[Tim Wilson]

[Thomas Frank] “Maybe it has something to with stubbornness?”

On the contrary. I think it’s only stubbornness that assumes that somebody’s choice of non-X might be something other than a mental defect or personality flaw. LOL

Or that choosing non-X is somehow a statement of disrespect for X.

Or stubbornness in not acknowledging that many people use X and non-X together, productively, maybe even happily, making any personality-based dichotomies irrelevant.

Certainly in practice, it’s simply not true that young and bold = X, and old and timid = non-X. Oliver has noted before that his high-school students generally gravitate toward Premiere. The student body of the USC School of Cinematic Arts is using Media Composer without their heads exploding.

As far as “intuitive,” let’s be clear. The most recent intuitive interface that any of us has encountered is our mother’s breast. Everything after that is learned.

I believe that anecdotal evidence is real enough, but there’s simply not enough anecdotal evidence to conclusively establish that X is somehow “easier” to learn.

Which suggests that we might perhaps open the discussion over whether adopting X is not bold at all, but simply the “easy” way out. LOL

Everything swings both ways, my friend.

[Tim Wilson]

Visit Aindreas. He will buy all your students beer. LOL

This is a great idea. (The trip to London part, not the Aindreas buying beer for your students part. Although you are the better judge of that than I am.) So we’ll collectively put out some feelers for you and hopefully come up with some great ACTUAL answers.

[Tim Wilson]

[Bill Davis] “you literally NEVER hear, for example, a group of guitar players sitting around talking – and when one player says he really enjoyed playing his Gibson – there’s always two other guys popping up to say “yeah, but I could have played the same lick on my Fender (or Epiphone!)” Notice how NOBODY does that?”

Are you f’in kidding me? That’s ALL they do, all g-damn day. Have you ever been to a guitar forum?

Our illustrious founder Ronald Lindeboom used to work for Rickenbacker. He started on necks, and moved into finishing. Those beautiful inlays? The glorious paintjobs? That was him.

I’d tell you about the time he held Paul McCartney’s left-handed Rickenbacker bass, or Chris Squire’s custom Rickenbacker double-necked bass in his own hands, but he probably rather I didn’t. LOL

Not only do guitarists argue about the BIG stuff — Les Paul vs. Stratocaster — but they argue about humbuckers and pedals and headstocks, they argue about boards, they argue about tubes vs. electronics, they argue about live mixing to tape vs. Pro Tools.

You want some REAL fun? Go to the Gibson forums, where people presumably agree that Les Pauls are handed down from g-d himself, and watch them argue about which Les Paul Jimmy Page used on a specific track, or at a specific show. Maybe it’s the one that Joe Walsh gave him, but Jimmy hand-shaved the back of the neck to make it narrower. Or was this the one where he used the Danelectro?

I mean, these guys get into WHEN Jimmy shaved the neck. “No way man. I know the guy who put in the new, lower bridge so he’d get more action when he bent the strings. That was 1974, so he might have used it on Physical Graffiti, except that the track you’re talking about was recorded in 1970 for Led Zeppelin III.”

Srsly man, these guitar guys make NLE-ers look like wee tiny babies who can barely hold their heads up, much less make a cogent argument. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a more argumentative group in my life.

ON TOP OF WHICH, they’re drinking while they’re having many of these arguments. Unless they’re doing weed or coke. Or all of them.

As far as I can tell, only a couple of us are doing that while we post. LOL

So please please PLEASE do not EVEN try to make the case that we’re in any way unusual, or that we as NLE-ers, or ESPECIALLY, that we as COWs “don’t get it” because we, and only we, argue about the little stuff. This goes very high on the list of most patently ridiculous and easily demonstrably wrong things I’ve ever seen posted in this forum.

And that’s saying a LOT. LOL

Much love my man, but c’mon. So far from true that there’s not even a word for it in English.

[Tim Wilson]

[Oliver Peters] “One feature Apple could stand to add – but NEVER will – is third-party…”

Apple: “Third party? Like, as in the Green Party for politics, or like, the party that starts after the After Hours party for partying? Because those are the only possible meanings of the words ‘third party’ that we’re aware of.”

[Tim Wilson]

[Oliver Peters] “I find that neither and both statements are true.”

If you see anything I say that is ONLY true, assume that my account has been hacked or that I have been possessed by pods from outer space. LOL

[Tim Wilson]

[Oliver Peters] “I wonder if a number of folks on the pro side of things are now “over” the initial enthusiasm of the FCPX design. Things like dual screens and dual viewers are for many just simply a better way to work.”

I wonder every bit as much about the opposite: are there people who’ve lived the 2-monitor life who’ve now switched to single monitors because FCPX works better there (even though it obviously works well enough on 2).

I found Don’s observation on this count very interesting:

[Don Walker] “When using Premiere, I really want to be in a 2 screen layout. In FCPX, (where I spend 90% of my time) I feel most comfortable on my 27” iMac in a single screen environment. “

That makes sense. Premiere can work on one monitor, but may be better on 2. FCPX can work on 2 monitors, but may be better on one.

I’ll leave this part of the debate to the folks like you and Don who are actually using both (unlike, say, me, who uses neither LOL), but the sly part of me can’t help thinking that this is the heart of The Apple Way. “US adapt to how YOU want to do things? Silly boy. Here’s how YOU will adapt to how WE want you to do things.”

Again noting that the 2-screen approach that so many people used so productively was a detour in FCP/X’s original, and now-restored, vision as a unified, 1-screen experience.

This is really another aspect of Apple’s intent from the beginning to emphasize laptops as the primary ideal environment for FCP I just mentioned. In that context, I was talking about the liberation from heavy iron as a CPU thing, but its just as much about making liberation from multiple monitors an explicit design goal.

Looping back to Don’s experience as an example of using tools most effectively in the contexts that each was designed for….and in the case of FCPX, designing it SO thoroughly for one monitor that it can be kind of annoying on two. The application TELLS you that it was designed for one monitor.

[Tim Wilson]

[Bret Williams] “I think the single screen mode is great if you’re having to edit on a laptop though.
“

Since we’re talking about design influences, this has to be near the top of the list.

Because it’s the COW, we tend to talk more about things like multiple monitors and towers and such, but Apple has always pressed the advantages of FCP for laptops. As well they should. Both the 13″ laptop and the iMac are their bestselling form factors, of course.

The emphasis on laptop editing goes back to the very beginning, where the first advertising images of FCP were with a laptop and a DV camera. That was ALWAYS the point, that you DON’T need heavy iron.

(Worth remembering: Steve bought Final Cut to run on as a consumer app on iMacs when Adobe refused to sell him Premiere! The rest has been a happy bonus.)

Apple’s laptop-focused imagery continues into FCPX, where, as you point out, Bret, it may be even more germane today. When Apple wants to underscore the intimate connection between FCPX works and Alexa, what’s the picture they use? A laptop.

[Tim Wilson]

Hi James! Welcome!

For what it’s worth, your account should already have been unmoderated. Can you take another go at a post and see what happens?

In any case, thanks for being part of Creative COW!

Regards,

Tim Wilson
Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW

[Tim Wilson]

[Greg Ball] ” ABSOLUTELY… dead or alive you need to get the rights to use their photos an a commercial.”

The reason why is that many people, both dead and alive, have trademarked themselves. Not just biggies like Marilyn Monroe and Albert Einstein (the latter of whose estate donates all proceeds to the political causes that Albert cared most about), but also Madonna, Blue Ivy Carter, and many others. That includes using lookalikes or anything along those lines.

When you get sued for copyright infringement, the most they can sue your for is the amount of the rights you should have paid for, plus damages within a specific limit.

Trademark holders can sue you for the entire value of the trademark — say, the amount that Albert Einstein’s likeness will EVER earn. Yikes!

Not that you were headed down this road of course, Todd, but it’s important for other folks who’ll find this thread down the line to understand, as your IP lawyer put it, “No way, no how” — and THEN some.

[Tim Wilson]

[Gabe Strong] “In other words, I have
saved enough money by using FCX (instead of ‘paying Adobe’s rental’ over that same six years)
to buy FCPX, Motion, Compressor, AND buy a new Mac as well (ie pay the ‘Apple tax’)”

I know you’re not saying that the “Adobe rental” has been around for six years…but at the current rate:

$49 x 72 months = $3240

That’s assuming you didn’t just go for Photoshop ($9.99) and After Effects ($19.99 — what? The price is DOWN from its former $29/mo. The price is going DOWN, just like every other software, everywhere, from every vendor, all the time) for $28.88 x 72 months = $2079.36

vs

Master Collection CS 5 (2010, but close enough) $2599 + 1 upgrade (CS6 upgrade) @$699 = $3298

Hmmm…

So can we at least please please PLEASE agree that 6 years of Adobe rental is LESS than buying one box plus one upgrade in the same 6 years? BECAUSE IT’S LESS.

But let’s keep going.

Final Cut Studio 5 (also 2010): $1299 + the same 2 upgrades I assumed for CS @$299 (which is $598) = $1897.

But really, looking at Creative COW, it seems that most FCS users upgraded to 6 and 7 as well, so 4 x $299 = $1196, then add $1299 for the first purchase, and you’d have spent $2495.

Oops, plus $399.97 for FCPX, Motion, and Compressor, for a total of $2894.

So, yes, in round numbers, you saved $300-ish going Apple vs. Adobe. This is real money, but not enough to buy a Mac Pro…

…unless you’d have rented just Photoshop and After Effects, in which case you’d have spent as much as $800 MORE by going the Apple route.

STILL IRRELEVANT.

“Saving” by not spending means that if you’d dropped cable and gone to Netflix, you could have saved $7129 ($99*72). More than enough to buy 2 systems.

Or you could have sold one car to buy a cheaper one…or moved back in with your parents…or not have gone to college.

But money not spent is not the same as money saved. By not buying a Tesla, I COULD have put down a down-payment on a million dollar oceanfront condo, but in fact, I haven’t put enough money in my pocket to buy a box of Goobers, much less a Mac Pro.

Oh wait, I forgot. You bought a Mac Pro. If you’d bought an HP, okay, about the same price. But if you’d have bought a Dell (maybe not great advice in 2009, but I’m genuinely impressed with them now), you’d have saved the very real Mac Tax — potentially wiping out EVERY DIME of savings vs. your all-Apple scenario!!!!

I of course concede that the Dell can’t run FCPX, but you and David were talking about the Mac tax, so let’s talk about the Mac Tax. You simply can’t make the case that Mac + Apple software costs less than Windows computer + Adobe software.

This is true both because of the very real Mac tax, and because you haven’t done the actual math on how much you’ll spend over a given span with Adobe software.

So, let’s sweep all this palaver off the table, and what have we got?

— That if you’d been “renting” the full boat of Adobe software for 6 years, you’d have paid LESS than if you bought 1 CS box plus 1 upgrade.

PAID LESS FOR RENTAL.

AND….any savings by going all-Apple vs. full Adobe would be wiped out by the Mac tax….

AND….there’s a pretty big swing in Adobe’s favor if you’re just renting PS + AE.

…and really, being really honest (HEY DENNIS LOOK OVER THERE) that APPEARS to be what most people here have been working with.

And yet…

THIS IS ALL RIDICULOUS. Buy whatever the hell you want. Don’t buy whatever the hell you want.

Just please don’t wave your hand over either the overwhelming expense of Adobe rental or the overwhelming savings of Apple stuff, because in more circumstances than not, it’s just not true.

This probably looks like a monkey typed it, but I’ve spent all the time editing that I’ve got before Monday drops another safe on my head. And yes, I edit these things. LOL

I’ll also let you or anyone else spending their own money have the last word.

In any case, when we’re talking about something, let’s talk about what we’re talking about. If we’re just gonna fling cliches and half-truths at each other, we might as well just run for office. LOL We’ll make plenty to cover any route we feel like taking.