Suggestion - Separate NLE Forums for LACPUG

This comes from someone who's learned and helped others for a nearly a decade on this site....realizing I rarely check in any more with the advent of FCPX and migrating to Premiere and Avid.

The editing community here is one of the most helpful and generous and it might help keep this a vital first stop site if Michael created NLE specific forums - for Premiere, Avid, Smoke etc so that rather than a once in a while stop it becomes the first go to destination (at least for me) again. Find myself spending more time on CreativeCow with it's various forums (but not often as responsive replies)

Can't tell you how many times this forum's help's pulled us out of a jam.

Best - Andy

Andy Field
Fieldvision Productions/ABC News
Washington, DC

Creative Cow has some good stuff but it's more about volume, volume, volume... that tends to dilute value. I don't use it much, and its architecture is old.

- Loren

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Right now there's The Other NLE's forum, which is largely Premiere and Avid, as more of us use those 2 NLEs than the others. I think that's a good first step, rather than creating a bunch of forums that hardly anyone visits.



www.strypesinpost.com

I agree, Mike, time to give each product its due. Something like-

CAFE LA - general NLE issues

CAFE FCPX - for FCPX

CAFE LEGACY FCP - FCS3 and under

CAFE AVID - for AVID

CAFE PREMIERE - for All Premieres

etc.

- Loren
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Good ideas guys. Give me some time to digest it. And allow others to chime in here. Like Lorens idea of seperate names for seperate NLEs.

Michael Horton
-------------------

And a "dessert bar" for finishing.



www.strypesinpost.com

I like the idea of seperate names for seperate NLEs. It's got my vote!

I second all the motions and emotions. For many years, this Forum was where I checked in -pretty much daily- for my regular dose of news, help, reality check, weird stuff and a good laugh.

Since FCPX (damn those guys, I'm still angry about that), and after leaving FCP Studio-land for Production Premium (meaning not just changing my editing app but dropping Motion, Color, DVD Studio Pro and Soundtrack Pro as well) I've been off to other places. Sadly, because this here forum was the best for a long time running. It still has the best fast-loading layout and general utility.

My current favorite is liftgammagain.com. Although mostly just for colorists, it is application independent. Rather than having separate forums like on the Cow, all the information is in one place for everyone. I especially like that 1) you have to apply to become a member and 2) real names only.

Maybe worth a thought as an alternative way to go?


Best,
Clay

Obviously the traffic in these forums have decreased a lot since the launch of X. The downside of a bunch of new forums is that they are hard to find. We could call THIS forum "Cafe NLE" and change the description to "Post here if you are having troubles with your any NLE including Final Cut Pro 7 and below, FCP X, Adobe Premiere Pro and Avid MC." or simply create forums as Loren has suggested - Cafe Premiere Pro, Cafe Avid MC, Cafe FCP X, Cafe FCP 7

I need to change a few forums to READ ONLY or kill them altogether such as Color, Soundtrack Pro. DVD Studio Pro, FCP Feature Requests, Bug Report, Show and Tell and Really Good Deals

Michael Horton
-------------------

Both ideas are good...Cafe NLE is probably a better meeting ground as a common room to check in

I started the conversation because there was always reasonable, great feedback here (in contrast to the "Final Cut X or Not" daily food fight over at the Cow)

Many of us are fish out of water with new NLE's - predominantly Premiere and Avid....many skills learned on this forum are transferable and would love to see LACPUG continue being the premiere resource for all things editing....

May I suggest that the Forums be named for software packages rather than just the edit application? Thus FCS Classic could include content from Compressor, Motion and the orphaned applications. Adobe Suite could also encompass After Effects, Photoshop and etc.

i am still worried that there is not enough traffic yet to justify separate forums for the non-FCS products.

is the idea that clearer forum names will attract more queries?


nick

This was THE go to pace for professional editors to learn about FCP - with the interest less than enthusiastic for X...those same editors now moving on to AVID and Premiere without a similar "go to" place .....as this feels like home for a lot of us - would be good to make it easier for that dialogue.

Quote
is the idea that clearer forum names will attract more queries?

Thats the $64 question. The FCP X forum does not get much traffic, but that is most likely because there are not enough mods who can answer the questions. People want answers fast. They also want to find the answers fast. Putting all NLEs into one forum might make searches troublesome. Or maybe not. All we can do is try and see what works. Bottom line is, we need to be able to answer all questions in a timely manner and serve those that are seeking the answers a easy path to their solution.

Michael Horton
-------------------

Probably most of the FCPX traffic is over at the Apple forum. I've answered a few questions, but I'm still not that great on FCPX yet. It's more of a memory thing. You know, when you hit a certain age, your memory goes to hell! Plus I'm learning Premiere and After Effects at the same time. Thank God for lynda.com, but they haven't kept up with all the new changes and features that were added to FCPX. Ripple Training does a job in that department.

But what I think what's happened is that a lot of iMovie users moved to FCPX and really don't know anything about the LACPUG forum. And many of the pros moved to Premiere and AVID. Here's the question: Do you want those iMovie to FCPX users here in the LACPUG forum? If the answer is yes, I think it would take moderators to have a lot of patience. Not saying they don't, they would just need more!

I don't know how things are elsewhere, but in my neck of the woods here in Europe, FCPX is of no interest. None of the editors, production companies, clients, post houses or film schools that I have regular contact with have adopted it. In fact, just the opposite. It has been completely disregarded by both the professional and academic communites. So, whether or not there is an FCPX forum is a non-issue. Unless of course it is somehow lucrative, but that's Mike's call.

Meantime and more importantly, there is a 900 pound gorilla in the room;

Last week Apple informed its resellers in Europe that the MacPro is being discontinued in the EU on March 1 due to a minor problem with new safety standards for electronic devices issued by the European Union. Apple chose not to make the necessary alterations and simply let the entire product line go. They will be allowed to sell off current inventory, but there will be no new deliveries of MacPros to the EU.

Btw, when we're talking European Union we're talking about a market with 502 Million people. Not something one would normally just toss away casually.

Is Apple basically saying, "so what, we were about to dump it anyway"? Sure sounds like it. Then Ok, now what? If there is no new MacPro forthcoming to replace the old model soon, then I would bet cash money that most of the pro users and certainly all of the post houses will go PC for the better performance, support and affordability. Or, is Apple going to suprise everyone and launch the ultimate high-end super-fast connect-to-anything thunderbolt-pro dual-12-core 4-Tesla-card redesigned professional rack-mount miracle machine? They could if wanted to. And if yes, then when?

Up until now, it has been very Apple-centric at this forum (obviously, FCP only runs on a Mac as does FCPX), but if Apple pulls the plug again on the pro users, then it's off to PC-land for many of us. My personal guess is that unfortunately this will be the case. We've already changed one suite over to PC so have feet in both camps. However, if Apple does come up with something convincing as a replacement to the MacPro, that would change things again in an entirely different direction.

Thus, it could be that it's maybe not a good time to rennovate the entire house here just yet. Whatever way Apple goes, there is another pivotal moment for editors, production companies and post houses coming soon....

One academic community, International Academy of Design & Technology, (which owns Brooks Institute) went from teaching FCP to Avid. Bypassed FCPX all together.

So no new Mac Pro in the Europe. I guess maybe Apple is saying, why bother. Just kill it off. Here is a company that is building mother boards that the Mac OS can run on: http://quocomputer.com

On the Mac Pro issue, one could take comfort from this

[news.cnet.com]

It's still a rumour and yet there was Tim Cooks hint from last year about the same thing.

ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!

Talk about being taken on a ride on a roller-coaster!

If Apple does introduce a new Mac Pro, should we expect its new hardware to rule out the pre-Lion operating systems?

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany

Everyone can expect whatever they want.
If you've watched Apple long enough you've probably learned that they do what they want, aren't easily predictable and
all the prognosticating geniuses and insider rumour mongers are wrong most of the time.

Other than having a CPU, at least one Thunderbolt and one USB and a power supply, all other bets are off.

ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!

I'm with Andrew. Trying to apply standard industry logic to Apple is a fool's game.

As to the topic on hand... Might make sense. FCP7 is, for better or worse, zombie software. Just my 2¢.

- Justin Barham -

OK, here is what is going to happen. I have already archived several forums. Take a look. They are now READ ONLY.

[www.lafcpug.org]

Over the next few days I will create new forums called:

Cafe Adobe Premiere Pro
Cafe Avid Media Composer

I will move threads to these new foums from "The Other NLEs" forum and then delete that forum.

So there will be these forums:

Cafe LA: Your basic troubleshooting forum for all things FCP 7 and below.

Cafe FCP X: Your basic troubleshooting forum for all things FCP X

Cafe Adobe Premiere Pro: Your basic troubleshooting forum for all things Adobe Premiere Pro

Cafe Avid Media Composer: Your basic troubleshooting forum for all things Avid Media Composer

If there is demand for other NLE forums we will create them.

Now the real problem, who to moderate them. It is the moderators who make the forums work.

So why create seperate forums for NLEs?? Simply becuase it is easier to search for your answer. Combining all NLEs into one forum makes it that more difficult to search for the answer. "I get this memory error" applies to all NLEs. And not all people state "I get this memory error on my Avid 6.0 system"

Michael Horton
-------------------

<<on the MacPro rumor>>

The french site Mac4Ever.com now claims that Apple has officially informed resellers in France that a new "range" of MacPros will start shipping in "spring 2013". The same buzz has been going around here in Germany for the past week or so.

So, heads up I guess. Something is in the works.

However, totally agree that any speculation beyond that is useless. We'll know soon enough.

My 2 cents: I do not think it is necessary for separate forums at all - just makes for more clutter. I suggest we keep the "The Other NLE's" forum and start EACH NEW THREAD TITLE with the NAME OF THE NLE in ALL CAPS with colon - for example:

PREMIERE: How do I make a cut in the timeline?
AVID SYMPHONY: Cannot see my FX panel - please help...
SMOKE: How do I use this thing?

This would make it easy for those knowledgeable in each NLE to go straight to those threads and cut down on unnecessary reading materials...

etcetera...etcetera...etcetera...

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

I have been on forums that use some sort of prefix like Joe is suggesting and what I have found is that
most people new to the forum won't use the prefix so it gets messy very quickly and unless the prefixes are short abbreviations and VERY CONSISTENT, eventually everyone will
stop using them.

Really long subject lines make for very difficult skimming in either web or email clients.

I don't object to the idea in theory but my experience with it in practice hasn't been very good.


ak

ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!

It wont work Joey. People wont put the name of their NLE in the subject field. If they did I'd agree that lets just keep the other NLEs

Thing to do is just pull the trigger and lets see what works.

Michael Horton
-------------------

If there MUST be a change, I would prefer that the FCP "Classic", FCP X and all other Apple stuff like Compressor, Motion, iMovie and related hardware (such as Apple news) plugins and stuff like that be kept on the main Cafe LA NLE board. This main board would also be open to questions about the Mac OS and problems that relate to editing on a Mac.

Then the 2nd Cafe could be devoted to Premiere, Photoshop and all the non-Apple products.

However, overall, I would prefer that all the above remain on one Cafe LA NLE board. That way I can pick up information about Premiere, which I do not own but with which I should be getting more familiar.

This board remains the first place I visit and the only place where I ask (and once in a while am able to answer) questions because of the expertise and the sense of humor.

Best,

Harry.

My sentiments exactly, the major concern would be every other new person that posts will need to be chided. If there where a way to force a check in a box to choose an NLE before creating a thread. That would be optimal. But that's probably not possible with the forum software without some cu$tomi$ation.

grafixjoe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My 2 cents: I do not think it is necessary for
> separate forums at all - just makes for more
> clutter. I suggest we keep the "The Other NLE's"
> forum and start EACH NEW THREAD TITLE with the
> NAME OF THE NLE in ALL CAPS with colon - for
> example:
>
> PREMIERE: How do I make a cut in the timeline?
> AVID SYMPHONY: Cannot see my FX panel - please
> help...
> SMOKE: How do I use this thing?
>
> This would make it easy for those knowledgeable in
> each NLE to go straight to those threads and cut
> down on unnecessary reading materials...
>
> etcetera...etcetera...etcetera...

It's great, Mike! Think the change makes sense-- to go with the org's name change and encompass more Creative Pro's.

Thinking about it, I like "Classic" over Legacy" as well.

- Loren

Today's FCP keytip:
Set a motion effect keyframe instantly with Control-K!

Your Final Cut Studio KeyGuide™ Power Pack.
Now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com