David Cherniack
Forum Replies Created
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[Benjamin Mullins] ” I don’t know how much broadcast or film work will ever be done on PP, but the corporate & commercials sector is where I make most of my money and I can see Premiere taking a large share of Final Cut’s business in this market.”
FYI I use PrPro for nothing but broadcast. You need a third party IO card if your broadcasters still want tape. (Mine do. Curse them.) I use a Matrox MXO2 LE that allows me to output with closed captions.
David
AllinOneFilms.com -
There’s another point to consider: at this time there’s no guarantee that FCPx will be around in a couple of years.
I know that many here will find this an outrageous statement but it’s clear from Apple not touting sales figures that X has not exactly been flying off the virtual shelves. We could hazard a guess what the paid base so far is. Thousands? Probably. Tens of thousands? I’d wonder.
In any case that they, who love to tout impressive new release sales figures, have been silent, is telling that they’ve nothing to tout about.
It’s also clear that their vast majority of sales and profits are coming from consumer products. If they’re willing to abandon their entire high end user base then how easy will it be for them to let this product, that’s cost them so much in development and prestige, slip beneath the waves to oblivion.
Now before anyone starts citing the announcement that there’ll be multicam and support for third party monitoring by early next year I think it wise to both remember that the same has been said about many products in the past that were shortly thereafter EOLd – and to read between the lines – ‘support’ means an API – the third parties still have to write working drivers and that will take a while. So maybe by 3rd or 4th quarter 2012 if my experience with third party IO drivers is any judge. And even then, FCPx will still not be a mature NLE with a complete ecosystem. That takes a minimum of 3-5 development cycles. Then there’s the magnetic timeline which appears so far to be unsuited for complex, high end work. And with Avid and Adobe clearly positioning themselves to vacuum up the users who are fleeing from FCP they’ll be adding whatever is good about X to their own arsenal of tools. So how many shops will consider returning to the X ship if and when Apple ever gets it up to speed?
All these factors will be weighed by the marketing boys in Apple who control the development purse strings. Judging by the past it’s not inconceivable they’ll kill it. So, as far as the future maybe the best policy is to hope for the best and not be surprised if the worst befalls.
And lest anyone think I’m a happy Cassandra about this, far from it. Even if X is presently something of a marketing disaster, it’s caused many of us to re-think NLEs and to question what we’ve assumed is their most efficient architecture. Nothing is so perfect that it can’t be improved so I’ll continue to read this forum and be delighted when people here push it as hard as they can to discover its limits.
David
AllinOneFilms.com -
[Andy Neil] “You’re starting to look like Premiere.”
Yep, this is a long standing bone that many pick with PPro. I’m sure the Adobe folks are aware of it by now.
David
AllinOneFilms.com -
[Simon Ubsdell] “. It would be a real bonus if you could add effects to them as you can in Media Composer.”
You mean like an adjustment layer?
David
AllinOneFilms.com -
[Jeremy Garchow] “people have forgiven Avid for their shortcomings already so the venom is a lot less vile.”
There’s something to be applauded about longevity. Look at Betty White. Some get a standing O just for being alive.
David
AllinOneFilms.com -
[Jeremy Garchow] “Really, guys, it’s just a language”
I wish there were such a thing as ‘just a language’. Then my wife would not be giving me a dirty look when I say “I’ll scrub that pot tomorrow.” Language reflects thought. Thought reflects disposition. Disposition reflects attitude. Attitude reflects politic. Politic reflects ideation. Ideation reflects attachmnent. In other words we’re in the crapper every time we open our mouths. The only way out is poetry. Gaps is not poetry.
David
AllinOneFilms.com -
[Simon Ubsdell] “I’ve mentioned this before but Media Composer in fact has always treated what you are calling “space” as gaps, so this isn’t something radically new in FCPX.”
Yes I acknowledged that in my post. But it isn’t true of other NLEs, as I mentioned.
I think the problem that others are finding with gaps in X is that theyre a more functional part of the magnetic timeline than in MC…seemingly to keep all the rippling behaviour copacetic.
David
AllinOneFilms.com -
[Andy Neil] “I see the magnetic timeline as merely a reversal of the previous timeline conceit. At the end of an edit, you are not going to want any gaps or black flashes, so the magnetic timeline exists to prevent that.”
Andy, if you’re seeing gaps like blank frames I can understand why you think they’re great. I’m not. Gaps for me are the ‘quiet’ spaces between clips on audio tracks and the ‘covered’ spaces on lower video tracks. They’re the absence of objects.
As I said I’m sure the dialogue about gaps makes sense to you guys who are actually using (and attempting to use) the program. From outside the ecosystem it just sounds like the talk you’d hear in any engineering conclave…or among monkeys at the zoo…not that there’s any comparison intended 🙂
David
AllinOneFilms.com -
Guys,
I’m sure this all makes sense if you’re using FCPx but if you’re not do you realize how completely, insanely, complicated this dialogue sounds. Like out of some bizarre alternate universe.
The one thing about the fixed track timeline is that it’s simple, spatially one to one intuitive, and does not require a gap object (MC and FCP may have versions, but Premiere, edit*, EMC, and any other NLE I know of do not). Space in such a timeline is not a negative gap object. It is simply space, the absence of an object. The gap object appears to me to be necessary by-product of the magnetic aspect of the FCPx timeline. It makes sense only within the context of the magnetic paradigm. The real question is whether the magnetic paradigm itself makes sense in this market. I don’t believe we’ll know that for some years to come when we see whether Apple can build any additional intelligence into it that makes it more efficient for editing complex projects or so simple that it can be picked up by all the non-editors out there to edit their home videos. Right now it seems about as revolutionary as the Ford Edsel…someone’s bright idea for shifting gears that sounded good at the time, but didn’t fundamentally improve anything, despite all its supporters claiming it was a game changer.
The other thing to be mindful of is that Apple has not announced any sales figures for X…perhaps as good an indication as any that the new paradigm is not catching on like wildfire. It raises the question whether the pro-apps division, much reduced in products of late, can continue to survive.
David
AllinOneFilms.com -
[Daniel Frome] “On the note of qualifying I think the onus on you here — we’re talking about helping an “edit assistant at a post-production company.” Clearly getting him on the Avid bandwagon is going to be most helpful advice, while learning Premiere Pro is going to be something he can take his time to do while the industry catches up.”
Hey, I wasn’t the one making overgeneralized statements that no one is using Premiere in Toronto. That’s clearly false as, at the bare minimum, I am. Obviously some other people are and more will probably do so in the future. He should learn Avid if he wants to get work today and he should learn PPro because, even today, it’s a very useful tool. And it may serve him well in the future.
David
AllinOneFilms.com