[Paul Dickin]

[Chris Harlan] “There is a committee feel to the software…”
Hi
I’m not sure about that.
Here’s an archived posting from 2003 about Randy Ubilos’ intrangency over FCP:
I think we’re all agreed that the scratch disk settings do not work the way we’d like…
FWIW I had this discussion with Randy Ubilos – lead architect for FCP – and on the basis of that conversation I gave up any hope of it ever changing from the current system. Since I don’t bother fighting battles that are pointless and have no chance of success, I’ve just decided to learn to live with it. Makes me happier, but storing scratch disks with projects (not global preferences) will be a high prioirity on my feature request list.
Philip Hodgetts.
https://forums.creativecow.net/archivepost/8/309943

I reckon its a committee of two – Randy and Steve.

[Paul Dickin]

[Herb Sevush] “Explain to me just where AV Foundation made a “drop in replacement” impossible? Just saying, well it’s AV Foundation, doesn’t explain anything. I don’t see what the nature of the video file has to do with the design of the timeline. Does it contain video and audio. Can the tracks be separated and moved separately. So where’s the special magic?”
Hi
Does it contain video and audio? Yes but no but! 🙂 (British TV catchphrase).
It also contains metadata.

Everything that the Project in FCP 7 would have contained is rolled into the AV Foundation assets you are editing with, and this metadata is stored by the OS as part of the movie file.

AV Foundation uses compositions to create new assets from existing pieces of media (typically, one or more video and audio tracks). You use a mutable composition to add and remove tracks, and adjust their temporal orderings. You can also set the relative volumes and ramping of audio tracks; and set the opacity, and opacity ramps, of video tracks. A composition is an assemblage of pieces of media held in memory. When you export a composition using an export session, it’s collapsed to a file.
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/AudioVideo/Conceptual/AVFoundationPG/Articles/00_Introduction.html

So in the old FCP 7’s terms FCP X has no Project – ie no core of XML.
There is just metadata saved in a CoreData database, that relates to the ‘mutable compositions’ that your timeline GUI is concocting as you edit…

Something like that – I just read about this stuff, others far cleverer than I write this sort of ‘special magic’ 🙂

[Paul Dickin]

Hi
Is it 1.8 million FCS 3 users? So the droves of users still on earlier versions are additional to that?
I have 1 FCS 3 licence, but 9 previous ‘user’ licences/SNs from versions 2-6.
That whole kit and kaboodle comes to a lot more revenue to Apple than the retail price of FCS 3…

[Paul Dickin]

[Marvin Holdman] ” I signed it, and will sign any other petition out there…”
Another one:
https://www.petitiononline.com/fcbetter/petition.html

Add ability to import and export XML files natively;
Add ability to import previous Final Cut Pro projects natively;
Add ability to export OMF files natively;
Add ability to change a project’s frame rate after it’s been created;
Add ability to read and write projects stored on an network or SAN volumes;
Add ability to switch the Final Cut Pro X layout to a more traditional 2-monitor setup;
Add ability to preview true video signal, independent from the 2-monitor setup;
Add support for Multicam editing;
Add support from capturing and recording to tape, not only via capture now but also via batch capture and print to tape natively;
Add support for importing image sequence files such as DPX and OpenEXR;

[Paul Dickin]

Hi
So what’s happened since then?
Steve’s health problems are what’s happened. 🙁

So now he’s delegating.
At the moment his focus is directed, like the Eye of Mordor, on the Cloud and his new mothership headquarters building….
The orc-masters are handling this sort of routine roll-out* 🙁

An example (possibly):
When Steve was away awaiting his liver transplant in early 2009 Apple rolled out the Nehalem Mac Pro line.
The 2008 Mac Pros were excellent value for money – competetive with any Windows PC manufacturer’s product.
The 2009 Nehalem quad (and the 2010) carried an ‘Apple Tax’ of about $1000 compared to other similar computers.
Now obviously Steve wasn’t going to interfere in such a lucrative pricing strategy.
But I think it shows that the new managers ‘think different’ in many ways from the Jobs-centric Apple of old 🙁

* The FCP X roll-out: as David Pogue writes, “Apple blew it”. 🙁

[Paul Dickin]

Hi
Presumably it gives you ProRes etc (which came with FCP 7) if you have no installation of FCS 3?

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1396
This update adds the following video codecs for use by QuickTime-based applications:
Apple Intermediate Codec
Apple ProRes
AVC-Intra
DVCPRO HD
HDV
XDCAM HD / EX / HD422
MPEG IMX
Uncompressed 4:2:2

[Paul Dickin]

Hi
This recent thread says you should make an Archive of it first:
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/335/5136

[Paul Dickin]

Hi
LOL! (at last…) 🙂
Tell me, someone’s found Bruce and Steve categorically ordered that all Wonder Yaks were to be dead “no more! … ceased to be! Expired and gone to meet ‘is maker!”

[Paul Dickin]

[Gary Huff] ” …à la the MacBook and the MacBook Air…”
Hi
It was the late-2008 aluminium unibody 13″ Macbook that shipped without a FW port – that was the subject of the petition. The early-2009 plastic MacBook did retain the port, unchanged.

In mid-2009 Apple rebranded the aluminium unibody 13″ as a MacBook Pro, with the FW port reinstated.
So that was a success.

Since it was the music production people who needed a FW port to run a multi-channel audio interface into Logic they were never concerned about the MacBook Air – it was too expensive and too underpowered for professional music production.

[Paul Dickin]

Hi
The likelihood of Apple marketing changing their marketing and naming because of a petition?
Zilch.

The likelihood of Apple giving away the patents and core code from Shake, FC Server, Motion, Color?
Zilch

The likelihood of Apple breaking QuickTime 7 and FCS 3 sometime relatively soon as they continue to port iOS 5 into OS X 10.7/8?
Highly likely.

That leaves the status quo – freeze your FCS 3 workstations pre-Lion.
Which is what Apple has done.
Albeit in a draconian and arbitrary way 🙁