[Marcus Moore]

It was a tiered approach. By the time I sat down in the big suite I’d already made all my decisions on dual VHS systems. You make all your mistakes there where you don’t care about quality.

It was very much an offline/online approach.

[Marcus Moore]

I edited on film in the early 90’s, but I quickly discovered I was WAY too messy. My edits always ending up being noticeable, and I hated that.

While I was in high school I’d invested in a VHS deck with a flying erase head, which created clean edits. So even if I had to deliver on film, I’d always record the rushes projected off a screen, take them home and figure out all my edits that way- so I wasn’t having to make decisions with the film cutting.

Having been exposed to the digital side of things fairly early, I could tell that was the way things were going- one way or another. Tape to tape suites were the closest I could get for a while. But I only cut that way for a year or two.

[Marcus Moore]

It certainly didn’t seem unintuitive to me when you consider the systems we were moving from, room-sized A/B BetaSP suites. I was already dabbling with things like VideoToaster & Lightwave3D before AVID became accessible in my area. So AVID wasn’t that huge a stretch- comparatively.

[Marcus Moore]

Based on the articles I’ve seen putting together closest comparable machines with these internals- yes.

I think Apple is actually swinging an amazing deal on the GPUs from AMD.

All you have to do is look at this forum to see many people (including myself) coming to the conclusion that the top of the line machine would probably be closer to 11K or 12K. So, yeah, I’m satisfied if that’s the price.

And for me personally, I don’t expect to be able to put together a machine myself and NOT have it cost less than what Apple offers. If you’re willing to put in the leg-work: the research, the parts hunting, the maintenance, etc… then you SHOULD see a savings, and I think it’s silly to dig Apple when their prices are matched against the “tinkerer’s price”. If you’re willing to put in that work, then reap the benefits-

For me, I’d rather pay that slight premium on my machine and not have those responsibilities, and just get down to editing.

Sorry if I got sidetracked there.

[Marcus Moore]

I don’t think people should be confused that the GPUs only facilitate 4K resolutions (though they do). With FCPX and Motion (and seemingly with updates to Resolve, and Adobe CC) the Render speed benefits will be noticeable at ANY resolution. Complex AE (some things) or Motion comps, noise reduction in Resolve, FCPX effects that support Open CL- all these will see HUGE boots in speed. I think the performance of 2 D700s is going to shock a lot of people (compared to existing Mac systems)

[Marcus Moore]

If the info Apple provided me is correct, CDN$9,700 or probably US$9,500 (no including any business discount- which for me will be 5%)

[Marcus Moore]

You’re absolutely right- when cutting picture only in the multi cam, audio edits should not be added (though they seem to be invisible until you start putting effects on them). I’ve submitted feedback to Apple on this and if you haven’t you should as well. But hopefully it will be a moot point after 10.1.

As for trimming, while I was an AVID editor for 6 years, it’s been so long since then I can’t remember what the advantages were. Everyone seems to say it’s the gold standard, so it must be at least sort of true.

So I’d welcome some advancement in that regard.

[Marcus Moore]

All I’m saying is when you have a list of 1,000 “must have’s”, and a limited amount of time to do them in, unquestionably “essential” stuff is going to get left off the list.

Of course joining thru edits are important, but so is multi cam, broadcast monitoring, XML, or any number of other things that didn’t make it into the first release.

To make my position crystal clear, I still believe the best way to have managed this 7 to X transition would have been to position it more like OS9 to OSX, where Final Cut users could track the progress of development and jump on when the software had the features they needed.

In a way, that’s what they did- just not in a very clear or PR friendly way. 😉

[Marcus Moore]

Limiter and compressor get you a long way.

I recently spent $800 on Izotope RX3 for more muscular noise-reduction. It’s not magic, but it’s definitely a huge step up from the built-in options.

[Marcus Moore]

I think you’re setting yourself up for disappointment with 1, 2, and 3.

Those ideas are integral to the way FCPX works, and I don’t see the development team doing a 180 degree turn on them now.