Why everyone is so painfully wrong about FCPX

[Bruce Allen]

I have. Have you? External monitor support requires drivers from the makers of the external monitor boards (Kona, Decklink, etc). It's up to THOSE companies to provide support, not Apple. AJA already has beta driver for the Kona 3. What did I miss here?

I actually pointed this all out in the early pages of the other FCP X thread - with quotes from the AJA FAQ - but I guess you dismissed it as anti-Apple ranting?

All AJA's "beta driver" does is make the Mac think that the AJA is another graphics card. So it extends the entire Mac desktop to the AJA. Then you tell FCP X to "Show Viewer on Second Display".

From the AJA FAQ, pg7: "Note: the quality of the output produced during editorial should be considered preview quality."

Probably because:
This is how video monitoring should work: YUV source -> YUV outputs of Kona card -> monitor
This is how video monitoring works in FCP X: YUV source -> converted to 8-bit RGB by FCP X for desktop display -> converted back to 8-bit YUV by Kona card -> monitor

From the AJA FAQ, pg7: "AJA recommends using only one computer monitor connected to one graphics card in your computer for optimal results."

The hardware setup at most FCP post houses is two desktop monitors (one for bins and one for timeline), plus a third video preview monitor. So Apple's suggested workflow for FCP X is to throw out one of those monitors?

Apple either knew about these limitations and chose to pretend it wasn't a problem in the FAQ - sleazy politician route.
Or they fired everyone in their Pro division who understood this - frikkin' idiot route.

Seriously, which do you think it is? And why are you defending them in either case?

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Bruce Allen]

I should add that none of these limitations are AJA's fault.

AJA had to offer this workaround because Apple didn't give them any way to hook into the YUV video data. All they can get at is the 8-bit RGB graphics output by tricking the Mac to think they are an 8-bit RGB graphics card.

This is like saying "TextEdit supports AJA video output cards because you can tell an AJA card to extend the desktop, move the TextEdit window over there and maximize it."

The truthful answer that should have been in Apple's FAQ was: "FCP X supports video output at preview quality only. Professionals requiring full-quality video output should continue to use FCP 7."

Again, can you tell me: in that FAQ, is Apple behaving like:
- a cynical politician (they knew the problems but chose to lie / mislead)
- or just ignorant (they didn't understand the difference between desktop preview and video monitoring and didn't know they broke the 2-monitor plus video setup used by most folks who edit for a living?)

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Emery Wells]

Oh wait... you're defending Apple... because you actually believe them?

You actually think that what they wrote in their FAQ is a legitimate solution to the problem?

You actually think that AJA's drivers properly address the problems of video monitoring?

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

Bruce you are correct, I was under the impression the AJA beta drivers allowed proper SDI output. I read the PDF and clearly they do not. I'll eat my words on this. Still, I am absolutely giving Apple the benefit of the doubt that they will work out proper SDI out with AJA and Blackmagic.

[christopher witzke]

Does your wife have a sister?

Nope.... but the real question is... " Does Apple have a sister?"

[Steve Dent]

Shake wasn't the only professional product dropped by a large company... Autodesk also dropped edit* from their product line. The going theory at the time was that that they wanted to buy it in order to kill it so it wouldn't compete with smoke*. But I think they dropped it because it wasn't an expensive enough product (and it was $4,900) to justify the support required from all the whiney time vampire professional editors. So that left Autodesk with smoke, which is a minimum $20,000 product (on the Mac, but it's $100,000 minimum on RH Linux), which is probably just barely enough money to justify the whiney time vampire professional editors.

I think Apple has calculate the risk of dropping, and subsequently royally pissing off, the entire professional editor customer base. I think they calculated the risk was low (ie it wouldn't greatly impact their real imoney makers), so they went ahead and basically killed what they see as a white elephant.

But I think the backlash is more than they thought :) Full disclosure - I'm a whiney time vampire professional editor.

[shashbugu]

Shake wasn't the only professional product dropped by a large company... Autodesk also dropped edit* from their product line. The going theory at the time was that that they wanted to buy it in order to kill it so it wouldn't compete with smoke*. But I think they dropped it because it wasn't an expensive enough product (and it was $4,900) to justify the support required from all the whiney time vampire professional editors. So that left Autodesk with smoke, which is a minimum $20,000 product (on the Mac, but it's $100,000 minimum on RH Linux), which is probably just barely enough money to justify the whiney time vampire professional editors.

I think Apple has calculate the risk of dropping, and subsequently royally pissing off, the entire professional editor customer base. I think they calculated the risk was low (ie it wouldn't greatly impact their real imoney makers), so they went ahead and basically killed what they see as a white elephant.

But I think the backlash is more than they thought :) Full disclosure - I'm a whiney time vampire professional editor.

Edit* run for a number of versions for a few years. It just could not compete against Avid's offerings in the Market. Smoke's value increased based on short form work, commercials and Music videos. moke is now a major product in the filmmaking tools at Autodesk. It still has a lot of potential. The basic problems with Smoke on the Mac are its dependence on Sparks. If and When Autodesk decides to adopt Apples plugin architecture many familiar plugins will be able to be sent via XML from other applications.

[Dave Blackham]

Shake wasn't the only professional product dropped by a large company... Autodesk also dropped edit* from their product line. The going theory at the time was that that they wanted to buy it in order to kill it so it wouldn't compete with smoke*. But I think they dropped it because it wasn't an expensive enough product (and it was $4,900) to justify the support required from all the whiney time vampire professional editors. So that left Autodesk with smoke, which is a minimum $20,000 product (on the Mac, but it's $100,000 minimum on RH Linux), which is probably just barely enough money to justify the whiney time vampire professional editors.

I think Apple has calculate the risk of dropping, and subsequently royally pissing off, the entire professional editor customer base. I think they calculated the risk was low (ie it wouldn't greatly impact their real imoney makers), so they went ahead and basically killed what they see as a white elephant.

But I think the backlash is more than they thought :) Full disclosure - I'm a whiney time vampire professional editor.

Add Avid Illusion to the list. It remains in my view one of their best products but not developed originally by Avid of course.

[Robert Jackson]

Nope.... but the real question is... " Does Apple have a sister?"

Heh...Apple has become a distribution channel for high-margin Chinese portable electronics. And it's a much, much more lucrative business than peddling desktop computers and software. Now their biggest software consideration is how their phones and sundry devices talk to iTunes. And they're the undisputed king of that market. But it kinda sucks not having a computer company out there that caters to content creators anymore.

[Steve Dent]

Edit* run for a number of versions for a few years. It just could not compete against Avid's offerings in the Market. Smoke's value increased based on short form work, commercials and Music videos. moke is now a major product in the filmmaking tools at Autodesk. It still has a lot of potential. The basic problems with Smoke on the Mac are its dependence on Sparks. If and When Autodesk decides to adopt Apples plugin architecture many familiar plugins will be able to be sent via XML from other applications.

My point was that unless the software has a fairly high cost, there's not a lot of point for companies to produce it for the professional market, which is very demanding. Autodesk makes a good $150 million a year at least on their high end editing/compositing line, and gets the prestige from the high end film projects, which genuinely helps sell their other lower priced entertainment products, like Maya/Max.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Autodesk makes a good $150 million a year at least on their high end editing/compositing line, and gets the prestige from the high end film projects, which genuinely helps sell their other lower priced entertainment products, like Maya/Max.

The thing to keep in mind with Autodesk is:


([Combined Maya and Softimage Sales (+ Lightwave)] = 3ds Max sales) = a small fraction of AutoCAD sales. The Auto in Autodesk is still very much reflective of their focus. Smoke, Flame, Inferno and the rest of the old discreet systems group is a blip on Autodesk corporate's awareness. Although that might be changing with Smoke on Mac.