Marvin Holdman
Forum Replies Created
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Yes, it’s definitely deathwatch time for our old friend FCS. One of the big challenges moving forward is trying to explain this whole situation to our clients (or employers). It becomes somewhat more difficult when so many in our business can’t even agree on what just happened. I’m certain that your clients have FCPX on their system because someone told them it was newer and better. Quite obviously, whoever mentioned this too them either didn’t have the understanding to explain the problems with it, or simple didn’t believe there to be any.
Either way, you were put in a “regretful circumstance” by shenanigans. Circumstances many more of us are likely to be put in as time moves on. While it seems like this has been going on a while for us, people like the ones you describe (people who know little about the post production world in general) no nothing of it. Perhaps they saw the Conan barb when it was released, but that is probably the extent of there awareness that this program might not be just a simple upgrade.
Marvin Holdman
Production Manager
Tourist Network
8317 Front Beach Rd, Suite 23
Panama City Beach, Fl
phone 850-234-2773 ext. 128
cell 850-585-9667
skype username – vidmarv -
[Richard Johnson] – “This forum is for people talking about their experiences and what workarounds they would need to adapt, dead-ends prevent them from using it, problems it gives them, solutions it provides them etc… That is ultimately what these threads are useful for.”
See forum header…. Apple FCPX or Not: The Debate
The forum you are describing is here…. Apple FCPX Techniques
”Marvin Holdman
Production Manager
Tourist Network
8317 Front Beach Rd, Suite 23
Panama City Beach, Fl
phone 850-234-2773 ext. 128
cell 850-585-9667
skype username – vidmarv -
[Bill Davis] – ” the larger market wants something different than you do”
Once again, you’re assuming the “larger market” wants to edit video. I say most are in love with the notion but are bored by the craft. The actual process of editing is VERY droll to most. The fact is, most folks are just to busy to devote the time to this endeavor unless they pursue it as a career.
Marvin Holdman
Production Manager
Tourist Network
8317 Front Beach Rd, Suite 23
Panama City Beach, Fl
phone 850-234-2773 ext. 128
cell 850-585-9667
skype username – vidmarv -
[Bill Davis] – “in the light of where editing is most likely to be going for the greatest possible number of real-world broad spectrum editing tasks”
The implication is that by targeting the larger consumer market that an explosion of editing will follow. Well, the “revolution” has already happened (can you say iMovie?) and the common discovery was that no matter how “awesome” the tool might be, it still takes more time to edit video than most people care to spend learning and doing it. “Real-world broad spectrum editing task” require versatile tools that are flexible enough to conform to your ideas, not restrictive ones that limit your abilities by thinking for you. When desktop publishing came along you didn’t get an appreciable rise in the number of good designers. FCPX isn’t going to create a new market any more than iMovie has.
Marvin Holdman
Production Manager
Tourist Network
8317 Front Beach Rd, Suite 23
Panama City Beach, Fl
phone 850-234-2773 ext. 128
cell 850-585-9667
skype username – vidmarv -
[Bill Davis] – “It’s precisely that core re-alighment that lets it be so agile. And that means the new “lean and mean” build makes it less dependent on towers maxed out with ram and HD arrays, and more adaptable to laptops, tablets, and smart phones. ”
As long as people need speed (and time is money in this business) they will need ram, HD arrays and towers. The general trend before FCPX was towards more portable laptops, but as someone who uses both routinely, the smaller laptops, tablets and smartphones will not replace towers for sheer “getting the job done faster”. The tighter integration you espouse as one of the primary benefits would be great if it were a soup to nuts solution, but by Apples own words, they will be relying on third party implementation for a significant portion of functionality in the long run. I don’t see how this is system can remain “lean and mean” as it heads in this direction, not to mention the prospect of upgrades as we move forward with a host of vendors.
[Bill Davis] – “Right now, we’re working on about 30 interviews shot over 3 days of production in San Diego. With FCP-7 I would have had to Log and Transfer those cards and wait until everything was transcoded to ProRes before I could start editing. FCP-X allows me to open the Disc Images of the card files (6 cards in this case) into RAM and all the virtual footage is available INSTANTLY to start editing with. Hours and hours of prep saved. For all I know, other NLE’s might have had that before, but FCP-7 did not. Big efficiency win for me in this particular case.”
Not sure what files you are using, but we’ve been using XDCAM footage NATIVELY via Calibrated Software for some years now. Move the files from the camera to your hard drive and start editing. No conversions, no re-wraps, no pro-res. Makes the workflow efficient and keeps the data footprint small. FCPX can’t do this. XDCAM footage must be re-wrapped before it can be used doubling your data-footprint. While it’s true some of this takes place in the background, it still leaves you with twice the amount of footage to ultimately manage. Nothing new or revolutionary about FCPX here. And yes, PPro deals with XDCAM natively as well. Both are more efficient than FCPX.
[Bill Davis] – “I also think FCP-X’s “less timeline centric” orientation is going to win. The timeline itself comes from an era when nearly all professional deliverables were destined to be sold by time increments.”
Exactly how do you propose professional deliverables be sold? Even youtube has specifications on the commercials it runs before you get to see your selected content. I don’t think this notion is even remotely based in any future reality. As long as there are commercials, no matter WHAT the medium, there will be time increments to sell them. That is not going away, and frankly neither are commercials.
[Bill Davis] – “Part of the FCP-X bet is clearly that in the future less video will be consumed on TV and via plastic discs, and more as pure data on laptops, ipads, smart phones and thumb drives. ”
That is not the future, that is today. Every major NLE out there has some contingency for producing this type of deliverable, or at the very least, an established workflow to getting the product to one of a great many products to create it. FCPX didn’t invent digital media.
[Bill Davis] – “A company does it because they’re dissatisfied with the existing foundational construction. ”
In this case, they sacrificed functionality for “foundational construction”. Now they are going to rely on others to restore that functionality by banking on the “foundational construction”. The real question at this point is whether that “foundational construction” is going to even be relevant in 2 years when other NLE’s have had a chance to study the benefits you espouse and inevitably incorporate them into their products. You don’t think Adobe has people looking at integrating AV foundation? By the the time FCPX restores it’s functionality other NLE’s will have maintained theirs while incorporating these foundations. Which do you think will be better then?
Sadly, Apple has stacked the deck against themselves with this product. It appears you are advocating FCPX as the best option for those looking of an NLE. FCPX is absolutely great software for someone who does not need it to do a job. For everyone else, it is clearly lacking.
Marvin Holdman
Production Manager
Tourist Network
8317 Front Beach Rd, Suite 23
Panama City Beach, Fl
phone 850-234-2773 ext. 128
cell 850-585-9667
skype username – vidmarv -
[Bill Davis] – “Apple is the only company who has taken the big risk of tearing down their flagship editing suite in order to modernize it’s code for better performance in the future.”
But to what end? If FCPX added capabilities beyond anything that competing NLE’s already offer, then I might agree with this statement. It would appear that Apple changed it more to conform to their existing applications versus where they assumed the industry might be heading. Frankly, I think it has a lot more to do with how they envision these types of applications to end up being sold in the future, which is via an app store with a great many 3rd party add-ons, all of which Apple can collect a bit on without having to be involved in R&D and support. That being said, I think many (including myself) were attracted to FCS because of the tighter integration between OS, hardware and application. The direction they seem to be taking is quite far from “revolutionary”. In fact, I would say it appears a bit “de-evolutionary” for the sake of profit. Do I begrudge that? No. But to say this is going to be better is a bit of a leap, in my opinion.
[Bill Davis] – “They are FIRST out of the gate with a modern NLE gut and re-build. We’ll see whether the other major players see that and follow suit, or keep going with the older code base they have.”
I would agree that they are the first of the NLE’s to completely gut a successful program in favor of what they hope the future might be. It really all comes back to the very rational question, “why?”. Why would they feel the need to re-write the nom-clamature of an industry? Again, the only reason I can see is they are hoping to create a convergence of their product lines. While I can see this logic flourishing in a board room, I don’t really see it coming to fruition in a world where everyone else still calls a timeline a timeline. Other NLE’s have managed to evolve their code to 64-bit without the need to throw away all the hard work they’ve done before. As a consumer, I can’t really see why I would consider throwing away a decade or projects and experience in favor of a very sloppily released beta-version of Apple’s vision of the future. While I am happy to see and hear the outcome of this weeks round of updates, I don’t see them as earth shaking. Frankly, they were pretty much expected. Unfortunately, they only go to confirm what many have already pointed out… it’s going to be many, many months before Apple can restore functionality to anything near it’s EOL’d predecessor.
In the end, it doesn’t really matter if you’re “first out of the gate” with a product that doesn’t work.
[Bill Davis] – “Or maybe I’m wrong and absolutely everyone who decides to learn and support FCP-X at this point are wannabees or sheeplike drones who can’t understand “real” editing – if so, I still commend those folks for the initiative to gather together to risk their hard-eanred cash in order to engage in what they clearly see as self-improvement. ”
I think you are marginalizing those you don’t agree with in a statement like this. What most of the more experienced on here have pointed out is that the vocal majority in favor of this “new way” of thinking lack a solid background to make many of the pronouncements of how “awesome” this application really is. For those with the time and inclination, this is a great way to work with video. There needs to be a balanced understanding that it can only take you so far. At this point that is a two-fold statement. It will only take you so far editing, because if it’s inherent limitations. Most here acknowledge that while projects may be easy to start with FCPX, at some point you will run up against it’s rigid structure and limited communications with other programs and devices. The second, more esoteric limitation is just how far this program might take you in “the biz”. With it’s radically different way of describing structure and metadata, it will not do very much to prepare someone new to this business for the more consistent way things are described in the rest of the NLE’s of the world.
The notion that those who have been around and are voicing these concerns are somehow belittling anyone who might try is, on the whole, untrue. Most of the cow herd are simply pointing out the short-comings of this program as it exist, and by all indications, will grow. To the new adopters who might think this is their ticket to the future, you will most likely be hitchhiking. That’s the cautionary message that seems to be lost in the personal subterfuge.
[Bill Davis] – “The point is that if everyone universally agreed with the “FCP-X is a loser” meme that so many here are relentlessly propounding, those seats would NOT have been in such high demand.”
Obviously, there is no universal agreement on this, or you wouldn’t be here. It is a new product, which is cheaper than the others and accessible to a larger group of people. The fact that it is filling seats at the DVexpo is not a big surprise. The real test is not filling the seats, but how many of those certified will actually to on to use this application and how many will use this as a springboard to other NLE’s. I expect at least some of those seats were “evaluating” the feasibility of the product at some corporate benefactors expense. Not everyone will come to the cow and dig for such insight.
As has been ask of you before….
Exactly what specific features do you see FCPX having that no other NLE has? Give us a list. Please.
Marvin Holdman
Production Manager
Tourist Network
8317 Front Beach Rd, Suite 23
Panama City Beach, Fl
phone 850-234-2773 ext. 128
cell 850-585-9667
skype username – vidmarv -
One other thing to keep in mind….
If you have any inventory of FCP projects, XML imports to PPro are feasible, PROVIDED you have access to the FCP codecs on whatever system you might choose. If re-visiting FCP projects is a priority, PPro and Mac are your best bet.
Marvin Holdman
Production Manager
Tourist Network
8317 Front Beach Rd, Suite 23
Panama City Beach, Fl
phone 850-234-2773 ext. 128
cell 850-585-9667
skype username – vidmarv -
Careful Mitch, bringing politics into this forum might be a bit dangerous. It’s pretty flammable without that can of gasoline (to add yet another analogy).
🙂
Marvin Holdman
Production Manager
Tourist Network
8317 Front Beach Rd, Suite 23
Panama City Beach, Fl
phone 850-234-2773 ext. 128
cell 850-585-9667
skype username – vidmarv -
Sure, if you don’t want to go anywhere.
Marvin Holdman
Production Manager
Tourist Network
8317 Front Beach Rd, Suite 23
Panama City Beach, Fl
phone 850-234-2773 ext. 128
cell 850-585-9667
skype username – vidmarv -
I’m equally curious how “after merely 3 months of life” you can make such a bold pronouncement? If it hasn’t been around long enough to come to a conclusion that it is NOT the road forward, how can you be so certain it IS?
While I was encouraged to see the incremental update, and equally encouraged to finally hear some sort of message from marketing regarding the “target” user, I am still not convinced that this is the application presents a clear vision of the next 10 years of the industry. While Apple obviously has the resources to keep this product on a slow road for development, one must wonder if the new crop of people entering the industry will be enough to embrace the product and make it consequential in “future world”.
The one thing I think Apple might be banking on are the current changes in the industry (and world as a whole). Future world will probably be one where more and more editors are freelancers, working out of their bedrooms with hardware/software that they can conceivably afford.
As someone who has been on both sides of this scenario, I would say that those folks, more than anyone else, are going to need less restrictive editing software than FCPX. You might say that it will become less restrictive as it further develops. I think this is going to be the real question that the few left at this forum will be discussing for quite some time.
Whether or not the backbone architecture of this FCPX will ever be able to be as versatile as all of the other established NLE’s? At this point, it would appear to be an island, while all the other NLE’s would appear to be airports.
Marvin Holdman
Production Manager
Tourist Network
8317 Front Beach Rd, Suite 23
Panama City Beach, Fl
phone 850-234-2773 ext. 128
cell 850-585-9667
skype username – vidmarv