[Jim Wiseman]

Randy obviously had a lot to do with the look and feel of Premiere. I was unaware of which version was his last. Thanks for that, Oliver. It appears he left Adobe for Macromedia after 4.x was released and while 5 was in development. It does look as if he worked on 5 before going there. I Googled and found this on Wikipedia from the Final Cut Pro entry:

“Randy Ubillos created the first three versions of Adobe Premiere, the first popular digital video editing application.[5] Before version 5 was released, Ubillos’ group was hired by Macromedia to create KeyGrip, built from the ground up as a more professional video-editing program based on Apple QuickTime. Macromedia could not release the product without causing its partner Truevision some issues with Microsoft, as KeyGrip was, in part, based on technology from Microsoft licensed to Truevision and then in turn to Macromedia. The terms of the IP licensing deal stated that it was not to be used in conjunction with QuickTime. Thus, Macromedia was forced to keep the product off the market until a solution could be found. At the same time, the company decided to focus more on applications that would support the web, so they sought to find a buyer for their non-web applications, including KeyGrip, which by 1998 was renamed Final Cut.”

Apple eventually purchased KeyGrip and as it says above renamed it Final Cut.

I was a Macromedia and Apple VAR as well as an Avid and Media 100 reseller at that time and got a behind the scenes look at KeyGrip during its development at the Macromedia offices in SF. It was quite impressive even in early Beta. It is also ironic that it was designed to run on both Mac and Windows, and was to be the Windows software version for Media 100, the main reason I was interested in seeing it. Needless to say, the acquisition by Apple put Media 100 very far behind in acquiring/writing a Windows version for their very good i/o hardware card(s).

Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1, Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Pro X 10.2.2, Final Cut Studio 2 & 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1.6, Premiere Pro CS 5 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4K, Blackmagic Teranex, Avid MC: 2013 Mac Pro Hexacore, 1TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 2-D500: Helios 2 w 2-960GB SSDs: 2012 Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz, 24Gb RAM, GTX-680, 960GB SSD: Macbook Pro Retina 2015, i7, 500GB, M370X 2GB: Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 16GB RAM 250GB SSD, Multiple OWC Thunderbay 4 TB2 and eSATA QX2 RAID 5 HD systems

[Jim Wiseman]

Aperture 3.6 was designed to work with Yosemite, and I saw somewhere on the Apple site that Aperture 3.6 was explicitly excluded from a list of Apple applications that will no longer work with El Capitan. Hopefully that is true, but I can always keep a Yosemite partition available for Aperture. I have Lightroom 6 perpetual, and of course will be getting into it as backup, but feel no need to abandon Aperture as long as it fits my workflow and the hardware/OS runs it.

That is a good feature importing the stills to FCP Legacy. Edited: thought you wrote FCPX Have you tried it to X?. Aperture is also great at book publishing and slideshows to music.

Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1, Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Pro X 10.2.2, Final Cut Studio 2 & 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1.6, Premiere Pro CS 5 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4K, Blackmagic Teranex, Avid MC: 2013 Mac Pro Hexacore, 1TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 2-D500: Helios 2 w 2-960GB SSDs: 2012 Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz, 24Gb RAM, GTX-680, 960GB SSD: Macbook Pro Retina 2015, i7, 500GB, M370X 2GB: Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 16GB RAM 250GB SSD, Multiple OWC Thunderbay 4 TB2 and eSATA QX2 RAID 5 HD systems

[Jim Wiseman]

I’d have to say that photography has become a much larger market with everyone carrying a camera as part of their phone in their pocket. Also more democratic. But I have to say that a good Nikon or Canon camera with excellent lenses is going to be able to do a lot more in the hands of a professional than an iPhone or an Android. Apple did give up that market with the move to Photos, but I can tell you from professional experience that Aperture is a very competent non destructive photo editor and a much better DAM than Lightroom.

It is true that Apple stopped adding major features at about version 3.4.5, but I still prefer it to any other environment. It is very easy to roundtrip to any other photo editor, Photoshop, Affinity Photo, Topaz, OnOne Perfect Photo Suite, etc, and save directly back to an Aperture Library. The only thing I can think of that Aperture didn’t have that would be useful was lens distortion correction, but that was available as a plugin.

This whole situation with Aperture vs. Photos reminds me a lot of the discussion Bob Zelin began. There are many of us out here who mourn the demise of Aperture and are not looking forward to using Lightroom. I have over 100,000 photos going back to my first digital SLR I got in Japan in 2000. Aperture was designed from the beginning to be a digital camera photo application. Photos will sell more iPhones, but not everyone is happy about it being a replacement and not an addition.

Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1, Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Pro X 10.2.2, Final Cut Studio 2 & 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1.6, Premiere Pro CS 5 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4K, Blackmagic Teranex, Avid MC: 2013 Mac Pro Hexacore, 1TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 2-D500: Helios 2 w 2-960GB SSDs: 2012 Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz, 24Gb RAM, GTX-680, 960GB SSD: Macbook Pro Retina 2015, i7, 500GB, M370X 2GB: Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 16GB RAM 250GB SSD, Multiple OWC Thunderbay 4 TB2 and eSATA QX2 RAID 5 HD systems

[Jim Wiseman]

Aperture has very powerful keywording capabilities, searches on almost any metadata or combinations thereof. It has Album creation capability, you can drag photos into stacks in the browser, it uses Libraries similar to FCPX where everything, metadata, non destructive RAW adjustments and the original RAW or JPG photos, etc., are stored, self contained. It also can also do referenced libraries where the originals are stored on any number of external volumes. I could go on, but it would be like trying to explain the difference between Avid and iPhone video editing. Photos seems to be a folder based flat database with limited search and meatadata capabilities. I haven’t used it, but from the reviews, pros are definitely not considering it at this point. If you have limited needs and just want a place to store photos by date and folder with limited adjustments, it might be fine. Most pros will want much more control.

Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1, Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Pro X 10.2.2, Final Cut Studio 2 & 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1.6, Premiere Pro CS 5 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4K, Blackmagic Teranex, Avid MC: 2013 Mac Pro Hexacore, 1TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 2-D500: Helios 2 w 2-960GB SSDs: 2012 Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz, 24Gb RAM, GTX-680, 960GB SSD: Macbook Pro Retina 2015, i7, 500GB, M370X 2GB: Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 16GB RAM 250GB SSD, Multiple OWC Thunderbay 4 TB2 and eSATA QX2 RAID 5 HD systems

[Jim Wiseman]

Honestly don’t hold out much hope for Photos as an Aperture replacement. I really prefer the interface of Aperture to Lightroom. Asset management is much more powerful, and you are always in the same interface. Having to jump from room to room to perform functions in LR is inhibiting. Also, Lightroom’s asset management is pretty much just folder based. Searches and organization are more refined in Aperture. I did buy the perpetual license to LR5 and got the upgrade to 6.x. At least no rental. We’ll see what can happen with extensions to Photos, but for now I’m staying on the sidelines. If nothing better shows up in the next few years, I’ll probably have to use LR. Phase One shows hope with Capture One, and they bought Media Pro from Microsoft who rather messed it up after they bought it as iView Media Pro. If they can combine those two code bases they may have the winner I’m looking for. They have the best RAW conversion, by all accounts.

Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1, Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Pro X 10.2.2, Final Cut Studio 2 & 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1.6, Premiere Pro CS 5 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4K, Blackmagic Teranex, Avid MC: 2013 Mac Pro Hexacore, 1TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 2-D500: Helios 2 w 2-960GB SSDs: 2012 Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz, 24Gb RAM, GTX-680, 960GB SSD: Macbook Pro Retina 2015, i7, 500GB, M370X 2GB: Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 16GB RAM 250GB SSD, Multiple OWC Thunderbay 4 TB2 and eSATA QX2 RAID 5 HD systems

[Jim Wiseman]

As a heavy Aperture user I need a powerful DAM, Digital Asset Manager, for photos. The dropping of Aperture is my biggest gripe with Apple. I’m sure it had something to do with changes planned in El Capitan, but I’m sticking with it (Yosemite version) until Photos proves it’s worth. I should have at least 5 years with my current hardware.

Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1, Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Pro X 10.2.2, Final Cut Studio 2 & 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1.6, Premiere Pro CS 5 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4K, Blackmagic Teranex, Avid MC: 2013 Mac Pro Hexacore, 1TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 2-D500: Helios 2 w 2-960GB SSDs: 2012 Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz, 24Gb RAM, GTX-680, 960GB SSD: Macbook Pro Retina 2015, i7, 500GB, M370X 2GB: Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 16GB RAM 250GB SSD, Multiple OWC Thunderbay 4 TB2 and eSATA QX2 RAID 5 HD systems

[Jim Wiseman]

FCP 1-7 was sure as heck revolutionary in terms of cost. Ask an ex Media Composer dealer. How many people were editing video before FCP Legacy and how many afterward? It was a democratization, which many might dislike, I for one at the time, but it was a revolution. These upheavals aren’t always felt from advances in software and hardware, but in the cost and access equations. And besides, two of the three NLE’s you mention were designed by Randy Ubillos. Copies from the same father. At the time of the ascendance of FCP and it’s dominance of the broad middle and higher end, Premiere was pretty much a toy. Avid was the high end. I used to make at least 15k on every MC1000 I sold, including peripherals. Hard to lose that, but you can’t stop a successful revolution. You have to adapt.

FCP was a revolution, and, from my perspective, so is FCPX. My Macs will last at least 6 years and run FCPX at the current and most likely future versions for at least that long. I have three Macs that will run it still under Applecare, one MBP Retina this week. If the past is prologue, there may not even be upgrade costs for FCPX. On top of that I would have bought the Macs anyway for my photo business https://www.jimwiseman.com. I have several galleries selling prints at $500 up a pop.

If you have the cash flow to keep renting forever, be my guest. I’m sure it works for some. But disappearing projects and the specter of no further work unless you keep paying are a brick wall for me, and I think for many others.

Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1, Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Pro X 10.2.2, Final Cut Studio 2 & 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1.6, Premiere Pro CS 5 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4K, Blackmagic Teranex, Avid MC: 2013 Mac Pro Hexacore, 1TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 2-D500: Helios 2 w 2-960GB SSDs: 2012 Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz, 24Gb RAM, GTX-680, 960GB SSD: Macbook Pro Retina 2015, i7, 500GB, M370X 2GB: Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 16GB RAM 250GB SSD, Multiple OWC Thunderbay 4 TB2 and eSATA QX2 RAID 5 HD systems

[Jim Wiseman]

Here is a link that reports success with the proper graphics card in a 2012 Tower.

Quote: “It now seems that earlier models of the Mac Pro also support Metal, provided they’re upgraded to a supported GPU. For example, my 2012 MP running a non-flashed AMD Radeon 7970 supports Metal, and there have been reports that earlier (pre-2012) models of Mac Pro running 7xxx series GPUs also support the Metal API. So here’s a simple app I’ve put together that can let you know whether your Mac can take advantage of Apple’s new graphics technology:” (app follows)

Here is the URL: https://macminer.fabulouspanda.com/blog/index.php?post/2015/10/02/Does-your-Mac-support-Apple-s-new-Metal-API

Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1, Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Pro X 10.2.2, Final Cut Studio 2 & 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1.6, Premiere Pro CS 5 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4K, Blackmagic Teranex, Avid MC: 2013 Mac Pro Hexacore, 1TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 2-D500: Helios 2 w 2-960GB SSDs: 2012 Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz, 24Gb RAM, GTX-680, 960GB SSD: Macbook Pro Retina 2015, i7, 500GB, M370X 2GB: Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 16GB RAM 250GB SSD, Multiple OWC Thunderbay 4 TB2 and eSATA QX2 RAID 5 HD systems

[Jim Wiseman]

There is a thread on MacRumors that has speculation and some testing on the subject of Tower Mac Pros with various graphics cards and Metal. Also a test app you can run (at your own risk, but looks OK) to test for Metal capability. Requires El Capitan to run. General consensus seems to be it depends on the GPU. Apple stated anything after 2012 would work and the 2012 5,1 Mac Pro is essentially the same as the 2010. That being said, the 2012 5,1 is not on the official list. I’m sure we will hear of more experiments shortly.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-pro-5-1-and-metal-gpu-compatibility%E2%80%A6.1910084/

Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1, Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Pro X 10.2.2, Final Cut Studio 2 & 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1.6, Premiere Pro CS 5 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4K, Blackmagic Teranex, Avid MC: 2013 Mac Pro Hexacore, 1TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 2-D500: Helios 2 w 2-960GB SSDs: 2012 Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz, 24Gb RAM, GTX-680, 960GB SSD: Macbook Pro Retina 2015, i7, 500GB, M370X 2GB: Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 16GB RAM 250GB SSD, Multiple OWC Thunderbay 4 TB2 and eSATA QX2 RAID 5 HD systems

[Jim Wiseman]

Here is the list of Metal supported computers on the Apple site: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205073

Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1, Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Pro X 10.2.2, Final Cut Studio 2 & 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1.6, Premiere Pro CS 5 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4K, Blackmagic Teranex, Avid MC: 2013 Mac Pro Hexacore, 1TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 2-D500: Helios 2 w 2-960GB SSDs: 2012 Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz, 24Gb RAM, GTX-680, 960GB SSD: Macbook Pro Retina 2015, i7, 500GB, M370X 2GB: Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 16GB RAM 250GB SSD, Multiple OWC Thunderbay 4 TB2 and eSATA QX2 RAID 5 HD systems