Why do we need to learn a new way of working when the ‘old’ way was just fine? Reinventing the wheel by making it square and then having to learn how to compensate for it’s corners seems like an exercise in futility. All they had to do was update the underpinnings of the software and leave ‘The Magic Timeline’ and the rest of that nonsense for the Harry Potter crowd.
Checkerboarding is a task only if you wait until the end to do it. Personally I don’t like the timeline doing anything for me because I don’t want to waste any time undoing what the computer may do automatically. Many of my colleagues finds the new paradigm very cumbersome. For instance all of my clips are labeled SC01S01AT01 (scene/shot/take). I don’t want the computer to start collating all my Med Shots or shots with people together and messing up my numbering systems. The timeline is a complete disaster. Apple simply doesn’t want the Broadcast & Theatrical market. They have even admitted it. Too bad FCP was a great program and was taking over the business. Now it will all be going back to Avid.
So to keep their customers happy, come out with FCP 8(64 bit) & 9 while they continue to develop FCP X(They got more money than the US). When FCP X is ready then release. It would have been a lot more successful.
The guys heart in the right place but it’s still ‘snake oil’. In FCP 7 you can cut audio & picture at the same time. On the secondary video track you can lengthen or shorten and won’t throw anything else out of sync. The clip collision ‘protection’ is bogus. If you set up your timeline properly (checker boarding your various organized tracks) to begin with you won’t run into any of these errors ergo there was no need for idiot proofing FCP. I guess if you’re cutting talking heads it’s pretty useful. Make your radio cut then pepper in your b-roll but for me these so called improvements are cumbersome in narrative story telling.