What Did We Learn?

Wow, dude chill out.

I don´t think my - increasing - grey hair has anything to do with my like or dislike of a software.

As Ben said FCPX is made for a new workflow and tries to re-start the whole process.
The problem is....many facilities are not ready to drop OMFs, EDLs etc. So even if you get the editing done in FCPX, you will run into problems on export or during collaboration with others.

This is where Apple needs to step it up. They need to give FCPX a more professional image. They need to reposition FCPX in the market from a gadget to a serious tool. I understand they make millions by selling FCPX to consumers (hence the price point). But if they really want to sell $ 3.500 MacBooks and $ 5.000 Mac Pros they need to install a pro-user-base that knows these investments are not wasted.

LOL, neither do I innlens. Such an idea is preposterous at best. I was just trying to make a point, which I elaborate on in my last post.

This whole new app ecosystem is foreign to most of us and it will take some getting used to, but in the end the app store makes for a much better delivery platform.

Yes, of course there are problems with import / export with FCPX but in time these problems have and will disappear with third party solutions. Apple is smart to allow third party developers to create plugins for FCPX, rather than supporting everything themselves out of the gate. It will allow Apple engineers to focus on the core usability of the app and it allows the market to guide the extensibility of FCPX. We tend to put too much blame on Apple, when it is up to third parties at this point for delivering the extensions we need. Apple seems very intent on working with third party developers on the app store to deliver great user experience with FCPX.

* This whole idea that Apple is banking on third party extensions and that FCPX delivery is via the app store model is something I learned from the LAFCPUG presentation. It may be old news to some people, but it doesn't seem like it when I hear people complaining about XML support still.

I don't see remaining extensibility for FCPX as a problem, but an opportunity for the right developer. This is actually a very good thing. If Hollywood were not burdened by the past, pros would be able to see past the focal length of their lenses and realize in this day and age you can't make a film with an editor, an audio engineer, but you also need a developer.

If you use FCPX as a pro, it is a professional app. I don't see many amateurs pulling out the histogram or vectorscope or understanding what a 3 point edit is. The price point doesn't make an app professional or not. It is what can be done with it. Professional video can certainly be made with FCPX.

What I find bizarre is that it's old farts like us pushing the limits while Gen Y think it's cool to actually know how to drive an AVID. ...Please...must be that retro thing... :lol:

Ok both of you behave -we don't argue like that on this forum. Respect each others opinion please.

Peter

I think both of you are right and wrong.
Just going to keep this one short. Apple can do what ever they wan't make it a professional image but it won't have it until the professional itself make it for it. Why one reason everybody was looking at Walter Murch reaction to FCPX.
But this is true that burned in professional hate changes they are used to there workflow but this normal and known in all industries. But a course you have exception this the nature of the beast.
How common it is to hear someone "I don't want to learn anything new." (no matter what aged group more like longer in the workflow)...
It is a bit funny that in the video world new technology is alway looked at from the side and in the photography is embraced.

It is always hearsay and dangerous to generalize folks into overly simplified groups.

Hoping for an exciting year of FCP X developments.

Well, I will say this. I like FCPX (and it is my main NLE at this point) but it does have many issues/features that need to be worked out before a lot of other pros decide to jump off their present money maker and switch (which is a huge time investment).

For my workflow, it's pretty good (although audio is not great and selective copy/paste attributes is shamefully still missing).

That said, on the support side, I have found AAPL in general to be quite responsive and helpful. I've got a number of emails and calls back from them so they seem to be putting a real effort into to making it work/better.

That is a solid sign of their commitment to pros in my book.

Scrubelicious wrote: Apple can do what ever they wan't make it a professional image but it won't have it until the professional itself make it for it. Why one reason everybody was looking at Walter Murch reaction to FCPX.

well, their marketing of FCPX is a huge head-scratcher still and especially Apple has to know how marketing fixes everything. Only in the FCPX world they don´t try to.
While they announce iOS6 and its features on a huge keynote to professional app-builders, they hardly give us any information about what to expect when.
As you say the original perception of FCPX 10.0.0 is still in people´s mind, despite 5 updates and despite the fact that much of that original perception was wrong!

Apple has to step up and show the Murchs out there how far FCPX has come and also show how far it will go. And vague hits at some stuff for pros later next year will not help them, because it is clear millions are leaving the FCP7 ship now and once they invest in anything new (Avid, Adobe, Edius, Vegas) it will be VERY hard to ever get them back. Especially if they also leave the Mac OSX universe.

Where are the empirical statistics that so many folk have abandoned FCP totally? I'm not saying a good number haven't invested in other NLEs, but how many have, how many of those gave up on FCP totally, now many bought another NLE, then came back to FCP? There's no solid data about this. Just speculation and hearsay.

Take a look at what Avid did today. Sold off the entire collection of consumer product divisions. That looming bankruptcy problem they've had for the last few years must not be getting any better. I'd rather my NLE developer change the rules of the game, rather than go out of business..
fcp.co/forum/2-off-topic/10776-avid-sell...f-their-product-line

Adobe has announced the death of Flash, after arguing with Steve Jobs for so long.

And Walter Murch recently posted an article about who messed up things were after refusing FCP X, when Avid and PPro didn't round trip to Resolve very easily. And sold off most of his brand new Avid stations. What a waste of time and money learning that painful lesson. FCP X would have saved him from all of that.

Change is inevitable.

BenB wrote: Where are the empirical statistics that so many folk have abandoned FCP totally?

I agree but there are always two sides, where is the statistic that so many folks haven't abandoned FCP?
If you go by peoples statements on the web/forum/blogs and social networks there are a quite a few that have left FCP for Adobe CS. Not that many to Avid.

BenB wrote:
And Walter Murch recently posted an article about who messed up things were after refusing FCP X, when Avid and PPro didn't round trip to Resolve very easily. And sold off most of his brand new Avid stations. What a waste of time and money learning that painful lesson. FCP X would have saved him from all of that.

Can you post this article please, could be a good read.

People posting on blogs and forums are a tiny drop in the bucket of world users. How many of them are real professionals? Like I said, hearsay, speculation, that's all it is. Compare that to the number of copies Apple has sold on the App Store and via bulk license. They've sold more copies if FCP X to date then they ever sold of FCP 7. So I have to question, where are the solid numbers? Cause the hearsay perception doesn't match the sales numbers. I'd love to know what the reality is, either way. But we have conflicting information about FCP X's popularity, or lack of.

Apple sales engineer I know said the day FCP X shipped Apple was flooded with FCP legacy customers threatening to abandon the Apple platform altogether. 3 months later, almost none had. Today, only a tiny handful are gone. More and more are slowing getting on board. And no, he does not work in a store or the retail market.

Scrubelicious wrote: Can you post this article please, could be a good read.

+1

I take it back, it wasn't Murch, may have been Biscardi, I'm drawing a blank on the editor who did this. Looking for the article now. Doctor has me on Benadryl and today is going sslllooowwww....

I'll post it when I find it.

Stats are hard to come by. I'm sure Apple has sold many seats of X--it is after all ridiculously low-priced. For any Pro wanting to just try it out, the cost is meaningless.

But: how many pros are switching to X? I have no idea. I have switched—I know of no one else personally. A good friend and terrific editor in LA, who used FCP7 for years and years, recently switched to Avid. A great editor in NYC is sticking with Avid—nothing about X could entice him to switch. A great editor I know in NJ is cutting 50% on X and the rest on legacy 7.

Everyone else is staying put. In other words, I know very few who have actually switched. WHich is different from how many licenses they've sold. Again, the low price is no barrier.

As a small production company, my real concern is being able to source freelance X editors when we are busy. They are few in number at this point.

As I mentioned, I like X. A lot. But I am still unsure of which way to go and am hoping I have made the right decision.

I, like most everyone else here, keeps hoping Apple continues to add new (or previous features) and increase stability so more and more folks join the party.

BenB wrote: Compare that to the number of copies Apple has sold on the App Store and via bulk license. They've sold more copies if FCP X to date then they ever sold of FCP 7....

Like you said

BenB wrote: How many of them are real professionals?

BenB wrote: ...Apple sales engineer I know said the day FCP X shipped Apple was flooded with FCP legacy customers threatening to abandon the Apple platform altogether. 3 months later, almost none had. Today, only a tiny handful are gone. More and more are slowing getting on board. And no, he does not work in a store or the retail market.

Then there should be official static. No?
There was a site that showed a voted statics but this has been dropped. Maybe it's time to bring one back? I have seen a german FCPUG having one on Facebook.

As screendor mentioned

screendor wrote: I know very few who have actually switched. WHich is different from how many licenses they've sold. Again, the low price is no barrier.

The same here plus the "tiny drop in the bucket" from the internet.

screendor wrote: As a small production company, my real concern is being able to source freelance X editors when we are busy. They are few in number at this point.

Give me a call

Will do. BTW, did a shoot in Munich last year--it was great! But, alas, our post happens here in the States in our office. Hopefully in a year or two they will actually have the cloud share/editing over internet thing really worked out. My source here in NJ, your fingers there in Nuremberg.

What was the shot in Munich?
I was planning to return back to the states but family kept me here. But who knows... cloud editing is down the road.

You want to hit offline?

And all of this time, money, and effort because he didn't want to deal with FCP X, which goes to Resolve easier.

magazine.creativecow.net/article/a-cauti...for-the-fcp-switcher

"So where does leave me right now? I had originally purchased five sets of Avid Symphony and I'm going to sell three of them. I originally purchased two sets of CS6 Production Premium and I'm going to purchase four more of them. As I write this, Adobe CS6 works a little better for our current workflow, which really requires the maximum flexibility we can have.

And this certainly means that as we test software in the future, we will have to test every single scenario and make zero assumptions. Who knew FCP 7 was as flexible it was? You just don't realize what you had until you move on to something else."

Sure. let me know.