[Bill Davis]

[David Lawrence] “How about a screen grab of your virtual pancakes, Bill? I’m having a hard time visualizing how you achieve the same level of spatial mapping as is intrinsic to string-out sequences and markers.”

On deadline today but will try to do some screen caps overnight if my schedule eases up later.

But the browser in X – after a keyword selection – set in thumbnail (not database) view and set up in a near full screen width layout presents the same information in nearly the same visual array that stringouts and pancakes manage in a traditional NLE, at least as I understand them. (granted, I’ve never had to peraonally pancake anything since I switched to X before that editing style became fashionable.)

And of course, each keyword collection, or smart collection can aggregate that basic view ACROSS keywords into the same visual display.

Grabbing a range in the Browser and executing an insert, connect, or append edit singe-keystroke is functionally akin to dragging a clip from the pancake into your timeline – and the visual representation is barely different. Unless there’s some special magic to a pancake arrangement that I’m unaware of.

Might be fun to have someone post a “traditional pancake” arrangement in a non-magnetic timeline – and then I can try to do the functional equivalent in X. Than we we can all compare the differences? Just a suggestion.

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

[Bill Davis]

[Simon Ubsdell] “The string-out method is the same thing as laying out our ingredients on the work surface (albeit on a vastly long work surface where you can nonetheless grab anything instantly as if it were all within arm’s reach). The bin method is the same thing as hunting around through your kitchen storage for each ingredient in turn as you discover you need it.”

Poppycock. (respectfully)

Pancakers must lay out those ingredients because they’ve never had a systematic facility to call up a pre-measured amount of the substance/spice you want, when they want it – instantly. If there was, pre-lining up a bunch of ingredients in “semi-bulk” form on the counter would be silly. Particularly if the “call up” system can expand or reduce the actual measure used by the cook precisely enough to satisfy their desire to adjust on the fly.

I can arrange dozens of virtual “pancakes” via keyword collections and instantly switch between them – focusing on each as I choose. I can also aggregate more than one into a new assembly. That gives me ALL the visual cuing pancakers get – but in a system that lets me adjust my visual focus as I choose, fluidly and efficiently.

Once again you’re going to be hard pressed to convince me that the system based on the older style has more than a shadow of the utility of the newer system.

Both are functional, surely. One is MUCH more refined and is designed to present super-efficient previously undelivered options to the editor “in the flow” of content assembly.

IMO

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

[Bill Davis]

Still very uncomfortable with this view.

Metadata gains utility when it’s surrounded by a structure that encourages exploration and manipulation.

It’s going to be very hard to convince me that a marker – essentially a fixed information storage point in time – will ever be able to assist the educated editor in a fashion equivalent to a system of tagged ranges that can not just “mark” – but concatenate, separate, overlap, exclude, aggregate and recall content – from a single frame( like the marker) to an entire scene capture – and let the editor tag and retrieve the groupings instantly and at will.

One of those concepts is NOT like the other.

And one, IMO is simply rationally much more flexible and powerful.

My 2 cents.

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

[Bill Davis]

[Oliver Peters] “What he’s doing is essentially the same as every NLE editor working on shows, films and docs has done prior to the introduction of FCPX and still today if they don’t work on X. So why would you think that it doesn’t work on other forms?”

I dont recall anyone saying “it doesn’t work” Oliver.

My contention has always been that it’s “significantly more efficient” to deploy the tools Apple built into X to bring order to the chaos of increasing complexity in today’s post landscape. Those tools were PRECISELY designed to do that. Reduce repetitive actions, eliminate unnecessary steps, and re-structure editorial thinking more in line with file-based and metadata based modern workflows – and pay less homage to the classic processes that developed during the analog era.

It makes perfect sense if someone who has been cutting on AVID for the past 15 years feels that any efficiency gain is NOT worth the pain of adaptation for them. That’s totally rational.

The extra efficiency, however, may be VERY important for many types of editors – and, in fact, it may be critical for those who see the flood of complexity increasing in their practices and find themselves needing to produce more good work faster, just to keep up with their clients expectations.

From my talks with the big European producers switching to X, the reason most cited is EFFICIENCY. They value getting more work done faster. The editors enjoy switching their thinking towards less time in software operations and more time in the content.

Sure ALL NLE users are able to reach that state. But it’s hard to argue that the reasons for all the design changes in X were aimed at anything OTHER than to make the creation and deployment of modern digital video and audio content faster and easier.

In this recent release, once again, one highlight – direct titling at the timeline/clip level? AGAIN, puts them closer to where X went more than 6 years ago.

Or am I missing something here?

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

[Bill Davis]

First, what Ty said.

I’ll just add this.

Start with your ACTUAL needs.

What will you record? How often? What type of talent will you be working with or are you doing everything yourself or with non-professionals.

This stuff matters for the following reasons.

If you’re recording characters that are whispering secrets, super isolation and tuning the booth may well be absolutely critical since you want the lowest possible noise floor, super clean signal gain and ultimate surrounding silence to get good results.

If you’re working with amateurs who have poor articulation and/or poor vocal muscular support – again, you may need to value more complex recording chain, since things like a clean talkback chain may be critical as you coach them in real time and likely do many, many takes to get acceptable results.

But if you’re working with professionals, who know how to do VO work – they’ll be clear, articulate well, and their spoken volume will be robust – so you can often get a clear VOs in a quiet hotel room with a handheld stick mic. In fact, in that situation, a simple less sensitive stick mic may work far better than setting up an expensive Neumann condenser – since the super sensitive condenser will pick up EVERYTHING from the AC to the maid cart rolling down the hallway.

When you spend to build an ACTUAL voice booth – you’re working and spending to eliminating ALL the potential issues, not just some of them for some circumstances. When people see VO booths on the internet, they think that this is the ONLY solution to getting good results and it’s often not. You have to understand more than the physical structure. A perfect booth, wired improperly can be much worse than using a cheap all in one mic/recorder in a coat closet. This is just how it works.

Finally, as Ty suggests, anything “semi-portable” will be deficient in some areas. Typically portable means low mass. And guess what? Low frequency noise is ONLY abated via high mass.

All this means is that if you’re near a busy street, or a flight corridor, or a subway line, you’re going to have to do a TON more to make a “record whenever I want” situation than you’d need to spend in a quiet suburban neighborhood.

It’s never ONE thing, it’s everything working together.

The Recipe for a good VO? Good mic, good talent, good signal chain, good script, good person running things who knows what to listen for and when they hear something wrong, knows how to fix it.

My 2 cents after 30 plus years doing this type of work.

Good luck.

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

[Bill Davis]

[Oliver Peters] “In the case of Adobe, how do you factor a subscription for only 3 months, which is turned off at the end of the job? “

I’ll just note that I have yet to meet a single person who has done a “start and stop” Adobe subscription successfully.

I still have two Photo subscriptions running after being entirely unable to successfully stop the duplicate subscription from billing – even tho I have spent more than one and a half hours on hold with Adobe reps trying to help me untangle this.

So please, if ANYBODY here has actual, personal successfully experience in doing this type of “switch off – switch on” Adobe subscription thing PLEASE post here how you managed it. I would LOVE to be able to execute that as well.

I’ll even be glad to switch to the much more expensive monthly plan – rather than the annual plan with the realization that unless I successfully kill it on EXACTLY the renewal date, stiff penalties may apply – and if I let it go even a day beyond auto-renewal – that means I’m on the hook for more than $150 in cancellation fees for the next yearly cycle.

Help. Please.

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

[Bill Davis]

Greg,

This is the thing.

EVERYONE seems to agree that in the modern era, people have retreated to “information silos” and only allow in what best fits their pre-conceptions.

I do that too much with X.
And clearly you do that too much with Premiere.

It’s just how the world works when you can live so easily behind filters of your own choosing.

So how does anyone know what’s really on the other side of the fence anymore?

For me, it means I have to listen harder and harder to detect differences in the stories and discussions about these modern tools.

And match those stories to my needs.

Personally, the values I am most personally concerned with are efficiency and innovation I am willing to endure discomfort if at the end of change, I’m getting more done more quickly and feel like my tools are truly evolving to meet the new challenges. That’s been the story of X for me.

For many editors, consistency and safety might have been more critical. Not having to change too far from their hard won expertise was more critical than having to change their approach to editing. That’s a perfectly rational choice.

The ability to occupy a seat that values the older non-magnetic editing tradition is a smart thing when all the seats around you are non-magnetic.

But as others in this thread are noting, that’s NOT all the seats out in the wider world.

Those may be changing.

If so, I’d argue they are changing for a reason – and that reason is largely down to one factor and one factor alone. Efficiency – the same thing that has driven innovation forever.

IF (and it’s a huge IF) one tool actually allows the editor to do more work more easily at the same quality – that will typically tilt the scales over the long run. We’ll see about that in the coming years. I wish you well in your path.

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

[Bill Davis]

[Andy Field] ”
Bill you’ve made no secret you are a FCP X Fanboy – Good for you…..glad it works for you.”

A) anytime anybody applies the descriptive term “boy” to me it’s a victory of spirit – so go for it! B) It appears at LEAST 1,999,999 others have come to agree with me regarding X’s worth as well. Apple PR now officially approves the much bandied 2 million FCP X seats metric, so you’re going to have to show me an equally reliable “public company with SEC scrutiny” statistics before I change my opinion that far more people are cutting video on X today than on Premiere Pro or AVID or Resolve.

Possibly even more that the TOTAL of those three, who knows?

Maybe not in YOUR shop or circle of acquaintances – but in the global marketplace, it’s not just doing OK, it’s leading and possibly even quietly pulling away.

Good enough for me.

If someone sees this news differently and wants to argue hoards of editors have spent $299 only to let the software sit idle – make your case. Fun debate.

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

[Bill Davis]

Love the phrasing, Fritz. “Failure” “Years to recover” Fabulous neutral “reportorial” writing.

Let me play, “Spin the Headline” too please!

__________

FCP X surpasses FCP Legacy 10-Year adoption mark in just six years!

or perhaps,

FCP X on-pace to best FCP Legacy adoption by 40% or more.

or (my favorite!)

Once again, FCP X proves FASTER than what’s come before it!

_______

That was FUN!

Apple publicly announced at NAB both that FCP X adoption is accelerating – AND that the software went from one to two million users faster than it it reached it’s first million. In other words, it’s sales growth rate is accelerating.

Something I could have told you anecdotally from the communities which which I communicate.

And Apple is spending real money on human capital to accelearate that. First Wes Plate and now Tim Dashwood – and I’ve been shown links to ads in the tech community that indicate they are constantly searching for more very specific top level talent in the NLE space.

On to other NAB news, since I’ve started this…

One of the most interesting sessions I saw this year was Michael Cioni’s presentation at the LumaForge stage where I spent most of my NAB this year. It’s worth a watch as it hits the net. And a good chunk of the Apple FCP X design team was (semi stealthily) in the room to hear him. Which makes me glad. They aren’t trying to shy away from criticism. They are actively seeking it out and listening to it. Which is healthy.

Also, nobody has a clue where the industry is going. It’s changing far too fast for that.

Also, one of the MOST interesting things I saw at NAB were some charts Michael Kammes had based on AVIDs recent public SEC filings last week concerning future revenue projections.

For any skeptics, they’re here on the latest AVID 8k public filings directly.

Under Revenue Opportunities the stuff we all care about barely registered down below 4%.

They see the big driver of future profits as “Digital Rights Management”.

Non-linear editing – clocks in near the bottom at 4%.

FWIW.

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

[Bill Davis]

I on the other hand, feel blessed to be able to go and find it MASSIVELY worth the cost.

It’s not about the STUFf anymore. You’re right that getting info about stuff is WAY easier over the internet today.

But if your career depends on a particular industry – the chance to sit and have a chat with the people who’s work DRIVES that industry is unmatchable.

FWIW.

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