Scott Simons at Studio Daily on FCP Road Blocks

Scott Simmons at Studio Daily has an interesting article on some Road Blocks in FCP X. This goes with Olivier Peters recent article over at digitalfilms, which I posted about before.

Of course I agree with all, though maybe not in the same order.

It does really blow me away that there is no live timeline scrolling in FCP X. This was a feature that FCP 7 really did need, and AVID has had for a long time.

And the fact that you can set an in and out in a clip, then click on another clip, and when you go back the points are gone had better be a bug, because that is so not a usuful feature.

digitalfilms on FCP X Roadblocks

digitalfilms has an excellent article on FCP X roadblocks. I agree with all of them, but one particularly as it is my favorite tool in FCP.

Track tool. This plays a huge part in how I edit and something I really loved in FCP over Media Composer. I use it to move clips downstream to open a space on the timeline to work. If I want to do the same in FCP X, I either have to insert a placeholder (essentially the OLD Avid way of working) or select a number of clips (also the OLD Avid way). Not very effective when you have an hour-long timeline. Another reason to use the track tool is to select all the clips to the right in order to apply common effects.



I really don’t get these people that are fervently defending FCP X.

I know I have said this before, but to me it is not just incomplete, and you can’t call it a beta( because if it was a beta they would still be supporting FCP 7, while they worked out the kinks of FCP X), it is actually broken. The basic paradigm of the timeline that you cannot organize is broken. Some of the new features could be interesting and powerful, but as additional features, not as the only features. And I never want a timeline that I cannot organize unless it is has zero graphics or overlays, and even then I like to organize my tracks.

And while I could see a usefulness to being able to scrub where the mouse head is, like the AVID timeline, it should be able to turn off and on (I know you can turn it off in FCP X, but then you can’t scrub in clips in the viewer either, which doesn’t work).

And what exactly does Apple want us to do on jobs where we need a FCP 7 license? I am on one right now? How do we get one? E-bay, they are going for much more than $1000, and you don’t even know how legal they are?!?!

Biscardi Creative switches to Premiere Pro

Biscardi Creative has an excellent article on why they are not waiting for Final Cut Pro X to become this amazing Paradigm of editing in the future, when they can do everything they need in Premiere Pro right now. The article really mirrors what I am feeling about Premiere Pro right now. I love not having to re-compress to Pro Res, and edit in realtime in my timeline.

There’s been so much talk about a “new paradigm” and “a new beginning” lately courtesy of Apple.  Defenders of the “new paradigm” are quick to point out that this is an entirely new application, nothing like it has ever been done, therefore, Apple had to break with all convention to create Final Cut Pro X.   It’s stripped down now, like Final Cut Pro 1, but give it time and the things we “need” will be added back over time.  It has so much “potential for the future.”


The more I work with Adobe Premiere Pro the more I just don’t understand that mentality.   Why wait?  Premiere Pro already includes the “missing elements” of FCP X and so much more it can’t do.



He goes on to say that despite all the protesting in forums he transferred over a large project to Premiere Pro final Cut Pro 7 and it all worked perfectly, he loves all the realtime effects, and also how Adobe Media Encoder can look into Premiere Pro and After Effects projects and render individual sequences without having to open the host apps, which for him, and for me is huge! You don’t have to export a quicktime movie and you don’t have to give up the host app to to the compression. THAT IS SO COOL, AND SO USEFUL! TALK ABOUT A TIME SAVER!

Lion Spaces Controls

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Finally figured out something that was bothering me. I have already said that I hated that Apple had gotten rid of the spaces control panel to control which apps go into which desktop spaces, well the controls are still there, they have just been moved.

Once you have created multiple spaces in Mission control (I have 6).

MissionControl

Open the Application which you want to put in different spaces, and then right click on it’s icon in the dock. You will get a menu like this one which lets you pick where to put the app.
Spaces

Honestly it is not as elegant as it was having the old control panel where you could set all apps, but it is pretty functionally and allows the same functionality, so I am happy.

Still not sure about Mission Control VS. spaces and Expose though. I use 6 desktops, if I start using full screen apps, I am sure going to have a lot on the top row, and I have a fairly large monitor.

Apple’s Abandonement of the Pro Market

Apple’s abandonment of Professionals is obvious to me.

If they were planning on supporting professionals they could have done what they did with OS X. Release FCP X as a beta, while also continuing to support FCP 7 for a time, and especially keep it available. And keep adding features to X until it was at par with 7 and then kill 7, with a definite timetable. They did it with OSX, so they could have done it here, but they are aiming for Prosumers and have abandoned the pro market completely.

All the people saying how great FCP X is, well I am glad you like it, but it is not, and will never be a professional app. Sure you can edit amazing things with it, and use it’s new very powerful features to make an incredible product or movie or whatever you are editing, but you can do that with any tool, it is just not a professional editing program and from what I see, never will be.

Macgasm article on FCP X

The web site Macgasm has an article on two editors take on FCP X, and why they are not going to be using it. It is a good read on the subject and goes along allot with how I feel about FCP X.

From Eugene Ho:

By releasing a program that ought to have been a step forward from the existing app, but instead was missing many features that used to be there, Apple made it so that FCP X doesn’t “just work” for many professionals. By changing the video editing paradigm, FCP X now “gets in the way” of many pros, who will now have to spend the time to learn the “new way” of video editing.


From Paul Skidmore:

People keep asking me what I think of the new Final Cut Pro. My answer has been consistent: “It’s hands down the best editing program I’ve ever used, and when it comes time to edit my short film this fall, I won’t be using it.”


Though Paul seems to think FCP X will get there, which I don’t. I think it has some very basic flaws that will preclude it from ever being a viable pro editing program, and that is why I will be getting Media Composer for $999 before the deal runs out, and I already have Premier Pro CS5.5 and have been spending a lot of time learning it.

Premiere Pro in Lion Update 2

  1. OK, so NVIDIA has been able to re-create the problem, and there is a workaround. You must force the Mac into 64 Bit mode (If it can handle it). This Apple Tech Support Document gives how you can do it permanently or for a single boot.

If your Mac uses the 32-bit kernel by default, but supports the 64-bit kernel, you can start up using the 64-bit kernel by holding the 6 and 4 keys during startup.



To select the 64-bit kernel for the current startup disk, use the following command in Terminal:

sudo systemsetup -setkernelbootarchitecture x86_64

To select the 32-bit kernel for the current startup disk, use the following command in Terminal:
sudo systemsetup -setkernelbootarchitecture i386