[Mark Dobson]

With the CC debate moving out it will get a bit quiet here . . . .

[Mark Dobson]

[Walter Soyka] “They’re also all examples of dominant players in their niches who are nonetheless continuously improving their products, keeping prices stable, allowing third-party access, and making sure customers can interchange their own data.

I’m interested to see what the class of cloud-only benefits by nature for creative pros could be. I don’t mind at all if CC is better for Adobe if it’s also better for me.”

I appreciate where you are coming from Walter. Could the quote above be applied to FCPX and Apple or the App store?

Are we talking about what you call things? Could the App store have been called the Creative Cloud App store?

I think that Adobe products are truly brilliant it’s only this new business model I object too.

[Mark Dobson]

[Walter Soyka] “”Our plans for Creative Cloud are much greater than the applications themselves. Our vision is to remove friction from the creative process and make it more productive and connected.”

Seems like they are creating a whole lot of friction right now.

Whichever way you look at it this whole CC enterprise is to do with creating a sound business base for Adobe and corralling their customers into a neat line of grateful supplicants.

Any more lofty sentiment towards the future of the creative process are negated by an unfair and topdown approach to their customer base.

“Freedoms just another word for nothing left to lose”

[Mark Dobson]

How sweet to be a Cloud

Floating in the Blue!

Every little cloud

Always sings aloud.

“How sweet to be a Cloud

Floating in the Blue!”

It makes him very proud

To be a little cloud.

[Mark Dobson]

This article seems to sum up the situation from the consumers point of view in a pretty straightforward manner.

And it’s interesting to look at the CC debate removing the ‘Creative’ hyperbole. Editors dependent on Adobe products will have no choice but to stick with their ‘old’ software or sign up for the rest of their working lives.

The only Adobe product I use is Photoshop, and less frequently as many of the tasks are now carried out within the new Apple suite of FCPX, Motion and Compressor. I’m still using DVD Studio Pro on the rare occasions that I need to create DVDs. I was contemplating buying the latest version of Photoshop but think I’ll stick where I am. I got into a long online chat type of conversation with an Adobe sales rep who was eventually able to confirm that any money I paid by subscription would not be accounted for should I then decide to buy the product and that on top of that I would also need to pay 50% of any outstanding balance on my annual subscription. So that stopped me in my tracks.

But where do we stand with FCPX ? Ok, we own it in the sense that we paid money for it but can we re-sell it? Does it have any value outside of its usage? Should I get knocked over by a bus tomorrow will my wife be able to continue using it ( to edit the funeral service ), can I bequeath my App Store Account? Could people contact me via a seance to get my account details? Sure thats a facile thought but it would seem that ultimately our ownership of any software is pretty ephemeral and the difference between buying Adobe or Apple software is that you only pay for the Apple software once. With CC you will be constantly re-buying an incrementally improved product over and over again.

[Mark Dobson]

[Sandeep Sajeev] “I love it, it’s fast, slick and very user friendly. I have been using it instead of Photoshop for almost 2 years. I only go into PS when something comes across with Layer Styles, as this doesn’t translate in Pixelmator. Once it does, it will be a good alternative for video editors”

Thanks for the heads up. Not heard of Pixelmator before but having just purchased and had a brief play around I have to say that I agree with you Sandeep.

With its ability to export layers (in Photoshop format) it works well with FCPX.

[Mark Dobson]

Well I’ve set my set top recorder and look forward to watching this programme.

As is often the case your elegant timeline belies the amount of work you will have put into this project.

What is it specifically you like about working with X for this type of programme?

[Mark Dobson]

[alban egger] “1. import right into a keyword collection”

Yes – it used to work and was a great time saver.

Did it stop working with 10.0.6?

[Mark Dobson]

I’d love to see a send to Motion function but more importantly a send to Logic for audio sweetening and mix down roundtrips.

Small thing, but I’d like to be able to remap the ‘position’ keyboard shortcut to the left of the keyboard.

I’d like a more sophisticated shape mask for colour correction – bezier?

I’d like Apple to develop their own in App Event Manager – it’s such a basic function that it should be incorporated into the Event browser. Likewise with a preference manager.

I would like the Video and Audio effects to be split with a separate button.

I would like greater control over compound clips. Many people are using them to construct programme segments or even whole programmes, using them as projects but there is no ability to delete render files. Be great if I’ve got that wrong!

[Mark Dobson]

It is possible to get copies Final cut Studio ( containing DVD Studio Pro ) on ebay.

There is one up at the moment for £24 with 2 days to run.