[Bill Davis]

[Bob Woodhead] “Meh, it’s a database. How impossible could it be to park on a Browser clip frame and ask “is this a source to anything in the timeline, regardless of compound level”?”

Yeah, you’re probably right.
They likely haven’t implemented traditional match-back simply because they’re just dickheads and figure its a cool way to “put one over” on professional editors.

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

[Bill Davis]

Probably when they can figure out how to gracefully match back through and to all the “container clips” that form a huge part of the FCP X design?

Shift F typically takes you to the next “reference clip level” (at the frame you’re parked on in the Primary Storyline.)

Often a second Shift F takes you to the same frame in the source clip, but NOT if you’ve used a reference clip inside another reference clip – for example put a Sync Clip inside a Multicam.

I suspect it won’t ever work precisely like a traditional Reverse Match Frame, because FCP X isn’t structured like a traditional NLE. But I could be (and hope I am) wrong.

Ces’t la vie.

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

[Bill Davis]

[Jay Soriano] “Didn’t see the WWDC keynote. Was there any mention of FCPX?”

Quite a bit. It was a big part of the ProAps demo of the new MacPro.
Probably the biggest direct about FCP X news came in two areas.

First, they announced they are busily re-coding large parts of the X underpinnings to take advantage of the newest Metal processing frameworks. This means the next version (widely expected to be in the 4th quarter and possibly at the Creative Summit – of FCP X should be highly “Metal aware”, which could greatly boost performance for ALL FCP X editors running modern desktops or laptop machines.

They also announced a specific capability in the new MacPro to use a new custom card dubbed the Afterburner. It’s a programmible ASIC that offloads ProRes and ProRes RAW encoding OFF the CPU AND the GPU and moves it onto this specialized card. It’s kinda exciting since that ASIC is programmable, so the new architecture may eventually allow the same card to be rapidly changed to allow other types of processing to be highly accelerated in the future. This may be why the new MacPro announced big support by so many third parties including AVID, Adobe, BlackMagic and many others. Conceivably this ASIC chip could be programmed to eventually accelerate codecs or transcodes for other codec formats as well. That’s the speculation anyway.

This was a really big WWDC for Apple pro video editors from the stage.

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

[Bill Davis]

[Herb Sevush] “This is a truly wonderful rant coming from someone who has always, until now, celebrated the liberating effects of the no-cost video world of today”

Thanks for the compliment, but you must be mistaking me for someone else. I make my living making video – so I’m no down with the “no cost video world of today.” What I’m TOTALLY down with is tools that help me make more money, faster. Which has EXACTLY been my experience with X!

[Herb Sevush] “No, it’s the money. It’s always the money. The greatest words of wisdom I ever heard was “follow the money.” I think one of the Marx Brothers said that, not sure if it was Karl or Groucho.
“

Pretty sure “follow the money” was Deep Throat to Bob Woodward in the garage during Watergate.

Still, here you are.

Don’t I remember you as one of the loudest voices bitching about how FCP X wasn’t good enough for “professional use” year after year?

I guess what you were ACTUALLY saying is that Apple didn’t care to deliver something ideal for the exact type of editor YOU needed them to care about. Which, I suppose has proved true.

What they delivered is something for editors which significantly greater needs than you – a machine basically TOO professional for you.

Welcome to the great middle.

You will survive. And be confident you will still have LOTS of things to complain about going forward!

Be well.

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

[Bill Davis]

[Shane Ross] “They are always perfect, always do the right thing, can do no wrong. That us what rubs us wrong….at least me.
“

I understand, Shane.

But flip it.

Do you EVER push back at the legions who no matter WHAT Apple does, they MUST tell everyone exactly how they’ve got things totally wrong? (Cough, cough, FCP X, The MacPro, overpriced iPhones, Desktop units that are WAY to expensive to succeed…. etc. etc. etc. etc.)

All I’m doing is saying that if one brain can disregard EVERYTHING Apple does that might be in any way CORRECT in order to advance an agenda that says they are no good – you can’t really criticize any brain that takes a path 180 degrees opposite from that can you? Two sides of the EXACT same coin.

Either those “Apple is all bad” voices are fair — or they aren’t. And if they are, you MUST accept that the mirror side of the coin is voices that parrot “Apple is all good” in the EXACT same fashion.

I got into these discussions because that’s what LEGIONS of people were saying.
FCP X is ALL BAD. Period. End of story. And I still run across those guys on the web every single day.

So sorry, but at a base level – perhaps I’m no better or worse than someone on the other side. But which of us annoys YOU is really not about us – it’s exclusively about you. And I’m OK with that. If THEY got to annoy me, I reserve the right to annoy them right back.. As you discovered over pizza – I don’t do this in places where a meaninful, nuanced discussion is likely to take place. I do it HERE. Where the most extreme FCP X nay-sayers set up camp early and plied their poisoned rhetoric for years. They were, however, wrong back then. And they are still wrong today. Even tho they’re all over the webs having fun now mocking the fact that the new MacPro is apparently TOO professional with too professional a price for their tastes. Such is life

Take care.

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

[Bill Davis]

[greg janza] “Bill, you missed your true calling which is being a politician. You swiftly sidestepped the main issue of cost and redirected the focus to FCPX. Well played.”

There IS no “issue of cost” for anyone who’s been in this industry as long as I have.

During my career I’ve used SINGLE HMI lights that cost $15,000 a pop. So don’t tell me that an entire editing SYSTEM that costs maybe 3 times that will be a stopper for ANYONE serious about their career.

And, those dollars were back when dollars were worth HUGELY more than they are today.
Jeez, today a regular menu price CHEESEBURGER meal at a casual restaurant is typically between $10 and $15. When I was paying those prices for gear early in my career, that meal ran about $3.50.

The basic problem today is that the entire industry has grown ridiculously accustomed to getting everything so DIRT cheap that they have almost entirely decoupled the value of thing from the idea of paying for that value.

Hell, one PVW level Betacam cost what the ENTIRE fully spec’d out MacPro system just announced is being sold for today.

So it ain’t the money, kids. It’s the attitude. You don’t THINK you can afford that – so you can’t. Someone down the street thinks they CAN buy the tools and transform them into a profit center – so THEY will. This has been the same story forever. Some folks have always seen a market case for owing $150,000.00 production suites – and made that work. Same with $65,000 Cameras. Same with $30,000 Red Cameras, same with EVERYTHING.

Playing or NOT playing is hardly EVER about money. It’s about vision and attitude and searching out ways to make your work life what you believe it can be.

And it’s NEVER been easier to reach that level than it is today – and Apples WWDC announcements HELP make that possible. Not hurt it in ANY way.

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

[Bill Davis]

[Bernard Newnham] “As Bill says, it’s about productivity, and profit. I look forward to the first buyer of this machine coming on here telling us how amazing it is – of course it is, it must be because you paid a fortune for it.”

This is ABSOLUTELY true.

But it’s equally true that the great gear generally separates itself from the crap gear, regardless of any counter narratives swirling on-line.

Of course, that theory is being sorely tested across society at large now, with lots and lots of economically interested parties attempting to peddle narratives totally at odds with any factual basis in reality.

But even that has ALWAYS been the case. Heck, we’re not still worshiping Zeus (in most cases!????) so people do eventually tire of stories that tend to have little basis in reality.

I probably will never personally have a use case for a new MacPro that makes economic sense for my practice. But the use case for FCP X is utterly proven to me every single day in terms of clearly identifiable increased productivity.

And I’m guessing that the Metal re-write supposed to be happening with X as we speak, will pay handsome dividends in even MORE productivity for me on the refreshed laptop that’s looming on my purchase list.

So I’m pretty happy with these WWDC announcements. Onward and upward!

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

[Bill Davis]

[Oliver Peters] “Let’s see if people develop for it beyond those codecs.”

Craig Federighi on John Grubers latest Daring Fireball WWDC video interview specifically said the Reason they created Afterburner in the form of a flash programmable ASIC was so that they could re-code it “at will” to do other things apart from accelerating and moving ProRes and ProRes RAW processing off both the CPU and GPUs.

It sounded to me kinda like they already have a variety of “white board stage” use cases they are looking at.

Time will tell.

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

[Bill Davis]

[Bernard Newnham] “So in the wider world, what’s it for?
“

Productivity.

We’ve already seen that for software like BlackMagic Resolve and FCP X — software that’s largely been rewritten in the past decade – it can run SIGNIFICANTLY faster on modern hardware than the older NLEs legacy code can.

So you can get more work done more easily and faster.

In the new MacPro approach, there’s a specific solution (Afterburner) that moves the transcoding load off of both the CPU and the GPU and onto a special programmable processor that is designed to eliminate playback bottlenecks.

So it’s primarily a play for efficiency and speed with current workflows – and a play to get ahead of the coming wave of high raster content headed our way via the 8K cameras on the horizon. (There was a prototype Canon in the C-500 form factor class demo’d at the WWDC event.

That’s the core of the story, anyway.

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

[Bill Davis]

Interesting idea Oliver.

That would be interesting.

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