[Bill Davis]

[Herb Sevush] “So how has X “advanced the industry” to use your definition?”

Maybe it’s just my perceptions.

I got skimming six years ago. A year or two back, it showed up in Premiere Pro.
I got a robust “proxy workflow with a click” in X ALSO six years ago. A year or so back, I was reading everyone on the Premiere Pro boards lifted their virtual cups to their new “proxy workflows!”

So I’m probably just over projecting, foolishly. Never mind.

As to subscriptions, Lumberjack does subscriptions just like Lynda.com does them.

You want to subscribe, click here. You want to Unsubscribe, click here. Use it as you like, when you like, stop when you like any time you like. Simple.

That has NOT been my experience with ADOBE subscriptions.

Not in any way, shape or form.

Even with Lumberjack, I might not have full and complete access to something I’ve left on their website as to an on-going “in progress” edit – but EVERYTHING on my X timeline that results from the rental continues to function perfectly with no further payment.

So I can get locked out of NONE of my own intellectual property. Only the service I was subscribing to. To me that’s a fair approach.

Just yesterday, somebody claimed that it’s now easier to dive in and dive out of Premiere Pro on a pay as you go, monthly basis. (tho, sadly, not my Lightroom/ Photoshop subscription????) I may investigate that. But it doesn’t solve the issue that if I use my rental to do anything OTHER than to translate content – if I actually use Premiere Pro to CREATE a timeline and put energy into perfecting it – and then stop paying – that creative effort all gets locked away from me.

Not cool, IMHO.

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

[Bill Davis]

[Shawn Miller] “lol – okay, I’ll concede that Motion is a crappy NLE. My guess though, is that if you put the question to a number of advanced AE users who tried to use Motion the same way they use After Effects, you might get a different answer.”

Wow does THAT sound familiar.

Term Swap ahead…

“My guess though, is that if you put the question to a number of advanced Premiere Pro users who tried to use FCPX in the same way they use Premiere Pro, you might get a different answer.”

Two DIFFERENT programs – designed around different concepts.

AE is a decades old, highly regarded and highly developed standalone program that before subscriptions, was sold at a relatively high price to specialists.

Motion was similar UNTIL the X change.

Now the Apple landscape is significantly different. Part of the Motion code was sucked directly into X as the titler and graphics management engine. Another part of it is STILL what it was originally, but it’s now largely seen as a $49 add-on to X that leverages much of it’s “standalone” history to include a ton of advanced capabilities – but it’s no longer being developed primarily as a stand-alone motion graphics package.

Today it fits perfectly in the Apple vision. X is the HUB of content creation in the Apple ecosystem. Motion, and Comperssor are satellites that leverage additional capabilities into X – but only for those that need those capabilities.

Apple no longer really positions Motion as the monolithic application as it used to.

For Apple the FOCUS of content creation has been X from day one. For Adobe, the FOCUS is a suite of a dozen plus separate entities that all exist outside any central hub – and only link up when the user of one program needs to exchange with another.

FCP X is surely different – it’s focus is currently still on single seat video editing acting as the HUB application for everything else – a position that I don’t think Premiere Pro will ever occupy in the Adobe Universe.

That’s not a criticism, it’s merely a fact.

Premiere Pro is one application in a suite of many. FCP X is the main focus of the Apple video software world. Nothing competes directly for attention or resources unless you spin that telephones or maybe cars do that. But the pace of X development over the past 6 years kinda disproves that much of anything has been diverted whatever is necessary for robust on-going development.

Both Premiere Pro and FCP X have shown that their next great challenge is moving beyond single seat and into collaborative workflows.

Adobe Anywhere telegraphs this.
Roles in X does the same thing (in my opinion.)

But they are WAY different approaches, to my mind.

FWIW.

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

[Bill Davis]

[Walter Soyka] “I’d have to let others speak for Avid, but Adobe has done quite a lot to move the industry forward.

First, there’s the whole “suite” concept. Adobe’s products work together and their offerings extend way beyond video. You can produce an entire campaign across multiple media and channels, using Adobe products the whole way though.

There’s Creative Cloud. I know a lot of folks here are opposed to subscription pricing, but this is a major game changer for small and large agencies alike that makes costs both predictable and scalable and makes it easier to stay up-to-date.

There are the other services Adobe offers, like TypeKit, Stock, Marketing Cloud. I’m really curious to see what Adobe Sensei (Adobe’s new machine learning platform) will bring.”

Your Smoke, et al – comments are fair. But I’d counter that features at the highest end of the industry don’t benefit many – and it’s only when somebody comes along to offer the same thing at a fraction of the price that the benefit of the new ideas takes on real market power. But, again, it’s a fair point.

As to the next group of “features” you list, I’d simply ask, how can this be seen as moving the “industry” forward, if the ONLY way you can get access to any of this is to use Adobe products? Is that “industry innovation” or just one company’s product development goals.

Basically, where is the adoption of this model (or even significant aspects of it) beyond Adobe’s offerings? I don’t see AVID or Apple, or BlackMagic or anyone else looking to build a broad array of software modules in an “all rental” model.

Maybe Affinity will do so over time? But right now, they seem to feel that just selling software the regular way is enough of a business model to serve their customers.

I’d ask, can you move an “industry” forward, if the concepts you are promoting don’t actually spread across the industry?

Also, Walter, you mentioned skimming vs hover scrub earlier. X had skimming on it’s introduction in 2011. IIRC, Premiere Pro didn’t incorporate haver scrub until 3-5 years later – or am I mistaken about that? Do you recall when PPro released hover scrub?

As to the innovative features of the product itself, dynamic link is a winner. Obviously, it again only works inside the CC suite, but I understand it provides tremendous user benefits, so good on that.

I’m having a bit of difficulties with the rest because in VR and HDR , it seems I have all of that available to me as well – just done in the Apple fashion of external modules from 3rd party vendors rather than bolted into the software in a fashion where editors that may not have any need for the capabilities, get lumped in a pool paying for their development anyway. Touch (actually multi-touch) is an iOS strength so I’m not worried about that for editing. My laptop trackpad enables that for me when doing primary editing, and I suspect that the Apple ecosystem will continue to merge MacOS and iOS and touch will be an ever increasing part of my life going forward as well.

Everything else, again, seems like features that ONLY apply to the Adobe way. I don’t see those things as being “industry influencers” – but maybe I’ll prove to be entirely wrong.

Maybe in the coming years, BlackMagic, AVID (if it survives) and even Apple will all switch to doing their best to control a single cloud-locked experience for editors, rather than via a simpler system of encouraging ownership of creative enabling programs – designed to be controlled exclusively by the end user without need for ongoing payment.

Hope not though.

Not my style.

I would argue that the largest “innovation” Adobe has brought to the table so far hasn’t been any feature or even concept, but rather the “subscription” model.

It’s changed things the most. And also, as you know, worries me the most.

What’s next?

Subscription grocery stores? Subscription gas stations?
Actually, one of the doctors in my area just tried that. He was highly rated, so he suddenly moved to a “conceriege” doctor model via office subscriptions. If you don’t pay a monthly or yearly “retainer”, you can’t get any medical care in his practice. THAT felt AWFULLY scary to me. What if THAT model catches on across the medical industry? Pay when you’re well, or you don’t get to pay when you’re sick. Yikes.

I don’t actually see customers clamoring for MORE monthly subscription models in other categories beyond software. Or am I missing something and the tide is sweeping in that direction out there?.

Fun to speculate. And thanks for being a reasoned voice here, always.

; )

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

[Bill Davis]

[Simon Ubsdell] “With respect, your “suck it up time” is insignificant compared to the effort that developers have to put in to adapt to whatever curve balls Apple decide to send down.”

OK.

I get it now.

For non-developer folk like me, whatever issues I have are “insignificant” so they apparently shouldn’t matter much to anyone EXCEPT me.

Check.

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

[Bill Davis]

Wait, WHAT?

Are you saying there’s a Photoshop ONLY subscription that’s LESS than the bundle, but is flexible in subscription management in a way that the Photo bundle is not?

And what about Premiere Pro. As this is a video editing group largely, Is Premiere available Monthly in a form that can be dropped and re-started at will? Without penalty? Please point me at that subscription, please.

If I have somebody that has a Premiere Project and wants me to do some type of migration into X, that would make it viable to do a single month subscription just to get the migration done.

Can you post a link to that for me?

Thanks.

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

[Bill Davis]

[Simon Ubsdell] “Adobe and others expend huge amounts of development time trying to keep abreast of the vagaries of Apple’s OS updates.

I use vagaries as a euphemism there.”

Oh I ABSOLUTELY agree with this Simon,

Heck, I’m the guy that had to jettison 8 months of work at the 10.2 transition when they changed the look of the FCP X interface and re-start everything in my own tiny XinTwo initiative. So I’m acutely aware that the downside of rapid development is that people who depend on the software working and looking ONE WAY can get snapped, big time.

But even tho it set me back directly. I had to suck it up and understand that what I get in exchange for the setback is software that moves forward faster than if they prioritized compatibility over innovation. And I have to live with that.

And so it goes.

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

[Bill Davis]

[Steve Connor] “Wrong, you can just have a single month”

Have you done this?

Where do I go to do this?

I’m STILL trying to get out of my two auto billing Photo Plan Subscriptions and I’d absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE
to be able to subscribe for a month only when and if I need access to my Lightroom files.

PLEASE POST ME A LINK TO THIS MONTHLY without penalty subscription availability.

I’d seriously really appreciate it.

This will make me VERY happy and save me quite a bit of money.

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

[Bill Davis]

My bad.

The first few paragraphs of Bob’s post seems to be about EVERYTHING Apple.

I didn’t focus on the one time he mentioned Hardware in the last 3rd of his post.

But it begs the question: Is it’s similarly Apple’s responsibility to insure compatibility across hardware approaches?

Hasn’t that ALWAYS been a Apple hallmark?

Apple seems to make systems it feels are are cohesive and optimized for it’s OWN ecosystem. THAT is our their first priority. Secondary to that, they will attempt to keep things open – but NOT, it seems to me, at the expense of performance or value to the customers that directly support them.

I’m not sure how the doing anything else makes sense.

Or again, is it your view that Apple sublimates what they can do with their own systems – in order to be compatible with another companies systems?

Seems to me APPLE stockholders might have some issues with that.

FWIW.

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

[Bill Davis]

[Andrew Kimery] “That’s right… well thank you very much Adobe. I guess at worst you pay for a 1 month subscription to check it out.
“

AFAIK, there is NO “one month” subscription in the Adobe system regarding video editing.

Only “annual, billed monthly.”

If I’m wrong about that, I’m certain somebody will correct me.

But I thought a Premiere Pro ONLY subscription was around $20 a month? Therefore signup is a commitment to pay $240 or so over the full year.

As I understand it, if you want to stop before that, they have the right to charge you what is essentially a “breach of agreement” penalty at their discretion.

Once again, if you wish to play, my personal recommendation is to ALWAYS use a pre-paid card rather than your personal credit card. to preserve at least some of the personal transactional power that modern banking laws have largely eroded when it comes to auto-billed transactions.

As everyone here knows, this is a pet peeve of mine.

YMMV.

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

[Bill Davis]

[Oliver Peters] “Huh??????!!!!! You do know Resolve is a full application, while Lumetri is effectively only a plug-in. Right? Lumetri by itself can’t accept any sort of list – same as Hawaiki, Colorista, etc. I understand what you are saying, but this isn’t the best example.”

Fair point, Oliver.

Then perhaps a fairer question is if why can’t Lumetri take in information from Color Finale any more than Color Finale can take in information in from Lumetri?

Bob’s point seems to have been that it’s a noble goal for everyone to accommodate everyone elses approaches so as to enhance cross-platform workflows.

He’s asking for Apple to “open up” to alternative programs needs.

So in that context, I’d simply ask what the other NLEs have done to “open up” to X’s evolutionary workflows?

Are there “accommodations” built into AVID or Premiere Pro to accommodate the way X works? Or is this just a matter of “you MUST accommodate us”, regardless of whether that slows down the propagation of the ideas that have made Apple products more effective and efficient for their own users?

I’d be happy to hear examples of other NLEs accommodating anything significant that Apple has pioneered in X. I can easily point to the other companies ADOPTING efficiency concepts X has been using for 6 years like the proxy workflow and skimming and folding those into their own software as their hardware has developed to accommodated them. Are their not equivalent concepts that those other programs pioneered that X has incorporated. Perhapst I’m just woefully ignorant of them. So, help me out. What are the most recent and most effective ones? How has AVID or Premiere Pro singularly evolved to move the industry forward?

And does what you can cite tell us anything about the direction that, say “Adobe innovation” is headed compared to the direction Apple Innovation is headed? Or is innovation simply NOT important anymore. Is the editing industry “done” with where it needs to go?

If the argument is that it’s important to promote inter-action and sharing across the industry, is it still OK if what’s being asked for is exclusively ONE WAY accommodation?

Just asking.

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