FCPX going subscription

It's a complicated each company has it's own motivations. Apple while bigger and deeper pockets has all sorts of self imposed restrictions and conflicts of interest because they sell both the hardware and the software. Apple has always wanted to sell proprietary systems because it is more profitable than selling commodity based pc built from parts that you're competing on price. Not unlike camera manufactures they want their product tiered in price performance categories. BM had developed editing software without those restrictions and use it to encourage the sales of their camera. So they have a great incentive to improve it and focus on a narrower task.

I agree Apple sluggish almost unresponsive development is frustrating.
 
Blackmagic acquired Resolve (created by da Vinci Systems), which was once $150,000+ and only for the 1%.

Grant Petty's efforts are rare in his vision of providing affordable tools to everyone.
 
NorBro said:
Grant Petty's efforts are rare in his vision of providing affordable tools to everyone.
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Not only affordable but really best in class in many instances. The UMP 12K is unlike any other camera on the market, even ones that cost a lot more, they've essentially made their own category with the
new sensor technology in the 12k. It will be interesting to see if any higher end adopters bolster that camera's profile with the Hollywood crowd for features and episodics.

The ATEM MP line is a ground breaking achievement coupled with the model options and the insanely low cost, there is nothing else like it on the market.
The PCC 6K Pro is really an incredible achievement in it's own right, that much performance for that pittance of a selling price. Resolve just keeps getting better and better
and they are updating at an insane pace.

BMD has gone from a sideline player to probably the most innovative, unique company in our business in just a few short years. I'm so endlessly impressed with what they are doing as a company
and Grant Petty is definitely a visionary leader. They've had some rough patches with reliability and seemingly self inflicted limitations but they appear to be rapidly moving beyond that into a
new era. I can see in the next few years, as the smaller players die off or mutate, only Sony, Canon and BMD left standing, other than the high end with Arri. RED? I'm amazed they've held on this long after
the PR implosion of 2020. it seems like the Komodo may be their lifeline, I have not heard any colleagues in the LA market buying a new RED camera other than the Komodo for a while.
 
puredrifting said:
Not only affordable but really best in class in many instances. The UMP 12K is unlike any other camera on the market, even ones that cost a lot more, they've essentially made their own category with the
new sensor technology in the 12k. It will be interesting to see if any higher end adopters bolster that camera's profile with the Hollywood crowd for features and episodics.

The ATEM MP line is a ground breaking achievement coupled with the model options and the insanely low cost, there is nothing else like it on the market.
The PCC 6K Pro is really an incredible achievement in it's own right, that much performance for that pittance of a selling price. Resolve just keeps getting better and better
and they are updating at an insane pace.

BMD has gone from a sideline player to probably the most innovative, unique company in our business in just a few short years. I'm so endlessly impressed with what they are doing as a company
and Grant Petty is definitely a visionary leader. They've had some rough patches with reliability and seemingly self inflicted limitations but they appear to be rapidly moving beyond that into a
new era. I can see in the next few years, as the smaller players die off or mutate, only Sony, Canon and BMD left standing, other than the high end with Arri. RED? I'm amazed they've held on this long after
the PR implosion of 2020. it seems like the Komodo may be their lifeline, I have not heard any colleagues in the LA market buying a new RED camera other than the Komodo for a while.
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Their biggest flaw when it comes to their historically missed delivery dates has more to do with their openness than not being able to deliver. Many other manufactures keep their lips shut until a product is being mass produced. BMD tends to be more open and loves to share early and that at times gets them in trouble. Well gets them in trouble with impatient people I should say.

I protested moving to a P4k for awhile now and finally caved in October. Best decision I was ever talked into. It should honestly be illegal what is possible with a 4k camera shooting 12bit raw and a full license of Resolve/Fusion for $1,300. If one can't produce something amazing with that combination it is absolutely not the tools.

I have been a BMD user for many years using many of their video I/O and converter devices. I used AJA devices as well and I was always impressed how quickly BMD could innovate new products and provide software updates. That expertise just keeps getting better.

I think they cheap on on display quality and many products do of course have some faults but I will be dead in the ground and decaying before we see the perfect camera.
 
I still can’t decide which of Resolve 17 Studio or Final Cut Pro X to pay for. This rumour hasn’t made it any easier, because I had been leaning toward Final Cut Pro. Probably I should wait, but I really want to get on with editing 10-bit footage from my new(ish) GH5S.

Buying and learning Final Cut Pro suddenly seems a lot riskier than choosing Resolve Studio. I can’t see Apple allowing a choice of purchase or subscription. Doesn’t sound very Apple. I suspect a move to subscription would be all-in and come with changes to the software, some of which I might not like if recent trends are an indication.

Meanwhile, my iMac only has Radeon Pro 560X graphics with 4 GB of memory. Unsure how well Resolve would run on that with 10-bit 4K footage.

Thomas Smet said:
I protested moving to a P4k for awhile now and finally caved in October. Best decision I was ever talked into. It should honestly be illegal what is possible with a 4k camera shooting 12bit raw and a full license of Resolve/Fusion for $1,300. If one can't produce something amazing with that combination it is absolutely not the tools.
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Yeah. I hesitated forever between that and the GH5S. I worried the Pocket 4K would end up costing too much after extra batteries, fast storage, eventually a viewfinder, etc. Maybe I shouldn’t have flinched …
 
JAMedia said:
There is a free version of Resolve. You could try that
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Yes, but it doesn’t support 10-bit files and doesn’t tell me which software will work better for me five years down the line. There is no sure answer to this question, but I’ve been burned in the past by learning complex new software only to have it pulled out from under my feet. Getting tired of it. I’m not good at blundering along with software. I need to understand how it works and why. So it takes real effort for me to learn a complex package like Resolve.
 
Samuel Dilworth said:
Yes, but it doesn’t support 10-bit files and doesn’t tell me which software will work better for me five years down the line. There is no sure answer to this question, but I’ve been burned in the past by learning complex new software only to have it pulled out from under my feet. Getting tired of it. I’m not good at blundering along with software. I need to understand how it works and why. So it takes real effort for me to learn a complex package like Resolve.
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Resolve is hardly likely to disappear. BMD use it for their own range of cameras and editing desk hardware. it is the glue that links their whole product range together.
Though it does have a steep learning curve.

However FCPX could disappear over night.Apple have form for this. They killed Aperture after a decade see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aperture_(software) and due to the helpful nature of OSX and Apple 3 years after it was dropped you could not even run Aperture on the new OSX. With the direction of travel of Apple to iPad/iPhones/iMac and the Macbook Air's and away from the MacPro you can't be sure that Apple will continue FCPX
 
To reiterate a couple things previously mentioned, Apple killed Shake and rolled out FCPX with tons of missing features, so there's precedent for Apple killing and crippling popular software. I don't think that Apple will drop FCPX, but they might retool it for consumers.
 
Imamacuser said:
To reiterate a couple things previously mentioned, Apple killed Shake and rolled out FCPX with tons of missing features, so there's precedent for Apple killing and crippling popular software.
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Apple subsequently re-introduced 99% of the missing features and added a lot more over the following couple of year. So it wasn't "crippled" at all. As all the updates were free this was not really a problem in the medium term.

Imamacuser said:
I don't think that Apple will drop FCPX, but they might retool it for consumers.
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Initially due to the missing features for the first few months many professionals did (and some still do) deride FCPX as iMovie+ for the YouTube crowd and non-professionals. However many thought Apple would not drop Aperture until they did. No one expected Apple to drop the Mac Pro users until they put it in the Trash Can. The current MAc pro seems to be something for the very small number of high end pros who want a fully loaded $50K Mac Pro and not really meant for the low medium end where a PC makes car more sense.

So I don't trust Apple which is way after 20 years on Apple we are moving to PC for edit work so we don't have all our eggs in one basket. .
 
Video creation by general social-media users has exploded in the last couple of years. It might make sense for Apple to more directly target those users (i.e. with another round of simplification and price-cutting for Final Cut Pro). Not sure those people want subscriptions, though?

On the other hand, Apple abandoned Aperture (as noted above) around the height of the DSLR boom. So I’m not sure what Apple sees as the value of these software applications. It may be that they prefer to support new markets where they see a lack of enabling software. Once that gap is filled with competent third-party apps (e.g. Lightroom for Raw photo development and DAM, Resolve for video editing), Apple may see its job as done … and move on to the next big thing.
 
Samuel Dilworth said:
Video creation by general social-media users has exploded in the last couple of years. It might make sense for Apple to more directly target those users (i.e. with another round of simplification and price-cutting for Final Cut Pro). Not sure those people want subscriptions, though?
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No need to simplify FCPX as it is very intuitive to use and there are lots of how to videos all over the place. It is very widely used in that YouTube area anyway.

Samuel Dilworth said:
On the other hand, Apple abandoned Aperture (as noted above) around the height of the DSLR boom. So I’m not sure what Apple sees as the value of these software applications. It may be that they prefer to support new markets where they see a lack of enabling software. Once that gap is filled with competent third-party apps (e.g. Lightroom for Raw photo development and DAM, Resolve for video editing), Apple may see its job as done … and move on to the next big thing.
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No idea but I would not put money on Apple keeping any of its applications long term.
 
I've never been able to wrap my head around the magnetic timeline, maybe because I don't work in narrative films where I edit and then score, but tend to work in reverse, where I lay down a music track and edit a video based around the song.

With the FCP X magnetic timeline workflow I always found it a bit maddening to not work in a traditional timeline setup. It was just a hassle to keep things synced to a song, and lay clips out and shift them around. I want the timeline anchored, with seems to be the antithesis to the dynamic, shifting timeline of FCP X.

I realize I may be missing the obvious; is there a good methodology for this sort of reverse workflow? Or is the magnetic timeline just not for me?
 
filmguy123 said:
I've never been able to wrap my head around the magnetic timeline, maybe because I don't work in narrative films where I edit and then score, but tend to work in reverse, where I lay down a music track and edit a video based around the song.

With the FCP X magnetic timeline workflow I always found it a bit maddening to not work in a traditional timeline setup. It was just a hassle to keep things synced to a song, and lay clips out and shift them around. I want the timeline anchored, with seems to be the antithesis to the dynamic, shifting timeline of FCP X.

I realize I may be missing the obvious; is there a good methodology for this sort of reverse workflow? Or is the magnetic timeline just not for me?
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Drag your music instead of your video into the primary track. All elements added above or below will be attached to the music and it's location will remain fixed. You might think that's great but there's a downside. Video clips in the secondary timeline are more difficult to work with.
 
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filmguy123 said:
I've never been able to wrap my head around the magnetic timeline, maybe because I don't work in narrative films where I edit and then score, but tend to work in reverse, where I lay down a music track and edit a video based around the song.

With the FCP X magnetic timeline workflow I always found it a bit maddening to not work in a traditional timeline setup. It was just a hassle to keep things synced to a song, and lay clips out and shift them around. I want the timeline anchored, with seems to be the antithesis to the dynamic, shifting timeline of FCP X.

I realize I may be missing the obvious; is there a good methodology for this sort of reverse workflow? Or is the magnetic timeline just not for me?
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I have edited many, many videos to music with precise pinpoint accuracy that correlates to every single frame in the song...and this would be impossible to do without using FCP X's position tool - pressing 'p' to activate it (default) - which essentially turns off the magnetic timeline.
 
NorBro said:
I have edited many, many videos to music with precise pinpoint accuracy that correlates to every single frame in the song...and this would be impossible to do without using FCP X's position tool - pressing 'p' to activate it (default) - which essentially turns off the magnetic timeline.
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Good tip. I've been using FCP for ages and have never used the position tool. Just tried it out wow!
 
Most people who use FCP X only know the software just enough to get by (perfectly fine), but it's filled with so much control that's sometimes hidden in plain sight.
 
NorBro said:
Most people who use FCP X only know the software just enough to get by (perfectly fine), but it's filled with so much control that's sometimes hidden in plain sight.
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True but isn't that true of most software?
 
Yeah, perhaps especially in video editing because it is so easy for everyone to learn. (But FCP X has always had a reputation of being simpler than the other major NLEs.)

Will not be able to get by in software like Blender or Houdini or other industry-specific procedural workflow applications as they are just too advanced.
 
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