Apple doesn't make very much money from the television/film production community.
Final Cut Studio used to cost $1000. If a company installs 100 seats, they make $100,000 from a single client and sell 100 (likely high-end) Macs. If a film school bases a program around Final Cut, they have to fit classrooms full of Macs and also license the product.
Apple even said at the FCP Supermeet that out of new NLE purchases, Apple make about 55% of the sales volume, Avid make 15% and Adobe 20%. If Avid can keep a business running on 15% then I'd say Apple with 55% must be doing ok, despite the price difference.
It's not going to be anything compared to hardware sales:
but you can't estimate how many hardware sales are made because of the software. Did all of the 2 million customers already own Macs? I doubt it. Apple is already as synonymous with editing as it is with graphic design.
Increasing the volume of the target audience is fine but the bad decisions made in FCPX also affect those people. It's not that Apple has designed a product without features that only professional workflows need, the bad decisions create a restricted workflow for everyone and it was unnecessary.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TenoBell
You make it sound like this was an accident and not purposeful.
They might have been trying to turn it into a product like Avid Studio:
but even consumers need to modify files outside of FCPX after they have been used in the timeline - a collaborative workflow isn't just about other users but other software like iPhoto, Garageband, Motion etc. Say for example, you put a film together and you just have to use a fairy dust transition. You can do it in iMovie so you naturally expect to open up your clip in iMovie and save it in the same place and be able to load it back into FCPX; you can't. Obviously for the odd effect, you can do a reimport but for an entire timeline of changes, having to manually reinsert every edit every time is not feasible.
I also don't think consumers ever want to see the offline icon appearing - I reckon they'll get a lot of support calls about that. Your instinctive reaction is to want to tell it where the clip is by e.g right-clicking and reconnecting but FCPX won't even let you do that. As I say, FCP 7 just figured it out by itself in real-time for timeline changes and asked you when files were moved and auto-reconnected entire folders with a click. If they make a program harder to use than the old version then that's taking a step back.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmurchison
With XSAN support coming in a future update clearly there's a strategy for
collaborative environments.
That doesn't fix the issue about modifications to shared files being acceptable though. You can use shared storage but if someone else colour corrects or keys a clip you have in your timeline, it will go offline for you instead of just being replaced transparently.
Final Cut Studio used to cost $1000. If a company installs 100 seats, they make $100,000 from a single client and sell 100 (likely high-end) Macs. If a film school bases a program around Final Cut, they have to fit classrooms full of Macs and also license the product.
This is an easy one to address.
The far majority of Apple's revenues are coming from the iPhone and iPad. Of its Mac sales about 70% are notebooks. So desktops to professionals account for a very small percentage of the entire picture.
Quote:
but even consumers need to modify files outside of FCPX after they have been used in the timeline - a collaborative workflow isn't just about other users but other software like iPhoto, Garageband, Motion etc.
Marvin you keep going over the same things over and over. Apple has said updates and more functionality are coming. We'll just have to wait and see.
Quote:
I also don't think consumers ever want to see the offline icon appearing - I reckon they'll get a lot of support calls about that.
This is already the case in iMove. That doesn't change for consumers moving up from that.
With XSAN support coming in a future update clearly there's a strategy for
collaborative environments.
I'm keen on finding out more seeing as how Lion Server has XSAN Admin built in
and Lion has XSAN Client.
Back to Ubillos.
Lion should enable some nice features but FCPX has to straddle Snow Leopard/Lion so we're likely not seeing the full spectrum of functionality until Lion gains many more users. I suspect in 18 months people will look back and marvel at how far FCPX has come along with Apple updates and great 3rd party tools.
It will be interesting to see how expensive FCP X turns out to be, once you add enough third party plug ins and hardware to give it the functionality that was lost.
If this is Apple's plan-- to offer core functionality at a mass market price while making that core extensible enough to get it up to speed for pros (while not ending up paying Avid prices to get there) then they may yet have some success.
But that core functionality will have to be pretty attractive to convince post houses that it's worth the trouble against just getting something that does most things out of the box. And of course they'll be swimming upstream against the ill-will they've pointlessly engendered to date.
One possible selling point is what they've done with Motion, wherein you can save an effect as a template to be used directly in the FCP timeline (if I'm understanding that bit correctly). It that can be done with third party software-- if, for instance, you could set up your audio parameters in Pro Tools and access them directly in FCP-- that would be pretty sweet. It would in effect turn compatible software into plugins.
I think iMovie and FCP X show unmistakable signs of having been designed with touch friendliness in mind. That may be where Ubillos has been going with the UI and why he's received the blessings of top management (it remains my theory that Apple didn't ever expect FCP X to met with anything but derision by the pro editing community and actually doesn't much care).
In fact, I suspect that Apple/Jobs think touch is sufficiently important that they're willing to roll with the poor reception that FCP X has received, because the Big Plan is, in fact, something like FCP X on something like an iPad, with high bandwidth wireless taking the place of ports.
It's an appealing scenario if you don't think terribly hard about the nitty gritty particulars of cutting a show, but maybe they have actually thought that through as well and have some ideas about how that might work somewhere down the road. Except they're building towards a world that doesn't exist yet, so it remains to be seen if they can even get back in the door once all the pieces are in place to make it functional. Or if editors will ever consider a touch interface "functional."
Of its Mac sales about 70% are notebooks. So desktops to professionals account for a very small percentage of the entire picture.
iTunes also accounts for very little - sometimes there are other factors to consider. The little chunks may seem relatively small but even 5% of $6b = $300m per quarter will come in handy for something. They're going to need to buy stationary for their new office so that budget has to come from somewhere.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TenoBell
Apple has said updates and more functionality are coming. We'll just have to wait and see.
They have but no specific dates and no real mention of the workflow decisions. The points they have mentioned are features that get tacked on top.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TenoBell
This is already the case in iMove. That doesn't change for consumers moving up from that.
That makes two apps that need fixing. Sometimes Apple doesn't cater for getting from a problem to a solution - leaving you with an offline message really doesn't make for a good experience.
Quote:
Originally Posted by addabox
In fact, I suspect that Apple/Jobs think touch is sufficiently important that they're willing to roll with the poor reception that FCP X has received, because the Big Plan is, in fact, something like FCP X on something like an iPad, with high bandwidth wireless taking the place of ports.
I think the idea of using touch is great - some parts of FCPX actually feel kind of broken using a mouse. Like dragging a clip from the Events window, it keeps wanting to set the select state first. This makes sense for touch because a dragging action defaults to scroll. The previews on everything point to finger-friendliness too. All they'd need to adjust are the Events bin and options panels, which they can do with the pop-over menus. The binaries have lots of references to multitouch e.g:
Obviously the trackpad is multitouch but it would behave the same on the iPad. You could imagine actions like breaking apart or closing compound clips and audio/video with vertical pinch gestures. You can zoom the timeline with horizontal pinch and panning is very easy too - easier than a mouse. The hovering scrub would behave like normal scrub on an iPad.
It doesn't even have to be standalone, you could have the iPad beside you at a desk and select whichever screen you wanted to show on the iPad. With multi-cam, you could have 9 or so videos showing on it and just tap to switch between each one.
With their proxy transcode option, you could transfer half resolution ProRes Proxy files direct to an iPad (10GB onto fast NAND via Thunderbolt), edit on it and sync the project file back via iCloud.
The thing that's good about this kind of setup is it gives you the freedom to edit together a story in an environment that's better for creativity. A desk isn't the best place for this and even a laptop isn't the most portable device when you have to use a trackpad.
There are certain design issues that go against this setup though - like render files filling up the iPad memory quickly. If they allowed SD card support though, it might be a way round it.
IMO, Python should be the standard for in-app scripting for all apps and workflow scripting.
A Python plugin environment like you get in Maya can allow document migration of any type. It seems like it might be part of Motion too.
With scripting support of a language like Python, 3rd parties can have control over everything depending on how deeply it has been implemented. If the plugin hooks go as deep as contextual menus, you could even write your own media relinking code.
It's still limited to scripting tasks but having access to the data locations and being able to execute shell programs means you can do a lot of things - again if it's hooked deeply into the app.
It seems like a lot of things have been left in an unfinished state to get past the initial release and it's good that now there's a single product they can focus on instead of FCE and FCP. FCE had yearly releases. From now on, I expect the same will be true of FCP X.
If the critical collaborative features won't be ready in a reasonable timeframe, it would make sense to bring back FCP 7 licensing to hold people out until FCP X 2.0 (codenamed backpaddle).
iTunes also accounts for very little - sometimes there are other factors to consider. The little chunks may seem relatively small but even 5% of $6b = $300m per quarter will come in handy for something. They're going to need to buy stationary for their new office so that budget has to come from somewhere.
iTunes and FCP for that matter are value added services to help sell hardware. FCP X is intended to extend the FCP user base from hundreds of thousands into the millions. Millions of people buying Macs are of much more value to Apple than a few hundred thousand.
Quote:
They have but no specific dates and no real mention of the workflow decisions. The points they have mentioned are features that get tacked on top.
True. You seem to associate a lack of information with a lack of action. Which isn't necessarily true.
Quote:
There are certain design issues that go against this setup though - like render files filling up the iPad memory quickly. If they allowed SD card support though, it might be a way round it.
In that video I posted they are running FCP on the iPad using a remote desktop app. So FCP itself isn't using any of the iPad's software services.
FCP X is intended to extend the FCP user base from hundreds of thousands into the millions.
I think they could have done that by just dropping the price of FCS.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TenoBell
1. FCP XML in/out is coming via 3rd party soon…no FCP 6/7 support project support coming ever it seems…
That would be ok, the XML files will hold all the info about an FCP project. It would be much more time consuming to handle the FCP binary files and no benefit besides saving a user exporting an XML from FCP but you do it once.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TenoBell
4. FCPX AJA plugins coming soon for tape capture and layback…capture straight into FCPX [events].
They updated it to say standalone apps not plugins for this. Automatic Duck is similarly a standalone app. Maybe Apple won't have a low-level plugin API.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TenoBell
9. Some FCPX updates will be free some will cost…
As long as it's just major releases that cost and minor ones are free.
Comments
Apple doesn't make very much money from the television/film production community.
Final Cut Studio used to cost $1000. If a company installs 100 seats, they make $100,000 from a single client and sell 100 (likely high-end) Macs. If a film school bases a program around Final Cut, they have to fit classrooms full of Macs and also license the product.
Apple even said at the FCP Supermeet that out of new NLE purchases, Apple make about 55% of the sales volume, Avid make 15% and Adobe 20%. If Avid can keep a business running on 15% then I'd say Apple with 55% must be doing ok, despite the price difference.
It's not going to be anything compared to hardware sales:
http://www.filmmakingwebinars.com/20...tant-to-apple/
but you can't estimate how many hardware sales are made because of the software. Did all of the 2 million customers already own Macs? I doubt it. Apple is already as synonymous with editing as it is with graphic design.
Increasing the volume of the target audience is fine but the bad decisions made in FCPX also affect those people. It's not that Apple has designed a product without features that only professional workflows need, the bad decisions create a restricted workflow for everyone and it was unnecessary.
You make it sound like this was an accident and not purposeful.
They might have been trying to turn it into a product like Avid Studio:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m4M7GuHGyU
but even consumers need to modify files outside of FCPX after they have been used in the timeline - a collaborative workflow isn't just about other users but other software like iPhoto, Garageband, Motion etc. Say for example, you put a film together and you just have to use a fairy dust transition. You can do it in iMovie so you naturally expect to open up your clip in iMovie and save it in the same place and be able to load it back into FCPX; you can't. Obviously for the odd effect, you can do a reimport but for an entire timeline of changes, having to manually reinsert every edit every time is not feasible.
I also don't think consumers ever want to see the offline icon appearing - I reckon they'll get a lot of support calls about that. Your instinctive reaction is to want to tell it where the clip is by e.g right-clicking and reconnecting but FCPX won't even let you do that. As I say, FCP 7 just figured it out by itself in real-time for timeline changes and asked you when files were moved and auto-reconnected entire folders with a click. If they make a program harder to use than the old version then that's taking a step back.
With XSAN support coming in a future update clearly there's a strategy for
collaborative environments.
That doesn't fix the issue about modifications to shared files being acceptable though. You can use shared storage but if someone else colour corrects or keys a clip you have in your timeline, it will go offline for you instead of just being replaced transparently.
Final Cut Studio used to cost $1000. If a company installs 100 seats, they make $100,000 from a single client and sell 100 (likely high-end) Macs. If a film school bases a program around Final Cut, they have to fit classrooms full of Macs and also license the product.
This is an easy one to address.
The far majority of Apple's revenues are coming from the iPhone and iPad. Of its Mac sales about 70% are notebooks. So desktops to professionals account for a very small percentage of the entire picture.
but even consumers need to modify files outside of FCPX after they have been used in the timeline - a collaborative workflow isn't just about other users but other software like iPhoto, Garageband, Motion etc.
Marvin you keep going over the same things over and over. Apple has said updates and more functionality are coming. We'll just have to wait and see.
I also don't think consumers ever want to see the offline icon appearing - I reckon they'll get a lot of support calls about that.
This is already the case in iMove. That doesn't change for consumers moving up from that.
With XSAN support coming in a future update clearly there's a strategy for
collaborative environments.
I'm keen on finding out more seeing as how Lion Server has XSAN Admin built in
and Lion has XSAN Client.
Back to Ubillos.
Lion should enable some nice features but FCPX has to straddle Snow Leopard/Lion so we're likely not seeing the full spectrum of functionality until Lion gains many more users. I suspect in 18 months people will look back and marvel at how far FCPX has come along with Apple updates and great 3rd party tools.
It will be interesting to see how expensive FCP X turns out to be, once you add enough third party plug ins and hardware to give it the functionality that was lost.
If this is Apple's plan-- to offer core functionality at a mass market price while making that core extensible enough to get it up to speed for pros (while not ending up paying Avid prices to get there) then they may yet have some success.
But that core functionality will have to be pretty attractive to convince post houses that it's worth the trouble against just getting something that does most things out of the box. And of course they'll be swimming upstream against the ill-will they've pointlessly engendered to date.
One possible selling point is what they've done with Motion, wherein you can save an effect as a template to be used directly in the FCP timeline (if I'm understanding that bit correctly). It that can be done with third party software-- if, for instance, you could set up your audio parameters in Pro Tools and access them directly in FCP-- that would be pretty sweet. It would in effect turn compatible software into plugins.
Final Cut Pro X on the iPad
In fact, I suspect that Apple/Jobs think touch is sufficiently important that they're willing to roll with the poor reception that FCP X has received, because the Big Plan is, in fact, something like FCP X on something like an iPad, with high bandwidth wireless taking the place of ports.
It's an appealing scenario if you don't think terribly hard about the nitty gritty particulars of cutting a show, but maybe they have actually thought that through as well and have some ideas about how that might work somewhere down the road. Except they're building towards a world that doesn't exist yet, so it remains to be seen if they can even get back in the door once all the pieces are in place to make it functional. Or if editors will ever consider a touch interface "functional."
Of its Mac sales about 70% are notebooks. So desktops to professionals account for a very small percentage of the entire picture.
iTunes also accounts for very little - sometimes there are other factors to consider. The little chunks may seem relatively small but even 5% of $6b = $300m per quarter will come in handy for something. They're going to need to buy stationary for their new office so that budget has to come from somewhere.
Apple has said updates and more functionality are coming. We'll just have to wait and see.
They have but no specific dates and no real mention of the workflow decisions. The points they have mentioned are features that get tacked on top.
This is already the case in iMove. That doesn't change for consumers moving up from that.
That makes two apps that need fixing. Sometimes Apple doesn't cater for getting from a problem to a solution - leaving you with an offline message really doesn't make for a good experience.
In fact, I suspect that Apple/Jobs think touch is sufficiently important that they're willing to roll with the poor reception that FCP X has received, because the Big Plan is, in fact, something like FCP X on something like an iPad, with high bandwidth wireless taking the place of ports.
I think the idea of using touch is great - some parts of FCPX actually feel kind of broken using a mouse. Like dragging a clip from the Events window, it keeps wanting to set the select state first. This makes sense for touch because a dragging action defaults to scroll. The previews on everything point to finger-friendliness too. All they'd need to adjust are the Events bin and options panels, which they can do with the pop-over menus. The binaries have lots of references to multitouch e.g:
multitouchEnabled\\showsTouchesYloopStartUtitleXke ywords_geometryFlipped\\touchesColor
documentWidth_multitouchDisablesMouse_publishedObj ects
loopingEnabled_multitouchEnabledWloopEnd_snappingE nabled
Obviously the trackpad is multitouch but it would behave the same on the iPad. You could imagine actions like breaking apart or closing compound clips and audio/video with vertical pinch gestures. You can zoom the timeline with horizontal pinch and panning is very easy too - easier than a mouse. The hovering scrub would behave like normal scrub on an iPad.
It doesn't even have to be standalone, you could have the iPad beside you at a desk and select whichever screen you wanted to show on the iPad. With multi-cam, you could have 9 or so videos showing on it and just tap to switch between each one.
With their proxy transcode option, you could transfer half resolution ProRes Proxy files direct to an iPad (10GB onto fast NAND via Thunderbolt), edit on it and sync the project file back via iCloud.
The thing that's good about this kind of setup is it gives you the freedom to edit together a story in an environment that's better for creativity. A desk isn't the best place for this and even a laptop isn't the most portable device when you have to use a trackpad.
There are certain design issues that go against this setup though - like render files filling up the iPad memory quickly. If they allowed SD card support though, it might be a way round it.
http://blog.nicedissolve.com/2011/06...fcpx-workflow/
IMO, Python should be the standard for in-app scripting for all apps and workflow scripting.
A Python plugin environment like you get in Maya can allow document migration of any type. It seems like it might be part of Motion too.
With scripting support of a language like Python, 3rd parties can have control over everything depending on how deeply it has been implemented. If the plugin hooks go as deep as contextual menus, you could even write your own media relinking code.
It's still limited to scripting tasks but having access to the data locations and being able to execute shell programs means you can do a lot of things - again if it's hooked deeply into the app.
It seems like a lot of things have been left in an unfinished state to get past the initial release and it's good that now there's a single product they can focus on instead of FCE and FCP. FCE had yearly releases. From now on, I expect the same will be true of FCP X.
If the critical collaborative features won't be ready in a reasonable timeframe, it would make sense to bring back FCP 7 licensing to hold people out until FCP X 2.0 (codenamed backpaddle).
iTunes also accounts for very little - sometimes there are other factors to consider. The little chunks may seem relatively small but even 5% of $6b = $300m per quarter will come in handy for something. They're going to need to buy stationary for their new office so that budget has to come from somewhere.
iTunes and FCP for that matter are value added services to help sell hardware. FCP X is intended to extend the FCP user base from hundreds of thousands into the millions. Millions of people buying Macs are of much more value to Apple than a few hundred thousand.
They have but no specific dates and no real mention of the workflow decisions. The points they have mentioned are features that get tacked on top.
True. You seem to associate a lack of information with a lack of action. Which isn't necessarily true.
There are certain design issues that go against this setup though - like render files filling up the iPad memory quickly. If they allowed SD card support though, it might be a way round it.
In that video I posted they are running FCP on the iPad using a remote desktop app. So FCP itself isn't using any of the iPad's software services.
2. Ability to buy FCP7 licenses for enterprise deployments coming in the next few weeks…
3. FCPX EDL import/export coming soon…
4. FCPX AJA plugins coming soon for tape capture and layback…capture straight into FCPX [events].
5. XSAN support for FCPX coming in the next few weeks…
6. FCPX Broadcast video output via #Blackmagic & @AJAVideo coming soon…
7. Additional codec support for FCPX via 3rd Parties coming soon…
8. Customizable sequence TC in FCPX for master exports coming soon…
9. Some FCPX updates will be free some will cost…
macrummors
FCP X is intended to extend the FCP user base from hundreds of thousands into the millions.
I think they could have done that by just dropping the price of FCS.
1. FCP XML in/out is coming via 3rd party soon…no FCP 6/7 support project support coming ever it seems…
That would be ok, the XML files will hold all the info about an FCP project. It would be much more time consuming to handle the FCP binary files and no benefit besides saving a user exporting an XML from FCP but you do it once.
4. FCPX AJA plugins coming soon for tape capture and layback…capture straight into FCPX [events].
They updated it to say standalone apps not plugins for this. Automatic Duck is similarly a standalone app. Maybe Apple won't have a low-level plugin API.
9. Some FCPX updates will be free some will cost…
As long as it's just major releases that cost and minor ones are free.
I think they could have done that by just dropping the price of FCS.