that nothing’s really changed.
The sound and fury is exactly where it was the DAY the program was released.
After this much time after release, it’s clearly little about the actual program anymore. Everyone’s had more than enough time to understand whether it works for them or not. I truly would have expected those who find it not matching their needs would have acted on that assessment and left FCP behind and turned their “mindshare” to whatever tool they feel preserves the “Pre-FCP X” approach to professional editing that they need or want.
But for many they’re continuing to congregate at the scene of what they obviously view as “the terrible accident” and gawk. And so I’m worried this will turn into the blog version of the Jerry Springer show – where the only rule is trashier the talk, the higher the ratings.
That’s just not my type of TV.
FCP X is Apple moving on – for better or worse.
We have to face the reality that none of us can make FCP-X into what WE want it to be. It’s Apple’s ballgame. All we can do is accept what it is and decide if that works for us.
To those who want to stay here and argue about the program – that might be useful, particularly if you can articulate why you like, or don’t like about how it works. That’s instructive. But to stay and hassle the PEOPLE who simply wish to learn more about it is, IMO, kinda lame.
And anyone who does so without being a current, actual USER of the software, has to be taken with a HUGE grain of salt. This is NOT a particularly intuitive piece of software to understand. I saw a long thread on another board today asking how to RELINK files, not understanding that the database restructuring makes the very CONCEPT of re-linking a bit obsolete. (in a “flat file” world, re-linking is trivial In the spider web of a relational database, it’s FAR from a trivial task!)
FCP-X is inarguably imperfect, but just as inarguably a new approach to how editing software works.
People want to learn about it. And dismissing ANYONE by turning the discussion to personal attacks – or engaging in any form of “i’m more “pro” than you are – silliness lowers the discourse, in my opinion.
I’m mindful that when I post here, I’m leaving a permanent record – and being dismissive of the PEOPLE who disagree with me might not be the best strategy in this endlessly indexed and searchable era.
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’Conner
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Dustin,
The EOS Utility is NOT needed if you have the proper version of FCP. Log and Transfer looks at attached cameras or card readers and allows direct import AND transcoding of files directly into the FCP capture scratch PROVIDED the files are in the proper places AND in the proper format.
If you have moved the original files, if you have separated the content and the thumbnails, or if you have otherwise broken the directory structure that FCP expects, the software will not find the files.
A card reader is useful since mounting the original card ensures that the files are in the proper file structure.
Hope this helps.
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’Conner