Why everyone is so painfully wrong about FCPX

[Bruce Allen]

The long thread seems to say apple are idiots and this thread is about how the people in that thread are idiots.

Idiots who are trying to answer your questions, mind you!

I'm going to ask my questions now (nobody answered them on the other thread):

>
Hey guys... anyone want to let me in on the secrets of:

- how to add eases to your rotation keyframes? I got my position keyframes smooth but no go on rotation keyframes so far. So my moves currently look kinda klunk-tastic.
- how do you adjust the play-around amount? It is too long.
- also, when I am playing around my edit in the Precision Trimmer and I hit > or < to tweak it by a frame, the playhead jumps to the edit. Any way to get the playhead to just keep playing around my edit (eg like Avid?)
- crossfading audio has me confused. It seems to keep adding video crossfades. Any way to make it behave like Vegas (eg when you bump a clip into another it auto-adds a fade, with lines indicating the fade instead of some weird shiny gray box that obscures everything)?
- that NY Times twit said you could make a project with custom resolution buy I can only see presets like 960x540? I'm guessing he didn't get that right either?

All in all, I like:
ORGANIZATION: the metadata, the very visual bin system and skimming stuff.
TIMELINE: Avid-like feeling that the timeline is a solid thing, not just isolated clips (handling of filler & magnetic timeline is nice)
EDITING: the little visual confirmations you get once you make an edit (eg the clip kinda animates and drops down into place)
EDITING: I like some of the magnetic timeline features a lot.
EFFECTS QUALITY & SPEED: rendering engine seems good. I like the Motion integration and publish-able features etc. As an effects guy I could get into this.

I do not like:
How often the damn thing is crashing.
>

EDIT: also:

- how do you show untagged clips? I want to go through my stuff and tag it, but I don't want to see the stuff I've already tagged. This seems kinda essential
- changing clip height is global? It'd be nice if I could set the height of those black matte clips to be shorter, for example (this is in Avid, steal that feature!)
- no way to color clips? Or show tags in the timeline?
- how do I drag a clip onto a tag? It keeps wanting to set an In / Out point.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Liam Hall]

It's more than highly disconcerting. Wait until the first person attempts to a cut a full length feature on this app in it's current state - designed and tested for web videos.

Nail on head...

Everything is web video now. At least, that's what Apple want us to believe; no hard media with digital delivery for everything via iCloud.

I still don't know what to make of this software, I've tried hard to be positive about it, but I'm still waiting for some sort of epiphany when the penny drops and I realise how good and useful FCPX is. I have a feeling it will be a long wait.

 

[Dave Blackham]

Nail on head...

Everything is web video now. At least, that's what Apple want us to believe; no hard media with digital delivery for everything via iCloud.

I still don't know what to make of this software, I've tried hard to be positive about it, but I'm still waiting for some sort of epiphany when the penny drops and I realise how good and useful FCPX is. I have a feeling it will be a long wait.

Me too, Ive tried hard, give it a chance I thought but there just arn't the tools there. Tried kneeling and putting my hands together but the light fails to shine. From what the third party developers seem to be suggesting if they hav'nt got a preview of it to build their stuff It will be a very long wait. One of our guys says he feels that he's invested 10 or more years in building a pipe line to find he just been cut adrift. A good replacement for iMoviie, Pro No.

 

[Jannard]

Apple can fix this situation very easily... all they have to do is communicate what they are going to do with this app. If they don't, many will jump ship. Once they do, it will be hard to get them back.

I am the ultimate Apple fan. But this app signals a big change in philosophy. It doesn't have to be that way... but somebody better say something pretty quickly.

Jim

 

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

If this quote off of the Final Cut Pro page at apple doesn't state what apples vision for final cut pro x is I'm not sure what does "Final Cut Pro X includes the key sound editing and color grading features from Final Cut Studio, so now you can use a single application for the entire post-production workflow."
Though they should be more clear about their roadmap unfortunately Apple is exactly the kind of company that would rather allow a mass exodus then be in anyway transparent though various websites seem to claim they have spoken with apple people and heard back things like "updates will be much more frequent" and the reason there is no XML is because Apple thinks they can do it better then it's being done now so they are rethinking it completely.

 

[Fabián Aguirre]

This is a must read for anyone that wants the real scoop on what is going on. Turns out 90% of the panic is misinformation.

In his article, Mr. Pogue maintains the following:

Answer: Apple is working with RED to create a plug-in that will give native RED support to FCP X.

If I am interpreting the following correctly, does this not say little (or a lot) of Mr. Pogue's credibility regarding this discussion?

http://reduser.net/forum/showthread...Pro-X-Released&p=782586&viewfull=1#post782586

 

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

In his article, Mr. Pogue maintains the following:
If I am interpreting the following correctly, does this not say little (or a lot) of Mr. Pogue's credibility regarding this discussion?
http://reduser.net/forum/showthread...Pro-X-Released&p=782586&viewfull=1#post782586

I would assume that Pogue called his contact within Apple and that's the answer he was given, David Pogue may have a reputation as an apologist for Apple but he's gone on TWIT at least one time to defend himself and I'm not one to just immediately assume that he either made it up or wrote it down because he simply assumed it was the case.

 

[Jarred Land]

Mr. Pogue probably should of called us....

 

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

perhaps Red is actually an irish man who works in the final cut devision at Apple.

 

[Ketch Rossi]

Apple can fix this situation very easily... all they have to do is communicate what they are going to do with this app. If they don't, many will jump ship. Once they do, it will be hard to get them back.

I am the ultimate Apple fan. But this app signals a big change in philosophy. It doesn't have to be that way... but somebody better say something pretty quickly.

Jim

Well, I got FCPx because I am not an Editor nor do I want to be one, looking for an easy App. to do quick edits of short clips, but sure hope they are reading what you just said,
and what an entire community is saying, I do like to believe that this is V1.0 and that lot more is coming... ;

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Well, I got FCPx because I am not an Editor nor do I want to be one, looking for an easy App. to do quick edits of short clips, but sure hope they are reading what you just said,
and what an entire community is saying, I do like to believe that this is V1.0 and that lot more is coming... ;

Hey Ketch,

"Easiest" app right now for R3D edits is probably a toss-up between Adobe Premiere CS5.x and Sony Vegas. The latter is Windows only. Both have native support for R3D files. You literally drop them right into your bin or right onto your timeline and edit away. FCPX currently requires you to transcode or use other work-arounds. With FCPX there's no way to take that edit and migrate it into something else. You can't save an XML or EDL to give to anyone for import into SCRATCH, Quantel, Resolve, etc..

I had a big wordy response for this thread, but then realized I had already posted 90% of it in the other FCPX bashing thread. Like Jannard says, Apple needs to say something quick. But I fear that they won't. All the apologists and fanboys who are blogging or doing articles about FCPX, especially those who are trying to "debunk" the misinformation are really doing everyone a disservice. The fact is, FCPX has some glaring omissions that are very basic for any NLE software to be called "professional" or to be used in any sort of R3D or multi-app, professional pipeline workflow. They had 2+ years to get this right. Doesn't matter if it's a first release or not, this is coming from one of the most wildly successful companies out there. Coming from a bunch of people that have repeatedly taken a concept from the drawing board to run-away success in 2 years or less -- iPhone and iOS from inception to release in 27 months, for example. That didn't happen here. Plain and simple, Apple screwed the pooch on this one. Shit happens. It happens to everyone from time to time. Now they need to make it right.

 

[Tim Lüdin]

Hey Jim

the big question is, does the RED-team work on the R3D plugin for FCPX together with Apple or not. Do you work together (like with Adobe) at all?
I could understand that there's a NDA but at least you could tell us that you are on it or not. I don't think you would get sued for that, when Pogue gets pretty clear about it already.

That's why I love you guys. You have always told us what's up. That good and the bad. That way we could easier make our business decisions.
So if we knew that you guys have the RED solution for FCPX ready to go and Apple want's to implement it very soon then we are all good. But we all cant and don't want to wait another 10 months or so till this mess is solved.

It's either Adobe or Avid pretty pretty soon. The camera question was solved 4 years ago. It's RED. That's why we are here, no doubt, not a second.
So the NLE situation has to be clear very soon. A lot of people need to invest in new systems again. So what's it gonna be...?

Thanks
Tim

 

[D Fuller]

The fact is, FCPX has some glaring omissions that are very basic for any NLE software to be called "professional" or to be used in any sort of R3D or multi-app, professional pipeline workflow. They had 2+ years to get this right. Doesn't matter if it's a first release or not, this is coming from one of the most wildly successful companies out there. Coming from a bunch of people that have repeatedly taken a concept from the drawing board to run-away success in 2 years or less -- iPhone and iOS from inception to release in 27 months, for example. That didn't happen here. Plain and simple, Apple screwed the pooch on this one. Shit happens. It happens to everyone from time to time. Now they need to make it right.

I totally agree. If I hear one more person say "it's a 1.0 version" I'm gonna puke on their shoes. This app is called "Final Cut Pro X (pronounced 'ten')" according to Apple. That's 10... Ten... X. T-e-n.

If they wanted to be cut the slack a 1.0 release deserves, they should have called it "ApplesNewEditingParadigm 1.0" or something.

Apple is the biggest technology company in the world, and they appear to have just screwed a whole customer base by EOLing the software foundation they've built their businesses on. They deserve to be rained on for it.

Disclaimers: I am a huge fan of Apple (since 1984); I was an early adopter of Avid (on a Mac, 1993); I now use Premiere 5.5 (on a Mac); I have never liked FCP.

 

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

Coming from a bunch of people that have repeatedly taken a concept from the drawing board to run-away success in 2 years or less -- iPhone and iOS from inception to release in 27 months, for example. That didn't happen here. Plain and simple, Apple screwed the pooch on this one. Shit happens. It happens to everyone from time to time. Now they need to make it right.

Actually it sort of did happen with the iphone, when the first iphone was launched there was a ton of noise about how limited it was, why can't we make 3rd party apps as well as many other things it didn't do.
3rd party apps for example Apple kept their mouths shut on Apps and that wasn't introduced until I believe IOS version 2 a full year later, now IOS is considered pretty full featured.

 

[Paul Nordin]

Actually it sort of did happen with the iphone, when the first iphone was launched there was a ton of noise about how limited it was, why can't we make 3rd party apps as well as many other things it didn't do.
3rd party apps for example Apple kept their mouths shut on Apps and that wasn't introduced until I believe IOS version 2 a full year later, now IOS is considered pretty full featured.

Maybe so, but that is not what Apple just did. What Apple just did would be equivalent to shipping the iPhone 5 this fall and no 3rd party apps work because they chose to rewrite the iOS APIs and forgot to tell the 3rd party developer community.

 

[Mark Phelan]

Apple can fix this situation very easily... all they have to do is communicate what they are going to do with this app. If they don't, many will jump ship. Once they do, it will be hard to get them back.

I am the ultimate Apple fan. But this app signals a big change in philosophy. It doesn't have to be that way... but somebody better say something pretty quickly.

Jim

+1. You know it's bad when it becomes fodder for a comedy bit on Conan. When was the last time ANY software program had that happen? That is some awful marketing, hard to imagine it being a worse release than it is right now.

 

[Uli Plank]

I'm very much of an Apple fan, left PCs behind around 1999, like my MacPro, MB Air and iPhone. But now I'll switch to CS5, which runs very well on a Mac!

And if they abandon MacPros, it's going to be a Hackintosh…

 

[Sergio Perez]

What concerns me is that, and I think I'm reading this right , Red Team didn't know anything and weren't working on anything for FCPX until the day of FCPX release. This contradicts the NYTimes writer. This can also mean all the additional info about future additions of xml, edl, etc. which the same writer said in the article, bogus.

I'm also an Apple user. I switched from PC's due to, yep, FCP. It was FCP that brought me to the Mac ecosystem. It would be ironic that it would be FCPX that would make me exit the ecosystem...

 

[Luis Ismael]

I was waiting for the FCPX to edit a long feature that i´m currently shoot. But with this "release" this is NOT HAPPENING. Getting a new solution asap.

 

[Jarred Land]

Sergio your a pretty smart guy.

We would love to support FCP-X. And if someone sends us an API.. or SDK.. or whatever else we need... we will get right on it.

Contrary to what others are "officially" saying... There has been ZERO integration work started on it to this day ( at least on our side )..