More FCPX Thoughts

So a week and some days after FCPx is released and I still have noting valuable to contribute to the noise other than updating my own commentary.

1. Apple done effed this up. They tried to damage control it via Larry Jordan, I think. They should have rolled it out with more of a frame for the future – say up front that these things are missing, we know, we’re working on it, rather than trying to speak to the masses through the New York Times and Apple FAQs.

2. Lack of legacy support is going to be a big deal for a lot of people. That sucks a lot.

3. Adobe’s transparency and Avid’s continual support for pro users (for the most part) has become even more apparent in the past week. So has Apple’s traditional silence. That also kind of sucks.

4. Twitter would lead me to believe there’s a mass exodus occurring from FCP to PPro. I don’t really think that many people are switching right this moment. It seems silly, though I guess if your business is calling for a switch NOW, you have to do something. It seems insane to me, but I think it’s the vocal minority still. I think FCPx will get there and it’ll introduce new ways of thinking about editing within the next 5 years. A lot of the negative noise is people who haven’t figured out FCPX yet, as well.

5. I don’t really think I should be using FCPX exclusively right now because it seems like a totally different workflow for editing. What if I need to edit on Avid someday? Will I accidentally re-program my brain and forget everything? Will it be harder to go back and forth? This is probably silly.

It’s become very apparent that pros want to be treated a certain way, and Apple doesn’t really operate in that manner. It’s not that they don’t care, it’s just not their procedure. We’ve all known this and went with Apple anyway because their products were solid. But now it’s becoming less appealing. Perhaps it would be better to switch to a company fully dedicated to media creation tools? Maybe. I won’t be switching to a new platform (in fact, I could probably use FCPX today just fine because I’m a one-person show, though I use XML a lot), I very much enjoy editing in FCP, I know it in and out. But I also like Avid, and I like the idea of not transcoding h264 in PPro. I don’t like the idea of PPro because of a traumatic childhood experience – another blog entry.

Apple, hurry and make it better before I have to do something rash too.

This image is awesome. (If you’ve never seen it, it refers to Madagascar in the game Pandemic 2. Madagascar always closes its ports IMMEDIATELY which doesn’t allow you to contaminate the island and score bigger points. It’s frustratingly hilarious.)