[David Lawrence]

[Jeremy Garchow] “[David Lawrence] “If I have the ability to group objects together on the timeline so that they always move together in sync, would you agree that this group explicitly specifies a relationship between clips?”

If you are asking me, the answer is surely.”

Agreed. Curious to hear what Walter and others have to say.

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[David Lawrence]

[tony west] “David, thinking of all these young folks who are starting out on X and really liking it…….at what point do you think they will stop using X “

When they decide they want to pursue a career making feature films in LA.

Admittedly, this will be a very small percentage of the FCPX user base, but the high-end of the post industry has always been a niche market.

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[David Lawrence]

[Jeremy Garchow] “Clip relationships drive every single edit, FCPX or not.”

Yes I agree. Let’s talk about that.

[Walter Soyka] “The FCPX magnetic timeline has a different underlying data structure (parent/child hierarchy) than a traditional timeline (EDL). I’m arguing that both timelines express their data models in the tools they offer the user and the way timeline maneuvers work. I’m arguing that FCPX exposes its internal data model in its external UI. I’m arguing that because clip relationships underpin FCPX’s representation of a timeline, FCPX automatically reflows (and shows you those magnetic preview reflows) every time you make (or consider) an editorial change, and that it does so according to a set of rules that are a consequence of that parent/child data structure. I’m arguing that there is no parallel for this behavior in traditional timelines, because they lack this higher-order construct relating clips back to the beginning of the timeline.”

Walter, I think this is a *great* description of what’s going on under the hood.

A few posts up, I compared clip connections and the FCPX relationship paradigm to Pr’s grouping feature. I want to expand on this a bit:

Let’s ignore the FCPX data model and the collision avoidance/overlap behavior of connected clips and think strictly about the notion of clip relationships from the standpoint of user intention.

If I have the ability to group objects together on the timeline so that they always move together in sync, would you agree that this group explicitly specifies a relationship between clips?

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[David Lawrence]

[Franz Bieberkopf] “I’ll have to remember this line as a delicate way of expressing myself when I don’t like a cut.”

LOL, good one!

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[David Lawrence]

[Walter Soyka] “Am I still spouting crazy talk?”

Makes sense to me.

Franz, here’s how I think if it:

Absolute time = fixed external temporal frame of reference = the window space — all media objects placed in this window are fully independent of one another in space. Objects can be placed anywhere. Empty space is empty.

Relative time = internal temporal frame of reference = the primary storyline in FCPX — all media objects must be connected to or contained by the primary. Editing the primary storyline by default changes the spatial and temporal positioning of connected objects. The position tool can be used to override this behavior by automatically inserting gap objects to hold space. Space is never empty. Space must always be filled with an object because the magnetic timeline always pulls objects to time zero on the left.

This leads to weird UI feedback, like Aindreas mentioned. The visual feedback’s correct when you think about what the timeline is doing. But the premise of the timeline itself is debatable.

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[David Lawrence]

[Walter Soyka] “For clarity, I am the one doing all the blabbering. You are asking insightful questions, and I am delivering 10,000 word dissertations in which I still fail to adequately express my reasoning about how the FCPX data model is directly expressed in the timeline.”

Walter, I think you’re doing an outstanding job describing the FCPX data model and how it impacts and is expressed through the UI.

I’m really enjoying this thread. It reminds me of the good old days of 2011. 🙂

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[David Lawrence]

[Craig Seeman] “I think we’re looking at a few more releases of “catchup” features. At some point they may introduce features that may fit facility needs. Also “maturity” itself is changing as the definition evolves. Actually Adobe Anywhere might be one of the bigger indicators rather than anything by Apple . . . yet.”

Agreed. One of the reasons I continue to pay attention to FCPX is because I’m curious to see how the paradigm evolves. I have doubts about its scalability, but I’d love to be proven wrong. I think the next major release and the approach to multi-channel audio will tell a lot.

Adobe Anywhere really looks like a game-changer. Apple likely also has something up its sleeve, but if Anywhere lives up to its promise, I think Adobe’s use of open standards and ability to work with existing infrastructure will give it a huge advantage.

[Craig Seeman] “Apple often isn’t the first with a feature. They’re revisioning of things usually works. Time will tell. That’s the nature of attrition battles. I think it will come from “young” adaptors maturing along with FCPX itself.”

I’m hard pressed to think of any examples of Apple winning attrition battles. It’s true they often lag behind with features until they get them right (iPhone copy and paste), but historically, that strategy has only worked for them in markets they created and already owned.

Ironically, in 2011, Apple was well positioned to own the NLE market too. But because they decided to take this radical new approach, they’re now starting completely from scratch in a market that’s not only mature, but highly competitive. On top of that, by burning their high end professional users with FCPX’s botched marketing and release, they’ve blown the trust of decision makers who determine what gets used in the future. The damage from that in itself will take years to repair. The bar is high and I don’t see attrition making much of a difference.

Maybe they’ll come up with a future release so mind blowingly awesome everyone will *have* to use it. It’s totally possible, but I’m skeptical. As you say, time will tell.

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[David Lawrence]

[Craig Seeman] “FCPX sales seem to be extremely high. I suspect a fair number of people are buying it as their first NLE. Some of those will move into higher end professional markets and will be doing so with FCPX.

Apple’s approach seems to be through attrition. They’re going to attract many more new professionals than convert old guard establishment. It’s a much easier sell.”

No question Apple will sell far more copies of FCPX than Legacy. The price and power alone make it an easy choice for anyone who wants to get deeper into post-production. Especially for people buying it as their first NLE.

But I’m *much* more skeptical about it moving into high-end professional markets.

Historically, Apple’s greatest success has been in creating new markets and new uses through innovative design and technology. The iPhone and iOS ecosystem are stunning examples. Apple’s innovation created not only an entirely new class of product, it created an entirely new market altogether. And because these devices and their ecosystem proved so incredible flexible and useful, even though it started in the consumer space, it migrated to the enterprise space.

The NLE market is *completely* different because it’s already well-established. It’s a very mature market with common standards and practices that have been in place for decades. But more significantly, the NLE market serves an already well-defined need and use.

With FCPX, Apple radically changes the approach to the task of editing, but they haven’t changed the nature of the task itself. FCPX is used to edit and post. Every other NLE on the market is also used to edit and post. But only FCPX works in its completely proprietary, non-standard way.

The barrier isn’t necessarily the old guard establishment, its well-established industry standards and practices. These industry standards and practices won’t simply go away just because Apple thinks they should.

Standards matter. It doesn’t matter if a new generation starts using it, when they go looking for jobs, they’ll need to know the tools that the industry has standardized on. FCPX’s non-standard approach is already proven to be a barrier to acceptance. It actually makes it a much tougher sell.

This is why I think the comparison of FCPX to the NLE market to Pages and the word processor/page layout market is fair. In mature markets, the market decides the standard, not the vendor. The standard is the gate, not old guard establishment.

This is not to say that the market won’t change or expand. I agree change and growth is inevitable. More and more people will start editing with FCPX. Professionals will find all sorts of uses for it. “Pro-sumer” means “Professional” and “Consumer” and FCPX fills needs for both. New tools and choices are a good thing.

But at the high end, I don’t think attrition will be a factor at all. I think it’s ultimately a question of whether the NLE paradigm Apple proposes in FCPX will eventually grow into something compelling and valuable enough to change standards. All the while competing vendors add continue to innovate, improve and develop traditionally designed systems. The enterprise space is an entirely different space than the consumer space where the iOS flourished. The rules are completely different.

Like I said to the OP, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

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[David Lawrence]

[Craig Seeman] “This is also why I think Apple will make progress in the “professional” market through attrition. People coming in to the field without pre-established habits will be much more open to it.”

You mean like the way they’ve come to dominate the word processor/page layout market with Pages?

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[David Lawrence]

[Walter Soyka] “Why not? Couldn’t it be that FCPX makes easy things easier (assembly)and makes hard things harder (trimming)?”

I think this is right. For simple assembly, I agree it’s easier, but like many, I’ve found trimming, manipulating audio and more advanced editorial techniques are more difficult than with a traditional NLE.

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