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one person's perspective - FinalCut Pro X


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I just read an article that has much the same perspective I was trying to say in my post regarding what "professional" means in our ever-changing, not always for the better, world of media creation, creativity, software and so forth. One statement quoted here says a lot:

"When it comes down to it, Final Cut Pro X isn’t about alienating professionals: It’s about finding out just what a “professional” looks like in this day and age. That line has blurred tremendously in the last decade thanks to widely-available—and inexpensive!—personal technology. Filmmakers are putting together features for $11,000. TV crews have gone digital; and that’s not even covering the amount of video created every day on the Web."

You can read the whole article HERE

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I just read an article that has much the same perspective I was trying to say in my post regarding what "professional" means in our ever-changing, not always for the better, world of media creation, creativity, software and so forth. One statement quoted here says a lot:

"When it comes down to it, Final Cut Pro X isn’t about alienating professionals: It’s about finding out just what a “professional” looks like in this day and age. That line has blurred tremendously in the last decade thanks to widely-available—and inexpensive!—personal technology. Filmmakers are putting together features for $11,000. TV crews have gone digital; and that’s not even covering the amount of video created every day on the Web."

You can read the whole article HERE

Sure. But I also think professional means communicating well with your peers and not making their work tougher by changing workflows without providing alternatives....

at least so far.

phil p

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Every single editor I've talked to this week (five of them) doesn't just dislike FCPX -- they hate it. Speaking as a Mac user since 1987, and an occasional FCP user since about 2003, I'm perplexed by the changes.

I think the Senator has it right elsewhere: the new release feels like Final Cut Prosumer. I think this is a sign that Apple may be moving away from the hardcore professional film/TV market, and more towards people who are making web videos and YouTube entertainment.There's some extremely vitriolic comments from users on the new FCPX section of the LA Final Cut Pro User Group:

http://www.lafcpug.o...rum/list.php?19

There's even a petition on Apple's support group to sell the source code to Final Cut Pro 7 to a third-party company, and let somebody else continue developing the program:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/15483316#15483316

--Marc W.

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  • 2 weeks later...

One company is making a marketing push based on inventory of NOS of FCsP 7:

"ProMAX is currently offering full licenses of FCP 7 for only $799.00 with the purchase of a complete editing package*. Due to limited stock, this promotion is only good while supplies last. We are not selling Final Cut Studio 3 as a software only package...Packages must be based on Mac Pros, Macbook Pros, or iMacs and must include the ProMAX Start Editing Now package and ProMAX storage. "

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I've started casually surveying my clients who own edit systems about the FCPx issues, now that the dust has settled a bit and Apple has had a chance to respond somewhat. So far they are A: still using their FCP 7 systems, B: looking to Premiere (mostly) for upgrades and replacement systems (heavy anti-Avid bias still evident) and C: NOT buying FCPx, at least for their "work" systems. This has been a pretty much universal sentiment so far, more widespread than I had expected, actually.

I should add that nearly all these people would prefer to keep working on MacPro towers, no matter what the software was.

phil p

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I think Apple's success at dictating to the consumer market with their, "We're going to tell you what you'll be using next." approach has bitten them in the butt when it comes to the professional sector.

While Apple's approach has worked stunningly in the consumer marketplace, due to a combination of product innovation and a public addicted to adopting the latest trend, such wholesale paradigm departures don't cut it with pros who need to deliver a professional product in a timely manner to demanding clients, and for whom, proven workflows are essential.

The two different markets require two different approaches and Apple failed to recognize that. Hubris is a killer.

(And no, I'm not an Apple hater. While I've dealt with far more PCs than Macs over the years, I own a small post facility where we do professional post on a frequent basis on a Mac Pro, which is quite frankly, a stunning machine -- well designed, well built, and less hassle with system changes. We have Macs, PCs, Avid, Final Cut Pro, SADiE, and Pro Tools, so we're rather equipment agnostic and simply need to use the right tool for the right job.)

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Interesting perspective/analysis of Apple's behavior with regards to FinalCut fiasco.

(picked up from MacinTouch site --- I don't know the author)

Lyman Taylor

Re:

What does [Disney's] workflow look like? Just curious.

AVID.

Which part of Disney? "Steve Job's" Disney is Pixar and the animation studios. I'm sure Disney uses multiple suites on the highly diverse projects the whole company is engaged in. ABC, Pixar, and the film division all have slightly different needs and workflows. There is no reason they all should be using the exact same editing suite for every corporate project.

There is extremely little need for the *files* coming out of the Pixar render farm to be laid down on "tape" for editing.

Disney also owns a 30% stake in Hulu, which is growing rapidly. In "broadcast", the highest growth sub-market right now is digital distribution.

Steve Jobs doesn't own and micromanage Disney. He has lots of shares but not a controlling interest. Neither is Apple running their company on a Numbers spreadsheet nor filling the new datacenter with 90% Apple hardware. Right tool for the right job.

As a director of Disney his job is to focus more on where Disney is going. Not where they have been. The "right now" is the CEO and 'C' level executives' job. I would be surprised if someone at Disney squatted on a decision to buy additional FCP7 licenses between the NAB announce that a new version was coming and the actual release date. Any reasonable Apple sales person if presented the question "If I specifically need FCP7 now should I wait till after the new release to buy" probably would have gotten a very clear "No".

FCPX doesn't have to be everything for everybody right now. It is a long-term play, whether it is successful or not. Another poster commented

Apple didn't go for 'second banana' when they released the iPhone. "A $500 phone? Who will buy that!" What if Apple had just released a much cheaper phone with far less features and justified it by saying "The 'secondary' market will fill in the gaps."

Cheaper misses the point. Apple *did* release a feature-limited smartphone as the first release. This when Symbian and Palm phones could accept apps from the secondary market that filled in needs [that] "pro" smartphone users needed to get work done. They could also do things like hands-free voice dial and other common features [that] phones could do that were missing from the iPhone.

Shortly after release, [Apple] did make the same limited phone more affordable; a price point they should have selected in the first place, given their stated growth objectives. There was a significant group of angry users with pitchforks out to tar-and-feather Apple on that issue, too.

Apple incrementally added the ability to add apps to a solid core over time. Apple has made billions off the iOS devices. During that first 2 years on the market there were lots of "pro" users who stomped off and bought other, less limited smartphones. Over time Apple got a decent fraction of those folks back.

FCPX doesn't have years to fill in the missing pieces, but it probably won't take years to fill in many of these external focus connectors.

FCPX is also more inexpensive in part because the studio/bundle is being split up. At one point FCP was just $999 unbundled. Part of the strategy of bundling was to save some of the other apps from getting axed (due to flat or declining growth rates).

Another comment from different post:

If I had the opportunity to trade a small and shrinking group of difficult-to-please clientele...

The fatal criteria there for an Apple product is not 'small' or 'difficult-to-please'. The fatal criteria is 'shrinking' (and/or flat, i.e., anything that is not experiencing some significant growth). Apple keeps the average Mac sales price above that of the industry average. As long as Apple continues to pull a higher percentage of the folks in the "above $1000" segment, they will continue with Macs. When and if that sub-segment starts to implode, they will probably stop selling Macs. So, small isn't the issue; 10% or less of the overall market is just fine. Too small for growth is the primary issue.

That's the disconnect between folks who want to define "professional" as the least inclusive, elitist, most narrow sub-segment of a market, and where Apple prefers to operate. The former almost assures that the submarket is flat or shrinking. Hence, there is the disconnect that has absolutely nothing to do with "Apple not understanding pros". Where "pros" means drawing a shrinking circle around yourself, then they understand all too well.

So, Apple moving to a solution mix where 3rd-party vendors fill in the flat/negative growth subcomponents and Apple continues to track the growth segments *is* Apple trying to stay engaged with the market. If you try to force them to choose between flat or negative growth and postive growth, you will lose in the long term.

The parts of the suite that have now disappeared and high end content management tools: Again, the growth rates probably were bad and they got axed. In contrast, someone earlier said that XSan was dead. Kind of funny that:

OS X 10.6.7 got XSan bug fixes;

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4473

ActiveStorage announces ActiveSAN (just as sales for XServe stop)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf9QO6g48eg

Promise announces a Thunderbird to FC connector

http://promise.com/news_room/news.aspx?m=615&region=en-US&rsn=823

Apple rapidly puts TB on all new models this year (expect probably Mac Pros ... they already have PCI-e slots and some probably will have faster PCI-e v3.0 slots when arrive late in the year.)

Lion Client is preannouced to have XSan client built in.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/whats-new/features.html#xsan

including industry standard multipathing. And Mac OS X server becomes more affordable and has the Admin app bundled.

Quantum announces another metadata controller appliance.

http://www.quantum.com/products/software/stornextM330/index.aspx

Hmm, lets see: bug fixed, more industry standards supported, more than one appliance vendor, if [you] absolutely have to have paired 1U boxes in a rack, FC (hence XSan) rolled out to a much larger group of Macs, and approximately lowered the deployment cost to that of FC hardware. If that is "killing XSan", then they are doing a extremely poor job.

There was lots of wailing when XServe got terminated that XSan and Mac OS X Server were next on the chopping block. Apple is walking away. You'll see.

XSan could die in the next couple of years. If, after all of the above, there is no growth in usage... it will disappear from the OS X bundles. However, that will not be because Apple didn't take a gamble trying to achieve growth.

FCPX is in the same boat. If the pieces fall into place about as rapidly for FCPX as they have for XSan, much of this self-inflicted angst would turn out to be extremely nonproductive.

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I've started casually surveying my clients who own edit systems about the FCPx issues, now that the dust has settled a bit and Apple has had a chance to respond somewhat. So far they are A: still using their FCP 7 systems, B: looking to Premiere (mostly) for upgrades and replacement systems (heavy anti-Avid bias still evident) and C: NOT buying FCPx, at least for their "work" systems. This has been a pretty much universal sentiment so far, more widespread than I had expected, actually.

That's exactly what I'm hearing in LA as well. At the middle/low-end, users seem to be mulling over switching to Premiere or sticking with FCP7 for now; at the high end, they're looking into Avid's $995 upgrade offer.

I don't doubt that FCPX will have a lot of stuff fixed in 6-8 months, but I'm baffled as to why Apple would a) release the new version when it's clearly unfinished, and b] discontinue the old version so quickly. If this had happened with, say, Microsoft Word, people would carry torches and pitchforks to Redmond...

--Marc W.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Another article regarding FCPX -from MacInTouch comments

Commentary and Tips

MacInTouch Reader

Good article. Good points. But the problem Apple created for itself is bad will. Perhaps most people don't realize how the editing industry is set-up. For the most part, places have a few in-house editors and then pick up freelancers as their business picks up and releases them when they slow down. (In a sense, the vast majority of virtually all editors are freelance.) So, are employers going to go with FCPX when there are very few editors who know it? You are asking these employers who are notoriously cheap and super-fast-paced workplaces to now invest in time to convert projects and train editors? It's not going to happen. These employers will switch back to Avid, because they can trust it will be around, and they can count on a supply of editors. Also, even FCP 7 editors can switch to Avid with little learning time, and there is lots of support to help train them in the technical/nuance issues that are always at hand in all editing programs.Apple has forced pro-shops to pick sides, and this time it's a real standoff. A new interface that comes with speed increases and technical simplification versus Avid, an industry standard that works very well and is itself faster the FCP 7 and technically simpler in some ways, plus there is an adequate supply of editors and technical support staff.

I predict Apple is going to lose this round. However, perhaps in a few years, after smaller shops have used FCPX and there a number of editors who have figured out how to use it well enough to show everybody how cost effective it is over Avid, it will make a resurgence. Sound familiar? It should, it's exactly how FCP was originally accepted.

PS. Here is a little scoop. Look for the upcoming battle between ABC and Apple. ABC a while back (5 or 6 years ago) standardized everything to FCP7. All their deliveries are digital Apple Specs. Now, will ABC sue Apple? Will Apple with its big store of cash just settle and pay off ABC to cover its costs to switch to another editing platform or pay for all its digital post staff to learn FCPX? Is there other outcome? Additionally intriguing is that ABC is owned by Disney, and of course you know who the biggest stockholder in that company is. Tune it to see how the final 'edit' of this situation plays out.

(There must be a better pun but I got to run to my edit-bay!)

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PS. Here is a little scoop. Look for the upcoming battle between ABC and Apple. ABC a while back (5 or 6 years ago) standardized everything to FCP7. All their deliveries are digital Apple Specs. Now, will ABC sue Apple? Will Apple with its big store of cash just settle and pay off ABC to cover its costs to switch to another editing platform or pay for all its digital post staff to learn FCPX? Is there other outcome? Additionally intriguing is that ABC is owned by Disney, and of course you know who the biggest stockholder in that company is. Tune it to see how the final 'edit' of this situation plays out.

(There must be a better pun but I got to run to my edit-bay!)

I'll admit, I'm a bit nieve here about FCPX and how it's implimented, but if it doesn't work for you, why install it? Are the old versions completely obsolete? Has this "x" version rendered the older version unusable?? It doesn't seem to be able to work for professionals, and it appears it's best suited for amatuers or home movie makers. Why are pro's so upset, don't buy it.

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I'll admit, I'm a bit nieve here about FCPX and how it's implimented, but if it doesn't work for you, why install it? Are the old versions completely obsolete? Has this "x" version rendered the older version unusable?? It doesn't seem to be able to work for professionals, and it appears it's best suited for amatuers or home movie makers. Why are pro's so upset, don't buy it.

The last versions of FinalCut Pro work just fine, as far as I know, but professionals (and facilities as pointed out in the article) are upset, among other things, because FinalCut Pro will cease being supported software. This is very important because at some time in the future the software they have built their entire business on may no longer work.

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My friend Steve Hullfish grew a small email riff of his into this:

FCP X Mission Control Parody

Steve Hullfish | 07/27What if Cupertino was “Houston?”

Astronaut: Cupertino, we have a problem. It seems that ten years of costly space flight training has gone up in smoke. None of the switches here in the space shuttle seem to do anything.

Cupertino: Switches are an antiquated control paradigm.

Astronaut: OK, that’s cool, but we’re trying to dock to the International Space Station in three minutes.

Cupertino: Docking isn’t really supported with the new space shuttle.

Rest of the transcript here:

<http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/shullfish/story/fcp_x_mission_control_parody/>

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" FinalCut Pro (7) will cease being supported software. "

it isn't like the Professionals need to call customer support, but the older versions will not be supported (as in will not work) with newer versions of OS's...

" No more Macbook Pro's, or Towers, "

I believe they will still keep calling stuff "Pro".

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I think a lot of the broken stuff will be fixed in the next six months, and FCPX will eventually work. My beef with the program is that so much of the user interface has been trashed and replaced with something radically new. FCP7 worked very much like Avid and Adobe Premiere. FCPX is a totally different animal. If you've done any editing before, learning something that has such a major paradigm shift is going to be a chore for experienced users.

The good news is, if you've never done any editing before, it's pretty easy to wrap your head around FCPX (from what I've been told). And the new version is very, very fast, especially on the newer Macs (all 64-bit, multi-processor ready). I think they'll eventually get it working, but I see no reason to upgrade yet.

--Marc W.

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