Tim Wilson
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[Chris Kenny] “Has everyone forgotten history so quickly? The original Final Cut Pro initially found its way into the market because it was one of the first NLE products to seriously embrace DV/FireWire — consumer video technologies that pros initially didn’t take seriously (one recalls extensive arguments over the definition of ‘broadcast quality’).”
Chris, I think this is absolutely critical to keep squarely in focus.
Not only that, it was the first NLE that could easily do full-resolution “broadcast quality” work on a laptop. (You can also thank Panasonic for their major contribution with DVCPRO HD for kicking it up a couple of notches.)
That’s the irony I find in the “no tower=no pro whatever.” FCP was designed to work great on whatever you had handy — MacBook Air, iMac, Fry Baby, Cuisinart, you name it.
Lighter and lighter-weight codecs are making it more and more possible. They didn’t show it in the booth, but Blackmagic’s secret suite demo showed their visually lossless 4K codec at about 35mb/s off a Thunderbolt thumb drive.
KIDDING, but you know it’s coming.
No tower=no sweat. Or not. 🙂 But in any case, FCP was the one that started the trend away from towers in the first place.
Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou -
[Herb Sevush] “And I am patiently explaining that the upgrade could have preserved what was valuable in the old without tossing the baby out. Adobe and Avid among many others have managed to upgrade their basic software without destroying the workflow of their users.
I assume that this is still true, but when I was there, this was a great concern. It was sometimes maddening to sit in customer facilities where they demanded that Media Composer change to keep up with Final Cut Pro, then walk through step by step them: What if we changed THIS? “No.” What about THIS? “NO.” Or this? “HELL NO!”
No disrespect intended to either Avid or the customers, because this really is a very difficult row to hoe.
Which is why, in the end, Steve didn’t want to talk to customers. I can cite interviews in both 1985 and 2008 (and did in the article I referenced above) where he explained why: customers will ALWAYS favor what they know. In the 2008 interview, he specifically said that customers can’t see around the corner, so why ask?
Pretty arrogant, even for Steve. Maybe we should start some Chuck Norris-style meme. Steve Jobs could see around corners, and the corner after THAT. He could see all the way around the world so clearly that he could kick your ass even while you were behind him, without even turning around.
Apple chose not to, basically because Steve Jobs found it hard to edit his family’s home movies. Now there’s a great reason for change.”
I’m not saying that any of this was GOOD, or done for any right reasons other than the ones I mentioned: he wanted it to look and act like Apple, and he wanted it to do something completely new. They could NOT do that and maintain old workflows — because at the end, neither Adobe nor Avid changed anything FUNDAMENTAL.
Why? Because they care about maintaining continuity. Apple, not so much. Their whole heritage, from the origin of Mac, was founded on dis-continuity. People love it when it works for them, and don’t when it doesn’t.
Also as I mentioned, I really really like what Adobe and Avid have done. 🙂
I should have said this a lot earlier, but I’m glad that it appears that nobody has taken my “zombie-Borg FCP” ANALOGIES as saying anything about FCP as YOU experience it. It’s obviously been doing awesome things for you awesome people for a very long time. I was speaking from an imaginary perspective that I also obviously think is pretty accurate, rhetorical/humorous exaggeration notwithstanding.
Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou -
[Dennis Radeke] “The HP people I talk to has it on their radar.”
Agreed. I’ve heard the same from management folks there.
I really do think that Thunderbolt is this year’s FireWire. The people who have it will crow because nothing else could possibly be important, the people who don’t will say it doesn’t matter that much, but nobody will hold out for long…and it won’t be long until something much better comes along anyway. LOL
Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou -
Admittedly I was talking about footprint rather than cubic volume, but with that, the numbers don’t lie: among many big booths, BMD’s WAS the biggest in the show by footprint, and that WASN’T by accident. 🙂
Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou -
[David Roth Weiss] “I can’t help but think that a company with Apple’s resources could have had it all. “
As long as we assume that their actions reflections reflect their priorities, the rest is easy.
“Having it all” for Apple means, at the very least, BEING APPLE. What is most Apple-like about Apple? A meticulously crafted user experience.
What was FC Studio LEAST like? A meticulously crafted Apple UX.
So what do we see with X? Apple’s idea of what it means to be Apple for video. Features will show up or they won’t, because features aren’t the point.
This was Apple’s strategy with iPod and iPhone too, btw. Show up late and underfeatured, and just keep banging on the meticulously-crafted Apple UX until the features mostly show up. But never ALL the features found elsewhere. Never. Just the ones that can be reasonably subsumed into Apple’s UX goals.
That was never going to happen with any combination of stuff bought from other people, none of which looked like it was designed by Apple. Solution: start with Apple’s idea of something approaching ideally Apple, add features later.
Another way of looking at it. When Apple got in the game, these editing software conventions had been fixed for well over a decade, now, well over 20 yrs. Some conventions came from linear video editing — fixed for the better part of 30 years when Apple got in. Even more so, the roots of non-linear editing are in film — well over 100 years.
Frankly, I’m surprised Apple stuck with FCP Legacy as long as they did. Whatever else Apple is, they’re not a company whose design priorities are driven by 20, 40 or 100 year old approaches.
If they’re not Apple being Apple, they can never have it all. They could never be Apple in this market until they put a shovel in the head of the Borg-zombie that FCP had become. Take care of features later.
Again, I don’t think I’m making any great leaps of imagination or analysis here. I’m just looking at what they did, and assume that it reflects their priorities.
Dammit! I was supposed to let everybody else have the last word. NOW I’ll shut up for a while.
Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou -
[Oliver Peters] “Generally all of these companies are still financially challenged and have gone with smaller booths than in past years.”
Except that Blackmagic had the biggest booth in all of NAB this year, which was not the case last year. I assure you that the change was not by accident. 🙂
tim
Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou -
[David Roth Weiss] “Introducing FCPX was not in itself “violent,” but in concert with the simultaneous EOL of FCS3, and the potential EOL of the MacPro line of workstations, that constitutes extreme or violent change”
You say you want a revolution? Well, there you go.
Of course this time, it’s like Robespierre cut off HIS OWN HEAD.
As much as I respect you for completely agreeing with me -LOL – I continue to maintain that Apple did the roll-out EXACTLY right.
I’m actually writing something about this that I might have ready in the beginning of the week, looking at “revolution” in the context of what we saw — and not — at NAB2012. But as much as we look for revolutions, not all of them are good for everybody. (See: Robespierre, both before and after his head rolled.)
I don’t think that Apple completely took itself out for the reasons I mention in my previous post, but — METAPHOR ALERT! ANALOGY! ANALOGY! — they certainly burned out their own underbrush in a way that’s going to make the entire ecosystem thrive like it hasn’t in years. Maybe ever.
I wasn’t entirely kidding about the — ANALOGY! LIBERAL ARTS NERD DIGRESSION!! INCOMING!! — French Revolution parallel. There were actually a handful of them, even before you get to a couple more in the Napoleonic era, but really, you could argue that the whole of modern history flows out of 1789-99…and I do….and I think that it’s not the BEGINNING of FCP that changed everything — I actually don’t think it changed ANYTHING.
This, though, this really changes things.
Although we’ll know more in 213 years, won’t we?
Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou -
[Shane Ross] “If they had released FCX with all the features 10.0.3 had, the reaction would have been less..outrage…..And I still wouldn’t use it due to the magnetic timeline….”
I agree with both, but I like the second sentence more than the first. 🙂
It was understandable to focus on the things that were missing, for reasons and specific workflows we’ve all talked about. But even in the equally understandable excitement over features coming back, I don’t see that the “solutions” that Apple provided addressed problems that people had. “If they’d just get that damn source window out of the way I could REALLY fly.” Most people just didn’t feel a need for so many basic conventions to change. For you and others, the solutions caused more problems, without answering the problems you actually had.
The irony is that, among the reasons that the other A companies are finding traction in new ways is that they kept many conventions, while also providing actual features that people had been hoping for from FCP for a very long time.
I mean, if you think about it, the last big deal in FCP for many people was ProRes in 2007, which means that the big change before that was 2005. (Which really WAS big, starting with multicam.) THAT’s why people were so “fast” to jump — after years of waiting, it was clear that Apple wasn’t going to provide what they were looking for….
Unless Apple did. And for more people than I think we acknowledge, Apple DID.
That’s why I completely agree with you, Shane, that FCPX’s long-term fate will be fine, and so will Apple’s place in the pro market. Your anecdote about students and FCPX is critical to understand. Apple — like Adobe, Avid and Autodesk — have long focused on students on the keys to their products’ long-term success. Today’s sk8trboi is tomorrow’s film school/media school graduate, and after using FCPX+ for 4 or 6 years between skateboards and mortarboards, they may well have little incentive to even consider switching, even as working film and TV pros: FCPX is clearly on the way to re-integration into distributed workflows, and tape will fade even further away.
I actually the next year will be the one that tells a more interesting tale. The dust has settled on Apple’s course. Adobe, Avid and Autodesk (to say nothing of DaVinci Resolve) have released the most elegant, robust versions of their software EVER, with insane price adjustments for Symphony and Smoke. These companies now have a different place to begin building a new heritage.
Throw in some slick new workstations from HP, Dell getting back in and now ProMax getting in the game, balance against a new MacBook Pro this summer, iMacs that work really well for some workflows (including Smoke, which was specifically optimized for them), new budget cycles rolling around — NOW I think we’re going to see some things shaking out.
Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou -
[Kevin Patrick] “I found Bob to be very approachable, pleasant and interested in our discussion.”
I’ve found Bob to be a careful listener who never claims to be the smartest one in the room — or even the conversation – even though he often is. He never stops learning, never stops trying to do his job better.
Bob is also a genuinely funny guy, very quick-witted, very enthusiastic. When he types, he uses a lot of all caps and almost never just one exclamation point because HE’S JUST THAT EXCITED!!!!!
Not that his posts aren’t representative of who he is either. Assume he’s laughing because he so often IS laughing, and you’ll have it just about right.
It is with good reason that his post-NAB round-ups are traditionally some of our most popular articles each year. He DRIVES between Orlando and Las Vegas every year, so stand by for a bit….but it’s definitely coming….
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Quoting an earlier post, [Craig Seeman] “12 years ago Avid announced they were no longer going to support the Mac. The backlash probably changed their mind.”
I agree with you, Craig, with a historical tweak. There were indeed a number of company people wandering the floor at NAB 1999 yapping about the end of Mac, the world, etc. but *the company itself* never made any such announcement. In fact, Avid was adamant in its public commitment to staying on Mac and working with Apple.
It’s critical to remember that when Apple bought Final Cut from Macromedia, Avid Media Composer was MAC ONLY. After years of Mac-only editing, Avid’s Media Composer customer base was ONE HUNDRED PERCENT MAC in 1998. There were no PC customers because there was no PC version. Why would Avid threaten to leave 100% of its customers? That’s nonsense….
…but when your only platform partner for your core product declares war on you in 1998, you consider your options for 1999 and beyond. The option Avid chose: keep making software for Macs. So in 1998 Media Composer is 100% Mac and Apple buys Final Cut. In 1999, Apple ships FCP, and whaddya know, Avid ships Media Composer on Mac. In 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, etc etc: Media Composer on Mac. Oh yeah, and PC. But Mac too, through all those years, all the way to today. Macaroons.
In the meantime, what was the result of that 1999 imbroglio? Just a few months later, the then CEO, GONE. The then president, GONE.
In October of 1999, only six months after NAB, to replace them, a new president (later also named CEO) from Digidesign (an AVID company whose customers in 1998 were likewise 100% Mac) who was handling Digi’s transition to a dual-platform company more gracefully. (I think I’m remembering right about Pro Tools in 98. At least the documentation I have for Pro Tools 4 from 98 was 100% Mac. HOW all-Mac? Dude, there were approved configurations for Power Computing boxes! Woo-hoo! “Fighting Back for Mac!”)
That said, I think you nailed this, Craig. Avid DID say in 1999 that Symphony would stay Windows-only, but I think that customer pressure made a difference. Also worth noting: Symphony was originally $150,000, and you can buy it for 1/150th of that now.
So here we are. The people who mis-handled Avid’s in fact non-stop Mac support for Media Composer are GONE. Everybody who worked for them: GONE. The people responsible for them: GONE.
The only things that the company could do was hire somebody else, and keep making products for Mac. That’s what they did.
There are similarities at Autodesk in that the people who whatever — lied to you, misled you, killed your baby, whatever — are GONE. Your experience is as real and as painful as you say, so now you’re never ever going to trust…who? A guy who’s not there? Good news: HE’S GONE. People he worked for: GONE. People who worked for him: GONE.
For all practical purposes, then, you’re not mad at a company anymore. You’re mad at a company NAME. What can a company do for you after the people who screwed you and the people responsible for them are gone? Buy you a pony?
[Craig Seeman] So many products live for a few years and die, that I can’t simply expect eternal life for a software package. I just want to make enough money so my time to learn and return on use makes its lifespan, whatever that may be, worthwhile for my business.
Nicely said.
Buy something from Avid or Autodesk, or don’t. That’s your prerogative. But at some point, you’re the only one who’s responsible for how you feel. Not them, not anymore.
Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou