Most TV and feature film editors that I know are happy that we don't won't have to deal with FCP anymore.
Feature film and TV editors are not debating whether or not FCPX is a pro editing platform. We KNOW it's not a pro editing platform anymore. So the big question is: How are we dealing with it? The truth is most of are either indifferent or happy.
Most feature film and TV editors didn't really like FCP all that much to begin with. Most of the time it was not our first choice for an editing platform. We thought it was finicky and unreliable. And the more complicated the project - like a big multi-editor TV show - the harder it was to work with. Usually the producers were the ones who made us use it. They wanted to save money. So they forced us to use FCP instead of AVID.
I think what Apple did with FCPX will mainly screw over middle-class professional editors who don't work in feature film and TV. And I definitely feel sorry for those guys.
But in feature film and TV editing, I'd say 95% of my work was already AVID. And no one that I know is going to miss FCP.
70% of projects that come to us for finishing are probably Avid, the rest FCP 7. Color (and its predecessor Final Touch HD/2K) are fine grading packages in their own right, and FCS 3, when handled well, did a whole lot more effectively than Avid Symphony - though perhaps not DS. The full size Tangent panels are very nice indeed - they make the Artist Series look like toys. Still a valid finishing platform - but no one in their right mind would grade in FCP alone.
That wouldn't be Apple's fault though but the 3rd party software developers. AJA have products to let you do this sort of thing and not plugins but standalone apps:
They may not work reliably but then it would be their responsibility to sort it out.
Yeah and IMO, that would suggest they should focus on making the core application stronger and not try to take care of everything themselves. For example don't try to support STP, Color, DVDSP, LiveType, FCE etc. Just bring it down to a very small core application and let it be a powerful component in a workflow so that it can be used with Logic, Nuke, Da Vinci, Pro Tools and so on seamlessly.
They've kinda messed that up a bit so far with the single-user design but they can turn it around in a future revision if they choose to.
As you quite rightly say though, it doesn't matter. People will make a choice on what works. If Apple doesn't deliver this then they are out. The market decides who wins and who loses and if Apple feel they still want to be in it, they have to realise they can't make the rules all the time.
I agree 100% with what Fearless says.
For film and TV editors, output to tape, edl, omf are the CORE parts of what the application needs to do. It'd be like if Microsoft removed the ability to print to paper from Microsoft Word. Yeah, I'm sure someone would eventually develop a 3rd party work around to make that work. But why would I buy a word processing program that doesn't have the ability to actually print to paper? I'm sure there are some people who don't need it. And I'm sure a lot of people would talk about paperless offices and the wave of the future. But it would be ridiculous to tell customers that they're leaving this core function of a word processing application to 3rd party developers.
Again, let me reiterate. I think FCPX is probably a smart move on Apple's part. I'm sure it'll be great for the consumer market. Just not for pros.
With respect Marvin, you're once again confusing ingest with mastering. Hardly anyone shoots tape any more - we know that. And it's usually not where the pressure is. Of course we use RAID storage and LTO for archiving. That's not the problem.
Getting a show out on deadline should not require a journey to an external app and if it does, it's a workaround.
Yeah, that's a fair point, you don't want to have to export into an app and then write to tape as that would waste significant amounts of time. Do you think that this process will never change? It seems like it's always just a matter of time before processes migrate to file-based workflows. On a deadline, would it not be far quicker to write ProRes to SSD at 200MB/s or higher? Tapeless mastering seems like the logical next step (obviously not overnight, which is the immediate issue but sometimes forcing migration is the only way to start it).
If you think tapeless mastering is the way to go, how long would you perceive such a migration would take?
If not, what reasons go against tapeless mastering? Format standardisation perhaps?
Quote:
Originally Posted by fearless
You could, for example, design Microsoft Word to only make pdfs, and insist that printer manufacturers build printing into a kind of printer interface. If it didn't work, it would be something you'd need to take up with Lexmark, or Brother, or HP... no. An app needs to deliver its functions from start to finish, and if it doesn't it's half an app.
There are intermediate layers with printing that already exist though. It's not that Microsoft implement a printing system, it interfaces with the OS-level CUPS print server and there's the whole postscript conversion happening (using the printer drivers - hardware manufacturer's responsibility) to allow print output to come out reliably on a variety of different hardware. Microsoft don't build that, they just do the front-end. With edit to tape, Apple has to build that. Now, given that it's a fundamental part of the workflow that pro editing software aims to service then they have no choice but to take on that responsibility or they can choose to expect a migration to tapeless and leave people hanging in the interim.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fearless
This board is full of apologists for Apple having only done half the job, and finding excuses why it all makes perfect sense. FCP X is not a better app for having shed half the stuff its predecessor could do, its "core editing functions" are not better for losing functionality like track allocation and edls and sequence timecode, it's just a job half done.
Yes, FCPX is half done and there are a lot of excuses made for it. There is a balance though. Some ways of doing things are not good. Tracks are too limiting. Surely it's better to have non-linear tagging of clips instead of making sure they are all in alignment. EDL/OMF etc will be coming. So many things had to be rewritten and it's not clear when they started this. 64-bit breaks all drivers and plugins. The biggest problem was discontinuing FCP before FCPX was ready. Apple has indicated they want to cater to professional workflows and it remains to be seen if they will deliver this over time - I think with a handful of key changes, they can still turn it around.
Yeah, that's a fair point, you don't want to have to export into an app and then write to tape as that would waste significant amounts of time. Do you think that this process will never change? It seems like it's always just a matter of time before processes migrate to file-based workflows. On a deadline, would it not be far quicker to write ProRes to SSD at 200MB/s or higher? Tapeless mastering seems like the logical next step (obviously not overnight, which is the immediate issue but sometimes forcing migration is the only way to start it).
If you think tapeless mastering is the way to go, how long would you perceive such a migration would take?
If not, what reasons go against tapeless mastering? Format standardisation perhaps?
This is another big mis-conception everyone seems to have about editors. In film and TV, we are not the ones making the big decisions about our workflow. Yes. We give our input and sometimes push for new systems and workflows. But a lot of these decisions are above our paygrade. Right now most sound houses, color correction facilities, and VFX houses still have hundreds of thousands of dollars of tape based equipment. They're not going to change just because we tell them to.
Yes. Tapeless mastering is the future. But it's not going to change just because the editors ask for it. Usually it changes because some VP of Post-Production at a big studio looks at the new workflow and equipment, crunches the numbers, and decides that the efficiency and savings of a new system outweigh the cost of replacing all the old equipment and retraining everyone on the new stuff.
Also, even if the industry magically went tapeless tomorrow, FCPX still wouldn't be ready for prime time. EVERYTHING about FCPX is NOT geared towards a professional workflow.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
Apple has indicated they want to cater to professional workflows and it remains to be seen if they will deliver this over time - I think with a handful of key changes, they can still turn it around.
I think you're completely wrong on this point. Apple has clearly indicated they are no longer interested in catering to professional workflows. It's not just a handful of changes that need to be fixed. It's dozens. Export to tape, EDL, OMF, multi-cam, audio track selection are just the ones at the top of the list. In the feature film and TV world, it will take them years to catch up with AVID again. If ever.
You're just spouting theory. You could, for example, design Microsoft Word to only make pdfs, and insist that printer manufacturers build printing into a kind of printer interface. If it didn't work, it would be something you'd need to take up with Lexmark, or Brother, or HP... no. An app needs to deliver its functions from start to finish, and if it doesn't it's half an app.
It's funny you should say that, because that's actually close to how printing actually works. Apps on windows produce a windows meta file, apps on OS-X produce a postscript derivative and the problem of printing it is passed down to the printer driver. The printer driver is supplied by Lexmark or Brother or HP, whoever made the printer - unless the printer understands WMF or Postscript natively, in which case it's obviously not needed.
The abstraction layer is there so that every single application in the world doesn't need to implement printing itself. They only need to know how to render to the screen, because on windows that produces WMF and on OS-X it produces 'display PDF'. Back in the olden days before NeXT developed display postscript things didn't work this way - instead they worked the way you describe - but thanks to NeXT and Apple the industry moved on.
So you're actually making a pretty good case for Apple, at least on that feature.
It's funny you should say that, because that's actually close to how printing actually works. Apps on windows produce a windows meta file, apps on OS-X produce a postscript derivative and the problem of printing it is passed down to the printer driver. The printer driver is supplied by Lexmark or Brother or HP, whoever made the printer - unless the printer understands WMF or Postscript natively, in which case it's obviously not needed.
The abstraction layer is there so that every single application in the world doesn't need to implement printing itself. They only need to know how to render to the screen, because on windows that produces WMF and on OS-X it produces 'display PDF'. Back in the olden days before NeXT developed display postscript things didn't work this way - instead they worked the way you describe - but thanks to NeXT and Apple the industry moved on.
So you're actually making a pretty good case for Apple, at least on that feature.
I'm sorry, that's disingenuous. All sorts of things happen under the hood, of course, but which 3rd party app do I need to launch to print from Word? If Apple's tape editing were so integral a part of the OS that I never needed to leave FCP X to do it, I'd have no complaints on that score. But as you say, roll back a couple of decades and that's just how things worked...
Sadly I now need to export a QuickTime (despite AV Foundation having supposedly left QT behind), make sure I've spent a hour of deck time doing a complete pass to stripe the tape since VTRXchange can't assemble, launch VTRXchange, adjust my settings in that application, then insert edit the QT. That's a workaround - don't tell me it's not!
That Apple considers this omission to be inconsequential speaks volumes - and gives a clear message that Apple cares little about our daily needs. Even if it's patched in a later release (talk to us please!) the damage to the app's tenuous credibility has been done, the horse has bolted.
Yeah, that's a fair point, you don't want to have to export into an app and then write to tape as that would waste significant amounts of time. Do you think that this process will never change? It seems like it's always just a matter of time before processes migrate to file-based workflows. On a deadline, would it not be far quicker to write ProRes to SSD at 200MB/s or higher? Tapeless mastering seems like the logical next step (obviously not overnight, which is the immediate issue but sometimes forcing migration is the only way to start it).
If you think tapeless mastering is the way to go, how long would you perceive such a migration would take?
If not, what reasons go against tapeless mastering? Format standardisation perhaps?
Good question Marvin. We began this company in its present form about 5 years ago, as HD was gaining traction. We were aware then that tape was likely to be supplanted in the near future - and wondered whether the Digibeta we bought then would have an economic life. We could have bought HDCAM SR, which the BBC and some others now require, but couldn't justify $160,000 in the face of the eventual, or maybe imminent, move to tapeless delivery. So four years ago we bought HDCAM, the standard HD TV deliverable here.. And guess what? We could probably have bought the SR deck.
How many shows have we delivered tapeless for money so far? Zero. Sure, MPEGs for screenings, Blu-ray (yes), H.264 for Vimeo - but the paying work is still on tape. We're still mastering a couple of broadcast shows a day to Digibeta and HDCAM, often both, for major national networks to high standards, using FCP 7 and grading in Color. High end docos and regular series work shot tapeless, telefeatures shot on Genesis, RED and Alexa material and of course EX.
When tapeless delivery occurs I think it will happen quickly - in the space of a year or so certain networks will eschew tape altogether, or insist on both - one for TX, and a tape for archive. Others will require tape for years to come. It'll be driven by their own server structures and interfaces, not by suppliers and post houses telling them what they should want.
Our biggest issue, as someone pointed out, is that Sony's HDCAM factory was in Sendai and for a minute there stock was scarce. That seems to have eased. But I'd say it'll be 3-5 years before we can seriously deliver a tapeless master to meet a contracted deliverable, with all sorts of caveats like LTO or supplementary safety copies. Will it streamline things for the networks? Possibly. For us? No, it'll add more work on identical budgets.
Oh, to add re the SSD thing, sure, sending portable drives on couriers and hoping to get them back might work, but there's still the fundamental QA pass that needs to happen, in real time: watching the finished show down with everything in place is very instructive, especially with the producer in the suite. Watching the output of a deck from a confidence head replaying what is actually on tape, rather than what you thought was going there, significantly reduces the incidence of errors. A "render and run" pass lacks that robustness.
Here's the part of this debate that I find really weird: why do people who know nothing about professional feature film and TV editing keep trying to tell us that Apple made FCPX for us when they clearly didn't?
I love Apple products. I own an iMac, Macbook Air, Mac Mini, iPhone 4, Airport Extreme and many iPods. I'm completely Steve Job's bitch.
I also think FCPX is probably a great move for Apple. I understand where they're coming from. FCP7 was completely bloated from years of features they had to keep adding in order to keep up with AVID. The only way to fix this in the long run was to start from scratch - which would be a massive undertaking. Because they were starting from scratch, they probably didn't have the time or resources to create a new line of editing software that could cater to both professional and consumer editors. So they made a choice: Forget about the pro market, let's concentrate on the consumer market. That's what they do best after all. There's nothing wrong with this. I'm willing bet it's going to make a lot of money for them in long run.
I just don't understand why all these people keep insisting that this is really all going to be for the benefit of professional editors in film and TV?
You know all those cool new features like magnetic timeline, clip connections, compound clips, content auto-analysis... Guess what? Professional editors could care less about any of that. Keeping audio and video clips in sync is the EASIEST part of what we do. That's like telling an astro-physicist we've invented this cool new calculator that makes it easier to add and subtract numbers, but we've taken out the ability to do calculus or derivatives or any of the stuff you really need. The only people who really care about those features are consumer editors.
Look. Professional editors on big budget projects have complicated needs. Our editing software needs to be complicated. This isn't being snobbish, this is just a fact of life.
I applaud that Apple has managed to simplify editing for consumer editors. I think it's great. But a simplified editing software is intrinsically at odds with the complicated needs of professional feature film and TV production.
On what basis do you keep insisting that FCPX is the first step in Apple's big master plan to win over top tier feature film and TV editors? How would you actually know what it is we need from our editing software?
On what basis do you keep insisting that FCPX is the first step in Apple's big master plan to win over top tier feature film and TV editors? How would you actually know what it is we need from our editing software?
I'm sorry, that's disingenuous. All sorts of things happen under the hood, of course, but which 3rd party app do I need to launch to print from Word?
The printer drivers, which while they may be supplied by MS or Apple are in fact generally the work of the printer maker and redistributed under license. I'm not being in the slightest bit disingenuous here, printing really is abstracted out from the application completely and the device specific layer is abstracted out even from the operating system.
I have no idea what your problems are like with tape and FCP-X, I'm not claiming that the analogy actually holds - I'm just saying that if it does your analogy is proving the opposite of your point.
I imagine that Apple's preferred solution is that 3rd party plugins will be provided for each tape output system (I presume there are different hardware options with different interfaces?). FCP will thus have the messy hardware level stuff abstracted out, in an analogous way to the abstraction layers in printing.
Oh, and you may recall that when MS VIsta was released the world+dog complained that it didn't support their printers, because 3rd party drivers essentially didn't exist at launch time.
Another way to think of it is that it's fractured between the people who build software and the sheep who merely use software
If I follow your logic: no matter what a company offers like Apple for example we are to accept it and go along because they've had a successful track record @ offerings in the mass consumer market - BULL sir, Bull - if any product doesn't fill a market segments needs it won't be used by that segment, Apple helped democratize this industry (well Amiga Computers & NewTek Video Toaster set the ground work, Apple picked up the fumbled ball and ran with it) it has nothing to do with "it's the future", it's the relationship between them, hell not taking off ones hat in doors or talking with food in your mouth is still bad manners, no matter how many "Jack Asses" do it - I go with what works for me as I assume most intelligent people do.
It's great for programmers to initiate new code, but functionality is the problem, so these function couldn't be replicated in new 64 bit code even better? - or are coders writing this stuff to be self indulgent - like most editors, I do it for a commissioned job to meet a clients idea & purpose to sell to others - capitalism 101. Apple is basically compelling us all to accept any and all they do, because most have brought into the myth that Apple can do no wrong, that's utter non-sense and a cultist mind set, nothing and no one in life short of Jesus can claim that... so if FCPX fits your needs go for it, but don't sell me the "new paradigm shift in editing angle" when it's actually about getting a bigger market share of those who can more easily use iMovie add the name FCP because it has cache, minus the sophisticated range of level controls found in Color or SoundTrackPro, now it's keep it" iSimple X" no XML import, but there is iMove import and easy export to Youtube and Facebook, while and not to Pro Tools for audio stims, WTF?
Okay I do love the new MetaData function and the fact I can use 4k files (when exactly?) - but I require multiple monitors, a Source, Edit and Preview - I don't want someone sitting so close to me sharing one monitor or even two, I need room to work my magic this industry is the top of the editing food chain and in my niche commercials are king, there are basic requirements of high technical knowledge, skill and artistic collaboration, from everyone involved from below the line to above it, we depends on each other and the tools of the trade to do the job well, and learning new apps, and hardware constantly as it comes to market - I learned Shake but that was EOLed, and it was highly used industry wide ever see a film called Lord of The Rings, I still kept faith that Apple would incorporate the functions in some new great product, nope didn't happen, in fact they brought more small companies like Color and Logic etc... to do what? EOL them and kill off that market segment to what end? this confounds me truly, to destroy these great products for no real reason... so now that Apple is very profitable and no longer a computer company per se, but a Electronics firm, it can be arrogant and act like a bull in a china shop. Sony never, ever would act in such a manner - I cannot believe I invested so much in Apple apps & hardware to be shown this level of disregard by them, well foolish me for believing their hype so completely and not looking @ them as a company overall and how they operate as a business.
Just tell us that you plan to no longer cater to the pro industry and are going for the prosumer who needs the simplest amount of control and will accept whiz bang bells and whistles over substantive functionality and customization for the types of workflow that we do day in and day out - apple is not the only game in town, a half to a full $billion dollar industry has grown up around Final Cut Pro this has caused grave concern for that cottage industry, new and hungrier developers are out there waiting to show their wares, like Imagineering Systems, Black Magic & Aja to name a few companies with products that fit our needs, JUST BE UP FRONT APPLE, this clandestine nature is starting to ware thin and you wont be so profitable forever, you may need us again someday... now how much is that Davinci Resolve...
Odd you should ask that - within a week or two, apparently, free! Resolve Lite for Mac... now you still need the CUDA hardware and it'll only do SD & HD (oh dear) but it's a very fine introductory look. I have the full Tangent setup and Resolve only works with Wave, or their own, or Avid's puny Artist Series - but hang on, with a Symphony alongside...
If I follow your logic: no matter what a company offers like Apple for example we are to accept it and go along because ...
You don't follow my logic. You also don't appear to use full stops, which makes it very hard to meaningfully respond to you, because it makes reading your prose close to unbearable. Instead I'll have to try to respond to your long incoherent ramble in an unsatisfyingly vague way, so if I fail to address your point I apologise, but it's probably because I couldn't find your point in the word soup.
I am saying that many FCP users are being as irrational, and unreasonable here as Star Wars fans were when Lucas 'betrayed' them. To the users FCP is their tool, but to the developers FCP is their product. The users believe that they 'own' the product in the same way that Star Wars fans felt they 'owned' their movie experience, however ultimately ownership lies with creators not consumers.
It's the creators' right to create something that some users don't like, and the users are absolutely entitled not to use it when they do. There are many reasons why the creator may choose to do this, which the user often doesn't appreciate. Star Wars fans will simply never understand Lucas' determination never to release the original movies without the changes that he made back in the 90s. Lord of the Rings fans will never understand the stupid Arwen sub-plot, the moving of lines between characters for seemingly no reason, the gratuitous Legolas arcade game moments.
If FCP no longer works for you then don't use it, perhaps it will never be suitable for you again, in which case never return. Perhaps Apple made a mistake with FCP that will result in the product dying. Perhaps they made a decision that will set FCP up for years to come in the prosumer space. Perhaps FCP will prove successful in the pro space in a few years because its new clean architecture will allow for faster innovation than the competitors. There are lots of ways this may shake out, and it's Apple's right to make the decision as to where it wants to send the product, just as it is Lucas' right to refuse to release a set of Star Wars movies which he would be dissatisfied with.
This attitude of entitlement is no more appealing in movie creators than it is in movie consumers.
Apple didn't make FCPX for fun. They made it to make editing faster and easier. If someone says they're good at video editing and can't use the faster and easier software then how good at editing are they really?
"Good at video editing" is not just operating an application. Being "good" is telling a story well. That separates the pros from the amateurs.
Professional video companies strive to have the best and fastest tools in order to please clients. When editing for yourself, you don't have clients. We constantly are upgrading and improving our workflows to be more efficient and to be better than the other guy. We don't hold on to inefficient processes. However, we can't use FCPX because of the missing features. We can't tell our clients that can't use their tape library anymore. We can't grade color from a thumbnail on an LED monitor. We can't output audio tracks for Pro Tools mixing. We can't even pull an EDL for selects.
Yes, there are some good features in the baseline app. It's just not ready for prime time yet. The pros will be all over it when it is done.
I'll make it easier for everyone. Show me Coppola or the Coen Brothers using FCPX by this year for a major-release full-length feature (not indies or documentaries).
Of course if they want to shoot film, they can't use FCPX for editing. Two words-Cinema Tools. "Cinema Tools is software bundled with Final Cut Studio that combines film database tools with conversion tools. It is used to log and keep track of film as well as to reverse telecine or perform advanced pulldown"
Comments
Most TV and feature film editors that I know are happy that we don't won't have to deal with FCP anymore.
Feature film and TV editors are not debating whether or not FCPX is a pro editing platform. We KNOW it's not a pro editing platform anymore. So the big question is: How are we dealing with it? The truth is most of are either indifferent or happy.
Most feature film and TV editors didn't really like FCP all that much to begin with. Most of the time it was not our first choice for an editing platform. We thought it was finicky and unreliable. And the more complicated the project - like a big multi-editor TV show - the harder it was to work with. Usually the producers were the ones who made us use it. They wanted to save money. So they forced us to use FCP instead of AVID.
I think what Apple did with FCPX will mainly screw over middle-class professional editors who don't work in feature film and TV. And I definitely feel sorry for those guys.
But in feature film and TV editing, I'd say 95% of my work was already AVID. And no one that I know is going to miss FCP.
70% of projects that come to us for finishing are probably Avid, the rest FCP 7. Color (and its predecessor Final Touch HD/2K) are fine grading packages in their own right, and FCS 3, when handled well, did a whole lot more effectively than Avid Symphony - though perhaps not DS. The full size Tangent panels are very nice indeed - they make the Artist Series look like toys. Still a valid finishing platform - but no one in their right mind would grade in FCP alone.
That wouldn't be Apple's fault though but the 3rd party software developers. AJA have products to let you do this sort of thing and not plugins but standalone apps:
http://www.facebook.com/ajavideo/pos...50678862540354
They may not work reliably but then it would be their responsibility to sort it out.
Yeah and IMO, that would suggest they should focus on making the core application stronger and not try to take care of everything themselves. For example don't try to support STP, Color, DVDSP, LiveType, FCE etc. Just bring it down to a very small core application and let it be a powerful component in a workflow so that it can be used with Logic, Nuke, Da Vinci, Pro Tools and so on seamlessly.
They've kinda messed that up a bit so far with the single-user design but they can turn it around in a future revision if they choose to.
As you quite rightly say though, it doesn't matter. People will make a choice on what works. If Apple doesn't deliver this then they are out. The market decides who wins and who loses and if Apple feel they still want to be in it, they have to realise they can't make the rules all the time.
I agree 100% with what Fearless says.
For film and TV editors, output to tape, edl, omf are the CORE parts of what the application needs to do. It'd be like if Microsoft removed the ability to print to paper from Microsoft Word. Yeah, I'm sure someone would eventually develop a 3rd party work around to make that work. But why would I buy a word processing program that doesn't have the ability to actually print to paper? I'm sure there are some people who don't need it. And I'm sure a lot of people would talk about paperless offices and the wave of the future. But it would be ridiculous to tell customers that they're leaving this core function of a word processing application to 3rd party developers.
Again, let me reiterate. I think FCPX is probably a smart move on Apple's part. I'm sure it'll be great for the consumer market. Just not for pros.
With respect Marvin, you're once again confusing ingest with mastering. Hardly anyone shoots tape any more - we know that. And it's usually not where the pressure is. Of course we use RAID storage and LTO for archiving. That's not the problem.
Getting a show out on deadline should not require a journey to an external app and if it does, it's a workaround.
Yeah, that's a fair point, you don't want to have to export into an app and then write to tape as that would waste significant amounts of time. Do you think that this process will never change? It seems like it's always just a matter of time before processes migrate to file-based workflows. On a deadline, would it not be far quicker to write ProRes to SSD at 200MB/s or higher? Tapeless mastering seems like the logical next step (obviously not overnight, which is the immediate issue but sometimes forcing migration is the only way to start it).
If you think tapeless mastering is the way to go, how long would you perceive such a migration would take?
If not, what reasons go against tapeless mastering? Format standardisation perhaps?
You could, for example, design Microsoft Word to only make pdfs, and insist that printer manufacturers build printing into a kind of printer interface. If it didn't work, it would be something you'd need to take up with Lexmark, or Brother, or HP... no. An app needs to deliver its functions from start to finish, and if it doesn't it's half an app.
There are intermediate layers with printing that already exist though. It's not that Microsoft implement a printing system, it interfaces with the OS-level CUPS print server and there's the whole postscript conversion happening (using the printer drivers - hardware manufacturer's responsibility) to allow print output to come out reliably on a variety of different hardware. Microsoft don't build that, they just do the front-end. With edit to tape, Apple has to build that. Now, given that it's a fundamental part of the workflow that pro editing software aims to service then they have no choice but to take on that responsibility or they can choose to expect a migration to tapeless and leave people hanging in the interim.
This board is full of apologists for Apple having only done half the job, and finding excuses why it all makes perfect sense. FCP X is not a better app for having shed half the stuff its predecessor could do, its "core editing functions" are not better for losing functionality like track allocation and edls and sequence timecode, it's just a job half done.
Yes, FCPX is half done and there are a lot of excuses made for it. There is a balance though. Some ways of doing things are not good. Tracks are too limiting. Surely it's better to have non-linear tagging of clips instead of making sure they are all in alignment. EDL/OMF etc will be coming. So many things had to be rewritten and it's not clear when they started this. 64-bit breaks all drivers and plugins. The biggest problem was discontinuing FCP before FCPX was ready. Apple has indicated they want to cater to professional workflows and it remains to be seen if they will deliver this over time - I think with a handful of key changes, they can still turn it around.
Yeah, that's a fair point, you don't want to have to export into an app and then write to tape as that would waste significant amounts of time. Do you think that this process will never change? It seems like it's always just a matter of time before processes migrate to file-based workflows. On a deadline, would it not be far quicker to write ProRes to SSD at 200MB/s or higher? Tapeless mastering seems like the logical next step (obviously not overnight, which is the immediate issue but sometimes forcing migration is the only way to start it).
If you think tapeless mastering is the way to go, how long would you perceive such a migration would take?
If not, what reasons go against tapeless mastering? Format standardisation perhaps?
This is another big mis-conception everyone seems to have about editors. In film and TV, we are not the ones making the big decisions about our workflow. Yes. We give our input and sometimes push for new systems and workflows. But a lot of these decisions are above our paygrade. Right now most sound houses, color correction facilities, and VFX houses still have hundreds of thousands of dollars of tape based equipment. They're not going to change just because we tell them to.
Yes. Tapeless mastering is the future. But it's not going to change just because the editors ask for it. Usually it changes because some VP of Post-Production at a big studio looks at the new workflow and equipment, crunches the numbers, and decides that the efficiency and savings of a new system outweigh the cost of replacing all the old equipment and retraining everyone on the new stuff.
Also, even if the industry magically went tapeless tomorrow, FCPX still wouldn't be ready for prime time. EVERYTHING about FCPX is NOT geared towards a professional workflow.
Apple has indicated they want to cater to professional workflows and it remains to be seen if they will deliver this over time - I think with a handful of key changes, they can still turn it around.
I think you're completely wrong on this point. Apple has clearly indicated they are no longer interested in catering to professional workflows. It's not just a handful of changes that need to be fixed. It's dozens. Export to tape, EDL, OMF, multi-cam, audio track selection are just the ones at the top of the list. In the feature film and TV world, it will take them years to catch up with AVID again. If ever.
You're just spouting theory. You could, for example, design Microsoft Word to only make pdfs, and insist that printer manufacturers build printing into a kind of printer interface. If it didn't work, it would be something you'd need to take up with Lexmark, or Brother, or HP... no. An app needs to deliver its functions from start to finish, and if it doesn't it's half an app.
It's funny you should say that, because that's actually close to how printing actually works. Apps on windows produce a windows meta file, apps on OS-X produce a postscript derivative and the problem of printing it is passed down to the printer driver. The printer driver is supplied by Lexmark or Brother or HP, whoever made the printer - unless the printer understands WMF or Postscript natively, in which case it's obviously not needed.
The abstraction layer is there so that every single application in the world doesn't need to implement printing itself. They only need to know how to render to the screen, because on windows that produces WMF and on OS-X it produces 'display PDF'. Back in the olden days before NeXT developed display postscript things didn't work this way - instead they worked the way you describe - but thanks to NeXT and Apple the industry moved on.
So you're actually making a pretty good case for Apple, at least on that feature.
It's funny you should say that, because that's actually close to how printing actually works. Apps on windows produce a windows meta file, apps on OS-X produce a postscript derivative and the problem of printing it is passed down to the printer driver. The printer driver is supplied by Lexmark or Brother or HP, whoever made the printer - unless the printer understands WMF or Postscript natively, in which case it's obviously not needed.
The abstraction layer is there so that every single application in the world doesn't need to implement printing itself. They only need to know how to render to the screen, because on windows that produces WMF and on OS-X it produces 'display PDF'. Back in the olden days before NeXT developed display postscript things didn't work this way - instead they worked the way you describe - but thanks to NeXT and Apple the industry moved on.
So you're actually making a pretty good case for Apple, at least on that feature.
I'm sorry, that's disingenuous. All sorts of things happen under the hood, of course, but which 3rd party app do I need to launch to print from Word? If Apple's tape editing were so integral a part of the OS that I never needed to leave FCP X to do it, I'd have no complaints on that score. But as you say, roll back a couple of decades and that's just how things worked...
Sadly I now need to export a QuickTime (despite AV Foundation having supposedly left QT behind), make sure I've spent a hour of deck time doing a complete pass to stripe the tape since VTRXchange can't assemble, launch VTRXchange, adjust my settings in that application, then insert edit the QT. That's a workaround - don't tell me it's not!
That Apple considers this omission to be inconsequential speaks volumes - and gives a clear message that Apple cares little about our daily needs. Even if it's patched in a later release (talk to us please!) the damage to the app's tenuous credibility has been done, the horse has bolted.
Yeah, that's a fair point, you don't want to have to export into an app and then write to tape as that would waste significant amounts of time. Do you think that this process will never change? It seems like it's always just a matter of time before processes migrate to file-based workflows. On a deadline, would it not be far quicker to write ProRes to SSD at 200MB/s or higher? Tapeless mastering seems like the logical next step (obviously not overnight, which is the immediate issue but sometimes forcing migration is the only way to start it).
If you think tapeless mastering is the way to go, how long would you perceive such a migration would take?
If not, what reasons go against tapeless mastering? Format standardisation perhaps?
Good question Marvin. We began this company in its present form about 5 years ago, as HD was gaining traction. We were aware then that tape was likely to be supplanted in the near future - and wondered whether the Digibeta we bought then would have an economic life. We could have bought HDCAM SR, which the BBC and some others now require, but couldn't justify $160,000 in the face of the eventual, or maybe imminent, move to tapeless delivery. So four years ago we bought HDCAM, the standard HD TV deliverable here.. And guess what? We could probably have bought the SR deck.
How many shows have we delivered tapeless for money so far? Zero. Sure, MPEGs for screenings, Blu-ray (yes), H.264 for Vimeo - but the paying work is still on tape. We're still mastering a couple of broadcast shows a day to Digibeta and HDCAM, often both, for major national networks to high standards, using FCP 7 and grading in Color. High end docos and regular series work shot tapeless, telefeatures shot on Genesis, RED and Alexa material and of course EX.
When tapeless delivery occurs I think it will happen quickly - in the space of a year or so certain networks will eschew tape altogether, or insist on both - one for TX, and a tape for archive. Others will require tape for years to come. It'll be driven by their own server structures and interfaces, not by suppliers and post houses telling them what they should want.
Our biggest issue, as someone pointed out, is that Sony's HDCAM factory was in Sendai and for a minute there stock was scarce. That seems to have eased. But I'd say it'll be 3-5 years before we can seriously deliver a tapeless master to meet a contracted deliverable, with all sorts of caveats like LTO or supplementary safety copies. Will it streamline things for the networks? Possibly. For us? No, it'll add more work on identical budgets.
Oh, to add re the SSD thing, sure, sending portable drives on couriers and hoping to get them back might work, but there's still the fundamental QA pass that needs to happen, in real time: watching the finished show down with everything in place is very instructive, especially with the producer in the suite. Watching the output of a deck from a confidence head replaying what is actually on tape, rather than what you thought was going there, significantly reduces the incidence of errors. A "render and run" pass lacks that robustness.
engineers and salesmen. Engineers don't really care about the user, salesmen sorta do. I would need, minimally,
12 engineers and one sales guy or gal to ?sustain? a FCP clone. I call my product SCP, Sustainable Cut Pro.
Sustainable because, as long as engineers and salesman exist, and a revenue stream is forthcoming, the product will continue.
Given global labor rates, I can easily get an engineer for under $20K a year. The salesman would cost more, say $50K.
That's $290K a year. My price points would be $1,000 purchase, $100 yearly upgrade. So how many new purchasers would
I need to keep the product going?
Assuming my 13 employees forgo salary in return for stock the first year, I would need 290 new sales. The installed base of FCP
must be huge. All I would need to do to migrate the critters to SCP is guarantee a robust XML importer that does all the right things.
Once the legacy projects are in, and in good shape, my users become both loyal and generous.
I love Apple products. I own an iMac, Macbook Air, Mac Mini, iPhone 4, Airport Extreme and many iPods. I'm completely Steve Job's bitch.
I also think FCPX is probably a great move for Apple. I understand where they're coming from. FCP7 was completely bloated from years of features they had to keep adding in order to keep up with AVID. The only way to fix this in the long run was to start from scratch - which would be a massive undertaking. Because they were starting from scratch, they probably didn't have the time or resources to create a new line of editing software that could cater to both professional and consumer editors. So they made a choice: Forget about the pro market, let's concentrate on the consumer market. That's what they do best after all. There's nothing wrong with this. I'm willing bet it's going to make a lot of money for them in long run.
I just don't understand why all these people keep insisting that this is really all going to be for the benefit of professional editors in film and TV?
You know all those cool new features like magnetic timeline, clip connections, compound clips, content auto-analysis... Guess what? Professional editors could care less about any of that. Keeping audio and video clips in sync is the EASIEST part of what we do. That's like telling an astro-physicist we've invented this cool new calculator that makes it easier to add and subtract numbers, but we've taken out the ability to do calculus or derivatives or any of the stuff you really need. The only people who really care about those features are consumer editors.
Look. Professional editors on big budget projects have complicated needs. Our editing software needs to be complicated. This isn't being snobbish, this is just a fact of life.
I applaud that Apple has managed to simplify editing for consumer editors. I think it's great. But a simplified editing software is intrinsically at odds with the complicated needs of professional feature film and TV production.
On what basis do you keep insisting that FCPX is the first step in Apple's big master plan to win over top tier feature film and TV editors? How would you actually know what it is we need from our editing software?
On what basis do you keep insisting that FCPX is the first step in Apple's big master plan to win over top tier feature film and TV editors? How would you actually know what it is we need from our editing software?
Er, faith. Religion. Belief in the hereafter...?
I'm sorry, that's disingenuous. All sorts of things happen under the hood, of course, but which 3rd party app do I need to launch to print from Word?
The printer drivers, which while they may be supplied by MS or Apple are in fact generally the work of the printer maker and redistributed under license. I'm not being in the slightest bit disingenuous here, printing really is abstracted out from the application completely and the device specific layer is abstracted out even from the operating system.
I have no idea what your problems are like with tape and FCP-X, I'm not claiming that the analogy actually holds - I'm just saying that if it does your analogy is proving the opposite of your point.
I imagine that Apple's preferred solution is that 3rd party plugins will be provided for each tape output system (I presume there are different hardware options with different interfaces?). FCP will thus have the messy hardware level stuff abstracted out, in an analogous way to the abstraction layers in printing.
Oh, and you may recall that when MS VIsta was released the world+dog complained that it didn't support their printers, because 3rd party drivers essentially didn't exist at launch time.
Given global labor rates, I can easily get an engineer for under $20K a year. The salesman would cost more, say $50K.
Lord help your users
Lord help your users
Note he said global labor rates. He's contracting out the engineering to India.
Note he said global labor rates. He's contracting out the engineering to India.
Like I said, Lord help his users
Another way to think of it is that it's fractured between the people who build software and the sheep who merely use software
If I follow your logic: no matter what a company offers like Apple for example we are to accept it and go along because they've had a successful track record @ offerings in the mass consumer market - BULL sir, Bull - if any product doesn't fill a market segments needs it won't be used by that segment, Apple helped democratize this industry (well Amiga Computers & NewTek Video Toaster set the ground work, Apple picked up the fumbled ball and ran with it) it has nothing to do with "it's the future", it's the relationship between them, hell not taking off ones hat in doors or talking with food in your mouth is still bad manners, no matter how many "Jack Asses" do it - I go with what works for me as I assume most intelligent people do.
It's great for programmers to initiate new code, but functionality is the problem, so these function couldn't be replicated in new 64 bit code even better? - or are coders writing this stuff to be self indulgent - like most editors, I do it for a commissioned job to meet a clients idea & purpose to sell to others - capitalism 101. Apple is basically compelling us all to accept any and all they do, because most have brought into the myth that Apple can do no wrong, that's utter non-sense and a cultist mind set, nothing and no one in life short of Jesus can claim that... so if FCPX fits your needs go for it, but don't sell me the "new paradigm shift in editing angle" when it's actually about getting a bigger market share of those who can more easily use iMovie add the name FCP because it has cache, minus the sophisticated range of level controls found in Color or SoundTrackPro, now it's keep it" iSimple X" no XML import, but there is iMove import and easy export to Youtube and Facebook, while and not to Pro Tools for audio stims, WTF?
Okay I do love the new MetaData function and the fact I can use 4k files (when exactly?) - but I require multiple monitors, a Source, Edit and Preview - I don't want someone sitting so close to me sharing one monitor or even two, I need room to work my magic this industry is the top of the editing food chain and in my niche commercials are king, there are basic requirements of high technical knowledge, skill and artistic collaboration, from everyone involved from below the line to above it, we depends on each other and the tools of the trade to do the job well, and learning new apps, and hardware constantly as it comes to market - I learned Shake but that was EOLed, and it was highly used industry wide ever see a film called Lord of The Rings, I still kept faith that Apple would incorporate the functions in some new great product, nope didn't happen, in fact they brought more small companies like Color and Logic etc... to do what? EOL them and kill off that market segment to what end? this confounds me truly, to destroy these great products for no real reason... so now that Apple is very profitable and no longer a computer company per se, but a Electronics firm, it can be arrogant and act like a bull in a china shop. Sony never, ever would act in such a manner - I cannot believe I invested so much in Apple apps & hardware to be shown this level of disregard by them, well foolish me for believing their hype so completely and not looking @ them as a company overall and how they operate as a business.
Just tell us that you plan to no longer cater to the pro industry and are going for the prosumer who needs the simplest amount of control and will accept whiz bang bells and whistles over substantive functionality and customization for the types of workflow that we do day in and day out - apple is not the only game in town, a half to a full $billion dollar industry has grown up around Final Cut Pro this has caused grave concern for that cottage industry, new and hungrier developers are out there waiting to show their wares, like Imagineering Systems, Black Magic & Aja to name a few companies with products that fit our needs, JUST BE UP FRONT APPLE, this clandestine nature is starting to ware thin and you wont be so profitable forever, you may need us again someday... now how much is that Davinci Resolve...
... now how much is that Davinci Resolve...
Odd you should ask that - within a week or two, apparently, free! Resolve Lite for Mac... now you still need the CUDA hardware and it'll only do SD & HD (oh dear) but it's a very fine introductory look. I have the full Tangent setup and Resolve only works with Wave, or their own, or Avid's puny Artist Series - but hang on, with a Symphony alongside...
If I follow your logic: no matter what a company offers like Apple for example we are to accept it and go along because ...
You don't follow my logic. You also don't appear to use full stops, which makes it very hard to meaningfully respond to you, because it makes reading your prose close to unbearable. Instead I'll have to try to respond to your long incoherent ramble in an unsatisfyingly vague way, so if I fail to address your point I apologise, but it's probably because I couldn't find your point in the word soup.
I am saying that many FCP users are being as irrational, and unreasonable here as Star Wars fans were when Lucas 'betrayed' them. To the users FCP is their tool, but to the developers FCP is their product. The users believe that they 'own' the product in the same way that Star Wars fans felt they 'owned' their movie experience, however ultimately ownership lies with creators not consumers.
It's the creators' right to create something that some users don't like, and the users are absolutely entitled not to use it when they do. There are many reasons why the creator may choose to do this, which the user often doesn't appreciate. Star Wars fans will simply never understand Lucas' determination never to release the original movies without the changes that he made back in the 90s. Lord of the Rings fans will never understand the stupid Arwen sub-plot, the moving of lines between characters for seemingly no reason, the gratuitous Legolas arcade game moments.
If FCP no longer works for you then don't use it, perhaps it will never be suitable for you again, in which case never return. Perhaps Apple made a mistake with FCP that will result in the product dying. Perhaps they made a decision that will set FCP up for years to come in the prosumer space. Perhaps FCP will prove successful in the pro space in a few years because its new clean architecture will allow for faster innovation than the competitors. There are lots of ways this may shake out, and it's Apple's right to make the decision as to where it wants to send the product, just as it is Lucas' right to refuse to release a set of Star Wars movies which he would be dissatisfied with.
This attitude of entitlement is no more appealing in movie creators than it is in movie consumers.
Apple didn't make FCPX for fun. They made it to make editing faster and easier. If someone says they're good at video editing and can't use the faster and easier software then how good at editing are they really?
"Good at video editing" is not just operating an application. Being "good" is telling a story well. That separates the pros from the amateurs.
Professional video companies strive to have the best and fastest tools in order to please clients. When editing for yourself, you don't have clients. We constantly are upgrading and improving our workflows to be more efficient and to be better than the other guy. We don't hold on to inefficient processes. However, we can't use FCPX because of the missing features. We can't tell our clients that can't use their tape library anymore. We can't grade color from a thumbnail on an LED monitor. We can't output audio tracks for Pro Tools mixing. We can't even pull an EDL for selects.
Yes, there are some good features in the baseline app. It's just not ready for prime time yet. The pros will be all over it when it is done.
I'll make it easier for everyone. Show me Coppola or the Coen Brothers using FCPX by this year for a major-release full-length feature (not indies or documentaries).
Of course if they want to shoot film, they can't use FCPX for editing. Two words-Cinema Tools. "Cinema Tools is software bundled with Final Cut Studio that combines film database tools with conversion tools. It is used to log and keep track of film as well as to reverse telecine or perform advanced pulldown"
Cinema Tools is not included with FCPX.