FCP X on Conan O'Brien

[Jeff Dean]

Originally Posted by David Parks

FYI, Past Products that short changed established professional editing paradigms/workflows to appeal to non-editors.
2. Newtek Video Toaster

Avid Media Composer has been around the longest of all of the non-linear editors (that I'm aware of).

Actually Newtek's Video Toaster lasted 21 yrs which is a pretty good run (1990-2011) and the nonlinear portion of it still carries on with SpeedEdit. While the rest of it became the TriCaster for live events. Avid has been around since 1989 when it first appeared at NAB.

[Brian Drysdale]

There's a large thread on CML about FCP X and how it's not suitable for the professional user and their apparent withdrawal from that sector. Personal views that it would've been better if FCP had been sold off for independent development etc.

[Adrian Evans]

Originally Posted by Rick L. Allen

That's fine for an amateur app but we've been waiting for years to see 64bit processing in FCP. Instead we got iMovie Pro. Personally I've been holding off on using Premiere Pro or Avid (who as others have pointed out forgot who their customers were) in the hopes that FCP X would be amazing.

This is exactly my case. I use to edit on Premiere about 10 years ago. Then switched to FCP about 4-5 years ago.

Premiere on a a PC was a nightmare to me (crashing etc. also, encore sucked). So I switched to Apple and FCP and got really happy.

With the problems FCP7 had (lack of native support and no 64bit) I was also banking on FCPX being awesome. The demo at NAB made it look pretty awesome too.

Now it's here... I tried it out on someones computer for a while. Didn't like it at all. Especially Apple's INSANE decision to not make it backwards compatible with FCP7 projects. You know there's a problem when you can import iMovie projects but not FCP projects.... seriously why not just call this iMovie Pro. People wouldn't complain then.

So anyway, now I have Premiere again. I can tell you it's improved a LOT (cut two small projects with it so far...). Encore too. Encore is stable now and easy to use. I really, really like it.

I did get Motion 5 though. That's a good upgrade.

P.S. I love the way (in Premiere) I can just drag my XF300 CF card contents onto my HDD then edit straight from the files. No need to transcode or anything. Ingestion of a card takes seconds. Amazing.

[Evan Donn]

seriously why not just call this iMovie Pro. People wouldn't complain then.

Sure they would. If, after all this time, Apple had shipped iMovie Pro and not shipped an update to FCP everyone would be screaming about how Apple was neglecting/abandoning the professional market, that it was time to switch to Adobe or Avid, etc. Kind of like they were before Apple announced FCPX. Kind of like they are now.

Apple knew that any way they went people would be unhappy, and when they decide to go in a new direction they don't ease into it - they make a clean break and then forge ahead. I'm sure they know they'll lose a lot of users - but they also know that the mac NLE market has changed quite a bit since the first FCP shipped. There are more viable professional options, and it's fairly easy to switch between them and even run several on the same system, so they know that someone who switches away from FCP now can switch back easily at any point in the future. They know that means they have to do something radically different to differentiate themselves, and they know that while that might alienate some of their users now, they can win them back in the long term if the groundwork they lay now pays off as it matures over the next couple of years.

[Brian Drysdale]

Seemingly Apple's own publicity says FCP X isn't an update of FCP.

ProVideo Coalition.com: CUT.N.COLOR by Steve Hullfish

Talk about confusing.

[Brian Drysdale]

Another titbit on the subject:

AppleInsider | Apple scaling Final Cut Studio apps to fit prosumers

All this seems to have some people pondering the longer term future of a non open codec like ProRes for broader uses like acquisition on the Alexa.

[James Houk]

Well, couldn't let Conan have *all* the fun...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgXUh1HrYOw

[Brian David Melnyk]

Originally Posted by Adrian Evans

I did get Motion 5 though. That's a good upgrade.

what are your thoughts on Motion 5? does it integrate with FCP 7?
i'm actually on FCP 6 and am limping along in a project with Motion 3 (super complex sequences, even baked down and simplified are: 'click mouse, wait 2 minutes and watch wheel of death. repeat.)... is there any significant improvement in stability/speed?
for $49 i would even feel fine using it as a standalone app and just exporting pro res finals into FCP...

[Oliver Neubert]

Originally Posted by Rick L. Allen

That's fine for an amateur app but we've been waiting for years to see 64bit processing in FCP. Instead we got iMovie Pro. Personally I've been holding off on using Premiere Pro or Avid (who as others have pointed out forgot who their customers were) in the hopes that FCP X would be amazing. Computers keep moving forward. My business demands that every 3-4 years I update my hardware and I have no choice but to use the Pro software that keeps up too.

I'd happily spend $1000 on a real FCP with pro features but won't waste $299 on FCP X.

Avid, Adobe give me a crossover deal. For the first time in 10 years I'm interested.

If you are running on 10.6.7 or later and install MC 5.5, I hope you have Timemachine set up. Installing 5.5 completely screwed up my system, including Bluetooth and loads of other basic features. the uninstall from the installer removed the Application but not the problems. I called the dealer and he told me "of course, the problem is that you are running the current OS... It will not work with 10.6.7, it can only deal with 10.6.6, there is no patch available yet...." The only solution was to restore from Timemachine.

I don't mind using an OS that works for my main application. I really don't care if it is Leopard, Snow Lion or some other cat. as long as it works.
BUT what I really don't like is an application that will let me install on a system on which it cannot operate and as a result of that break main functions of the OS which have nothing to do with the Application and the uninstaller will not really uninstall...not at any point of the installation did I receive a warning...

I lost a bunch of faith in Apple with the launch of FCP X but Avid did nothing to gain it either...
I was going to testdrive Media Composer, but after this experience, I won't.

instead, me too - I launched for the first time, that purple icon that has been sitting in the dock for over a year and took a peek at Premiere...

[Adrian Evans]

Originally Posted by Brian David Melnyk

what are your thoughts on Motion 5? does it integrate with FCP 7?
i'm actually on FCP 6 and am limping along in a project with Motion 3 (super complex sequences, even baked down and simplified are: 'click mouse, wait 2 minutes and watch wheel of death. repeat.)... is there any significant improvement in stability/speed?
for $49 i would even feel fine using it as a standalone app and just exporting pro res finals into FCP...

Actually I'm using it to create title overlays to use in Premiere CS5. I just output to a mov file and keep the alpha. I like the simple yet cool titles it can do and exporting the mov doesn't take that long. Quicker than doing something similar AE at least.

So sorry, can't answer you on how it integrates with FCP7. I guess I could try it out and get back to you.

One feature (though minor) really like that when you open it, it already has the timeline up and ready to go. LOL