Former Shake Product Designer: Apple Doesn't Care About Pro Market

Until they see bad press, spoof videos of how their products are mediocre, and see opinion makers criticizing. Then they care. That's why they released the Faq.
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But what will it produce? More FAQs?

We can hope for additional features that incrementally address basic professional editing functions that have been identified (repeatedly) here and elsewhere.

But some will not be implemented.

That's a fact.

The interface may be modified slightly, but it will never look like FCP.

So if the features return (mostly), the question becomes whether the interface works for you.

And the secondary question is whether the absence of Color, DVDSP, ST Pro also matter.

If they do, move on. Because the writing is on the wall.

Bad press with an antenna issue with the best selling iPhone didn't turn Apple around, and neither will it here.

The future is filed based media, "intelligent" editing and media organization, etc.

FCP X is "reality TV." No plot, no writers, no stars, low overhead, and low maintenance.
 
I guess then question of the hour is what are YOU doing about it with your workflow? Are you holding tight with what you have? Are you making plans for what direction you'll go for future purchases/upgrades?
 
David Saraceno said:
But what will it produce? More FAQs?

We can hope for additional features that incrementally address basic professional editing functions that have been identified (repeatedly) here and elsewhere.

But some will not be implemented.

That's a fact.

The interface may be modified slightly, but it will never look like FCP.

So if the features return (mostly), the question becomes whether the interface works for you.

And the secondary question is whether the absence of Color, DVDSP, ST Pro also matter.

If they do, move on. Because the writing is on the wall.

Bad press with an antenna issue with the best selling iPhone didn't turn Apple around, and neither will it here.

The future is filed based media, "intelligent" editing and media organization, etc.

FCP X is "reality TV." No plot, no writers, no stars, low overhead, and low maintenance.
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I don't care if FCPX doesn't look like FCP7 or work in a similar way in terms of editing layout to it. What I Care is for it to work in a professional broadcast environment. I care for it to have a secondary viewer. I care for it to allow me to export to other specialized solutions for professional mastering. I care for it to have custom frame sizes. I care for it to allow a selection of native codec transcoding for editing inside fcpx. I care for it to allow me to manage my media, render files, events and chose a location for them independently and not have it locked in a specific place together. I care for it allowing me to not need to transcode whole clips to optimized media but a certain selection of said clip to save disk space. I care for feather edges. I care for All those features I didn't need to pay for before and that were well implemented in the previous version. Now I don't have them and supposedly will have to pay 3rd parties to bring them back. This is, first of all, a "wise guy" approach to sales- looks like a shady Hong-Kong shop selling you an HVX without the lens kind of deal. Second, it takes out one of the main advantages of Mac hardware and software- it feels almost the same as buying a custom made PC again. conflicts, bugs, etc. The advantage of the Mac platform and software was QC because apple was responsible for it. By letting these essential "features" go to 3rd parties means washing hands by Apple and a potentially unstable suite. Plugins often have hard times with software updates. I imagine constant problems with OS updates with these plugins. Something that doesn't happen often (it does however happens sometimes) when it is managed by Apple.

I have no problem with 3rd party support. I just want the professional features that are gone back and provided by apple, making them responsible for it to work. And I want to be reassured this is going to happen. If this means another Faq with a clearer roadmap, then so be it. Is that too much to ask? Is that being "not forward thinking" ? Is that unreasonable?
 
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Maybe. I would bet my life that Apple will not be implementing what it considers out dated tape based features, edls, etc. I would bet they will also leave third party device support to plug-ins as well. I don't have a problem with this and think the point of plug-ins "breaking" with every minor update is exaggerated. Anyway, this is the reality of FCP X it seems.
 
When Apple dropped Shake (I'd bought for £5k many years ago), I didn't knash or grind my teeth.
It was creaking at the seams and EOL, and had paid for itself many times over. I was actually glad to see the back of it. It had been obvious for some years it had reached it's maturity, starting off as a command-line app, then having a GUI slapped on it.
And there was nothing even sniffing to be introduced from Apple for replacement apart from the mysterious 'phenonemon' (sp??)

I continued with it, as did most of the industry for a further 2 years. Some companies bought source code and developed inhouse.
And then Nuke 6 came along and I jumped ship and bought one without a backwards glance.
That was coming on 3 years ago now and although I found the transition painful I'm now fluent and doing anything I wish in Nuke.

Everything FCP7 will continue to work, and if you wish to switch instantly to some other software, then goodbye and thanks for all the fish.
But in the meantime, here's a brand new way to work, a modular basic framework to build a strong new FCP from. It's rough around the edges, but has stars in it's eyes.
It's missing loads, but it's being promised in the future. Play and fiddle on projects, see how you like the new way.

And if you don't, and FCP7 no longer does what you need it to do and it's EOL'ing for you, then make a considered choice about what to move to.

Just to add that Shake still works as stable as ever even now on my macs, about 5 years after being dropped, there are still companies using it here in London, and still freelance work available on it.
 
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That's a good point eletricpig. It's tough because you don't simply want to dismiss something just because it's "different". And yet just because it's "different" doesn't necessarily make it any good.

Time will tell.
 
Gary Huff said:
I guess then question of the hour is what are YOU doing about it with your workflow? Are you holding tight with what you have? Are you making plans for what direction you'll go for future purchases/upgrades?
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The first think I did last week was buy an upgrade version of FCS3 for $265.00 from BHPhoto. I have three clean, not yet registered seats now. Then I noticed yesterday that BHPhoto doesn't sell any more, and auction for that item on eBay went for $614.00.

I'm sitting tight. I have FCP X on two machines, and Steve Martin's rippletraining series for a review.

FCP 7 works just fine for me, and will post Lion I suspect. That's provides at least two years for me to make any decision that may affect purchasing.

I'm almost exclusively file based. p2 and avchd footage from a 170 and various AVCCAM cameras. We will get a 250 when released; we don't do much audio sweeting, CC, or collaborative work, so FCP X could work for me, but I'm in no hurry to move.

Premiere is still too buggy for me. Avid isn't 64-bit to my knowledge, and other than bootcamp, we won't move a PC editing circumstance. Too much invested.

That's my road map.

Unless there is a compelling reason for Apple to address these issues, I don't see a future if FCP X doesn't improve.
 
@SPZ.

I with you there. Give me a viewer option, and the ability to set in.outs using key strokes.

Give me XML export capabilities. I don't see the need for legacy imports because I would use FCP 7 for those.

Give me the option to set traditional tracks.

Bring back some other legacy interface tweaks.

I can live with that.
 
SPZ said:
as a professional FCP editor
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OK, that's the problem, right there.

I'm not an "FCP editor", I'm an editor.

I don't sell my ability to push buttons in FCP, I sell my talent and skill as a story teller & problem solver. FCS happens to be a big part of my toolset, but I'm not emotionally tied to it. My talent & skill is portable. It's the plumber, not the wrench.

If your business model or film making ability is only tied to your existing set of tools (regardless of what those tools are), you are setting yourself up for a failure. Your business model should be tied to your talent and skill as a story teller, not the tools you use to tell your stories with.
 
electricpig said:
Everything FCP7 will continue to work, and if you wish to switch instantly to some other software, then goodbye and thanks for all the fish.
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My feelings, exactly.

electricpig said:
But in the meantime, here's a brand new way to work, a modular basic framework to build a strong new FCP from. It's rough around the edges, but has stars in it's eyes.
It's missing loads, but it's being promised in the future. Play and fiddle on projects, see how you like the new way.
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I'll even go a little further- I'm certain that sometime soon somebody will ask me to finish a project for them that they cut in FCP-X. When that day comes, I intend to make it my business to know how to do that, especially if it means getting that project out of FCP-X and into Davinci or Avid.
 
When FCP 1.0 was introduced a decade ago, it also lacked any means of getting into or out of any tape other than miniDV, no EDL, no OMF, no multicam, no XML, no color correction, etc. Some of those features took years to be added, many by 3rd party developers. I'm hoping that the development curve for FCP-X will be a little faster.

Do I want to be able to digitize from and lay back to tape? Heck yes! But not all of my current clients do.

I think that in the long run, FCP-X will succeed for the same reasons, and in the same market segment, as the original did. It will appeal to the emerging film makers who see that it's cheap and it works with their new tapeless camera. They don't care that they can't deliver a tape to a broadcaster- they don't even understand the difference between a digiBeta and an HDCam. The broadcaster may not care, either, if they can upload a broadcast ready file to their FTP server.

The Blockbuster store in my neighborhood closed about 2 years ago. 1 of the 2 independent video rental shops went out of business, the other moved to a much smaller space. Last night, I was watching stuff on Netflix, streamed directly to my TV. People who shoot industrials & events don't need to deliver on tape anymore, they may not even need to deliver to DVD or Blu-Ray all the time. HBO started it's own streaming service to compete with Netflix, many networks already have streaming episodes available on their own websites.

Video killed the radio star, streaming killed the video store. Don't go the way of Blockbuster and the dodo bird.
 
arniepix said:
Video killed the radio star, streaming killed the video store. Don't go the way of Blockbuster and the dodo bird.
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London black cabs are full of ex printers who couldn't or wouldn't adopt desktop publishing when the tsunami arrived.

In a 14 year career in compositing I'm now on my third comping package.

I was demonstrator for Kodak's Cineon in Europe, and straight after the release of v4 it was spectacularly dropped to please the accountants, along with 25,000 digital employers, just to please shareholders and accountants. It was totally the industry standard and they dropped it, (after an 'exit program' of final upgrades), and the support basically went with it.

I then taught myself Shake, and became the second shake freelancer I knew of in London. bought myself a copy at half price (thanks to apple when they halved the price to £5k when they bought it. that lasted me for 6 years till they dropped it. W

3 years ago I bought a NukeX and taught myself that. Best comping software I've ever used.

These were not easy situations. You live in the software when you comp. Which is a pleasure as it's beautiful bespoke engineering in these tools. upping roots from your comfort zone is not easy.

You need to move forward and adapt, otherwise you'll drown ad be swallowed by the young talent behind you.
 
arniepix said:
Video killed the radio star, streaming killed the video store. Don't go the way of Blockbuster and the dodo bird.
Click to expand...

London black cabs are full of ex printers who couldn't or wouldn't adopt desktop publishing when the tsunami arrived.

In a 14 year career in compositing I'm now on my third comping package.

I was demonstrator for Kodak's Cineon in Europe, and straight after the release of v4 it was spectacularly dropped, along with 25,000 digital employers, just to please shareholders and accountants. It was totally the industry standard and they dropped it, (after an 'exit program' of final upgrades), and the support basically went with it, along with Kodak's digital strategy at the time.

It's legacy was the Cineon file format that became dpx as we know today.

I then taught myself Shake, and became the second shake freelancer I knew of in London. bought myself a copy at half price (thanks to apple when they halved the price to £5k when they bought it. that lasted me for 6 years till they dropped it. Wirked with it for a further 2 years while surveying my options.

Then 3 years ago I bought a NukeX and taught myself that.
Best comping software I've ever used. Makes me smile a lot when I use it.

These were not easy situations. You live in the software when you comp. Which is a pleasure as it's beautiful bespoke engineering in these tools. upping roots from your comfort zone is not easy.

You need to move forward and adapt, otherwise you'll drown and be swallowed by the young talent behind you.

But it's important not to make rash decisions when your favourite software goes. Anger is loud in a vacuum, but the industry swells and fills the gap soon enough.
 
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arniepix said:
OK, that's the problem, right there.

I'm not an "FCP editor", I'm an editor.

...you are setting yourself up for a failure. Your business model should be tied to your talent and skill as a story teller, not the tools you use to tell your stories with.
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A+

Don't define yourself by the tools you use.
 
David,

I erred in my request to split this forum into two sections. It appears we need at least 3:
- iMovie Pro Editors
- FCP Pro Editors
- Pro Editors

This new class seems to have emerged... more concerned with the task than the tool. I'm not sure what to make of this development. I suspect the 3rd group might happily co-exist with the first, but their behavior is so unpredictably rational, I just don't know. ;-) - Tim
 
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