FCP X on Conan O'Brien

[Tim Dashwood]

YouTube - Conan O'Brien Slams Final Cut Pro X

[David Parks]

That's interesting. The FCPX team at Apple better wake up fast.

FYI, Past Products that short changed established professional editing paradigms/workflows to appeal to non-editors.

1. Amiga
2. Newtek Video Toaster
3. Adobe Premiere before relaunching as Premire Pro
4. Avid Free - (Pretty bad when a free piece of editing software doesn't even catch on)
5. Media 100 - Still around I guess. They actually had an ad campaign in the 90's called "Kill the Editor"
6. Avid Xpress Pro: Started out as a dumbed down Media Composer. But then over time Avid kept adding features to the point it almost was a Media Composer and they had to kill it.
7. Draco Casablanca Editing Appliance - Little known and a complete disaster.
8. Digital FX Editor - Was a hybrid linear/non linear edit system that ran on a MAC. They had a higher end compositing system called Composium that had a short run. But, never understood how developing a compresssion codec was the key.
9. EMC2: Ran only on a PC Avid just beat the crap out of them in marketing. But they couldn't make the jump from off-line to on-line level finishing becuse they refused to listen to video engineers,
10. IMIX Video Cube: Was front ended on a MAC..looked cool,,,but wasn't designed with much thought to media management at all.

I guess my point here is that it seems to me that products that are market positioned as strattling or blurring the lines between professional and prosumer/consumer tend to fail. And FCP X I think may be in the category.

The most successful PC based prosumer consumer edit system is Pinnacle (owned by Avid). They're pretty clearly positioned in their marketing. I think that Avid Studio and Premiere Elements also pretty clear.

Avid Media Composer has been around the longest of all of the non-linear editors (that I'm aware of).
When Avid got arrogant, and started touting "we're the greatest" and stopped listening,,they almost bought the farm. Fortunately, for me, Avid regrouped and for the last three major releases since 2008 has really produced a deep, rich, and super effecient program. Adobe has aslo listened and has the best suite of products for affordable end to end post production.

We're fortunate that both of tose companies run on Apple and PC's.

Cheers.

[Tim Dashwood]

You forgot D/Vision!

I probably still have a the floppy disc of Avid Free sitting around somewhere. Back in 1995 when Avid gave us Avid Free as a free gift for buying a couple $120,000 MC8000 machines I thought "great, we can use this as an assistant station" and I installed it on my Powermac 7500.
When I launched it and realized how radically different it was from the real thing I basically felt betrayed by marketing. I hadn't felt that way again until I launched FCP X for the first time.

[Michael Bray]

Now that was a funny video! Glad to see that Conan's editors really like FCP X ; )

[Robert Turchick]

Even my wife who could care less about the technical details of my biz got the humor and appreciated seeing me smile after how grumpy (mildly put) I was yesterday.
Thank you Conan!

[Tony Newman]

I still have my Amiga/VideoToaster! The PC was still in it's black DOS screen days... No broadband yet, I even ran a BBS waaay before 'the internet" as we know it now. Ahhh the memories... And no, I don't wanna go back!

[William Hohauser]

Originally Posted by Tim Dashwood

YouTube - Conan O'Brien Slams Final Cut Pro X

There seems to be no end to the immature responses to the program. Why the Conan show would bother with a segment like this is questionable. The sad part is that they purposely screwed up the edit and then claimed that it was the program that did it because it's defective. Libel, anyone? Perhaps the editors were making fun of themselves but that isn't clear.

Three days after the software has come out and all hell has broken loose. What other software would create such a response?

[Louis Maddalena]

I'm not a lawyer but I don't think its libel if its for satire.

I'm sure with all this negative buzz around the software we can expect an update any day now adding at least one feature as a gesture from Apple saying "you know, we're not done yet"... then all the hype will die down.

[David Parks]

Originally Posted by William Hohauser

Why the Conan show would bother with a segment like this is questionable. The sad part is that they purposely screwed up the edit and then claimed that it was the program that did it because it's defective. Libel, anyone? Perhaps the editors were making fun of themselves but that isn't clear.

It's just comedy. Not libel. Just like Jon Stewart isn't Brian Williams,,,.it's comedy not the real news.

But it's okay to take companys and their products to task if you're trying to make a living with those products. A lot of us took Avid to task four years ago and they paid a price for not listening and being arrogant.

The comedy bit to me is a broader refection of how all of the "broadcast" guys view FCPX. If anything it is a big adjustment for them.

[Rick Presas]

Satire, which Conans segment definitely is, is not subject to libel

[David Tamés]

Originally Posted by William Hohauser

[...] Three days after the software has come out and all hell has broken loose. What other software would create such a response?

Many of us Final Cut Pro editors (myself among them) have been drinking a certain flavor of Apple Kool-Aid and it has made us very passionate. I've been sipping it since I saw Final Cut Pro at NAB in 1999 and now there's a new flavor in town and the old flavor is about to be discontinued and the formula tossed away in the dustbin of history. Eventually we'll adjust to the new formula and we'll wonder why we did not do it like this all along, it's the wave of the future, but there's going to be some culture shock along the way, and this video has fun with this and other notions. Pass me the cup, I need another sip, I'm still getting used to formula X, it's got quite a bite to it.

[Arnie Schlissel]

Originally Posted by David Parks

2. Newtek Video Toaster

Video Toaster is alive & well in Newtek's Tricaster line.

Originally Posted by David Parks

Avid Media Composer has been around the longest of all of the non-linear editors (that I'm aware of).

I'm not sure, but I think that Lightworks has been around longer. Now owned by Editshare, who are re-writing it from the ground up, with hopes of porting it to both Mac & Linux. For free.

Originally Posted by David Parks

When Avid got arrogant, and started touting "we're the greatest" and stopped listening,,they almost bought the farm. Fortunately, for me, Avid regrouped and for the last three major releases since 2008 has really produced a deep, rich, and super effecient program. Adobe has aslo listened and has the best suite of products for affordable end to end post production.

I agree completely. Avid has made a lot of progress in the last couple of years, as had Adobe. But I expect both products to crib many of the new features of FCP-X over the next few years.

Ironically, Apple listened to all the whining- err... complaints- about rendering, lack of native support for emerging formats and workflows, sync issues, 64 bit support, etc. As a result, they decided to make a break with the past & take a completely new approach. And upset a few people, in the process!

They have a culture of secrecy that often works well for them, and sometimes not. I think that they have mismanaged the roll out, but that in the end, FCP-X will evolve into a great editing platform.

[Rick L. Allen]

Originally Posted by Arnie Schlissel

in the end, FCP-X will evolve into a great editing platform.

That's fine for an amateur app but we've been waiting for years to see 64bit processing in FCP. Instead we got iMovie Pro. Personally I've been holding off on using Premiere Pro or Avid (who as others have pointed out forgot who their customers were) in the hopes that FCP X would be amazing. Computers keep moving forward. My business demands that every 3-4 years I update my hardware and I have no choice but to use the Pro software that keeps up too.

I'd happily spend $1000 on a real FCP with pro features but won't waste $299 on FCP X.

Avid, Adobe give me a crossover deal. For the first time in 10 years I'm interested.

[Ron Wilk]

Hi Rick,
You're in luck. There is an FCP to Avid as well as Adobe gross-grade deal currently ongoing. In the case of Avid, it amounts to more than half the price off.

[Richard Alvarez]

I think Videoguys has a crossover deal on AVID still. Check 'em out.