Michael Hancock
Forum Replies Created
-
[Chris Harlan] ” But if you have an older dongle–which I do–I’ve been told I can have it re-programed”
Yeah, you just upgrade it and blast your dongle like you did before. Honestly, I never understood why people hated dongles so much – if you move from system to system, they’re amazing.
The activation/deactivation I don’t care for on Avid though. If you forget to deactivate before you go home it’s a hassle, but you can still install it on an unlimited number of systems. You can only run one at at time though (through the server activation “dongle”).
I’m sort of ok with Adobe’s method – activate on 2 systems, you can’t run them concurrently. But if you lose a hard drive and reinstall, god be with you. It’s easier to own a license and run pirated software than deal with Adobe’s deactivation/activation nonsense.
I imagine Avid will do something to make their activation easier/better at some point, or reintroduce the dongle (or hopefully make it an option without the $300 cost).
But this is OT. This thread was about FCPX running on a Macbook Air. I fail to see how that’s so special – you can run Adobe, Media Composer, probably Media 100 and any other NLE on it too. It’s not a revolution by any means.
—————-
Michael Hancock
Editor -
[Chris Harlan] “Of course, if I don’t want to buy multiple copies it will have to always have a dongle sticking out of it.”
Avid doesn’t use a dongle anymore unless you call Inside Sales and buy one for $300. It’s all software activation now – install on unlimited systems, activate and deactivate at will.
—————-
Michael Hancock
Editor -
-
[Bill Davis] “You telling me that Premier is now calling Core Audio and AV foundation for it’s processing?”
I’m not a coder, but probably not. But I can tell you it has equal or better performance than FCPX has and it’s had it for at least a year (when did 5 come out? That was the breakthrough moment for Premiere).
Depending on your source footage, Avid has equal or better performance than FCPX it’s still a 32-bit app (P2, XDCam, Red – not so much with .h264). Perhaps that’s why I find it hard to get excited about Apple creating the OS and the NLE and thinking they’re going to tap into some amazing power – they couldn’t do it with FCP, why should FCPX be different? Most other NLEs punched out way more realtime power than FCP ever did, on the exact same Mac. What changed with X that Apple can finally exploit their own OS and hardware better than the competition?
[Bill Davis] “I freely admit I don’t know the other pacakges very well. That’s why I try to stick as close as possible to trying to discuss that features I work with and understand.”
That may be why you receive so many heated responses to your posts. You aren’t familiar with what Avid and Premiere offer, so some of what you promote as groundbreaking isn’t – it’s been available for a long time. I was editing on an Avid directly off P2 cards years ago. Premiere has been editing natively for a long time, burning through .h264 files like butter. All the transcoding you were doing? It wasn’t necessary if you chosen a different tool.
FCPX may well be a great tool for certain niches now and even more in the future. And it’s not about “professionals” vs. amateurs or prosumers. Those words have been beaten up and skewed so much lately they’ve lost their meaning. It’s about being familiar with what FCPX does different and measuring it against what the alternatives do. As you stated:
[Bill Davis] ” It does a lot differently. So what?”
The “what” is, does it do them more efficiently? If you’ve only ever known FCP, absolutely (minus the obvious things missing like monitoring and multicam – Apple has said they’re coming). But if you’re familiar with Avid or Premiere or Vegas or Edius or Media 100 you’re looking at it from another angle, and perhaps it doesn’t do a lot more efficiently, or not efficiently enough to warrant learning a new language and a new way to edit.
As to Adobe and Avid temporarily lowering their prices – that’s what’s great about FCPX whether it works for you or not. It’s lowered the cost barrier even more, for at least a little while. And means we all win.
—————-
Michael Hancock
Editor -
Rename the clip then. This isn’t FCP or Premiere – Avid uses a database to track the footage and it’s not connected to the name of the clip in your bin. It’s through some other metadata that you don’t see. Renaming a clip won’t send your footage offline.
If you’re still not comfortable with it, go to your bin headings and show the Comments field or create a custom field and type your names in there. But really – you can just rename the clips.
—————-
Michael Hancock
Editor -
[Bill Davis] “They are FIRST out of the gate with a modern NLE gut and re-build. “
What does this mean? Premiere has undergone two compete rebuilds recently, with the most recent being CS5, if I remember correctly. When they did it, though, they didn’t present a reinvention of the editing timeline and change all the terminology. But they definitely rewrote their application to handle modern video and audio formats a while ago – and they still handle more file formats natively than FCPX.
Or do you mean Apple are the first to throw everything away and present a new way to hammer the proverbial nail?
—————-
Michael Hancock
Editor -
The Boris Continuum Complete (BCC) effects come with Media Composer (unless you have the academic version or you purchased the download only version – it doesn’t come with the 3rd party bundle).
If you have the academic version I believe you can still buy the 3rd party bundle for about $200 – $300 from places like videoguys.com It’s worth it for the BCC filters alone, plus you get Sorenson Squeeze, AvidDVD, Smartsound and AvidFX (BorisRed).
Otherwise, there is no native transfer mode in Avid. It requires a 3rd party plugin.
—————-
Michael Hancock
Editor -
[Sean Thomas] “But the first part is obvious – these are all 10 year old apps. Not much change.
“There have been tremendous strides in the last 10 years, but the core function of editing has remained relatively unchanged. There may be a reason for that – wheels have been round since their inception and remained that way because they work.
[Sean Thomas] “Who has the balls to do something different – think differnt…..”
Different ≠Better. For different to be better there must be a demonstrable improvement. The onus is on Apple to prove that their UI (and change in terminology) is step forward in editing. All I’ve seen from them promoting it are a couple of videos on their website that show me they don’t know how to use the other software efficiently and seem to have solved problems with them that don’t actually exist. So I’m not convinced their vision of how to construct an edit and how a timeline should operate is in fact better. It’s certainly different, but I’m not seeing the improvement over what everyone else is doing. That’s what I’m hoping someone will show me.
[Sean Thomas] “Editing in X is like getting out of a 10 year old junker car with 200,000 miles and then sitting in a new Ferarri. Sleek, refined and FAST. Can’t get the whole family in there but it still works for some situations.”
How familiar are you with Media Composer 5.5 and CS5.5? If it’s been a while since you’re tried other, you should download the trials. They’re both incredibly fast (especially when you consider that Media Composer is still a 32-bit app). The interfaces haven’t changed too much, but under the hood the engines are getting faster and faster and faster.
—————-
Michael Hancock
Editor -
[Sean Thomas] “I like the comment that I read elsewhere: FCP7, Avid, Premier are examples of what editing has been like for the past 10 years. FCP X is what editing is going to be like for the next 10 years.”
Maybe you can explain what this means then since there hasn’t been an answer in the other thread – what is going to be the future? Metadata or the magnetic timeline?
Metadata, I say yes. That’s a given and many of the NLEs have rich metadata capabilities. That’s a no brainer.
The magnetic timeline? I say no. If you disagree, please explain why, specifically, the magnetic timeline is better than what’s been used until now. And sync lock isn’t a viable answer.
—————-
Michael Hancock
Editor -
[Bill Davis] “But FCP-X represents what it will be for the NEXT 10 years. “
What part of it represents the next 10 years? The focus on metadata or the UI? Because if it’s the UI, I disagree. If it’s the use of metadata, I agree but I don’t believe that makes FCPX the exclusive editor of the future. All the other NLEs can add that functionality but still maintain a standard editing interface.
I’m honestly curious, what part of FCPX is going to make it the future of editing? Because if it’s not the UI, everything else can and probably will be adopted (to a certain degree) adopted by the other NLEs, thereby removing any competitive advantage FCPX might now enjoy (in relation to metadata).
—————-
Michael Hancock
Editor