[Herb Sevush]

FCP X seems to provide a strong technical foundation, and some long overdue rethinking of the standard non-linear editing user interface conventions.

Who say’s it’s long overdue. I, for one, am quite happy with the NLE conventions that have been worked out over the past 15 years. So are most other pro editors. If people were clamoring for a different paradigm then Sony Vegas would have taken off years ago. This is just typical Apple arrogance – just more of the same style over substance crap that I’ve put up with for the past 6 years because, until now, FCP was the best bang for the buck. But this time they’ve reached new heights of “hip” – they’ve EOL’d the most popular NLE on the planet because they wanted to “rethink the standard conventions.”

I need a martini.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Your using the word “Pro” too narrowly; there are people who get paid to make videos who use Imovie – while they may be pro’s that does not make Imovie a Pro App.

“Pro” means capable of handling the most challenging professional projects, not something that you can make a living with if you know the workarounds and your client isn’t too demanding.

It does not demean wedding videographers to say that an application that can’t handle multicam, that doesn’t support external monitoring or output OMF and XML is not a Pro NLE.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

compound clips, magnetic timeline (all things I and many, many others have been clamoring for for years)

Show me one post in the last 5 years that asked for anything like a magnetic timeline or compound clips.

There were many thing people were clamoring for and might get with X, but in order to get them you have to loose something else equally important.

This is not a PRO application, at this point. I’ll consider looking at X when it is. In the meantime if I need a 64 bit Pro NLE, I guess I’ll have to look elsewhere.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

But having recently had to integrate a whole lot of P2 material into a larger ProRes job, it would have saved a lot of time being able to transcode it directly as ProRes rather than having to do it all as a Compressor batch job later.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Why is there no reason to transcode P2 to ProRes?

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Thanks for the quick response. I was hoping the various elements that went into the clip name would also be imported separately, as is the case with Final Cut’s log and capture window. Let me offer this idea for the next Ki-Pro software upgrade.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Jeremy,

Thanks for the response. I was hoping AJA might have worked out the “XML juju” because it would be very handy for sorting the clips from my rather massive multi-camera shoot. Maybe in the future …

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

they could have set out to deliberately replicate the existing application, feature for feature and UI element for UI element, with entirely new code

I was with discreet *edit when they took 2 years to re-write their code. When they were done the new software had many great new features, new ways of handling rendering, clip management, multi-clips — all major improvements. But it was basically the same UI, the same software. The users were very happy – up until auto-desk EOL’d it, but that’s a different story.

So yes, I was hoping this was what Apple was going to do. Why not? NLE’s have been around for over 15 years, it is not a new field. They are not coming up with the I-phone here. Why try to re-invent the wheel – it was not as if editors around the world were clamoring for a new way to do this work – they just wanted the old way to be faster and less error prone.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

I think it has been pretty widely understood for some years now that the old Final Cut Pro codebase was going to have to go. Adobe did the same with Premiere a few years back (moving to Premiere Pro).

Re-writing the codebase is one thing, coming up with an entirely new NLE is another. Premiere did it because they were trying to go from hobbiest software to a professional product. FCP already had a large and fairly happy following who, for the most part, were looking for speed increases in rendering time and increased ability to handle various codecs natively and on the same time-line, along with better media management. There was no hue and cry for them to re-invent the wheel. While it sounds like they have addressed the various speed issues, only time will tell if they have indeed come up with an improved NLE, or merely a different one.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Craig –

Every case is different, but my work (broadcast) runs in seasons and we’re about to start a new season in June. I would have no problem upgrading FCP 7 in mid-season but I definitely would never switch to a totally new NLE in mid-season. Plus, having learned my lesson, I never buy version 1 software, not even 1.1. I need to see at least one 2 in there to make me a believer. It’s not the missing features I’m worried about so much as the esoteric bugs it takes months to find, especially on an initial release. So, for me, I’ll look at FCPX, and if I like it I’ll give it a try in 2012, but not sooner. What this means is that basically I’m stuck without an upgrade for another year. And so it goes …

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions