FCP-X bashing is both deserved, and undeserved.
If you're someone like Chris Sanderson, who spends his days editing complex multi-camera video productions then no, X does not hit the spot.
But, I've been learning and working with X for the past week and I must say that for the type of video work that I do it is a brilliant bit of code. My productivity is much higher than with FCP 7, and I hardly know FCP-X yet.
As I see it, Apple screwed the pooch not by releasing X, but by cutting FCP-7 and its tens of thousands of daily users off at the knees.
For hundreds of thousands of people FCP-X is going to be a great video editing tool. For existing FCP-7 professional users who have been abandoned by Apple the only real decision now is whether to switch to Avid or Premier.
Michael
Didn't want to post any more here because I have just a few months on professional video edition, wich does not give me credits, and because I've not downloaded the FC X. But I do for 2 reasons because it seems to me that there is some confusion and I've actually seen the software in action on a Mac compared to a Premiere Pro CS5 on the same unit with the same footage.
In short, FC X is
way behind in terms of speed and overall performance once you work with a certain volume of footage. As my voice means nothing, I'll post this link in Spanish for the people who can understand spanish. It's Jose Luis Tamez, a very knowledgable voice for spanish speakers in this industry and trained in the US by big names. You can trust his words better than mine.
The think is that Jose luis didn't bombed at all FCP X, he is very respectfull about it but clearly explains that it simply dosen't work for him as expected. But something else also: he did the same as I saw and came to exactly the same conclutions: the implementation of the background transcoding is not suitable very fast and therefore makes the workflow unrealistic if you just have a little more volume of footage.
Worth the listening the video if you understand spanish. It's call: "the myth of the FCP X's real time processing". Very informative:
http://www.cinedigital.tv/el-mito-del-procesamiento-en-tiempo-real-de-fcp/and the video is there for more explainations:
What I'm seeing, is that many people who have been amazed of the FCPX speed and usability compared to FCP 7 don't have a clew of the workflow in what the competition is doing. FCP 7 was an outdated software. I'm not sure people realised how good are Premiere Pro CS5, Avid Media Composer 5, Edius 6...they are really good! It was FCP 7 that hasn't catch up.
The conclusion of what I've seen and what Jose Luis Tamez is saying is when you put it on competition with Premiere Pro for ex, the speed and workflow becomes a myth. Faster than FCP 7? that was not hard to beat. No doubt. But what is currently available while Apple was sleeping in their laurels, others have walked a long way.
Also, a personal argumentation and I disappear from here: Many FCP X defensors are saying that ok, it's not suitable for pros but for the vast majority of us, included some pros but who don't really need the missing features.
I don't buy that. Even if you are not a power user. Why? Time!
Who knows if you won't need those features very soon?
Learning a workflow from scratch is time consuming. Yes, those are not Flame or Nuke, but still, weeks and weeks of learning curve. You have to be really really sure you won't need more power very soon because then it will be another new learning curve. Who wants to do that?
I saw in a post more above a comment on Morgan, saying that probably Morgan does not need today more than what FCP X ia able to deliver. I'm not Morgan and can't answer for him, don't know his workflow but I'm prety sure he might want to work with more than one timeline and one sequence, but just looking at his work, it's clear that Morgan is deeply involved into motion and it will grow. Therefore, it's understandable that even if somebody could work today reasonably well with FCP X features, if video is your path, very fast you will be in a dead end and forced to another learning curve. It's perfectly understandable that Morgan don't want to take that risk even if he would love the software (wich I doubt). We don't have time, and the competition offers on the table today way more solid softwares even for beginners and advanced users.
I have those 3 editors in my workstation. All are superb softwares. Avid is IMO the best for heavy stuff (interconnections between plkatforms) and the most logically implemented in terms of editing workflow.
http://www.grassvalley.com/products/edius_6http://www.adobe.com/es/products/premiere.html?promoid=BPBJHhttp://www.avid.com/es/specialoffers/fcppromotion?intcmp=AV-HP-S2Don't know about Vegas.
And a good
100% free editor that actually allows red workflow http://www.lightworksbeta.com/ that is already much more powefull that FCPX in the sense that it allows you to start beginner and grow until Red workflow, AAF XML workflow right now... It's under windows but they plan a Mac version in the future so keep an eye on it.
The features, very impressive for an open source software:
http://www.lightworksbeta.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=108&Itemid=247Michael, I don't think Autodesk and Resolve are very happy about the Apple "oax" when they put their Smoke unit and Da.Vinci available Mac only. They must be ruminating. And thank god I didn't do the move to Apple when I was hesitating because I wanted the Smoke worflow...thank god I just canceled my order on the last minute! I had a good intuition.
Have a nice evening.
Fred.