[Herb Sevush]

“Glen, both you and Herb are proving my point. I believe FCPX is in it’s DSLR moment.”

My point was the DSLR’s had huge negatives but provided a product I either couldn’t get, or couldn’t afford to get any other way. What product is FCPX providing that you can’t get with PPro?

If the only advantage of FCPX is speed of editing, then it would have to be waaayyyy faster to make up for the negatives, and even then it would only be useful in it’s much more limited range of functionality.
And it’s not clear that FCPX is faster than PPro at all.

Most editors don’t switch NLEs as effortlessly as DPs switch cameras and therefore the usefulness of a niche product that might be faster with limited functionality is much less.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

“Yeah, and some of those are imperfections.”

Depends on the design and quality of the glass, no?

HD exposed all sorts of imperfections that the lack of resolution of SD kept hidden – is the answer to watch everything on an Iphone?

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

A late addendum –

“I realized it was just the difference higher resolution and smaller grain size brings.”

And it took even longer for me to learn that larger image (sensor) size brought out different lens properties as well.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

“Herb, so you are saying right tool for the right job?”

No, what I’m saying is that if your going to deal with a lot of problems then a tool better be able to deliver something you can’t get any other way. If the final results are worth the pain then you call the problems “idiosyncrasies,” if not then the tool is simply a piece of crap.

“And what appealed most to you about the 5D? The color, short DOF, the contrast, all the aliasing? OK, that last one was a dig. What couldn’t you get out of the AF that you could out of the 5D besides audio/video and tc?”

Yes to the color, the contrast, the DOF but mostly I just thought of it as the way the 5D handled the light. The AF looked like the other Pany’s except with a slightly shallower depth of field. The 5D reminded me of when I was first starting out, working with 16mm film, and I got to edit 35mm for the first time – there was a glow to the image that at first I thought must be some filter combination the DP was using – later I realized it was just the difference higher resolution and smaller grain size brings. In the hands of a skilled DP, someone who could take advantage of those properties, you could get a look that simply couldn’t be matched on 16. Something about the way the 5D handled the light reminded me of that. I’ve been looking for it ever since I switched to video and I never saw it before.

I would be thrilled if Canon, or anyone, would put that sensor in a real video camera body – but for now I will put up with it’s “idiosyncrasies” when the right situation comes along.

If I could afford to keep a Red or Alexa around to just pull out a few times a day for special shots, then I would be happy to say good-bye to the Canon.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

For a cooking show I direct we shoot finished plating shots, very quickly, at the end of each sequence, with all 4 of our Panasonic hdx900 cameras. 2 years ago, when we jumped to do the beauties we replaced one camera with a 5D. The images were amazing, so powerful that even though we had the other angles to play with, I used almost nothing else in the final edit. Same camera operators, same lighting, and the 5D blew everything else away. The problem for the producers was that it was sooooo different, not just depth of field, but in the way it handled light, that it made the rest of the show look like shit. We decided it had to be all one way or the other for the following year. Because it is a multi-cam shoot and because of all the problems you mentioned, plus some others not mentioned, we didn’t repeat the experiment. We used a Pany 100F this year on the beauties and the results are nowhere close.

It’s not for every use and it needs to be housed in a professional video camera body, but I stand by what I said – I can get shots with the 5D that I can’t get, but would like to, with any other camera. (I’ll admit I haven’t tried a Red or Alexa – I still don’t think they would match up – they would be more equivalent to shooting with a Canon 7D) This is not as true with any of the smaller Canon models (7D, 60, 2i). In this, as in many things, size (sensor size) does matter.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Yes to all your negatives Jeremy, but the fact remains that in the right hands a 5D can produce pictures you simply can’t get with any other camera. Is there anything you can output with FCPX you can’t do with any other NLE?

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

“FCPX is, I contend, TOTAL AND UTTER gaudy apple, ill informed, POMPOUS HORSE SH*T SOFTWARE.”

Aindreas please, don’t hold back, tell us what you really think.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

“I’ll stick with Media Composer being introduced at NAB in 88, even if it didn’t ship until a couple of weeks after EMC. :-)”

I’ll settle for a tie.

I’m just sticking up for the long forgotten Editing Machines Corporation. This whole conversation got me remembering my EMC2 days, not unhappily, and I sent off a note to Bill Ferster, original designer, that contained this line:

“There were features on the EMC2 that I still miss to this day – such as the ripple wall, the EDL view, the timecode scratch pads and the ability to easily set offsets for multi-cam sources.”

So, a salute to the betamax of NLEs.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Wikipedia:

Non-linear editing with computers as we know it today was first introduced by Editing Machines Corp. in 1989 with the EMC2 editor; a hard disk based non-linear off-line editing system, using half-screen resolution video at 15 frames per second. A couple of weeks later that same year, Avid introduced the Avid/1.

The EMC2 (2 for squared) was a PC and the first NLE. I used it for many years, it was the first of many EOL’s I have lived thru, but alas, not the last.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

A lot of what you’re paying for with the Z series is security – not just their excellent product support and build quality but the fact that their products are the ones card and software manufacturers often test their gear on.

However this “safety net” is costing you upwards of 2K per machine.

You can find reputable VAR’s on the web that will build, install, test and support fully configured NLE systems that cost way, way less than a MacPro or a Z series.

The only question you have to ask yourself is how much is it worth to you to know that you spent the most to buy the best on those days when nothing is working and you have deadlines to meet.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions