[Herb Sevush]

[Bill Davis] “The point is that anyone can cherry pick “abilities” that NLE X does that NLE Y does not. “

True that, but it’s an argument that cuts both ways.

[Bill Davis] “The real issue is whether that ability is still in demand.”

Absolutely. As opposed to whatever you do with Bosco, editors all over the country are still getting paid for tape ingest, tape delivery, OMF delivery and EDL delivery. The day will come when that is no longer true, but that day was not two years ago, it’s not now, and it won’t be next year.

[Bill Davis] “My overarching point is that there are quite a few things in the class of “important to editors like Herb” but that do NOT intersect on the Venn diagram that shows “needs of modern digital video editors in general””

Bill, you don’t know what the needs of “modern digital video editors in general” are and neither do I. I know my needs, and the needs of the editors I work with and the same is true for you. The simple fact is that FCPX cannot create those deliverables at this point without going thru some silly third party workarounds. I would like to see your list of deliverables that Avid and PPro can’t satisfy – not processes, not tools, but actual client paid deliverables.

[Bill Davis] “You have got to admit that one large section of this whole nearly two year debate is coming from editors who simplyl don’t want to have to change ANYTHING about how they edit.”

First of all it’s my clients who determine my workflow and I don’t get to tell them what I should and should not deliver. There are many things about the way I edit that I want to change, but unfortunately none of my options match my desires. FCP was never my ideal, it was simply the best of a bad lot at the time discreet *edit was EOL’d. My ideal NLE has not yet appeared. When it does, I’ll change in a flash.

[Bill Davis] ” It’s admittedly a difficult time. Just less so for the editors who find it easier to change direction if they so choose.”

The idea that X is supported by the daring adventurous few is but one of the many myths you keep repeating to make yourself feel important.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Bret Williams] “Never once did I mention FCP X in my brief comment.”

No, but you were referencing directly this comment:

“So despite many frustrations of working with FCPX I’m really glad that I took that route, rather than slipping back into the over complex workflow of the FCP7 + world of Premiere and fingers crossed I won’t have to take up a subscription to continue using FCPX.”

Claiming you weren’t comparing PPro to X is the definition of the word disingenuous.

[Bret Williams] “The list of features I’m referring to isn’t the list you copied and pasted from Adobe’s web site.”

That list came off the top of my head. I’m sure if I bothered to go to the Adobe website I could come up with 20 more features that would blow Legacy away. And, for your general edification, I’m not a PPro editor, I haven’t used it since version 1.5.

The video is not a list of PPro’s best features, it was specifically made for Legacy editors as a compare and contrast, to get them used to working with PPro. It should not be surprising then that so much of it seems so familiar and uninspiring, it was never meant as a best hits list.

And yes PPro lacked a lot of things until recently. But they have them now, because someone at Adobe actually asked editors what they wanted and then delivered.

When you take in the totality of the Adobe production suite, X looks rather puny indeed. I don’t know about you but I use AE and PHotoshop on a regular basis. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could link directly to them — well X can’t but guess who can. Hell you can’t even link to Motion anymore.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Bill Davis] “It also doesn’t read punched tape, require you to feed it Bosco, or require a groom to regularly curry it’s hide with a wire brush.”

Two things Bill.

One – I was responding to an idiotic posting claiming that Avid could do what PPro does now 15 years ago, and then relating that to the superiority of X over PPro. In that context i do believe it fair to point out that X still can’t do what Avid actually could do 15 years ago, adn stil does today.

Two – If your editing workflow requires Bosco, then I guess we have bigger differences than choice of NLE.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Walter Soyka] “We shouldn’t seek to fully eliminate understanding of technology from technical/artistic endeavors. Like chocolate and peanut butter, they’re better together.”

I was going to respond in a much harsher fashion, as unfortunately is my wont. Your elegance is appreciated.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Bret Williams] ” The vast majority of features were nothing new to legacy or Avid. Many of them had been in legacy or Avid for 10 or 15 years.”

Native handling of all video types, sync via waveform, built in closed captioning, GPU enhanced effects, dynamic linking to AE and Photoshop yes indeed , all have been in Legacy and Avid for at least 15 years.

The big difference between X and PPro is that after 2 full years of restoring features that actually have been in every NLE for the last 10 years X still can’t handle tape, or output OMF or EDLs. So Apples big advance is in not caring enough to try to fix what’s wrong, I guess Adobe should learn from them.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

Nicholas –

For me, part of being a professional is the ability to deliver whatever my clients want. I’m not arguing for the supremacy of Tape out or OMF, I’m arguing that the inability to do either as easily and quickly as I do now is a step backwards. I don’t care if OMFs aren’t as good as AAF, if I have one client who asks for it, for whatever reason, I want to be able to deliver it. Being restricted, even if it’s to a better way, is not an advance. MC7, PPro7(or cloud or whatever the hell they’re calling it),Edius 7 and even LIghtworks can export to tape and deliver OMFs while handling multiple codecs without transcoding, so the bit about Apple being focused on the future is just a load.

Apple has made choices about the market it wants to serve, and it’s leaving a portion of it’s former market to its competitors.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Charlie Austin] ” I always thought FCP7’s edit to tape function kinda sucked anyway, but that’s obviously just my opinion. Plenty of folks like it…”

It does suck, I had waited long in vain for Apple to fix both tape ingest and export, not realizing they were waiting to simply kill it off. Still suck as it might, it’s better than having to output a master file every time you want to do a tape layoff. The ease of printing from the timeline is not to be underestimated, especially when your playing around with fixing inserts.

[Charlie Austin] “My guess is that the app got “forked” around the time .06 came out. the .0x version got maintenance, bug fixes, and a couple random features. Meanwhile all the new goodness is going into .1 or whatever it is. Time will tell”

The one thing the X-bomb taught me is that guessing on what Apple is planning to do is a fools errand.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Nicholas Zimmerman] “Case in point, the kid that got Battlefield 3 running maxed out on a MacBook Air using Thunderbolt.”

Some people need multiple CPUs and even more GPUs than Apple is offering. Not many, but some. And there is nothing that Thunderbolt can do to help them. If you think that Battlefield 3 defines the high end, I will say no more.

[Nicholas Zimmerman] ” I think CES and NAB will be chock full of Thunderbolt versions of what were once PCIe cards.”

I went with my wife to the Apple store the other day to get her an external drive for her new laptop. There was only 1 Thunderbolt drive and it cost more than twice as much as any other external drive, and this is more than 2 years after Tbolt was introduced. Needless to say I was not impressed with the speed with which Tbolt is being implemented by third parties.

[Nicholas Zimmerman] “I recently had a chance to tour CBS’s west coast studio and check out their control room. The guys complained about how they were transitioning to file based for everything. Tape deliver is dieing very quickly, and if you need it just use your I/O card’s software. I’ve found Black Magics offering MUCH better than the wonky print/edit to tape in FCP7. “

But I thought tape was dead 2 years ago, when X first came out. So now it’s 2 years later and apparently still alive. Yes it will be phased out, but no, it’s death certificate is still on hold. As for third party tape-out, do you have any idea what a PITA it is to have to output a file before printing, especially if your trying to just insert a fix. Yes it’s possible, but nobody whose job depends on it would choose to work in that way. I expect improvements from new software, not ridiculous third party work arounds.

[Nicholas Zimmerman] “OMF isn’t dieing, it’s good as dead.”

In your world, maybe. Just like tape is as good as dead, in your world. But in the rest of the “not you” world neither of those statements is true. And in that other, not you world, X is a step backwards, and using Xto7 to generate OMFs is a silly hack.

[Nicholas Zimmerman] “Look at OSX, it’s new features are very power user heavy, things like dual display improvements. That doesn’t benefit the average consumer, but is deeply beneficial to power users and professionals.”

I’m not arguing that, I’m arguing that your definition of top seems to have the same ceiling that Apple’s does, while a higher ceiling does in fact exist.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Nicholas Zimmerman] “The rate they’ve added back in high end features to FCPX, the changes in Logic X, and the design of the new Mac Pro all lead me to believe that Apple is serious about the top end professional”

The lack of PCIe slots in the new MacPro puts a definite ceiling on it’s abilities VS anything else out there. There is a niche of post production people who need more than Thunderbolt can deliver.

FCPX has a very long way to go to match Avid in collaborative editing, many broadcasters still need tape delivery, and having to go thru FCP7 for OMF is a joke.

All of the high end features they added back were added back in the first year, I don’t see any great development pace over the past 12 months.

They might do this and they might do that, but apparently I don’t read the tea leaves the same way you do.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Will Eccleston] ” It’s also difficult to trust Apple anymore. But who knows. I might take a look at it one day if everyone starts singing its praises.”

As someone who has been very, some might say excessively, critical of Apple since the X-bomb, I would have to say that while I felt that lack of trust in the past I think the evidence now clearly shows I was mistaken. With the release of the R2MacPro it’s fair to say that Apple has not abandoned the pro film/video market, although they have re-defined it for themselves. At this point if your comfortable with Apple’s new target audience, just below the highest end of the film/broadcast/CG niche, I would think they are as trust worthy as any company that’s not exclusively devoted to video editing and post.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf