[John Godwin]

“I am very much enjoying the irony in his thread”

Pretty wonderful.

Best,
John

[John Godwin]

[John Godwin] “Are you the same Mark that was on the Liquid Silver boards a lot some years ago? I see a lot of Silver DNA in some of the FCPX choices …”

Not me – liquid silver sounds like something I shouldn’t tried out at one of those festivals I used to go to when I was young and used to edit using a cutting block and glue!””

Mark,

Yeah, me too. I think editors who have only cut on electronic/digital systems have missed the very educational tactile experience of literally cutting apart slices of reality and rearranging them, abetted by that potent glue, of course.

First tv job I had the only way I could do dissolves (on 16mm film) was to shoot the shot, fading the shutter manually to closed with a little lever on the side of the Bolex, backwinding the film x number of frames, then starting the next shot and fading manually back up. In camera dissolves. Timing was pretty important.

Now, whatever system one chooses, the options are almost limitless. That’s why I sometimes am amazed by the lack of appreciation of how good we’ve all got it.

Then my adult son makes some smart remark about how I used to have to carve my shots frame by frame in stone with a hammer and chisel and I just get back to work.

Best,
John

[John Godwin]

With maybe one or two exceptions I don’t think anyone here has a mission to convert people to FCPX. The people who like it, generally, are of the “Hey, it’s great (or good) for me but I know it may not be the best for you” variety. Which I think is a perfectly reasonable approach.

Here, in the circles I travel, there seem to be a lot of one person shops that really love FCPX and appreciate it’s value. The larger operations I’m familiar with (not by any means all or even most) with much more hardware infrastructure seem to prefer more traditional systems. Which, again, makes sense. There’s a lot more riding on system changes.

I personally expect FCPX to grow and add capabilities and that eventually all those objections will go away. If you simply look at v1 FCPX to the current v7 the changes are pretty impressive and substantual. If that rate of improvement continues …

Best,
John

[John Godwin]

[Jeremy Garchow] “So, should we fight fire with fire?”

No, not really. We – I – should have more class than that. I usually regret posting something snarky within 5 minutes. But sometimes my patience wears thin, and, despite my best efforts, I’m only human. I do think “jumped the snark” is pretty funny, otherwise, though.

I don’t object to specific complaints about FCPX, not that my objections carry any particular weight here. I sometimes am foolish enough to take the bait and, for that and any other offense, I’m sorry.

And I particularly admire your patience and good cheer through all of this.

Best,
John

[John Godwin]

Between ThunderBolt (in the future) and my 15 or so FireWire drives I think I can live without eSata.

Here’s the thing – it makes no sense to me that Apple would go through the complete FCPX change and NOT have a master plan for maxing out the software/hardware combination, better integration than FCP Legacy (a purchased product) would have.

Perhaps it’s the time of life I’m in or just the confluence of events, but I look at my Mac Pro and all the boxes and machines attached to it (HDV, DVcam, Betacam) that I have used once or twice a year in the last year or two and just want to slim down, especially since I can accomplish everything I currently need to do with so much less now.

Best,
John

[John Godwin]

I have a bunch of FireWire drives that I see no reason to throw away, so I’m mostly using those with the ThunderBolt to FW adaptors. I have an eSata Raid on my old Mac Pro but I expect to sell that with the system and not worry about an eSata port. Eventually I expect to get a TB Raid but why waste all those FireWire drives? I’ve cut a couple of small things off the internal HD to see what would happen and that actually worked fine. I don’t think I’ll make that a habit, though.

To Bret’s point about the 2011 iMacs, I have a 2009. It handled FCPX pretty well and I haven’t done a direct comparison, but subjectively the new one seems much faster and smoother. And I suspect the graphics card in the new iMac is a major player in that.

Are you the same Mark that was on the Liquid Silver boards a lot some years ago? I see a lot of Silver DNA in some of the FCPX choices …

Best,
John

[John Godwin]

I have a 2008 Mac Pro, probably the only one they ever made that crashed as often running FCP. Never have figured out why, but I blame the VAR.

In any case I have the 27″ iMac, maxed out. Ordered OWC memory and maxed that out, too. I haven’t run any official speed tests, but this thing is solid, stable and blazing fast. I took an existing FCPX :30 project done on my 15″ Retina MacBook (which is already pretty fast) and tried it on my Mac Pro and the new iMac. A lot of effects and image work, including Magic Bullet Looks and ToneGrade, neither of which will play back at all on the Mac Pro without rendering.

On the Mac Pro:
5-10 minutes to render
No realtime playback

On the MacBook Pro:
2-3 minutes to render
Realtimeish, but showing maybe 10-15 frames per second

On the iMac:
15-20 seconds to render
Almost perfect realtime, dropping maybe 1-3 frames per second (again, with VERY heavy effects)

Why, it’s almost as if FCPX and the iMac were made for each other. Imagine that.

I’m extremely happy with the iMac. The screen reflections issue bothered me a bit with the 2009 iMac I also have, somewhat, but I actually hadn’t even remembered it as a factor until I read the Larry Jordan interview just now. At least in my setup it seems fine, no glare to speak of at all.

My expectation is that sometime before or around NAB someone’ll release a Thunderbolt magic box with all the inputs and outputs I need and that’ll take care of things for a while.

For me the question is, now, when Apple releases the Mac Pro replacement, will I actually need to pay what I assume to be a premium for what I assume to be even more power? Or is this iMac so good that “more” is a waste for my needs?

Oh, and anyone interested in a Mac Pro tower (sorry, I’m not in the office and don’t have the specs handy) with Kona 3 and breakout box) let me know before I put it on eBay).

Best,
John

[John Godwin]

I think I understand John’s reasoning. Even though I seldom post I read pretty much everything on both forums. I’ve learned a great deal from some of the tangents this forum particularly has taken.

It’s one thing to make reasonable points about limitations or flaws or missing features in FCPX (although I doubt many of the people posting here go to the Abobe or Avid forums and make equally hostile remarks as they do here). Those posts are informative and may even help make FCPX better in the long run. You, Chris, have contributed greatly to those, in my opinion.

Jihads and Jermiahads about the FCPX apocalypse, however, jumped the snark some time ago. They say much more about the person posting than the product.

Best,
John

[John Godwin]

I have FCPX on 3 systems, the most current being top of line Retina MacBook Pro, and either FCPX’s own stabilization or Tone Grade alone is enough to cause skipping until rendered. Just a lot going on, I think. Perhaps you could use proxies and then render at the end?

Best,
John

[John Godwin]

I don’t have the answers but I’m looking for them, too. I have a number of FCPX archives on a drive and am getting an error message when I try to copy them to another drive. It’ll be Wednesday before I get a chance to experiment/troubleshoot but I’d like to find out what the perimeters are, too

Best,
John