FCPX 10.0.8 PRE-RELEASE DISCUSSION

grailz wrote: As far as Apple keeping "pros" in the ecosystem, they will. Its just a matter of which pros they're going for. I'm not just talking about video creatives. Digital artists, developers, musicians- those are all pros. How many of them are dependent on Mac Pro towers? I can't imagine the number is that high.

I think you're looking at this the wrong way. The MacPro has been lower volume sales for many years. Even your use of "pro" is off, based on how you're using because even iPhones and iPads are used by "pro" especially when you consider their infiltration into Fortune 500 companies.

That has very little to do with MacPro sales. It's a computer for power users. Most "pros" as you're describing it aren't power users. Power in that they need major CPU/GPU resources.

Apple needs a "power user" computer because they offering products that take advantage of it are much more likely to invest in the entire ecosystem. Thunderbolt actually increases that investment. Your Video I/O or RAID will be able to travel within your ecosystem when you use MacPro for work, MacBookPro on the road, iMac at home, carry you demo material for meeting presentations on your iPhone or iPad.

Once you put a Windows computer at the top of the chain, you break the entire ecosystem because you no longer gain convenience by having Macs or Apple devices in the rest of the chain.

That an iMac "pro" user may never need a MacPro is missing the business model point as the MacPro user who will buy into and extend the entire ecosystem.

I'm very much of the line of thinking that Apple is continuing the MacPro not just for pro users, but for themselves as well. For the really heavy lifting that Apple does internally, what do we think THEY are going to do all that work with, without a high-end Mac?

Read John Siracusa's piece above. I think he hits all the right points. It's not just about marketshare, it's about mindshare. Apple could have done any number of things over the last 10 years to drastically increase the number of Macs they sell. They could have reduced margins, or offered a lower end laptop or desktop at the point when the Apple brand started really riding high. But they didn't. They don't want the sale at all costs- they want the profitable sale.

And while MacPro's don't sell in great volumes, Apple surely isn't loosing any money on them. But really that's beside the point. As I said, I think it's mindshare. Apple doesn't want to be the computer for everyone- it wants to be the computer everyone wants to have. And I think there is a value for Apple in having your machines be viewed as the "creative computers".

grailz wrote: The car companies don't make much of a profit off of the family models though. They get by on selling in volume. The pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles are where they make their money through the nose.

Yeah maybe back in the 80s and 90s.

Comparing a sports car in the Automobile industry, really makes no sense.
There are three reason why there prestige Automobiles on the market.
They are the pioneers of what to come, on the technology and design side, the other is to make the consumer buy into the company. Example many buy Fiat do to Ferrari. :whistle: Yeah.
The last well they are made for prestige humans.
How well does this translate into the world of computing. I haven't met anybody that bought a iPhone because of the Mac Pro, but I know of people that have bought a Macbook, Mac mini after owning one of the iToys.

Dropping the Proline could backfire in the long term, especially if Apple saturates the Chines and Indian market with there "iToys".

:woohoo:

The automobile industry is a completely different animal. I respect the comparison, however the auto industry is a perfect example of what an ecosystem product can be.

Just look at how many different vendors, products, jobs, etc. (the list is endless) the automobile is attached to.

Final Cut Pro remains an important part of how Apple defines itself.

If you take Apple's corporate definition as the way it describes itself in press releases , they've explicitly mentioned 'professional software' for many years:

July 2004 :

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning desktop and notebook computers, OS X operating system, and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital music revolution with its iPod portable music players and iTunes online music store.

...up until today :

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.

For now, I think it is important to Apple that Final Cut is seen as part of their professional software family - alongside Logic, Aperture and XCode.

Although we on this forum would like to see a huge (free) update to Final Cut Pro (and Logic and Motion), if Apple were courting professional respect over the next few months, they are more likely to get it with a great Mac that can run 'professional software' better than anything else.

cseeman wrote: FCPX learning curve is much faster for a newbie than other NLEs it would seem.

Most "experienced" editors don't want to invest the time to learn something new if they don't see an obvious immediate benefit. This is compounded by the radical frequent updates so they either never see the newly added "solutions" to their issues or otherwise feel they're in "constant learning mode."

This is true in a way, but if it is much easier to learn then much time wont be invested.
Working with Final Cut Pro since v3... the reason moving to Final Cut Pro X was more the workflow then the App it self. Maybe this is something to keep in consideration.

Scrubelicious wrote: This is true in a way, but if it is much easier to learn then much time wont be invested.
Working with Final Cut Pro since v3... the reason moving to Final Cut Pro X was more the workflow then the App it self. Maybe this is something to keep in consideration.

It's true for learning 'from scratch', but that doesn't mean it's easier for experienced editors.

Compare learning a new version of something you already know (i.e. an incremental update) to learning something completely new. Incremental updates are usually fairly trivial.

Learning something new is an entirely different thing, especially if you also need to 'unlearn' something else in the process.

FCPX is quicker for beginners to learn. It's also quicker for Pros to learn once they get a handle on the differences, but there will always be inertia for people already experienced in using something else, which is compounded when the new product is (or perceived to be) so radically different.

I don't know to me it was easier and as mention I have been working with Final Cut Pro since 2001 and Premiere before that. Which to me both are very similar not get of topic here....

If I can do it anybody can!

Besides nothing has changed really it is still the same concept of editing, you just point your mouse somewhere else and drag.

Sorry, I meant it was the perception of doing it - it seems harder until you've actually done it.

Again, this is really the same theme. Everyone is entitled to use, adapt and develop as they see fit, in order to reach their final product. Its a personal thing.

Unlearning things and inertia are absolutely significant factors in someones process. "...everyone's paintbrush...", but again that is a personal thing.

I know people using some really interesting un-heard-of editing software that are making some fantastic results.

Additionally again, "Its the fool behind the tool."

The whole other realm of this argument though is, assuming that we have an editor that is professionally trained an knows what he/she is doing, he'll potentially need software and hardware that can integrate, not only in to the Apple ecosystem, but the professional ecosystem as well.

It also really depends on what someones abilities are, what they are going for and whether they want to migrate with the times and the paradigms in technology. I would say that ideally a true editor would be able to use any software, barring preference of course.

It doesn't really make a difference what is used.

But again, the inertia is great. It helps your work and your process. Just decide which direction you want to push yourself in.

Scrubelicious wrote: I haven't met anybody that bought a iPhone because of the Mac Pro, but I know of people that have bought a Macbook, Mac mini after owning one of the iToys.

For myself, I know I was exposed to Macs at my work before anywhere else. Machines that I couldn't hope to afford. But when I did look for a computer- it was going to be a Mac. So there is a top-down halo effect as well, but absolutely true that most people will buy iDevices first, and as the last decade of Mac sales has shown, has slowly but surely been expanding the Macs % in PC sales. From something like 3% in 2002, to around 13% today.

Dave_EP wrote: It's true for learning 'from scratch', but that doesn't mean it's easier for experienced editors.

Actually, it is easier for experienced editors to learn. I actually have taught many independent seminars, custom corporate, and Apple Authorized trainings since X's initial release. From my first hand experience, pros pick it up as fast, if not faster.

If you are a pro, and can not learn things faster than a newbie, I question your professionalism. Learning new things from scratch is part of our business.

Learning new things from scratch is part of our business.

Exactly! "Embrace your your profession and unlock your potential."

Well, since we're apparently heading for a feature release now, instead of just a maintenance release, what is everyone's MOST WANTED new/reintegrated feature? Let's leave bug fixes and optimization out of it for now. If there was only ONE focused area of development, where would you like it?

For me, it's definitely using Roles metadata to better organize audio in the timeline. Roles separated by division lines, or custom colours, or both. With the ability to either collapse or expand each Role so that you can focus audio work. The user can organize the order of these Roles, like you can with elements within multicam clips.

It solves the "no tracks" problem that some people can't seem to get around, without breaking the importance of clip connections and the magnetic timeline. It cleans up the timeline. AND it sets the stage for better audio mixing.

I have a large blog post about my thoughts on this (with mockups) that I'll be finishing this week.

Disproportionate Pictures:

what is everyone's MOST WANTED new/reintegrated feature? Let's leave bug fixes and optimization out of it for now. If there was only ONE focused area of development, where would you like it?

Metadata access for Motion effects, a great use of which would be the ability to create metadata display Title generators. If chosen titles could be tagged as 'Viewer Overlay' they could then display during editing but not when exporting.

As well as timecode, slate info and camera settings (such as ALEXA lens ring positions), time-based metadata could include keywords assigned using Final Cut, imported as XML and dialogue for subtitling and trivia commentary.


@alex4D

Color coding of roles would sure be nice to have.

I would like to see a solution to set audio keyframes on the fly during playback. If possible a solution for using an area of the trackpad as the slider to mix an active clip or all clips from a role. Or an ipad app for sound mixing of roles. ( one of the few things i am missing from FP7 is using my MCMix control surface )

Give FCPX full "DaVinci like" color correction controls.

waternyc wrote: Give FCPX full "DaVinci like" color correction controls.

Or at least the ability to do tracking for the mattes.

I was having this discussion with someone yesterday- and I think it really comes down to an overall philosophy about the NLE.

Outside of the basic processes of editing [logging and cutting], the great debate is how much functionality do you bring to the NLE for any of the more specialized tasks?

An NLE is never going to be the best compositor. It's never going to be as good for sound work as a DAW. And it's never going to have the fine grained, deep nodal interface of a dedicated Color finishing app.

Each NLE draws it's line in the sand to say, if you want to do a job of this scope, you can do it all here- but beyond that go to program X. And while you could always rationalize integrating "just a bit" more functionality in each of these areas, truly replacing those dedicated programs would, I think, always be just out of reach because of one feature they provide.

I'm sure this is a conversation that goes on with the ProApps team all the time- where that line is for sound, graphics, color correction...

Anyways, I just find it an interesting dilemma.

Specific to the two previous requests, I think we'd need to see more advanced tracking in Motion before we could see multi-point mask tracking in FCPX.

* My alternate feature request is much more simple. Please give me back iChat Theatre!

Disproportionate Pictures wrote: Specific to the two previous requests, I think we'd need to see more advanced tracking in Motion before we could see multi-point mask tracking in FCPX.

BCC filters have tracking in FCPX. A simple tracker will do I'd think. Single reference point would be OK for many situations.
Of course more advanced tracking in Motion would be good and brings us right back to my hopes that Motion (and Compressor) get updates in the near future as well.