Chris Harlan
Forum Replies Created
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[Aindreas Gallagher] “but the timeline, and the trimming tools are preTTy damn good. You’d be surprised.”
Agreed!
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[Charlie Austin] “I don’t really know what folks at other places are doing, I’m kind of on a little island here, though I’d imagine Avid folks are probably sticking with that, and 7 folks… no idea. 🙂
“I actually know of a cable Network promo Dept. that is switching from Avid to Premiere, of all things. The only other major switch I know of is a Games House (primarily) going from 7 to Premiere. Most everything else big that I touch seems to be just where it was two years ago. I know more individuals moving towards Avid than I do Premiere–or at least saying they are going to do so–and you and John D. make up the X Factor.
[Charlie Austin] “The biggest hurdle to getting people onto X, IMO, is all the crappy feelings and FUD left over from the initial release. I still hear the iMovie Pro comments all the time. It’s really too bad, because once you get past the “it’s different and I’m confused” phase the app is amazing.”
I think you are quite right about that. I hear people talking about it like its a monster baby with three heads. When things settle down (and maybe a few things are added) it will become about style, approach, and taste. Eventually it will come down to mindsets, and the choice will be more a reflection of someone’s thought processes and approach. Hopefully, we can get to the point where we consider ourselves fortunate to have so many approaches.
[Charlie Austin] “I think about how X works is when I find some new crazy feature that makes my life easier. That happens a lot,”
Weirdly, I’m having the same experience with old, crusty Avid. Since we last parted, its improved some, but more importantly, I’ve grown as an editor and am now rediscovering it in a new light. This whole period, has been quite exciting, actually; and now that I’m down the road some from when it all happened, I’m grateful that it did.
[Charlie Austin] “The next year or so should be interesting…
“Definitely.
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[Franz Bieberkopf] “[tony west] “I call it patching because fcp calls it a patch panel that you are clicking on. I don’t see that as broadening the meaning.”
Tony,
Yes, that’s what I thought you meant.
I don’t touch that panel.
Maybe “never in ten years” is a slight exaggeration, but pretty close to never.
Franz.
“
So that you don’t think you are going crazy, let me say that I agree with you. I do that kind of patching in Avid all the time, but almost never in FCP. In FCP, I drag a clip onto a track, and the act of dragging it, “patches” it. So, putting it into the timeline “patches” it, but its part of the physical action of the drag. I find I almost never use the insert edit tools in FCP, but rather drag and cut, paste, and insert/paste. I tend to work one hand keyboard/one hand mouse in FCP, which has become over the years my preferred approach.
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[Craig Seeman] “A huge amount of my work involves PCs. I also understand Apple doesn’t accept what it believes are technical compromises. “
Yeah, but under Jobs that “technical compromise” could be a belief that a second mouse button was un-needed, or dual layer DVD was unnecessary (the “Super Drive” was what, a year–two years–behind other dual layer drives), or that the internal component arrangement that no one would ever see wasn’t elegantly arranged enough. To me, Tim Cook seems more reasonable.
[Craig Seeman] “There’s certainly been USB3 PCIe cards for MacPros. The issue is laptops and once Intel started supporting USB3 directly, Apple included them.”
Intel’s decision has certainly made it easier for them, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t have gone with a 3rd party controller a few years earlier. Conversely, they could have ignored the new USB3 support, as they have with other chipset features in the past. But, hey–we can all agree that its great that its there now.
[Craig Seeman] “With Jobs vs Cook it’s also how they’ve each handled company challenges.
“We definitely agree on that.
[Craig Seeman] “[Chris Harlan] “Has there been anything other than “catchup” features?”
Everything that makes FCPX fundamentally different. The whole connected clip, secondary story line, avoidance of clip collision, roles, organizing by keywords rather than traditional bins, skimming, are, at best, only distantly related to traditional NLEs. The whole “rethink” is nothing at all to do with catchup.
“I think the point here is that you were saying that they don’t announce new features, but do announce “catch up” features. So my remark had to do with things after the release, and not before.
Let me ask you this, because I think its where we can agree: Do you like what Tim Cook’s brought to Apple thus far?
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Hey, Charlie!
I don’t know where you are these days. Are you cutting most of your promo work on X now? Or are you still going back and forth? And what are you seeing around you? Most of the contemporaries I interact with are Avid/moving to Avid, 7, or moving to Premiere. You and John D., of course, sing X’s praises to the sky, and I believe you. What’s happening around you? How about a progress report?
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[Craig Seeman] “[Marcus Moore] “They waited for Ivey Bridge’s native support of USB3 on the chip”
Yes. For those who complain about how “slow” Apple was in adopting USB3, they may not be aware of how major motherboard support is relative to getting the full advantage of USB3 in many cases. One might look at the Blackmagic Shuttle USB3 input device which they only certified for ONE MSI laptop precisely because of USB3 issues.”
Craig, I’m sorry. Have you watched the way USB3 was adapted and used by high end PCs over the last several years? Maybe you haven’t been in an environment where you have felt or seen the disadvantage, but I have. There are many more USB3 uses that the Blackmagic box. One of the problems with talking to Mac-only folk is the degree to which they are cocooned off from the rest of the world. I think it should actually be called “One Button Mouse Syndrome.”
[Craig Seeman] “Apple wasn’t “shocked” into reconsidering a “power box.” The technology for what Apple wants to deliver hasn’t been delivered yet.”
Craig, you called Gary out fairly roughly above for prognosticating without any facts. I’d say the same goes here. What you are stating is a belief. Your faith in Apple colors you opinion every bit as much, and probably more so, than Gary’s doubt colors his. From my position, I’d say his is far more realistic, but I don’t have any more info than anybody else does, so I don’t tend to get so emphatic about my own cloud readings.
[Craig Seeman] “True. Much of what Apple reveals is about what some would call “catch up” features. Features unique to FCPX aren’t talked about in advance and I personally think that’s a sensible thing to do in a competitive environment.
“Has there been anything other than “catchup” features?
[Craig Seeman] “my own guess is that next year’s MacPro replacement will be major. This does not mean everyone will like it but I can’t help but think the Xeon, GPU use, Thunderbolt combination will be unique and valuable to many professionals. At least it will be to those who see value in Thunderbolt but need something a bit more than Quad i7.”
That would be great. I hope you are right.
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[Oliver Peters] “[Jeremy Garchow] “it just needs to be pushed further”
Out the door? 😉
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
https://www.oliverpeters.com
“AND HE SCORES!
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[Marcus Moore] “I don’t think it was a hard decision for Apple at all. They waited for Ivey Bridge’s native support of USB3 on the chip. Which is likely why there is no more substantial intermediary MacPro update this year, since the 2012 Xeons still don’t have USB3 or TB on chip either.”
Marcus, I don’t really want to rehash this argument. Its been had over and over here, and at the end of the day its all speculation. I personally believe, as many others do, that USB3 should have been on Macs a good two to three years before it was finally available. Jobs spoke against adopting it, and I just don’t think that policy was reversible while he was in the driver’s seat. And, while I can see your argument for USB3 on portables, I don’t think it follows for workstations. There were plenty of good reasons to have upgraded to newer chipsets last year or earlier this year if they were truly enthusiastic about workstations.
[Marcus Moore] “I think leaving the machine on the market is their way of saying it’s not going away (which is all Jim Dalrymple every said, which sparked all the WWDC refresh rumours), but the half hearted update says, “Unless you must- wait.”.”
Well, no. I think the MacPro’s aging architecture and WWDC’s reputation for being a source of product announcements are what sparked the refresh rumors. Dalrymple was only one of many, many voices. If you need proof of that, just look at the conversations on this forum starting in the Fall of last year. You will clearly see the concern over/demand for a new Mac Pro, with growing speculation that WWDC might be the announce point. As for the other, that may be true. But the same argument was made for Shake, year after year, and that didn’t pan out quite so well. And again, there were plenty of ways to refresh the MacPro line if they had been really interested in doing so.
[Marcus Moore] “In a perfect world, we would see less emphasis on the consumer secrecy around the Pro products. But I’m not sure a company can have two stances on that. FCPX has has the most open roadmap of any Apple product in recent memory. Though I think that window will close as the remaining legacy features are integrated. Once the features are 100% forward-looking again, I don’t think we’ll get any more previews.
“Yes, FCP X has had an open roadmap, but I think that’s due to unprecedented blowback. As is the case with the announcement of something that will fill the MacPro spot in the lineup. What that something is remains to be seen, but I believe it will be an honest attempt. As to “the remaining legacy features,” I’m not sure what you mean, other than, perhaps, a mixer. There are a number of older FCP features that I doubt will ever be incorporated in X, simply because the underlying nature of X is so different, as is the focus of the software. The target audience is also different, as is reflected in their current ad campaign–“the Pro in all of us.” You may see it differently, and that’s fine. There are plenty of arguments for and against our POVs, but in the end its all stargazing, and we’ve gazed on those stars here many times over the last year and a half.
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[Craig Seeman] ” I don’t think there was anything deceptive or dishonest in his response. “
I agree. I think his response was completely genuine.
[Craig Seeman] ” I think he was revealing what he already knew but may not have intended to be public with it.”
Maybe. And maybe not. Maybe they had decided that a workstation was unnecessary until they saw the ruckus first hand. I’m sure that somewhere at Apple there was some development going on, whether or not they had determined that workstations were in their future or not. I’m sure there is a lot of alternative development going on all the time.
[Craig Seeman] “Although I don’t think the promise just sprung to mind. I think the concern resulted in him revealing a bit of future road map that he probably was intending on exposing otherwise. That he did is another example of Cook’s ability to give a blunt response compared to Jobs.”
We’;re both in tea-leaves-ville here. I don’t think his promise just sprung to mind, but I do think it came out of several days of conversations. My tea leaves say that the roadmap lead away from Workstation/Servers altogether. I think he’s surrounded by people who are strongly of that mind. And I think the conference startled him. And the fact that he could react to that the way he did shows excellent leadership to me. But, you could be completely right.
The single brightest new sign for me is the fast adoption of USB3. That’s a decision that I thought should have been made a long time ago. Its seems like the kind of concession to reality that Apple sometimes has a hard time making. It’s made me think about sticking around a while longer.
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[Craig Seeman] “[Gary Huff] “My Eight Ball says Tim Cook was just B.S.-ing to keep some of the base from having a fit, and that the new iMac is as close as you’re going to get for the foreseeable future.”
Apparently your Eight Ball has nothing to do with this universe and Apple. Tim Cook is much more blunt honest than Jobs. Cook who apologizes for Maps and cans Forstall for not signing the apology (although there may be other deeper reasons). Of course maybe you think this whole AMD 7000 thing being supported in 10.8.3 beta is fictional as well. I guess the AMD 7000 series is going to be in the next iPad.”
My guess sits between the two of you. I think Tim Cook’s good for the company, and he gives me some hope that Apple will listen a bit more. I think he was genuinely taken by surprise by the degree of adamant concern expressed at the Developers Convention, and that his promise of a 2013 something that will sit in the Mac Pro spot was sincere. I tend to agree with with Gary that it was an impromptu reaction to the negative response. Where I disagree, is that I think he/they will actually make good on it. Whether we all like what we get is another matter, but I think some sort of semi-expandable workstation will show up before June of next year. Craig, I think you modular explorations have been interesting, and it might be something like that, but I do agree with Gary that Cook’s initial responses felt a whole lot like damage control.