Shawn Miller
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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[Oliver Peters] “Little or nothing benefits from the 12-core”
Except for most advanced 3D rendering engines… in that case, 12/24 slower cores can be better than 6/12 faster ones.
Shawn
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[Walter Soyka] “Sidebar — let’s say there’s some new Mac Pro sizzle core action days away from release. Who here will place an order immediately? Who here used to buy Mac Pros, but will now stick with iMacs or MBPs instead?”
Same question to you, Walter. Are you considering a Mac Pro purchase on day zero?
Thanks,
Shawn
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[Greg Andonian] “Every time I read about the changes in Windows 8 I kept telling myself that it’s not going to be as bad as it sounds. But it’s starting to look like my fears were justified.”
I know people who are using Win 8 as their main OS, today… it’s not that bad. Watch enough usability studies, and you’ll see users like this regardless of OS or software application.
Shawn
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[Chris Harlan] “Those Sonic Foundry guys really were some of the sharpest tools in the shed. I used it mostly as a DAW, and it was a very good one.”
I completely agree, those folks at Sonic Foundry were sharp. I cut a music video for a friend a number of years ago (in Vegas 4 I believe). We had locked the edit and were about to start finishing, when he decided that he wasn’t crazy about some of the vocals. Instead of going back to Protools to re-record, we plugged in a microphone and recorded a new track in Vegas, he liked it so much we re-recorded all of his background vocals (8 in all, I think). Long story short, we ended up bringing the entire mix into Vegas, complete with VST plugins, processing (reverb, flanges, etc.) and routing in and out of hardware compressors… not in a separate project, but into the actual edit… without a dropped frame in sight.
Vegas was my ‘go to’ editor for years, because it was so flexible and it could do so many things… even though no one had heard of it, and it had a quirky UI. Unfortunately, after the acquisition by Sony, Vegas just seemed to get buggier with each release. I think I went to Premiere full time after CS2, as I started doing more compositing and 3D work… the CS Suite just seemed to make more sense by then.
At any rate, for any FCP users (Legacy and X) who are planning to go bi-platform… seriously, you owe it to yourself to at least try Vegas, especially if you have a heavy bent towards audio.
Shawn
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[Bill Davis] “I will quietly and respectfully note that this is *you’re* definition of what Mac users need. Mine is decidedly different.”
I think you may have misunderstood what I said, Bill. I’m not trying to tell you what Mac users need. I was responding to Gary’s statement “no company gets the juices flowing like Apple.” I simply disagree with that notion… there are a lot of great companies doing innovative work, and some of them inspire the same kind of passionate debate and discussion that we were talking about earlier. I just don’t think the world of post production revolves around Apple.
[Bill Davis] “The people who need to fully understand all the editing programs you note above are the decision makers in the shop/workflow/hardware managerial class – and system integrators.”
First, not all of the companies I listed develop NLE software – perhaps if you got out more… just kidding. If you go back and read what I wrote, you may note that I listed software companies that have products and technologies which are every bit as innovative as Apple’s… though I never named any specific applications. Second, I never said anything about needing to understand a bunch of editing programs. I just think it’s (generally) a good practice to get outside of your comfort zone once in a while, and see what other tools, processes and platforms other people are using in their day to day work.
[Bill Davis] “This thinking brings to mind another thing that’s always surprised me…
I’ve known quite a few professional writers in my time. A fact that’s alwsy surprised me is that someone who’s superb at writing advertising copy, or screenplays, or novels, or technical manuals – is hardly ever at that same level writing in any other genres. They can be competent – but very seldom are they really excellent.”
You seem to be responding to something I never said, or implied. Where did I express any opinions about being a specialist as opposed to being a generalist? Again, I was just making the point that there are a lot of companies providing innovative products and technologies for creative professionals… companies that spark lively discussion and heated debate… companies that aren’t Apple.
[Bill Davis] “You can certainly be competent with with quite a few. But it’s hard to excel above the pack if you’re always trying to be a “jack of all trades.”
Those who disagree, feel free to make your case.”
Okay, I’ll bite…. but for the record, this is NOT what we were originally talking about. I seem to remember you having an exchange with Walter Soyka on this subject a while ago. Being a generalist myself, I tend to agree with Walter’s comments in the thread below.
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/335/25161
[Walter Soyka]“Gathering skills that span disciplines, though — like an editor learning compositing — that’s the foundation of being a generalist. The fact that software developers sell suites instead of products, and that every editor here knows how to pull a key speaks to how generalized our industry has become.
Editorial, compositing, audio, color grading, motion graphics — these are all areas of specialty, with room for high degrees of expertise and nuanced expression out of the reach of anyone other than a specialist — and they are all practiced by generalists such as yourself and most of us here.
Everyone knows the first half of the saying, but the second half is rarely heard. It seems apropos to emphasize here:
Jack of all trades,
Master of none,
But ofttimes better
Than master of one.” -
[David Cherniack] “NLE’s must do a wide variety of tasks for a wide variety of uses and users. They must interface with the analogue world of a wide spectrum of hardware. I can’t imagine that any 3D software, as complex as they are to learn and use, is as complex to write.”
David,
I’m not a software developer either, but it seems like the work of developing a program that can cut 2D images and audio, would be a much smaller technical challenge than writing a high end 3D package with all the bells and whistles (rigging, texturing, modeling, lighting, rendering, scripting, etc.) I would assume (for instance), that the work involved in writing a video encoder pales in comparison to the effort needed to make a decent unbiased 3D renderer. I’m willing to admit if I’m wrong… but this is what makes sense to me. 🙂
Shawn
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[Gary Slickman] “This is such a passionate, evocative forum that stimulates thinking about a myriad of pertinent topics on so many levels. Marketing strategy of the hardware/software providers, editing techniques and philosophies, technical issues that delve deep into the inner workings of the “man behind the curtain”, adversarial relationships are only a few of the themes that have led to high energy, enlightening and entertaining, exchanges.”
Yes, I wholeheartedly agree here. But that seems to be the purpose of a debate forum, no? The other Cow forums you mentioned aren’t.
[Gary Slickman] “Whether they are right, wrong or misunderstood, no company gets the juices flowing like Apple.”
Now this, I have to disagree with. IMO, it may be more fair to say “no company gets MY juices flowing like Apple.” I’ve felt for a long time that FCP users (and Mac users in general) have needed to ‘get out’ a bit more and understand the wider world of post production. Apple certainly is innovative, but no moreso than Autodesk, Avid, Adobe, Pixologic, Nextlimit, Maxon, Triple Squid Software Design, Anderson Technologies or any of the few thousand other hardware and software vendors that service the creative community. Want to see passion, debate and theater? Go to reduser.net and suggest that The Epic X is a desperate attempt make a true digital cinema camera that can compete with Arri’s Alexa. 🙂
Shawn
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[Gary Slickman] “The passion of the nay sayers and haters are going to be sorely missed once they migrate over to the bland fantasy land of PP6…I think you’ll miss us as well.”
Sooo… is the concern that too many former FCP users are curious or excited to try the CS6 release, or are you disappointed that there isn’t enough debate on the Premiere Pro and Smoke forums? Would it be better if the ‘X Sux’ and ‘X Rulz’ threads were more evenly distributed thoughout the Cow?
Shawn
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[Walter Soyka] “If Adobe keeps tightening integration and improving performance as they have been doing over the last few releases, and if they pay attention to offline/online interchange, media management, color management, and perhaps native DI codec support, I think that Production Premium will be a viable contender for high-end finishing work.”
This statement reminded me of a 2008 blog post from Stu Maschwitz.
https://prolost.com/blog/2008/10/1/what-should-adobe-do-with-premiere-pro.html
Very interesting in the context of this discussion, and the upcoming CS6 and Smoke 2012 release. 🙂
Shawn