Tim Wilson
3
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
-
A lot of the most energetic conversations that used to happen here about the state of the industry as a whole have been happening in the FCPX or Not:The Debate forum.
It has shifted a little bit for NAB, but on most days, no more than third of the posts are about FCPX. Over 20% of the people visiting that forum are coming from non-Mac computers.
In fact, it’s so much NOT about FCPX that people keep suggesting we change the name of the forum. .. but the whole debate about what it means to be an editor anymore, and what it means to be a professional, only started because of FCPX.
So while the REST of the web is finding its way there, some of you guys should at least take a look now and again after the NAB-specific FCPX conversation dies down. Even if you’re not on a mac and will never, ever consider FCPX. ESPECIALLY if you’re in that category.
Okay, now THAT said, whaddya wanna talk about? Start a thread. I tried to do this a while back with the “How’s business?” thread. It would be incredibly depressing to me if this was the most active thread since that one, so please, anyone, start something besides this.
As I’m typing this, I’m also thinking that this forum was part of the COW’S roots in the Media 100 community nearly 20 years ago. (No kidding, 19 years ago this month!!!) We were all in our 30s and 40s, owner-operators who spent $50-100,000 to start our businesses, in the days before a business model for our businesses actually existed. Many of us wouldn’t have survived without each other’s aid.
That’s just not what the COW looks like anymore, and is less and less what the business looks like anymore. The COW is full of broadcast and “film” folks now. Corporate video for everyone from Elvis to Pfizer. (Talk about a business that barely existed 20 years ago!) Religious and educational facilities whose business is bigger than many corporate and broadcast settings. There are post houses in the COW with add many as 700 seats. The joint is crawling with cinematographers who barely edit at all. Even people coming in as real-live professional owner-operators have such a much lower barrier to entry that things don’t seem quite so life and death. .. because they kind of aren’t.
I could go on, but you get the idea. We started 20 years ago with a handful of people who ALL had the same needs along these lines. The COW now has over 250,000 members, almost NONE of whom (relatively speaking) have these needs. The guys at NFL Films, or managing Avid Media Composer-DaVinci Resolve workflow for Arri Alexa footage aren’t worried about marketing their businesses.
I’m oversimplifying a bit, but I think you can see where I’m going. If there’s something you’d like to talk about, fire it up.
In any case, it’s been a while since I thanked the folks here who’ve made this such an engaging forum over the years. I don’t think we’re done here by any means, but I do think that the days are passed in which conversations will happen here just because the forum is here.
Thanks again,
Tim -
[David Mathis] “Hope no offense was taken. “
I didn’t take any — I hoped YOU didn’t take any! It’s all good. 🙂
-
[Oliver Peters] “I’m going to amend my thoughts on Resolve 11 as only being a finishing editor. “
You’re welcome. LOL
I appreciate you taking the time to get a full demo, and I’m glad to hear your observations.
[Charlie Austin] “I’m with David. We can try to divine BMD’s grand plans all we want.”
My point above is no, we don’t need to try to divine their grand plans. They TELL us, with one of the most elegant, carefully designed product pages I’ve ever seen. So, having spent all this time and money, what do they TELL us?
Before then, do note that, in a longer version of my previous post (and yes, I do edit my posts), I had in fact observed that in some of the teases, they did use the word online…so I didn’t mean to imply that it was your imagination, David…but on the product page, not at all.
So, what DOES it say on the actual, massive page?
I quoted you the opening earlier:
“…the world’s most amazing editor!”
“…now you can edit, color correct, finish and deliver all from one system!”
“…[everything] you need to manage your entire workflow.”
What I’m doing here is the opposite of Kremlinology. Kremlinology is trying to find the truth that people are being paid to hide. In this case, I’ve suggested that we listen to what people are paid to tell us. LOL
With the additional difference that the Kremlin has more to hide than to tell, while Blackmagic has more to tell than to hide. LOL
So I do in fact absolutely believe BMD when they say at the bottom of the page that they are the most compatible solution in the business. Who can argue that? They already are, and they’re getting aggressively MORE compatible. (Speed Razor? Really?)
But I also absolutely believe them when they say they want to create the world’s most amazing editor. Have they? Will they? That’s your call. But what are they TRYING to do? Exactly what they say. They’re not hedging their bets or mincing words. They’re out to make the world’s most amazing editor. Period.
Well, actually, the world’s most amazing editor. Exclamation point! LOL
Kidding aside, I think they’ve earned the benefit of the doubt from us, that they mean what they say until proven otherwise. And they are NOT limiting their plans to onlining and finishing.
No kidding. Read the page.
If you’re reading this and at the show, take the time for a deep dive like Oliver did and report back. 🙂
-
[TImothy Auld] “the barbarians are at the gate and there is no going back.”
Look man, if we let barbarians keep us from having debates, the COW is doomed.
-
[Aindreas Gallagher] “i took a swipe at him on the other place over the tweet and I rather regret it. hard not to think he is a lot responsible for willing a top flight edit system in the FCP mold into being for the people who were begging him for it. some gift. when you watch him on stuff, he seems to bleed the product.”
You’re not alone in feeling that. If you go over to that thread, you’ll see that several other members deleted their own posts as well. I’m glad that people are able to see the humanity of that tweet for what it is re: Al’s own dedication to customers, and for what it isn’t re: the corporate debate.
There was a time that you couldn’t delete your own posts from the COW, mostly because we didn’t want people coming in to do hit-and-run trolling. At the same time, people really do regret what, or more often HOW they say things, and we’re glad to have added the Delete Post option. I additionally added the “removed by author” notice in the thread view to underscore that, yeah, being in an online community ain’t easy. People deserve not to be remembered forever just for the one stupidest thing they said.
As a very emotional guy who’s fast on the keyboard myself, I’m grateful that twitter wasn’t around when I was a product manager.
-
Hollywood’s most powerful color corrector is now also the world’s most amazing editor!
That’s what it says at the top of the Resolve 11 product page. Nothing about online. In fact, that word isn’t anywhere on the page.
“Now you can edit, color correct, finish and deliver all from one system!”
I don’t know that they can state their vision any more succinctly.
That said, alllll the way at the bottom of a very long page, they talk about roundtripping, and being the world’s most compatible solution — and I think it’s hard to argue otherwise — but it’s anything BUT the central message. It’s the LAST message.
I certainly agree that their position now is “Use what you want to edit, and finish with us,” with the goal that more people will take advantage of editing and finishing in one place.
It’s almost beside the point, though. It’s not like BMD make any more money if somebody stops using another NLE. The object is just to sell Resolve. If the most compelling story to you is “I can use it with what I have!” – great. If the story that makes you open your wallet is “Wow, I can edit it with it too!” then that’s great too.
Because he’s been around this industry as a broadcast guy, and Blackmagic has its own post house, Grant Petty remembers first hand that no matter how many compositing features Final Cut Pro added, After Effects wasn’t going away…even after Apple introduced Motion…which offered its own compelling uses even for After Effects whizzes. The days of using one toolset are long, long gone.
On the other hand, Grant has never been known for the modesty of his ambition. Swinging for the fences is perfectly realistic if you know how to hit something out of the park. What they’ve done with Resolve in these few short years make me think pretty much ANYTHING is realistic in the next few.
Really, who needs a flux capacitor when you can bus power time travel over Thunderbolt 2 and USB 3? I’m just saying.
-
Yeah, film vs digital is getting a little far off track for this particular thread…but it’s a conversation worth having.
Especially once lions like Deakins and Deschanel are saying that they now prefer digital, I think that the conversation goes beyond economics, beyond aesthetics, and into the world of 100% pure preference where it always belonged.
So maybe on another thread. Or in the Film vs. Digital or Not The Debate Or Not forum I’m about to go set up. Look for the link in a few minutes.
-
[David Cherniack] “Best to head on over to the hospital cafeterias forum.”
I believe that you mean the “Hospital Cafeteria Or Not” forum.
-
[Shawn Miller] “Probably lots more long term PPro users on other forums.”
Absolutely true.
But this is a continuation of the same point that others have raised about X. There’s a difference between who HAS software, and who USES software.
As far as the companies are concerned, it doesn’t matter. They make their money whether or not you ever launch the software.
It speaks to a larger issue, though, which you can see pretty clearly through the lens of Dr. Venn. There’s an extent to which NONE of these numbers say ANYTHING about market share. I don’t know about you, I own Premiere, Media Composer, and The Legend of Final Cut Pro, and I know that a lot of you do too. As much as it is to argue about, in PRACTICE, for ME, the market share for each of those products is 100%. LOL
So if there are a million whatevers — downloads, installations, what have you — of FCPX, it doesn’t tell me anything at all about how FCPX is doing relative to anything else. I don’t believe for a second that this is true, but statistically speaking, it’s possible to imagine a world where the only people who downloaded X are Legend customers and tire kickers.
Again, I believe that X HAS grown Apple’s reach…but really, if we’re being honest, I have no reason at all to believe that based on that press release.
The same applies when you see numbers for Premiere and Avid users. Market share isn’t all that big a deal when people own more than one of ’em. So yeah, there are a million X’ers, 2 million Legenders, 3 million Aviders, etc — but because so many people buy more than one, and more than one copy of each, and 1 “unit” is described differently in each case (downloads, licenses, etc.), you actually can’t draw any meaningful conclusions without a ton more data.
I’m kind of rambling here instead of posting NAB articles in the COW library LOL but I can tell you how that worked in practice for ME. I never cared about the number of Avid USERS as much as I cared about the number of Avid CUSTOMERS. That’s why it also didn’t matter to me whether or not somebody was using another NLE already. Who owns one of anything in this business? Just buy mine too, and let’s talk about market share some other day.
And let’s talk about market share some other WAY, because treating the universe of both users and customers of Adobe, Avid, Apple, et al as separate circles isn’t even close to accurate. There’s vastly more overlap than there’s not.
-
[Mark Suszko] “If you don’t have secure, high-bandwidth connectivity, all your gear might as well be a doorstop. Hotels can be terrible for cellular reception “
I should have mentioned this. Forget wifi. Forget cellular data. If you’re not on ethernet, getting a reliable signal out of a hotel is nearly impossible.
Agreed, the question is, how badly do you need it LIVE?
Which, btw, is another way that Tricaster pays off. Use it for i-mag and switching in the venue, record to disk onsite, then play back online when you have a decent signal later.
Like anything else in this business, you can piecemeal it yourself for a one-off, but Tricaster makes it very easy to turn an annoying pile of separate tasks into one rather elegant revenue stream.
But some of the elegance will come from not assuming that you can send a live feed out of a hotel or conference center. 🙂
