Have you ever used Automatic Duck products? They rarely work as advertised and are grossly overpriced. We have a couple of their products and don't use them.
The fact is Apple could have flipped a switch and built a 64bit binary, though they still would have had issues with any 3rd party plugins if they were passing pointers across their interface. Maybe some issues if they had bad code that explictly assumed 32 bit pointers for file sizes or memory allocation and didn't use 'sizeof'. Most code, even most large projects can be migrated to 64 bit pretty easily- and I say this as somebody who has worked porting very large systems between compilers before.
There is no way Apple could have just flipped a switch to port FCP7. It is a C++ Carbon application and that entire framework is missing from 64-bit Mac OS, so at least the entire edge code for its user-interface would need to be rewritten in Cocoa, with all the attendant issues of mixing exception models etc. QuickTime: ditto. Given that the app is Mac-only, calls to these APIs were likely pervasive in the codebase. Plug-ins: Can't run both x64 and x86 binaries in the same process, need to spawn a 32-bit helper process and marshall the data across.
I'm guessing they scoped the effort for a 64-bit port and decided it was not worth the effort for market size of a Pro app, and management supported/encouraged a new direction.
I'm guessing they scoped the effort for a 64-bit port and decided it was not worth the effort for market size of a Pro app, and management supported/encouraged a new direction.
I think you are right. FCP 7 had to have a large amount of garbage in it considering its heritage. And I support any company doing what needs to be done to make money and be successful. I guess they looked at all of the history of FCP including it's marketing, outreach to users, development costs etc and decided it made no sense to continue on that path. I know they courted lots of famous people over the years to use FCP. Funny thing is, those people did use it and won lots of awards doing so and Apple got all the publicity from it. But I'm sure it just didn't add up going forward. They could do the same thing again, but just like with the code, they would be starting from scratch. No one is going to cut a movie, or a doc or even a tV spot on FCP X until a whole bunch of functionality is added back in.
I think you are right. FCP 7 had to have a large amount of garbage in it considering its heritage. And I support any company doing what needs to be done to make money and be successful. I guess they looked at all of the history of FCP including it's marketing, outreach to users, development costs etc and decided it made no sense to continue on that path. I know they courted lots of famous people over the years to use FCP. Funny thing is, those people did use it and won lots of awards doing so and Apple got all the publicity from it. But I'm sure it just didn't add up going forward. They could do the same thing again, but just like with the code, they would be starting from scratch. No one is going to cut a movie, or a doc or even a tV spot on FCP X until a whole bunch of functionality is added back in.
There is no way Apple could have just flipped a switch to port FCP7. It is a C++ Carbon application and that entire framework is missing from 64-bit Mac OS, so at least the entire edge code for its user-interface would need to be rewritten in Cocoa, with all the attendant issues of mixing exception models etc.
Heh - my lack of actual OS-X development time shows me up Ok so I was wrong, but it is true that an enterprise shop intent on it could and would have found a kludgey solution. If they didn't want to rewrite the UI they could have kept the 32 bit UI as a thin client and moved the business end into a 64bit server process, using any kind of IPC to insulate the two address spaces.
Obviously any such solution would be horrid, which is exactly why I respect their decision to toss the whole mess out and start again.
I think you are right. FCP 7 had to have a large amount of garbage in it considering its heritage. And I support any company doing what needs to be done to make money and be successful. I guess they looked at all of the history of FCP including it's marketing, outreach to users, development costs etc and decided it made no sense to continue on that path. I know they courted lots of famous people over the years to use FCP. Funny thing is, those people did use it and won lots of awards doing so and Apple got all the publicity from it. But I'm sure it just didn't add up going forward. They could do the same thing again, but just like with the code, they would be starting from scratch. No one is going to cut a movie, or a doc or even a tV spot on FCP X until a whole bunch of functionality is added back in.
In 1995 I was selling the Truevision Targa 2000 capture cards for a Mac reseller and that think supported Quicktime. Some of the editors now were in diapers when Quicktime 1.0 hit back in 1991.
Now is FXplug 2 going to be Motion only for a plugin format is it it going to be the standard way to get modern features in a plugin now?
And may I suggest, their "needs" in 2 years time will more than likely be completely different than today's? Broadcast? Tape drives? Broadcast proofing monitors?
Will they "really" need those "features" to broadcast over the Internet and make their shows available on YouTube, NetFlix, Hulu, Amazon, and iTunes? Output to BluRay for the "purists"?
Will the media co.'s really center their workflows, software and investments for people with old CRT TVs?
Absolutely we will need them. All our legacy material (50 years of it) sits on tape and no one is going to pay to ingest it all onto some uberserver in the Cloud. All international deliverables require tape, some (American distributors actually) still require analogue tape. Geez, to listen to you ardent futurists you'd think we were trying to promote vacuum tube amplifiers. In 5 years, not 2, tape will be a less common output. FCP7 and Avid do tapeless just fine, but they also do tape. I'm not going to wait 5 years for my clients' needs to match some consumer app that's missing what I need now.
This isn't like going "Look Ma, no floppy disk." These are things our clients require and will for half a decade or more. If Apple wants to drive change in the media industry as well as its own it will need significantly more influence and trust than it has. It might have changed its name, but Apple is still just Big In Computing.
Look at the numbers: who's paying for YouTube? Where's the money? Who's going to pay you all for these uploads for others to watch?
People have been predicting the death of the cinema since TV arrived. They've been predicting the death of TV since the internet arrived, 20 years ago now. These things will co-exist, and if you're making stuff for all of them, you need good tools that work across all of them. FCP was that, it is no longer.
This isn't fear of change, it's fear of poverty. Our clients' media flows will not be dictated by a technology company and their teenage fanboys telling them what they should need, nor by me. Sorry, it just doesn't work like that.
So FCP X is a great application for many things, it's just hopeless at being Pro. FCP X is a billboard announcing the future, it's not the future itself.
One of the bigger complaints about FCP7 was that it's not nearly as good as AVID for multiple editors. This is a big issue for large movies and TV shows that have dozens of editors and assistants sharing projects and files. A plugin alone won't solve this problem.
Wasn't this what Final Cut Server was supposed to address? Things like centralized file management, access control, version control, multiuser? Does putting an FCP X project on a network drive suddenly bring all these features to FCP X?
I don't agree with that at all. Few consumers are going to pay $300 for an edit program these days. I'd call this at the very least an enthusiast/prosumer app as it is.
Besides, what consumer has a 4k camera? FCPX can edit 4k footage, something the old software just couldn't.
Oh, there'll be 4K on GoPro in an instant. And we can argue til the cows come home about the gulf that separates the enthusiast from the consumer, but we're still talking hobbyists and secondary users - people who work in other fields and need to cut some video. iMovie does that.
4K is an interesting example to cite. Yes, a 4K workflow is usually heading for a DI and may indeed be professional and tapeless, but who's going to use FCP X to get there? No edls, 3rd party sound export, no tracks... come on!
Wasn't this what Final Cut Server was supposed to address? Things like centralized file management, access control, version control, multiuser? Does putting an FCP X project on a network drive suddenly bring all these features to FCP X?
Final Cut Server did address some of the issues for shows with multiple editors. It didn't address them very well - certainly not as well as AVID unity - but it did address them.
And then Apple discontinued Final Cut Server. And then added insult to injury by giving us FCPX.
Does putting an FCP X project on a network drive suddenly bring all these features to FCP X?
To give you an idea of our needs, I've been on reality TV shows where two dozens editors and assistants were editing 6 episodes all at the same time. There's a lot of chaotic jumping back and forth between projects and situations where 4 people might be simultaneously trying to edit, do sound work, and add titles and VFX on the same episode at the same time all within the space of an hour. Final Cut Server kind of worked for that. But it didn't work well. It's not just about putting the project on a central server. The way that AVID manages media and organizes the project makes it much easier for multiple editors to do work like this - especially in crunch situations.
To give you an idea of our needs, I've been on reality TV shows where two dozens editors and assistants were editing 6 episodes all at the same time.
For a moment reading this I allowed myself to imagine that FCP-X would mean fewer reality TV shows would get created, then my ego caught up with my id and hopes were dashed.
Yet another way to think about it is between the people who make movies and the sheep who merely watch movies.
Ahh, but we programmers only watch so we can complain about flicks like Independence Day with unrealistic hacking/programming/etc.
We did used to watch Star Wars & Star Trek flicks, but you guys betrayed us on that, and we're going to continue to destroy your tools until you cry uncle! Soon you'll be back to assembling movies by hand with celluloid and glue
For a moment reading this I allowed myself to imagine that FCP-X would mean fewer reality TV shows would get created, then my ego caught up with my id and hopes were dashed.
If you had to choose to use either for real serious work, say producing an ad campaign for a large company that will involve print, TV and web then Pixelmator is just not up to the task. At the same time, I meet people who complain about Photoshop but all they need is the red eye correction tool in iPhoto!
Quite true, it depends on the use. Photoshop started out as a less sophisticated program, and look what you can do with it now. I imagine a few years can make a big difference in the breadth of uses Pixelmator can serve. It already easily exceeds Elements in my opinion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fearless
Oh, there'll be 4K on GoPro in an instant.
Assuming they make it, it might be 4k in name and encoded image size, but given that nothing consumer seems to even have good 1080p quality, I wonder if there's a point. I think it will be a few years anyway, I doubt there's cheap hardware to do that kind of encoding. We haven't seen a camera less than $15,000 that can do it, so it's not going to jump to less than $1,000 without one in between first.
Comments
http://www.automaticduck.com/products/pefcp/
OMF/AAF already supported via a 3rd party.
Have you ever used Automatic Duck products? They rarely work as advertised and are grossly overpriced. We have a couple of their products and don't use them.
Anybody tried this one out yet?
-arch x86_64
The fact is Apple could have flipped a switch and built a 64bit binary, though they still would have had issues with any 3rd party plugins if they were passing pointers across their interface. Maybe some issues if they had bad code that explictly assumed 32 bit pointers for file sizes or memory allocation and didn't use 'sizeof'. Most code, even most large projects can be migrated to 64 bit pretty easily- and I say this as somebody who has worked porting very large systems between compilers before.
There is no way Apple could have just flipped a switch to port FCP7. It is a C++ Carbon application and that entire framework is missing from 64-bit Mac OS, so at least the entire edge code for its user-interface would need to be rewritten in Cocoa, with all the attendant issues of mixing exception models etc. QuickTime: ditto. Given that the app is Mac-only, calls to these APIs were likely pervasive in the codebase. Plug-ins: Can't run both x64 and x86 binaries in the same process, need to spawn a 32-bit helper process and marshall the data across.
I'm guessing they scoped the effort for a 64-bit port and decided it was not worth the effort for market size of a Pro app, and management supported/encouraged a new direction.
I'm guessing they scoped the effort for a 64-bit port and decided it was not worth the effort for market size of a Pro app, and management supported/encouraged a new direction.
I think you are right. FCP 7 had to have a large amount of garbage in it considering its heritage. And I support any company doing what needs to be done to make money and be successful. I guess they looked at all of the history of FCP including it's marketing, outreach to users, development costs etc and decided it made no sense to continue on that path. I know they courted lots of famous people over the years to use FCP. Funny thing is, those people did use it and won lots of awards doing so and Apple got all the publicity from it. But I'm sure it just didn't add up going forward. They could do the same thing again, but just like with the code, they would be starting from scratch. No one is going to cut a movie, or a doc or even a tV spot on FCP X until a whole bunch of functionality is added back in.
I think you are right. FCP 7 had to have a large amount of garbage in it considering its heritage. And I support any company doing what needs to be done to make money and be successful. I guess they looked at all of the history of FCP including it's marketing, outreach to users, development costs etc and decided it made no sense to continue on that path. I know they courted lots of famous people over the years to use FCP. Funny thing is, those people did use it and won lots of awards doing so and Apple got all the publicity from it. But I'm sure it just didn't add up going forward. They could do the same thing again, but just like with the code, they would be starting from scratch. No one is going to cut a movie, or a doc or even a tV spot on FCP X until a whole bunch of functionality is added back in.
I couldn't agree more.
There is no way Apple could have just flipped a switch to port FCP7. It is a C++ Carbon application and that entire framework is missing from 64-bit Mac OS, so at least the entire edge code for its user-interface would need to be rewritten in Cocoa, with all the attendant issues of mixing exception models etc.
Heh - my lack of actual OS-X development time shows me up
Obviously any such solution would be horrid, which is exactly why I respect their decision to toss the whole mess out and start again.
I think you are right. FCP 7 had to have a large amount of garbage in it considering its heritage. And I support any company doing what needs to be done to make money and be successful. I guess they looked at all of the history of FCP including it's marketing, outreach to users, development costs etc and decided it made no sense to continue on that path. I know they courted lots of famous people over the years to use FCP. Funny thing is, those people did use it and won lots of awards doing so and Apple got all the publicity from it. But I'm sure it just didn't add up going forward. They could do the same thing again, but just like with the code, they would be starting from scratch. No one is going to cut a movie, or a doc or even a tV spot on FCP X until a whole bunch of functionality is added back in.
In 1995 I was selling the Truevision Targa 2000 capture cards for a Mac reseller and that think supported Quicktime. Some of the editors now were in diapers when Quicktime 1.0 hit back in 1991.
Now is FXplug 2 going to be Motion only for a plugin format is it it going to be the standard way to get modern features in a plugin now?
http://www.fcp.co/forum/8-reference-...-ins-for-fcp-x
http://developer.apple.com/library/m...002180-CH7-SW1
The biggest change is that all FxPlug-ins will now run either directly in Motion or as part of a Motion Effect running inside of Final Cut Pro.
This makes most of the differences between hosts from previous versions disappear, making it easier for developers to write and maintain plug-ins.
In order for your plug-ins to run in Final Cut Pro, you must create a Motion Effect for each one.
Ahhh not Motion only. If this plugin format is robust and stable then FCPX could be pretty extensible. There's a lot of new functionality in FXplug 2
And may I suggest, their "needs" in 2 years time will more than likely be completely different than today's? Broadcast? Tape drives? Broadcast proofing monitors?
Will they "really" need those "features" to broadcast over the Internet and make their shows available on YouTube, NetFlix, Hulu, Amazon, and iTunes? Output to BluRay for the "purists"?
Will the media co.'s really center their workflows, software and investments for people with old CRT TVs?
Absolutely we will need them. All our legacy material (50 years of it) sits on tape and no one is going to pay to ingest it all onto some uberserver in the Cloud. All international deliverables require tape, some (American distributors actually) still require analogue tape. Geez, to listen to you ardent futurists you'd think we were trying to promote vacuum tube amplifiers. In 5 years, not 2, tape will be a less common output. FCP7 and Avid do tapeless just fine, but they also do tape. I'm not going to wait 5 years for my clients' needs to match some consumer app that's missing what I need now.
This isn't like going "Look Ma, no floppy disk." These are things our clients require and will for half a decade or more. If Apple wants to drive change in the media industry as well as its own it will need significantly more influence and trust than it has. It might have changed its name, but Apple is still just Big In Computing.
Look at the numbers: who's paying for YouTube? Where's the money? Who's going to pay you all for these uploads for others to watch?
People have been predicting the death of the cinema since TV arrived. They've been predicting the death of TV since the internet arrived, 20 years ago now. These things will co-exist, and if you're making stuff for all of them, you need good tools that work across all of them. FCP was that, it is no longer.
This isn't fear of change, it's fear of poverty. Our clients' media flows will not be dictated by a technology company and their teenage fanboys telling them what they should need, nor by me. Sorry, it just doesn't work like that.
So FCP X is a great application for many things, it's just hopeless at being Pro. FCP X is a billboard announcing the future, it's not the future itself.
One of the bigger complaints about FCP7 was that it's not nearly as good as AVID for multiple editors. This is a big issue for large movies and TV shows that have dozens of editors and assistants sharing projects and files. A plugin alone won't solve this problem.
Wasn't this what Final Cut Server was supposed to address? Things like centralized file management, access control, version control, multiuser? Does putting an FCP X project on a network drive suddenly bring all these features to FCP X?
I don't agree with that at all. Few consumers are going to pay $300 for an edit program these days. I'd call this at the very least an enthusiast/prosumer app as it is.
Besides, what consumer has a 4k camera? FCPX can edit 4k footage, something the old software just couldn't.
Oh, there'll be 4K on GoPro in an instant. And we can argue til the cows come home about the gulf that separates the enthusiast from the consumer, but we're still talking hobbyists and secondary users - people who work in other fields and need to cut some video. iMovie does that.
4K is an interesting example to cite. Yes, a 4K workflow is usually heading for a DI and may indeed be professional and tapeless, but who's going to use FCP X to get there? No edls, 3rd party sound export, no tracks... come on!
Wasn't this what Final Cut Server was supposed to address? Things like centralized file management, access control, version control, multiuser? Does putting an FCP X project on a network drive suddenly bring all these features to FCP X?
Final Cut Server did address some of the issues for shows with multiple editors. It didn't address them very well - certainly not as well as AVID unity - but it did address them.
And then Apple discontinued Final Cut Server. And then added insult to injury by giving us FCPX.
Another way to think of it is that it's fractured between the people who build software and the sheep who merely use software
Yet another way to think about it is between the people who make movies and the sheep who merely watch movies.
Does putting an FCP X project on a network drive suddenly bring all these features to FCP X?
To give you an idea of our needs, I've been on reality TV shows where two dozens editors and assistants were editing 6 episodes all at the same time. There's a lot of chaotic jumping back and forth between projects and situations where 4 people might be simultaneously trying to edit, do sound work, and add titles and VFX on the same episode at the same time all within the space of an hour. Final Cut Server kind of worked for that. But it didn't work well. It's not just about putting the project on a central server. The way that AVID manages media and organizes the project makes it much easier for multiple editors to do work like this - especially in crunch situations.
To give you an idea of our needs, I've been on reality TV shows where two dozens editors and assistants were editing 6 episodes all at the same time.
For a moment reading this I allowed myself to imagine that FCP-X would mean fewer reality TV shows would get created, then my ego caught up with my id and hopes were dashed.
Yet another way to think about it is between the people who make movies and the sheep who merely watch movies.
Ahh, but we programmers only watch so we can complain about flicks like Independence Day with unrealistic hacking/programming/etc.
We did used to watch Star Wars & Star Trek flicks, but you guys betrayed us on that, and we're going to continue to destroy your tools until you cry uncle! Soon you'll be back to assembling movies by hand with celluloid and glue
For a moment reading this I allowed myself to imagine that FCP-X would mean fewer reality TV shows would get created, then my ego caught up with my id and hopes were dashed.
If only...
Soon you'll be back to assembling movies by hand with celluloid and glue
I know most people think I'm crazy, but I kind of miss cutting on actual film.
I know most people think I'm crazy, but I kind of miss cutting on actual film.
I can understand that - I kinda miss coding in assembler.
I can understand that - I kinda miss coding in assembler.
And I miss the dark room
Yet another way to think about it is between the people who make movies and the sheep who merely watch movies.
Yes, but with iMovie Pro, sheep who watch movies can now make movies!
If you had to choose to use either for real serious work, say producing an ad campaign for a large company that will involve print, TV and web then Pixelmator is just not up to the task. At the same time, I meet people who complain about Photoshop but all they need is the red eye correction tool in iPhoto!
Quite true, it depends on the use. Photoshop started out as a less sophisticated program, and look what you can do with it now. I imagine a few years can make a big difference in the breadth of uses Pixelmator can serve. It already easily exceeds Elements in my opinion.
Oh, there'll be 4K on GoPro in an instant.
Assuming they make it, it might be 4k in name and encoded image size, but given that nothing consumer seems to even have good 1080p quality, I wonder if there's a point. I think it will be a few years anyway, I doubt there's cheap hardware to do that kind of encoding. We haven't seen a camera less than $15,000 that can do it, so it's not going to jump to less than $1,000 without one in between first.