[Gabe Strong]

[Andrew Kimery] “If someone paid me $100/mo to go with the bigger package or $25/mo to go with the smaller package then, yes, it ‘really’ is a good deal to go with the bigger package. Unfortunately watching TV doesn’t earn me money like editing does. ;)”

Yup, that would be a good reason. Unfortunately, as a small shop, I do NOT have clients paying me to use
any particular software. Most of them don’t even know what NLE stands for. Besides, I thought you were talking about
the pricing and how it was a good deal because it was only $10 more to get all the CC apps than just
Premiere and AE. That was the part I was referring to with my ‘cable bundle’ comparison. I didn’t mean to
confuse the issue, sorry about that.

[Andrew Kimery] “Costing more is only one part of it. The other part is revenue generation. I’m a freelancer in LA and currently there are w-a-y more gigs using PPro than X (and I’m mean real gigs, not $100/project gigs on Craigs List). The amount of money I would lose by NOT subscribing to CC is exponentially more than the amount of money I pay to subscribe to CC. Choosing X over CC would save me in money in terms of costs, but it would kill me right now in terms of revenue. I currently have Avid, FCP 7, PPro and X installed on my machine (well, Resolve 11 too but its NLE capabilities aren’t there yet). X is the only one that I’m not up to speed on yet.

Sure, my situation probably isn’t exactly what you are asking about, but I’m a small business guy too.
“

Well, I think this fits into what I was saying above as reasons to use CC. Either you are a PC guy. Or you are an
After Effects wiz. Or you have clients who use Adobe and to work with them you must too (This would be you!)
Now I was thinking that this scenario would be more prevalent with big companies instead of small one person
shops. That may not be the case at all, that was just my assumption that smaller shops work more with clients
who ‘don’t really know an NLE from an RBI’ and larger shops work with clients who want you to work with a
particular NLE/camera and so on. LA producers rumored to be some of the most picky. Although I did just shoot
for the ‘Alaskan Bush People’ yesterday and they just let me shoot on whatever camera I owned (which was
a FS700) even though that isn’t their normal camera they use for the show. So yeah, if you have clients
who require you to use Adobe, that is a perfect reason to use it. I certainly have never came across that once
in over 10 years of doing business, but I obviously live in a world that is about as far from LA as possible….both
literally and figuratively.

[Andrew Kimery] “If one already has a deep and extensive knowledge base in AE, PS and PPro I think one needs a compelling reason to switch to Motion, X and Compressor.”

Again, yeah, that would be at least close to one of my reasons which was ‘If you are an AE whiz’. You
obviously (and rightly) expanded on my abbreviated reason and pointed out the Photoshop and Premiere Pro
whizes also have compelling reasons to stay with Adobe. For sure.

[Andrew Kimery] “If you are a small shop and you need to hire some extra hands to get through a busy patch (always a good problem to have) and you want everyone to use the same software for compatibility reasons then finding AE artists is probably going to be easier than finding Motion artists.”

I wish I had that problem. Much too small to really even think of that as a possibility at this point. Small town
problems being what they are, my chances of finding someone good in either one are somewhere between -1 and 0.
Not that I’d ever really be able to afford to hire one anyways….which is why I just go with whatever (very limited)
motion graphics I can myself create. I think one distinct possibility is that although we are both ‘small one person
shops’…..at the same time we have widely differing definitions of ‘small one person shop’. 🙂 Strange how that works.
Hopefully that made some sort of sense….in an alternate universe or something anyways. 🙂

Gabe Strong
G-Force Productions
http://www.gforcevideo.com

[Gabe Strong]

Andrew,

Maybe that is why they moved to a ‘one size fits all’ approach with CC.
But really, that’s all part of the ‘pricing strategy’. I’ve never been a fan
of that approach with cable TV either. Get all these channels you never
watch and feel like you are getting a great deal because you get 200
channels for $200 a month instead of 20 channels for $175 a month. But
the only channels you watch are in the 20 channel package….so is it
‘Really’ a good deal to buy the 200 channel package?

Maybe it would make more sense if I said it this way. Small households who
only watch 20 channels can get a good deal for $175 and get all 20
channels they need. Bigger households who watch more TV can get 200 channels
for only $200 which is a pretty good deal. Small households could also go
for the 200 channels for $200 even though the channels they watch are in the
20 channel package. Some may want to do this to keep options open.
Plus they like the DVR the 200 channel package comes with better….
even though you have to ‘rent’ it and give it back to the cable company
When you cancel service 🙂
I’m just joking….but I still think there kind of needs to be a compelling
reason for a small person shop to go CC over FCP X…..because hey it
costs more! Now there are plenty of reasons and some of the main ones are
if you are a PC owner, a AE power user, need to exchange Adobe files with
others, or have clients who use Adobe. Those ‘seem’ to me, to be reasons
more often associated with bigger companies (ok not the PC owner thing but
the rest of them :). Of course a person may just
prefer the ‘workspace’ of Adobe and be willing to pay extra for that as well.
Goodness knows, we Apple users have shown people will pay extra for things
like that. But because of those ‘one person shops’ who are writing here
and telling me I’m wrong, I am now curious. For anyone who is a one
person shop and uses CC, why did you decide to use it? What advantages
does it offer for your business and how do you use it to make more money
than you could without it? I am not being sarcastic, I’m genuinely curious
about others and how they do things to make their company successful.

Gabe Strong
G-Force Productions
http://www.gforcevideo.com

[Gabe Strong]

Walter,

Yeah and Metal isn’t even being used yet. But I find it hard to believe that
Apple would not optimize FCP X so it uses it, so I’m guessing speed increases will
be coming but who knows when and how much?

And as I said, I don’t see any big advantages now to Premiere. It’s cool
that they were first to have several features. I have CS6 and I thought it
was pretty good. Maybe that’s why. But still, nowadays they all seem like
‘Just NLEs’ to me. No huge advantages to any of them anymore.

As for the other apps….I am aright in AE, know how to do a few tasks in
Photoshop. Illustrator always baffled me. I taught myself one thing with
it so I could use Zaxwerks 3d plugin for type and logos but not an app
I can do much with…… Plus, you may have heard, FCP X does 3D text now. 🙂

Gabe Strong
G-Force Productions
http://www.gforcevideo.com

[Gabe Strong]

Shawn,

Yeah, that is a totally fair point. If you are a PC user, it doesn’t matter how good FCP X and Motion are,
cause they are not on your platform of choice. So there is that.

As for rolling shutter repair + stabilization, I don’t know who had it first, but again, I know
that part of FCP X’s ‘Stabilize’ (with optical flow) includes a ‘Rolling shutter repair’ function, so
again, I don’t see a huge advantage for Adobe here (at least not anymore).

And once again, FCP X (from it’s inception) has had 64 bit architecture and GPU acceleration of some effects and operations
as well. FCP X also uses what it calls ‘Grand Central Dispatch’ to enable ‘multithreading’ or use of all available cores.
Sounds pretty similar to MPE to me. Again, I’m not on a PC, but on my Mac Pro, the speed is very similar, with probably
a slight edge to FCP X (which is to be expected as it is doubtless designed to take advantage of the Mac computers).
This is not even taking into account the new technology ‘Metal’ that Apple just announced (which will also end up speeding
up Adobe CC apps!) Regardless, maybe I’m wrong, but I just don’t see any great, groundbreaking
features that Premiere has that FCP X doesn’t have (except for tracks….sigh).

I am absolutely certain, that there are CC users with success stories about how CC has helped them.
And I am sure I could use it for my business and make money with it. I just make MORE money using
Apple’s alternate tools…because well they are cheaper and I am not continually paying every month.
Again, it just ‘seems’ to me that Adobe is more for bigger agencies. And to be totally honest, maybe
part of the reason I think this, is because of all the programs you get in the CC. Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver,
Really? Do you small one person shop guys really have the time to learn how to use all 50000 programs in CC? 🙂
It kind of suggests ‘multimedia firm’ to me. Which is where it would be a good deal….you have one part of
your firm who does commercial photography, another who does video, another who designs websites,
a print design section and so on. Total multimedia solutions for any problem a client comes to you with.
Total advertising and marketing solutions, do their newspaper and magazine ads, make their website,
do their web video, make their TV spots, do their corporate stills and so on. Kind of like an ad agency.

It just seems to me that it would be awfully hard for a one person shop to actually know how to use all
the programs in CC. Maybe I’m just thickheaded.

Gabe Strong
G-Force Productions
http://www.gforcevideo.com

[Gabe Strong]

Hmmm…..maybe what I was trying to say came across wrong?
AE IS scalable. It’s just that for simple to mid range stuff, Motion
seems faster. AE can do more, but it takes a lot of time to learn the
advanced stuff that Motion can’t do (like expressions). Who knows,
I very well might consider YOU an AE power user! (that’s a compliment
by the way 🙂

As for Premiere, Warp Stabilizer is cool….but FCP X has the very similar
‘Stabilize’ (with optical flow). As for Mercury Playback Engine, that is
great if you have the right video card, but again FCP X does much the same
thing as far as being able to mix frame rates, video codecs and so on
on a timeline, and play them all back in real time. As a matter of fact, last
week I was out of town on a shoot and had to hire my (once in awhile) assistant
to shoot a multicam event. He didn’t check frame rates and I had 1 cam at
24p and another at 30p. FCP X multicam synched them by audio, and I could
cut between them in realtime, all the frame rate conversion stuff was ‘invisible’,
it just worked. And this is on a 2009 MacPro. FCP X is every bit as fast as Premiere in
my experience, Don’t get me wrong Premiere is great. I just don’t see any big advantage
it had over FCP X, other than being able to exchange files with other Adobe apps easily
(well and that track thing, I have a soft spot for tracks).

So if I do ‘end to end’ work where clients are not dictating what I use or insisting that
I accept CC files from them, I am not a motion graphic expert who does extensive AE
stuff, and I don’t work on a PC, I just don’t see any advantage to going with CC, when
I can use FCP X, Motion, Compressor, and Resolve light for a fraction of the cost.
The money I save is enough to buy an A7s for a third camera after a little more than 3 years.
Now some people are AE whizes. Some have team members they need to exchange Adobe
files with. Or agency types that all must have the latest version so they can work with
their clients. But for small guys like me, who just have a client come to them and say
‘We want an epic promo video….can you make us one?’…well I just don’t see a compelling
reason that I must use Adobe products to do this. So I’ll save money and use FCP X
and the associated software. Just my opinion of course.

Gabe Strong
G-Force Productions
http://www.gforcevideo.com

[Gabe Strong]

I’d disagree that you have to be a ‘very low rent’ editor to not go
for CC. Say you are a mostly one person shop. You hire VO
artists when needed and buy music from some of the great new
music licensing sites. You may occasionally hire an assistant but
it’s mostly you doing everything. So in this case, you have to be
‘good’ at a variety of things, but you probably are not ‘great’ at most
of them. Adobe, in my opinion, caters to the bigger houses, agencies,
and teams. People who can make amazing stuff with AE. Because
to me, Photoshop and AE are their ‘crown jewels’. Premiere is fine
but really it’s just another NLE. Nothing revolutionary or special.
But I can’t spend a ton of time learning expressions and complex
stuff with AE. I’ve done all the Meyers books, so I’m adequate in AE,
but for mid level MoGraphics, Motion is just fine and faster than AE to
boot. So given that Premiere is basically no big advantage, and
small, one person shops don’t usually have the expertise to be ‘power
users’ in AE, where is the incentive for me to spend $300 MORE
in a year to ‘subscribe’ to CC when I can own FCP X/Motion? I don’t get
It. FCP X and Motion and Compressor do just enough for the ‘little
guys’ who can’t spend the time to specialize. They can put out
‘good’ work fast. And it’s cheaper. If I can get something that
does all I need cheaper at one place than another, I’m going to do it.
That doesn’t make me ‘low rent’. I’m no big shot, but I’ve had months
where I billed $15k and just did $5k in the last 4 days. So yeah, I could
‘afford $50 a month for CC’. I could ‘afford’ $50 a month for a witch
doctor to shake a bone rattle over my head to keep the ‘creative killing
spirits’ out of my head too…..but that doesn’t mean it would make business
sense to do it. I have absolutely no compelling reason to spend more on
Adobe’s CC than I get with Apple’s tools. And that is why I think Adobe
is more for the bigger specialized houses with ‘AE power users’ or
agencies who collaborate and must exchange files with each other….
so you have an advantage because the photographers use
Photoshop, the design people use InDesign and Illustrator and so on.
Apple’s tools will appeal more often to small shops who do end to end stuff
with very small teams.

Gabe Strong
G-Force Productions
http://www.gforcevideo.com

[Gabe Strong]

Tim,

Well PP was a little annoying in the way a new NLE is at first. What you have to twirl
down audio tracks to drag the volume up or down? Just little things. Honestly it
didn’t take long, especially because Adobe (very intelligent thinking by them)
provided FCP7 keyboard shortcuts. In all honesty, I’d be using Adobe’s newest
offering today if they hadn’t switched to subscription only. But just as I was getting
used to it…along comes CC. Now if you think it’s annoying having to learn
a new NLE, try switching and j…….u…s…t as you are getting comfortable,
switching again. Argh!! But hey, I’ve learned a lesson. Don’t depend on
any of them. Become at least adequate in several NLEs. Give yourself
options. And for the record, I just cut a job in Resolve 11. It’s a much better NLE
than I was expecting. Needs some filters and transitions development maybe,
but a very promising addition in my opinion. Give it a couple years and I have
a suspicion that there may be a good number of us ‘FCP7 refugees’ taking a
serious look at a ‘color grading NLE’.

Gabe Strong
G-Force Productions
http://www.gforcevideo.com

[Gabe Strong]

I’ll jump in. I have been using FCP since v2. I stayed with FCP7 when X came out. After a year, decided I should start learning new NLEs. Used X a couple times as well as Premiere CS6. Decided to jump to Premiere CS6 as my main editor. Then, along came CC. Not really the place to go into details but I am not a fan of subscription
NLEs so jumped back out of CS6 and into FCP X. It’s better than it was but I wish you could attach ‘secondary storylines’ to other ‘secondary storylines’ and a few other things. I am also learning resolve v11 which looks like a cross between FCP 7 and FCP X.

Gabe Strong
G-Force Productions
http://www.gforcevideo.com

[Gabe Strong]

Walter,

That would depend, at least in my own opinion. If said ‘cloud solution’ included a ‘subscription only’ way to pay for the plug in, it would be a non starter for me. Just my personal opinion, but I’m not a fan of that way of doing business, and my business decision is not to spend money on subscription based ‘cloud services’. And it’s not just Adobe’s CC. I recently stopped doing business with Digital Juice as they went to a subscription based model for their content. I’ve got no problem with various aspects of ‘cloud solutions’. For example, being able to instantly download a program after you purchase it is awesome! And is ‘green’ (no discs or big manuals and packaging just
a download and a PDF manual.). As always, the devil is in the details.

Gabe Strong
G-Force Productions
http://www.gforcevideo.com

[Gabe Strong]

Yup, absolutely swamped. I’m to the point where I’ve had to hire temporary help on a few projects. Unfortunately, of course, none of them care as much about my business as I do. So that solution only works after i find some good people, and they then want me to train them to compete with me :). So my prices are now going up.

Gabe Strong
G-Force Productions
http://www.gforcevideo.com