This is the second in our series of MediaStorm producers responding to the new FCP X. If you missed the first response, from Eric Maierson, you can check that out here.
Well it’s amazing how much difference a day makes.
Yesterday I had prepared a blog post about my qualified, yet upbeat first impression of FCP X.
Of that blog post, here’s what I’ll include;
“I’ve been working in FCP X since it launched, and I’ve tried to approach it for what it is. A new piece of software that will have significant limitations, like all version 1 software.
In doing this, I’ve come to see the potential of the program. It’s a young buck, but as it matures, I think we’re going to be surprised at how robust it is.
Using metadata to organize and find assets is amazing. It’s fast and efficient. I’ve been able to organize content quicker than I was able to in FCP 7.
Having access to my Aperture library’s organization within FCP X is a huge time saver.
Live previews of audio effects are great. Many of them can be controlled manually in the Inspector just as they were in Soundtrack Pro.
The Audition tool is amazing for trying out music and image edits.
Many of the editing quick keys are organized in a much more logical way. I’ve had to relearn nearly everything, but they’re generally pretty intuitive.
Other things that are big improvements include resolution independence, background rendering, and tapeless workflow.”
All of this is still true. But this morning FCP X scared the living daylights out of me.
Two of four producers in the office lost work when FCP X didn’t save properly. And for those of you haven’t opened the program, you should know that FCPX no longer has a manual save function; it’s all supposed to be done without so much as an Apple-S.
I can think of nothing more terrifying than feeling unsure of my ability to save work. This fact has spooked me to the core.
As if that wasn’t enough, I’ve managed to crash the program several times by removing a keyword from a clip. One piece of metadata brought down the entire program.
And don’t plan on using native H.264 files. They make the entire program entirely too unstable.
Now, I understand that this is new software and that it will get better with time. But the inability of this program to offer a stable environment for the most basic functions, like saving, has me thinking.
It took years for FCP 7 to become the type of program that even Walter Murch could edit on. Despite the advances in FCP X, Apple has asked us to again remain patient as they go down the path of building increased stability and functionality into their software, all while providing little to no information about the timeline they have for updates.
While storytelling is software agnostic, time and money are not.
The prospect of waiting years for FCP X to mature is a depressing thought, and one that might not be financially viable for many institutions. I hope I’m wrong that it will take this long, but the point is, we just don’t know.
If you have the means, I’d list FCP X as a wait and learn.
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10 Comments
Refreshing to hear a thoughtful & balanced critique amidst a lot of knee-jerk negativity. Sorry to hear of your coworkers’ losses – thank you and MediaStorm for taking time to work with the program and offer valuable, experience-based feedback.
I agree, the autosave feature is great in concept but totally freaky when you’re actually editing. And I know Apple is planning on bringing that feature to all its software with Lion – yikes! Hopefully the bumps will be smoothed out by then. So sorry to hear that you lost some work
Thanks for the thoughtful writeup, Tim.
Thanks Tucker. We all hope that this growing process will happen faster than the program matured in its previous iteration.
I’m not sure I understand the value of auto-save. I can’t remember ever forgetting to save my project before closing FCP. The only thing I can imagine is auto-save might help if the app suddenly crashes on you and you haven’t saved in a while.
I think the thing that scares me as much as FCPX not saving correctly is the possibility of accidentally saving a change you didn’t mean to save. For example, accidentally changing a whole series of clips and closing the program before you realize the mistake. I noticed this happened when I was assigning keywords. I somehow pressed some keyboard shortcuts that rearranged what I was working on and had to figure out what edits I’d accidentally made.
Personally, I’d like to see auto-save be a preference you can turn on or off. I’m sure there will be many more horror stories until the bugs are worked out.
Stephen –
I think you bring up an important point about the way FCP X saves. While the program is open you have unlimited undos (command z), but once the program is closed, all those undoes are gone. Aside form the autosave, that’s not really different from FCP 7.
The problem is that there’s no autosave vault, so going back to a previous version isn’t possible unless you’ve versioned projects (formerly sequences). Of course that doesn’t help if you’ve done a bunch of work in the Event Library.
Hopefully Lion will help out with that.
Excellent points.
Apple has made 2 big mistakes- they overestimated the worth of FCPX and underestimated the value of the FCS3 apps. They are now paying the price for those miscalculations as most editors walk out the door to Adobe or Avid. In the long run, I don’t thinks Apple even cares. And that’s sad.
Wait one more week.
Snow Leopard gives us Auto Save but that’s not how it was designed. It was designed for auto save + versioning. The last one is a core Lion feature, working similar to time machine. It basically gives you a version history and you can go back to each version of your project.
I consider this problem solved next week. You can also duplicate projects, which is similar to manual saving.
I expect the first Final Cut Pro update at the moment Lion is available in the app store. I am confident it was finished 3 weeks ago already, just waiting for Lion to be released. Let’s hope they fixed some major bugs in the meantime so we get to use a more stable app next wednesday.
I hope you’re right, but I’m skeptical that the first release of Lion will be stable.
While I get that FCP X required a ground up build, waiting for it to become as full featured and stable as FCP 7 is a hard pill to swallow.
All I can say is after being abandoned by Apple and abused by Avid , I am glad to be in a situation where I get the feeling that Adobe gets it. I am excited to see how this groundswell influences cool developments in the future.I am assisting a German developer who is enthusiastically recomputing his cool plugin to be another powerful tool in the PrP toolbox. Lots of folks are stampeding in this direction and Im glad Adobes patience and perseverance is paying off for them.
Actually, I’m now grateful to Apple for motivating me to take a close look at Adobe. I’ve purchased and installed it and should be migrating all my FCP projects over soon. It handles my H.264 files with no problem and it’s easy to get old projects to it. Already I like it better than FCP. It seems closer to Avid, which I used for 10 years before going to FCP in 2006.