GAH! All the new-ness! Man, I've just started to really get the hang of SOME of the stuff in FCS1, and now I want the new one!!!

The new 3-D tools in Motion really look interesting. Looks like apple finally has a program that is at least in the same general realm as after effects. And camera shake reduction in FCP! And the new soundtrack stuff looks very helpful, too.

Ah, too much stuff.

Anyone else got some comments??

Oh, and Color?? Finally they bring Final Touch into the Studio lineup.

Good greif, those motion updates are seriously amazing. Too bad they didn't do anything with DVDSP. Eh, oh well.

But come on, I can't be the ONLY person following and excited by this!!

(speechlessness)

I am disturbed by your lack of enthusiasm.

Oh well...

Eh. They finally caught up with Avid in being able to mix HD and SD in the same timeline. They did leapfrog them and allow mixing PAL and NTSC - which is pretty neat - and different HD formats.

The features sound great and I'm sure Avid will match them soon.

FCP is turning out to be a pretty capable package. But their effect editing still stinks. (in FCP - I haven't seen Motion) So does the actual editing in my opinion. And Media Management. And multicam. And project collaboration.

They better have fixed the issue with FCP handling huge projects and loading time.

However - FCP is once again trying to underprice the big boys. Which is great - because it will put even more pressure on Avid to lower their prices.

It's awesome that these tools are available on the cheap now - not too cool for professional editors who are probably going to see the budgets for jobs come down because people now think it's so cheap. People said the same thing when the original FCP came out and it appears to have been true.

Oh well. But it does look pretty neat.

The ProRes codec is just them copying off of Avid's DNXHD codec that has been out on an Avid for 2 years.

-Chris
Studentfilms.com

Yes, PRoRes is basically just DNxHD, but the point is that to get it (and all the other features that are now AVID level) you only have to pay $1300. No, FCP's editor is definately not as good as Avid, especially when networking with multiple editors and large media management (that really is FCP's biggest flaw, and it is admittedly glaring). But for anyone working on something less than a major feature it does just fine. Avid costs SOO much more.

And Motion, now at least, looks quite powerful, what with all the new 3D and keyframing stuff. Before it was ok, but now seems better, and WAY more integrated with FCP.

Well the biggest annoyances that I have are the following. Does anyone know if these are fixed:

- unmonitoring or soloing a video track causes you to lose renders. What the? This shouldn't happen....it's annoying.

- applying a speed change to a clip causes the whole clip to get longer or shorter thus editing your sequence. This shouldn't happen. The duration of the clip in the sequence should stay the same. Or at least there should be an option to choose between the two ways a speed change can work.

- long start up times for big projects such as features

- the god awful keyframing for speed ramp effects. (compared to avid which is a dream)

- general motion effect quality. The quality of motion effects in fcp is pretty bad (or used to be)

That's all I can think of now. I'm sure there are other gripes that I have. The first one is huge though - if they fix the soloing issue it will make it alot better.

-Chris
Studentfilms.com

I think the keyframing problems have been more or less fixed, but I'm not sure about motion effects. I wholeheartedly agree with the clip speed thing - I HATE that (and hope it's been fixed). And I wouldn't know about the start up times for large projects, as my largest project so far has been 10 minutes.

Somehow when I solo/unmonitor a video track I don't end up loosing my renders. That may be just because I'm working small projects or something, but that hasn't ever actually happened to me. I've never used any Avid software better than Avid express 4 and then only a little bit, so I'm not particularly prepared to make any judgment but I'm definitely looking forward to studio 2. Does anybody know if this constitutes "Final Cut Extreme" of if that is still yet to come out?

Color is what I'm looking for on this one. Looks like a dream.

I'll be buying it when I get my mac. Educational price is $699.

I don't think they'll be releasing FCP Extreme, at least not for a while. Avid is a rather niche market, and it currently has a stranglehold on said market. Apple is rather trying to work its way up and chip off from Avid's base from the bottome (slowly making FCS better). Maybe if FCS gains more market share traction, then we might see and Extreme version.

quote:

Originally posted by BaldMan Pictures:
Somehow when I solo/unmonitor a video track I don't end up loosing my renders.

If you solo a track in FCP - you WILL loose your renders. It may not tell you if you checked it to not to tell you. But you WILL lose them.

You can UNDO the soloing????<== bizarre and get the renders back though.

-Chris
Studentfilms.com

quote:

Originally posted by Studentfilms.com:

quote:

Originally posted by BaldMan Pictures:
Somehow when I solo/unmonitor a video track I don't end up loosing my renders.

If you solo a track in FCP - you WILL loose your renders. It may not tell you if you checked it to not to tell you. But you WILL lose them.

You can UNDO the soloing????<== bizarre and get the renders back though.

-Chris
Studentfilms.com

Ah yes, my sincerest apologies, I was unmonitoring a single track and wasn't losing the render files. My bad.