The FCP X Problem; University level

[dillont]

That is my line of reasoning.

Students won't like the idea of learning on a toy software like fcpx.

 

[Joe Carney]

That is my line of reasoning.

Especially for the amount of money they are spending to go to school in the first place.

 

[David Rasberry]

BBC converted over 2000 seats from FCP to Adobe CS5 last fall. This was around the time that news stories about Apple gutting the FCP development team appeared. If its "pro" enough for BBC prime time I'd say it is a good alternative, especially since keyboard functions can be mapped to match FCP anyway. Shortens the learning curve.

 

[Paul Duvilla]

Changing abruptly this way is completely disruptive as our lecturers/professors may be forced to learn the new software and workflow/issues.

I mean no disrespect when I say this, but shouldn't your students be learning other NLE's anyway. The more they learn the better, and the more valuable and diverse they may become. Its better to learn 2 or 3 than 1.

 

[dillont]

Yup, this is why we've had both FCS and Adobe Master Collection in house. It is up to the instructors what they want to teach.

If we drop FCP, I will encourage a few Avid purchases for our advanced level courses.

Dillon

I mean no disrespect when I say this, but shouldn't your students be learning other NLE's anyway. The more they learn the better, and the more valuable and diverse they may become. Its better to learn 2 or 3 than 1.

 

[Ben Holmes]

I don't mean to belittle anyone's concerns here - I make a living from FCP so I have plenty of reasons to be fearful - but please, you have to give this a little time.

Since X was released back in the distant, long ago times of last week, an awful lot of nonsense has been written about. One thing everyone can agree: There are some features missing. I suspect we'll here more about that in the next 7 days (Apple never rushes out a response). Much of the criticism is, I think, directed at the 'import from iMovie' options in it, which are undoubtedly like a red rag to Apple pros. I think it's more prosaic - as both use AV foundation, it was the easiest to implement, so the first. Other options will follow, although I expect some (including capture from tape) will be third party. Fine - if you use HDCAM, you can probably afford it. Most of the criticisms of the edit paradigm are from people who haven't used it yet, or taken the time to dig into it. There's pro guts here, but I digress.

One popular complaint at launch was about the app store distribution. People complained they'd have to download the app to every computer. Except this isn't true. I've copied the FCPX package to an external drive, and pasted it to two laptops. It runs fine - and opens projects automatically that were stored on that drive.

I'd also note I now have it installed on 3 machines, but I only paid once. That's because I'm legally allowed to run app purchases on 5 machines. Hey - that's $60 per machine! This thing is suddenly SO much less professional.

Now - there is definitely a problem with the app store - namely you can't purchase multiple copies on one account, so currently you'll need multiple accounts to buy, say, 3 copies to run on 15 machines. That's down to the way the app store currently works but CLEARLY Apple will want to fix this. You might just (gasp) have to wait a little.

Comparisons between pricings for AVID, FCPX and CS5 are now crazy - and for that price you get what MAY be the future of editing - I think your students would at least like to look at that.

Professionally, I'm doing what I've always done with new software, evaluating and waiting. If Apple let me down in 6 months, fine - but from all of my vendors I hear the same thing: " we talked to Apple, and they're going to release API's and an SDK as soon as they can". Sounds fair enough to me.

Oh - and that thing about X not working on Ethernet SANs - not true. My vendor wrote a one line fix for it - it works just fine thank you.

Cheers,
Ben

 

[Ben Holmes]

Oh snap:

Can I purchase a volume license?
Final Cut Pro X, Motion 5, and Compressor 4 Commercial and Education Volume Licensing will be available soon via the Apple Online Store for quantities of 20 or more. After purchasing, customers will receive redemption codes they can use to download the applications from the Mac App Store.

From the just posted FAQs.

 

[Bruce Allen]

Comparisons between pricings for AVID, FCPX and CS5 are now crazy - and for that price you get what MAY be the future of editing - I think your students would at least like to look at that.

Avid Media Composer is $299 for students.

They get FOUR YEARS of free upgrades.

AND they don't have to buy separate 3rd party apps to get frikkin' OMF (and in the future, EDL - since Apple just stated on the official FAQ they're leaving it to 3rd parties?!?) support.

So it's actually a lot cheaper.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Can I purchase a volume license?
Final Cut Pro X, Motion 5, and Compressor 4 Commercial and Education Volume Licensing will be available soon via the Apple Online Store for quantities of 20 or more. After purchasing, customers will receive redemption codes they can use to download the applications from the Mac App Store.

http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/faq/

 

[paulherrin]

well articulated and spot on analysis of the situation...

http://digitalcomposting.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/x-vs-pro/


professional companies make products geared towards professionals.
consumer companies make products geared towards consumers...
it's all pretty simple.

i'd probably plan to move on. you can always choose to renew your plan. and hey, maybe if they lose enough sales, they'll put some focus on the pro end. sadly, that's our most powerful voice.

 

[Tom Greenberg]

This is a major issue for those of us in the educational community, as Dillon pointed out. I teach editing and post-production at Compass College of Cinematic Arts. Ours is a highly-accelerated, very hands-on program...students earn a 60 credit hour Associates degree in 12 months. Students begin shooting and editing almost from day one, and by the end of their studies here, have edited dozens of pieces including 15-20 minute short films.

As a long-time FCP editor, I am painfully aware of how inadequate the initial release of FCP X is in regards to professional workflows, along with third party hardware and plug-in support. However, as an educator, I have to grapple with the reality of incoming students who have little or no editing background/skills, shooting mostly on HDSLR cameras, and work in a closed-loop environment on laptops. The decision what to teach these students for the fall term (which starts in 8 weeks) is not a simple one. Do we continue to teach FCP 7, Color, etc. as we have been because this is what students are most likely to encounter in professional environments once they leave school? Do we teach FCP X because it is well suited for individuals working in a closed-loop on HDSLRs, is at the beginning of its life and will undoubtably develop into a credible editing solution given enough time? Do we switch to AVID or Adobe CS5...both of which have workflow issues of their own? No clear answer presents itself...

Additionally, our students purchase their own software, so that they own it and can begin using it in their careers when the graduate from Compass. This creates a real immediate problem...do we tell them to purchase FCP X, knowing its limitations, and with all the industry negativity? What if we decide to stick with FCP 7...well, they can't even buy it anymore from Apple. Or tell them that they need to buy AVID, or PPro CS5.5? Needless to say, for the last week, I have been receiving large numbers of emails from incoming students - "what are we supposed to buy?". And of course, switching to AVID or CS5.5 PPro means that we have to create new curriculum/lesson plans for large chunks of our post-production classes....and do it in the next 8 weeks.

Since the FCP X launch, I have been reading every review, blog, and article that I can find in hopes of getting some clarity on this issue before I make a decision that will force our incoming students down one of these paths. I want to make the right choice for them (both for today and for their career path) and for our institution. Frankly there is a lot of FUD, misinformation, and general murkiness surrounding this issue that make this a very difficult decision.

 

[paulherrin]

read the article i just posted. your safest bet is to suck it up and switch to adobe or avid. those are basically guaranteed professional tools, and skillsets that will lend themselves well. someone mentioned avid was about 300-400 for students with free upgrades for 4 years. if you can edit on avid, you can edit on any system.

don't sit around twiddling your thumbs right now looking foolish. yes it's going to take some effort (news flash).. learn the other software quickly and teach it. if you commit to that, it will be smooth sailing. pardon my judgement, but it sounds like you haven't used adobe or avid in awhile because you're talking about anonymous 'workflow issues' that don't exist. but you did mention there's a lot of 'fud' as well, so i'm sure you can figure that out. there's a lesson about eggs and baskets somewhere around here, but seriously, best of luck.

just in case you're still on the fence...http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/faq/ (super helpful in clearing everything up)

 

[Christoffer Glans]

I don't mean to belittle anyone's concerns here - I make a living from FCP so I have plenty of reasons to be fearful - but please, you have to give this a little time.

He doesn't have time.

Since X was released back in the distant, long ago times of last week, an awful lot of nonsense has been written about.

What nonsense?

One thing everyone can agree: There are some features missing.

Key components in a professional workflow. At this university they seem to teach the whole filmmaking part including post production, so they need an NLE that enables that type of flow.
FCPX has none of them.

I suspect we'll here more about that in the next 7 days (Apple never rushes out a response).

People said that last week and from what I know Apple doesn't officially speak anyway. But you seem to know much more then we do?
But yes, we will wait these 7 days and see if they tell us every feature missing will be put back into FCPX by the end of next month. I seriously doubt it.
And if haven't spoken after 7 days, will you then say "just wait... wait 7 days and they will say something."

Much of the criticism is, I think, directed at the 'import from iMovie' options in it, which are undoubtedly like a red rag to Apple pros. I think it's more prosaic - as both use AV foundation, it was the easiest to implement, so the first. Other options will follow, although I expect some (including capture from tape) will be third party. Fine - if you use HDCAM, you can probably afford it. Most of the criticisms of the edit paradigm are from people who haven't used it yet, or taken the time to dig into it. There's pro guts here, but I digress.

Not having key components of a professional workflow within the software and instead go through third party applications will complicate things a lot. Like if something goes wrong, how long before a fix? Especially since Apple change their software without telling others, like third party developers. I suspect it's going to become a post production nightmare.
And the criticism isn't that it's importing from Imovie, it's that it's ONLY doing that instead of making you import FCP7 projects.
I'm not sure if you have really read the criticism or just read the first sentence of such a post before raging against it?

One popular complaint at launch was about the app store distribution. People complained they'd have to download the app to every computer. Except this isn't true. I've copied the FCPX package to an external drive, and pasted it to two laptops. It runs fine - and opens projects automatically that were stored on that drive.

Does it work in a shared network? Like 5 editors working and collaborating at the same time, sharing the project. Again you missed the point of the criticism.

I'd also note I now have it installed on 3 machines, but I only paid once. That's because I'm legally allowed to run app purchases on 5 machines. Hey - that's $60 per machine! This thing is suddenly SO much less professional.

Are you 5 editors or only yourself?

Now - there is definitely a problem with the app store - namely you can't purchase multiple copies on one account, so currently you'll need multiple accounts to buy, say, 3 copies to run on 15 machines. That's down to the way the app store currently works but CLEARLY Apple will want to fix this. You might just (gasp) have to wait a little.

Yes, they said something about volume purchase, but still, no word about sharing over network.
Again, he can't wait.

Comparisons between pricings for AVID, FCPX and CS5 are now crazy - and for that price you get what MAY be the future of editing - I think your students would at least like to look at that.

http://www.avid.com/US/specialoffers/special-offers-Student-Pricing
Five dollars less then FCPX. I don't see that as crazy.

And, professionals doesn't care about price, they want something that works, period. How is the future of editing? In what way is this the future? Because it's shiny? Because it's rendering in the background? Editing is not about what type of NLE you use it's about what's inside your head. And again, no one has a clue if it's the "future", it might just be the end of Apple's business with making NLE's, you can not say that. One thing is for sure, I see a much more stable future for companies like Avid, who's foundation is built around NLE's, sound editing software and a lot of other professional solutions.
Either choose the "oh it might happen" software or the "I know what will happen and what I get" software.

But yes, when Apple fix the flaws professionals will start getting FCPX, but I seriously doubt that any professional with their head in the right place would build a post production facility around it, even when apple fix the missing features or let some third party developer do it. The support and future of how Apple will handle their professional community is too unstable for us, period.

Professionally, I'm doing what I've always done with new software, evaluating and waiting. If Apple let me down in 6 months, fine - but from all of my vendors I hear the same thing: " we talked to Apple, and they're going to release API's and an SDK as soon as they can". Sounds fair enough to me.

Vendors like BlackMagic doesn't work with OMF, XML, EDL etc. so they are certainly not gonna fix that, who will fix the missing features?
And 6 months? You can wait that long as a professional or are you using FCP7 during that time?


A summery of your post is that I think you have misread most of the criticism of FCPX. I also think that you haven't set a foot in a post production facility and seen how their shared network editing workflow needs to be working. This isn't just a few things that need to be fixed in the next update, this is A LOT OF FEATURES that need to be fixed fast if FCPX is going to survive in the professional world. I'm not so sure that everything will be fixed.

The truth is, they worked a long time on FCPX and when released it had all the features of Imovie, all the features that consumers want but NOT ONE of the standard features needed for professional work. I don't buy into the idea that it was too complicated to be enabled at release because they focused on the consumer features instead, clearly.

This tells you a lot about where Apple is aiming. Look at how the world is today, almost everyone with a youtube account edits their own videos, there's A LOT of people and A LOT of money in that market. The TV, feature film, commercial and music video part of town isn't that large compared to the one billion people who watch youtube every day.
I understand what Apple is doing and I understand that FCP might be dead for professionals.

Also, some, like Dillont here and myself can't wait, we need to make decisions now... but yes, I can wait 7 days, or was it 6 months?
At least they will tell us something, I trust you Ben, you seem to know Apple very well.

Do we switch to AVID or Adobe CS5...both of which have workflow issues of their own? No clear answer presents itself...

What workflow issues? I hear stuff like this all the time, never know what it's about other then some vague blame that these NLE's are "lesser" in some form.

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

Avid Media Composer is $299 for students.

They get FOUR YEARS of free upgrades.

AND they don't have to buy separate 3rd party apps to get frikkin' OMF (and in the future, EDL - since Apple just stated on the official FAQ they're leaving it to 3rd parties?!?) support.

So it's actually a lot cheaper.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

There are dramatically MORE entry level jobs for Assistant Editors who cut AVID. Students need to learn, and also need to get jobs when they get out - so they can pay back the money many have to borrow to go to school.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

There are dramatically MORE entry level jobs for Assistant Editors who cut AVID. Students need to learn, and also need to get jobs when they get out - so they can pay back the money many have to borrow to go to school.

Yes, forgot to mention that too. It's true, if they want jobs after school it's best to learn NLE's like Avid. At least look into what's being used by professionals and teach students that.
And I can assure that because seem to be a bit hard for some to learn compared to FCP or Premiere, it might be good that they learn Avid. FCP is easier to learn later, but to have knowledge about Avid is gold.
I have been receiving some jobs from clients because I seem to be one of the only ones around where I work who actually knows Avid inside out.

And of course, the Avid educational license costs a little less then FCPX.

 

[D Fuller]

I think cost is a bigger element here than people think. To get FCPx with reasonable output capability, reasonable graphic capability and the ability to take a project to an audio mixer costs $900. This "3rd parties will fill in the gaps" thing will get expensive.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

I think cost is a bigger element here than people think. To get FCPx with reasonable output capability, reasonable graphic capability and the ability to take a project to an audio mixer costs $900. This "3rd parties will fill in the gaps" thing will get expensive.

Avid educational price for Media Composer 5.5 is $295 and it includes all the things you need for professional workflows that you need to pay third party developers for to get in FCPX.

 

[Ben Holmes]

Or you can ignore X until they add in the missing features (although some used by smaller numbers like OMF will be via third parties - making it cheaper for everyone else) then be 6 months behind everyone else. It's entirely possible in my opinion.

FCP did well because it was feature comparible and cheaper than the competition. If you think X is the sake price as PPro for students I'll repeat: you get FIVE installs for $299. Not one. If X is completed, the same rules will apply. People will look at the value proposition again, and be back using it.

Read the FAQs and tell me if it sounds like they're doing nothing for professionals. I have no problem with third party involvement given the low cost per seat. I don't use OMF, or AAF, but I do use XML for import only. That's all I want to pay for. A la carte is fine by me.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

Or you can ignore X until they add in the missing features (although some used by smaller numbers like OMF will be via third parties - making it cheaper for everyone else) then be 6 months behind everyone else. It's entirely possible in my opinion.

FCP did well because it was feature comparible and cheaper than the competition. If you think X is the sake price as PPro for students I'll repeat: you get FIVE installs for $299. Not one. If X is completed, the same rules will apply. People will look at the value proposition again, and be back using it.

Read the FAQs and tell me if it sounds like they're doing nothing for professionals. I have no problem with third party involvement given the low cost per seat. I don't use OMF, or AAF, but I do use XML for import only. That's all I want to pay for. A la carte is fine by me.

r you can ignore X until they add in the missing features (although some used by smaller numbers like OMF will be via third parties - making it cheaper for everyone else) then be 6 months behind everyone else. It's entirely possible in my opinion.

Will they add the missing features or will they let third party developers do all the work? Also, he doesn't have the time, he has a contract that runts out in August and because it takes time to change the NLE structure he need to make the decisions right now.

FCP did well because it was feature comparible and cheaper than the competition. If you think X is the sake price as PPro for students I'll repeat: you get FIVE installs for $299. Not one. If X is completed, the same rules will apply. People will look at the value proposition again, and be back using it.

Is it 5 installs that works at the same time in unity with each other for collaborating in an edit? Understand what a post production workflow need when at a large facility before saying stuff like this.

Read the FAQs and tell me if it sounds like they're doing nothing for professionals. I have no problem with third party involvement given the low cost per seat. I don't use OMF, or AAF, but I do use XML for import only. That's all I want to pay for. A la carte is fine by me.

Well, good for you, but if they are gonna teach students to become editors or work with post production in the real world, they need everything that's being used by professionals. Some people seem to think that their own needs is enough for the professional community and "the future of post production".

In what way does your answers help him with his dilemma?

 

[Ben Holmes]

His issue was volume licensing. This has been solved. I can also tell him that you can legally run 5 computers on the same single purchase - and yes, on the same network. I know this because I have done it. Please feel free not to lecture me on networked edits - it's what I do for a living.

Although X does not appear to work on all networked storage, it took my SAN vendor all of a morning to get it working on their products. That's a GIG-E managed SAN on an NFS share, if you're interested. It's already been proved to work over fibre.

Anyone needing to make a decision in the short term will have a tough time with what Apple did - I do not seek to defend it. But buying a single license of X, and running it on a few computers on an existing setup seems like a reasonable first step.