[Herb Sevush]

moviescope, rewinds and a guillotine splicer.

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

[Herb Sevush]

Evan Schectman is the FCPX proselytizer that gave the demo espousing it’s virtues at Tekserve in NY. The only thing at all surprising about this announcement is that I thought, based on his talk, that he had committed to X months ago. Since he was thrilled all to tears with X before, I think it prudent to actually wait and see what the new upgrades will be.

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

[Herb Sevush]

What’s new in version 10.0.2:

Fixes an issue in which a title may revert to the default font after restarting Final Cut Pro X
Resolves an issue that could cause files recorded with certain third-party mobile devices to play back incorrectly
Addresses a stability issue caused by changing the start time on a Compound Clip
Fixes an issue by restoring fixed tracks to FCPX
Fixes an issue by allowing import of old FCP program files
Fixes an issue by providing a viewer window

Nah, just wishing.

[Herb Sevush]

Thanks Jeremy, very nice, though I’m hardly the most serious 5D user out there. Generally when I’m using the 5D it’s to take a close up of a roast chicken with gravy, or a pasta primavera, so I don’t run into that many moire problems.

Also, wouldn’t it have been nice for Canon to solve this problem for their users – oh I forgot, their too busy getting into the pro video game at 20K. Don’t get me started.

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

[Herb Sevush]

“I don’t’ believe that any other NLE has done BOTH as deep a teardown AND as radical a functional re-build as APPLE did with X”

Agreed. But not every tear down is well advised. They tore down Penn Station in NY to build Madison Square Garden and New Yorkers have been regretting it ever since. Many a wonderful home has been torn down and re-built as a modern monstrosity. New does not equal better. Ask the Russians if being revolutionary is always a step forward, or else try to buy a DeLorean.

“Today, only a tiny fraction of the video produced around the world ends up on TV. If in the long run, FCP-X ends up doing NONE of that work (something I doubt VERY much) it will won’t prevent it from succeeding wildly as a tool for the other 90% of the videos that people will pay to have made.”

So you think it a wise business decision to jettison 10% of your potential customer base? I envy the kind of margins you must have that you don’t find that a dangerous policy. You’re dumping 10% of your market and, as of now, providing a tool to the remainder that is 10% less functional than your competitors.

“Underneath that, it has an extraordinary team of seasoned NLE code craftspeople working inside the richest company in the world backstopping it’s development effort. In uncertain financial times, that counts for quite a bit in my mind. “

I’d be a little careful about that. Apple has demonstrated that it will turn on a dime and dump any aspect of it’s business line with no notification. Everyone agrees that Pro App software is a tiny slice of a slice of their revenue. You are no more safe in the behemoth that is Apple than you would be with Avid – the risk with Avid is that the company fails, the risk with Apple is that they change market strategy. As far as risk goes I find them equivalent.

“If there’s a market for higher level tools, they’ll get added into the code. Either by Apple or the third party guys – but in ALL cases that stuff will be developed only if there’s a large enough need to make such development profitable.”

You can say that and believe that but it still doesn’t make it so. Apple made a commitment to the magnetic timeline that could well make solving some of these issues very difficult, if not practically impossible. They’ve chosen a path and I don’t see how they can walk it all back, nor do I believe they will want to. Third parties are not going to be able to provide you with tracks in the timeline. I believe X will be improved, but I also think it is what it is.

“I do think the days of Apple building in capability just to gain “cache” with a splinter group like Hollywood is pretty much over. After all, how much more “cache” does Apple really need?”

Better a splinter than a sphincter.

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

[Herb Sevush]

“Right now, FCP-X does an absolutely superb job for nearly all kinds of the editing tasks required by a very broad swath of that middle. From Corporate videos to Web videos to Digital Signage and beyond, it’s a fresh new tool with huge and exciting and growing capabilities.”

First off, I believe this to be true, give or take an adjective or two.

But the same can be said, with the exception of the word “new”, of many other editing apps out there, such as PPro. The difference being that PPro can handle corporate and web videos, and also handle more complex work flows.

What’s the advantage to a mid level user of buying software that doesn’t let him move up in complexity if the job comes his way? Why choose software that limits you to the work you are doing right now?

That was always one of Legacy’s strong suits, it’s ability to handle any editing task. You seem to be promoting FCPX’s limitations as a strength, and I don’t see it.

It’s like the old marketing trick of not fixing a bug and then calling it a feature.

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

[Herb Sevush]

“if you had a choice right now Herb, what camera would you recommend or choose below 15k?”

I’m not a cameraman, my opinion on this matter is ill informed at best. I wrote the opening rant as much to criticize Apple as Canon; I saw a link in the behavior of the two companies that I didn’t and still don’t understand – the desire to ignore an established group of loyal customers in favor of going after an imaginary larger pool of possible consumers.

As for cameras used on shoots I’m directing, for DSLRs I like the Canon 5D and the Panasonic G2, and for more traditional sized cameras with a higher budget I like the Panasonic AF100. They all have their limitations but they can produce extraordinary shots for the money, in many cases I would take away the qualifier and leave it at extraordinary shots.

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

[Herb Sevush]

“But I *think* it might have been possible that Apple could legally sell anything produced under their existing agreements – making the decision to make Legacy available easy”

If it was so easy why didn’t they start that way in June? No matter what possibility you come up with the facts are these –

Apple announces immediate EOL in June.
Customer uproar.
Apple announces limited sales in August.

What would have stopped them from this scenario –

Apple announces limited sales in June with future EOL
Customer much less uproar.

Unless you can reasonably explain why the second path wasn’t taken, then you really aren’t explaining anything.

“The act of starting from a blank piece of paper to develop a program might be a pretty good beginning, in my non-professional opinion.”

Somewhere around 1972 George Harrison started with a blank sheet of paper and wrote the song “My Sweet Lord.” About 5 years later he was successfully sued by the author of the Chiffon’s hit “He’s So Fine.” The court ruled that even though G. Harrison wasn’t aware he was copying the song, he had heard it before and unconscious plagiarism was still an infringement.

I’m guessing that starting with a blank sheet means nothing. There seem to be conventions in NLE editing that have been copyrighted; if you infringe you might get sued, whether you write the code from scratch or not.

And since I have no legal training whatsoever, you can take that opinion for what it’s worth.

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

[Herb Sevush]

“This why I think FCS was killed so suddenly. I suspect a long transition was not viable given certain licenses/IP, etc.”

Which might make sense except for the fact that, under duress, they put Legacy back on the market. As far as I know they are still selling it thru some channels. If the licensing issues were so problematic in June, how did they resolve them by August? And is they could resolve them by August, what stopped them from resolving it by June?

Questions, questions…

“[Bill Davis] “I don’t know what IP issues were buried in FCP-Legacy. But it would be silly to expect that there weren’t some. So the “blank page” beginning makes HUGE sense if you want to go forward with a product that is clear of as much IP baggage as is possible.”

I absolutely think this was a driving force in Apple’s decision. They dumped all outside code. It may even relate to some of the changes in naming conventions.”

Writing your own code from scratch does not in any way inure you to the threat of IP violations. It is the concept that is often at issue not the actual code. Picons in a browser, film strips in a browser, there are a lot of lawyers willing, for a fee, to prove that their is no difference, both are a visual representation of a clip … blah blah blah.

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

[Herb Sevush]

I would have to disagree with you on this. The length of the clips is not the issue, only the total bandwidth of the 4 streams. It shouldn’t matter if the clips are 2 minutes or 20 minutes long, the bottleneck is disk read speed for 4 streams at Proxy quality.

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