If Apple's lost Larry.......

This is an enormous U turn from Jaw Dropping and nothing like it.....I feel for Larry and other trainers who built their business on a professional market with enough disposable income to pay for premium training. He (and other trainers) are now looking at the new "vast middle market" and realizing they may have to switch along with their customer base. Apple's silence to Larry Jordan's reasonable request (give us a timetable and will you continue FCP7) says everything a professional editor needs to know.

Larry's new 2 weeks later FCX Blog

I thought the comments were worth a read. Personally Floris, currently near the bottom of the comments, mirrors my sentiments and I noted Stuart's as well.

It's a fickle industry. Avid had announced they were dropping Mac support at one time and Premiere had dropped Mac support for years. Autodesk users were abandoned when Edit* was dropped and later Combustion. No one is safe.

Avid reversed their decision when Editors rebelled. I suspect they were worried that editor would stick to Mac (and the nascent FCP) rather than move to Windows.

Adobe felt it couldn't compete with FCP but later saw the Mac market as a lucrative alternative given the NLE market penetration FCP had given that platform.

There's some interesting speculation on why Apple is handling things they way they are as a business which might be worthy of another post. I'm fascinated by the business side of things personally.

craig seeman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There's some interesting speculation on why Apple
> is handling things they way they are as a business
> I'm fascinated by the business side of things
> personally.

I'm convinced Apple is attempting to do to TV & film what it did to the music industry and that is to create a disruptive shift with the public to move them to their delivery medium, the iTunes Store. Propping up the current version of FCP would be working against their ultimate business goal and that is to monopolize the delivery of published media. A big difference with the video market and the music industry is the latter gored itself when it didn't respond to the mp3 phenomenon. iTunes was a welcome solution to the music industry's woes. With TV and film, the iTunes Store moving in would be a hostile takeover of sorts.

Honestly we're going to test Windows 7 with both Adobe Premiere and Avid MC as we don't have any idea what the next gen Mac Pro will be or how much longer there will even be a "pro" model of a Mac that allows for internal cards and lots of RAM.

Also, with the release of Lion, Apple seems bent on taking as much control away from the end user and making things "just happen" in the background. Like saving projects, managing files, etc..... I'll have to wait and see if this is something that I want to completely trust for a commercial enterprise.

It's ok if my computer loses some recipes I'm saving or a few photos here and there, but if our documentary and broadcast projects suddenly disappear because it "just happened" well then I'm going to be in trouble.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
biscardicreative.com

walterbiscardi Wrote:
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> Honestly we're going to test Windows 7 with both Adobe Premiere and Avid MC as we don't
> have any idea what the next gen Mac Pro will be or how much longer there will even be
> a "pro" model of a Mac that allows for internal cards and lots of RAM.

Many production facilities & freelancers will be doing the same Walter. It's the smart thing to do.

[www.lafcpug.org]

___________________________________________________
Alexandre Gollner,
Editor, Zone 2-North West, London

alex4d on twitter, facebook, .wordpress.com + .com

walterbiscardi Wrote:
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> Also, with the release of Lion, Apple seems bent
> on taking as much control away from the end user
> and making things "just happen" in the background.
> Like saving projects, managing files, etc.....
> I'll have to wait and see if this is something
> that I want to completely trust for a commercial
> enterprise.

Apple says the file system is confusing for users (although my non-tech-savvy mother seems to manage just fine) and so they're looking at ways to keep it out of the way of users. Application developers don't have to use these features though.

I'm actually quite optimistic about Lion as there are some great features for pros - AirDrop, AV Foundation, built-in Xsan. I've also heard rumors of a "Find My Mac" feature which is great for peace of mind if true.

My software:
Pro Maintenance Tools - Tools to keep Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro X, Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premiere Pro running smoothly and fix problems when they arise
Pro Media Tools - Edit QuickTime chapters and metadata, detect gamma shifts, edit markers, watch renders and more
More tools...

> Apple says the file system is confusing for users (although my non-tech-
> savvy mother seems to manage just fine) and so they're looking at ways to
> keep it out of the way of users.

And that is the kind of lowest-common-denominator thinking that will sink a professional application. Why are they catering to people who are too dumb to hit COMMAND-S? And "keep it out of the way of users" -- sounds like Microsoft/PC thinking to me. The average PC user doesn't know where any of his/her files are actually going, beyond the most skin-deep "My Computer" or "My Documents" virtual locations. A lot of them don't even know what the C: drive is. And when something goes wrong, they are utterly lost because they're used to having things done "for" them. There's nothing professional about that line of thinking.

Anybody who's had an Autosave malfunction knows that you can't rely on "background" saves. File management must be in the hands of a human. If a user is too amateur to know the basics of file management, you don't dumb it down for him.


www.derekmok.com

I agree. FCPX was the poster-child of automatic saving and it's completely put me off. There are many reports of lost data on the Apple forum.

My software:
Pro Maintenance Tools - Tools to keep Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro X, Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premiere Pro running smoothly and fix problems when they arise
Pro Media Tools - Edit QuickTime chapters and metadata, detect gamma shifts, edit markers, watch renders and more
More tools...

Quote
The average PC user doesn't know where any of his/her files are actually going

Thank you, Derek! I've been saying that for years.

Andrew Stone Wrote:
>
> I'm convinced Apple is attempting to do to TV &
> film what it did to the music industry and that is
> to create a disruptive shift with the public to
> move them to their delivery medium, the iTunes
> Store. Propping up the current version of FCP
> would be working against their ultimate business
> goal and that is to monopolize the delivery of
> published media. A big difference with the video
> market and the music industry is the latter gored
> itself when it didn't respond to the mp3
> phenomenon. iTunes was a welcome solution to the
> music industry's woes. With TV and film, the
> iTunes Store moving in would be a hostile takeover
> of sorts.

I don't see how with FCPX. Please make the connection. iTunes is content delivery, not content creation.
As much as I think FCPX has promise, I don't see how it enables better file based delivery than Avid or Premiere.
In fact, Apple's H.264 is about the least capable in the industry compared to MainConcept, x264, Matrox CompressHD and any number of other H.264 encoders. Apple can't even do a CABAC file and I'm not sure about High Profile either. There's no B-frame control either.

As to simplicity.

I was an engineer at a facility producing a couple of national programs. They had both Windows NT and OS9 Avids. When Avid announced they were withdrawing from the Mac market, the editors went ballistic. They preferred OS9 to Windows NT. The editors wanted to focus on editing and not the OS. Windows NT required more of their attention than OS9.

Granted, Windows 7 vs the yet to be released Lion, is a different world but even the Emmy award winning editors of a national program preferred the OS to get out of the way.

I can't help but think FCPX and Lion going to be the seat of a simple to use video post level server product. Of course I may be wrong but I see clues pointing in that direction. Also none of this helps a facility today but I'm guessing Apple is willing to toss that away for the time being as they start from scratch for the future.

The bitterness towards Apple may have a cost though. The bitterness towards Avid on announcing (and back peddling) on removing Mac support cost Avid IMHO.

> The bitterness towards Apple may have a cost though. The bitterness towards
> Avid on announcing (and back peddling) on removing Mac support cost Avid IMHO.

Absolutely. Dropping FCP7 from the store amounted to a slap in the face. Professionals will not be strong-armed into using an inferior tool just because the company wants to manipulate the market that way.

If Apple had released FCPX under a completely new product name, while retaining FCP7, the PR aspect would have been so much better. Instead, just as so many editors flooded towards FCP in the beginning because of Avid's perceived arrogance and uncaring for customers, now FCP users are flooding away from Apple's perceived arrogance and uncaring. Even if Apple backpedals and restores FCP7, or even announces continued development on the FCP7 model, the trust has been lost. No post house will accept "We *&%$ed up, here's your tool back" as an answer. At least, not without a year or two of seeing that Apple is repenting and cleaning up its act.

Like I was expressing to strypes, now I'm reluctant to invest any time learning any Apple application, because now Apple's convinced me that the investment can be smoked in a matter of weeks, with no warning. If I'm going to invest time to learn something from scratch and master it, it will be something that I believe would last.

That bad faith will never go away, even for a 12-year Apple/FCP user like me. And what did they gain anyway, by putting this completely unrelated piece of software under the Final Cut Pro banner?


www.derekmok.com

I hope this doesn't devolve into a rant. Personally I think FCPX holds promise.

I don't think any company Avid and Adobe or Autodesk on Windows, has been without fault when it comes to threatening to or actually abandoning a product.

For those moving away from FCP7 to something else, those posts might be most beneficial int the Cafe LA forum for others facing similar situations.

I'd hope that Cafe LA-X be for those either trying to learn FCPX or discuss its possible future (and it does have a future although we can only speculate).

Quote
And what did they gain anyway, by putting this completely unrelated piece of software under the Final Cut Pro banner?

That we may not know for a year or so. I'm sure they feel they gained something in the long run although they aren't' going to reveal their direction overtly. Some may not like their thinking but this was likely not a thoughtless decision.

>Personally I think FCPX holds promise.

I definitely need more FCP X hours to get used to many of the design quirks, but as Larry says, this isn't the version to see where the direction of the software is going to go. They need to look towards pro features and usability (there needs to be significant advantages so pros would want to spend time learning it), and this part is urgent, because many were looking to this release, and let's face it, the stark lack of features on this release makes a rough cut look polished. No where near a Final Cut.



www.strypesinpost.com

Basically FCPX gives one a chance to get familiar with the design philosophy. I agree with Larry that the next update will give stronger clues as to where they're heading. It may even take an update after that.

There are some interface issues that require some workarounds at the moment. I actually think how the address the "little" things will be more important to me.

FCPX holds promise. We don't know if Apple will keep that promise though or how soon it will be delivered. I'm still optimistic though.

I don't understand the "Final Cut X has promise lets just wait and see" philosophy .

We had a stable solid professional tool which Apple abandoned and sent us 10 steps backwards - and then after a week of furious blogs and messages, Apple delivers a tepid FAQ and a " we promise it will get better" someday.

No one here imagined we would have to scramble to replace an EOL product we've all spent a decade mastering for our business. Instead Apple blindsided us with a not ready for prime time application and we lost the ability to keep buying (and having it supported) the "nothing's wrong with what we got except speed, transcoding" software we have .

Sure FCPX has promise - so does Imovie if they keep developing it. Most editors don't have time for a crash course on a product that won't do what they need now - and "may" do what they need in some unknown future.

Breaks my producer/director/editing heart that I have to retrain myself on new software.

Trust is something that takes months or years to win - and as we've seen with Apple - just a day to destroy.

>>if Apple had released FCPX under a completely new product name, while retaining FCP7, the PR aspect would have been so much better.<<

I agree. If they had released it and said 'This is where we are headed - keep an eye on it cause we promise it's going to be AMAzing in the coming years' and NOT taken out our ability to add seats to our business or bother investing more time or energy maintaining the 'good' FCP suite, things would have gone a lot more smoothly.

Some of us would have bought it out of curiosity, played with it and gone, well, it can't do XML, or open old projects or multi-cam yet, but it's blazing fast on H.264 and it's got this really cool set of scopes, oh! and have you seen the way it ... blah blah blah.

As it is, They just EOLed a bunch of our tools and gave us something else that we really can't use to do our job right now. It's like taking away the sculptor's hammer and chisel and giving them a computer and telling them to just wait until electricity is invented, cause it's gonna be AMAzing then. A whole new paradigm.

> It's like taking away the sculptor's hammer and chisel and giving them a
> computer and telling them to just wait until electricity is invented, cause it's
> gonna be AMAzing then. A whole new paradigm.

I'm not convinced that FCPX will become even remotely usable to me in the next 18 months. Like somebody else at LAFCPUG has noted (Walter?), the entire philosophy is wrong. I don't see the mindset of an editor at work in the design of FCPX. Why is the multitrack model the standard for all audio/video work that involves editing? Why has that model survived since friggin' Les Paul invented it in 1948?

Because it worked. And still works. You don't see Pro Tools abandoning that for shiny, toy-like new interfaces that reduce our options rather than enriching them. Filmstrip? Give me a break. Useless. I've had thumbnails turned off in every FCP window since summer of 2000 to save some RAM for things that actually matter. "Events"? Not every shoot is a damn wedding that's over in a day. The very term denotes an iMovie, "My kid falls into the pool" YouTube mentality. Not to mention the disastrous file management.

Apple is looking for glory. Well, I'm not in this game to further their delusions of reinventing the wheel.

Craig is entitled to like this software and defend it. But if somebody else is giving positive opinions on this software, we have a right to express negative ones and not be accused of ranting. "Apple will do amazing in the future" is just as speculative as "Apple has lost the plot".


www.derekmok.com

As a side note, some of my musician friends have asked me nervous questions about the EOLs of color, dvdsp and soundtrack, given they are on Logic. They worry that it's a harbinger for them.