FCP X vs SE2

[Shabazzy]

It shouldn't surprise me though - it seems like a lot of companies are out of touch with their customer base and simply don't respond to meet their needs. Which is why customers move on to other products.

Hi Jeff,

Sorry, you're right. I should have made it clear that my post more in regards to Robert Tew's reply to the blog post.

http://gigaom.com/apple/final-cut-pr...comment-633458

Sorry about that.

[Shabazzy]

You can be a pro on a $100 million dollar film or a $100,000 film.
You can also be an amateur at those levels as well.

This is precisely my point. The distinction between the two is defined by whether you are paid or not, not whether you are more skilled. I know people who work in animation who call themselves professionals, who are simply outclassed in quality of work by people who do the same thing for free, as a hobby .

I've always considered the difference between a professional and an amateur is a professional knows how to get the most of their tool set (what they have access to). That is what makes the difference on screen not what their salary is at.

This is how I feel it should be too.

Like you, I don't see the money as a way justifyable way to define professionalism. But like art, it's definition is very subjective. But in most industries, being paid for one's skillsets is how individuals would justify that label to any potential employers or clients. Otherwise their just not seen in the same light.

Sad but true.

[tmon]

I was hoping a retraction of my admittedly careless usage of the term "professional" would prevent this thread from derailing, so I'm going to try and get it back on what is a more constructive track...more along the lines of: Should anyone care about the features that SE never had and the ones that FCP-X has dropped?

If you don't need them, you won't care. If you do, you may have to start thinking of contingency plans. Regardless, an NLE is bread and butter for many of us, and while yes, the tool set does not make the editor, in some environments, the feature set as well as workflow efficiencies DO make a difference in the product one can produce, particularly when faced with tight deadlines and obnoxious, control-freak producers that can't make up their minds.

Probably no NLE or any other software app is going to be all things to all people, but clearly, Apple did NOT have certain post-house post-production editors in mind as the priority target market when releasing FCP-X v1.0. Again, I am specifically talking about things such as XML I/O, EDL I/O, OMF I/O, RSS422 control and multicam editing, etc.

I would speculate that most people do NOT need these features, so why should a for-profit company like Apple worry about those relatively few grumpy old-school editors who want to output their audio project to Pro Tools for a sweetening session, or move a session to another platform via XML if they can sell a gazillion more units of a now faster NLE to a much larger consumer base? Apple can throw their marketing might at a market that at one point could have been Newtek's for the taking with SE but wasn't due to the Tricaster priorities and accompanying tactical R&D and marketing concerns.

Many videographers do not need the aformentioned features, and I can see tons of people moving to FCP-X with it's faster speed and more "SpeedEdit-like" behavior. And yes, they WILL get many home movie hobbyists to "upgrade" from iMovie.

Upon thinking about this some more, they might be figuring they can "keep" the existing FCP7 user base, who won't go anywhere unless forced to do so (FCP7 and FCP-X can co-exist on the same workstation), and then later, in true Apple fashion, make the people who want those other features in FCP-X PAY for them (XML I/O, EDL I/O, OMF I/O, RSS422 control and multicam editing, etc.).

This makes sense to me as I was trying to figure out why the heck they would want to just hand that sector back over to AVID after grabbing such a big chunk of it away from them over the past 5-6 years?

In the meantime, how about the question of what this does to SE's potential to grow market share with an entry point of $1000? The entry point for FCP-X is pretty bold, IMHO, with the only drawback being the always more expensive host Apple hardware. Will NewTek make any adjustment in their SE marketing strategy, or just stand pat with the Tricaster mission and let the SE/PC Market chips fall where they may?

[tmon]

Here's another fun question:

With the release of FCP-X, is SpeedEdit still the world's fastest NLE?

[Shabazzy]

In a post by JimC on the 'SE2 update' thread, he stated that he believed that NewTek would continue the development of SE because of it's tight integration with the Tricaster. He also believed that those developments would extend to the standalone version too.

However, given the nature underwhich the standalone version was born, the current pricing strategy and now this move by Apple. The pressure would be on, for NT to win back any market share they had in the video editing arena. I'd say that these pressures are a little too much for them to bear, and I can see them dropping any intention to push SE standalone version forward as one of their product lines.

I think from a business point of view it would be seen by the industry as an act of desperation if they lowered the price of SE standalone and it would probably harm their image and their other products if they did so.

The void left by Apple's move to lose features for their current product is not something that I can see NT filling.

It's not that they couldn't. It's just that I think they are restrategising the company's direction. I think they realise that they've made too many different products in the past and made a lot of mistakes that they are trying to learn from and not repeat. They had to drop some of them for various reasons because I believe they had forgotten their roots and lost focus on what they are about.

I think they are trying to get back on track and focus on making a few thing extremely well and proving great support, instead of making many half-arsed things that are poorly supported.

And I think SE standalone will be one of the casualties.

I also believe that Apple will do a 'Coke Classic' on it's FCP product.

[Richvideo]

http://www.macrumors.com/2011/06/28/...ut-pro-market/

[tmon]

"The void left by Apple's move to lose features for their current product is not something that I can see NT filling."

This will absolutely never happen.

The reason why so many editors LEFT SpeedEdit in the first place (or never looked at it) was because of many of the features now being DROPPED in the first release of FCP-X.

It looks like AVID, Adobe and maybe Sony Vegas will be getting some of the castaways....

[Dexter2999]

Fxguide.com
Check out the RC Podcast to hear a very unhappy Jason Wingrove (who seems very representative of the professional FC community) vent his frustrations.

[DiscreetFX]

I can't see how Apple can turn it into a mass market product, since that would mean extending their software to non Apple customers and I don't see them doing that in my lifetime. So it'll always be a niche product.

No trying to toot Apple's horn for them, we use everything at DiscreetFX. Win7, OS X, Linux. But Apple is now worth over 110 billion dollars more than Miscrosoft. They sell OS X machines as fast as they can make them. If price is no object since they run Win7 and Mac OS X it's a no brainer for customers to buy them and they do buy them in masses. As far as Final Cut Pro goes the old interface was dated and a bit crap. It has needed a face lift for years and years. Final Cut Pro X looks like a modern program instead of the crusty old GUI/Workflow that we never liked. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

[Richvideo]

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/app...MW_latest_news

[Dexter2999]

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/app...MW_latest_news

Sorry, didn't care too much for that link.

The article itself doesnt' acknowledge that Avid started life as a Mac only product and still supports Mac. The article seemed to read like people would have to change entire systems, not just software

The comments at the bottom were more agrivating than the article itself. By and large they seemed to be from Mac fanboys.

The bottom line is that the new software has some nasty flaws in not supporting the legacy projects, and in that it doesn't support professional workflows with media being on a network server. It is a super cool product for people who "play" with editing software but not for people who make their living editing.

Maybe they will address these issues, but will it be in time to salvage their professional market share? And do they even care if this move brings in mountains of cash from the same market of people who buy iPads and iPhones and whatnot, the consumer market with considerable disposable income?

[DiscreetFX]

Now that some time has pasted and SE has long been discontinued what’s the current consensus on Final Cut Pro X vs SE? FCP got lots of additional features over the years and unfortunately Speed Edit is gone.

[Shabazzy]

Now that some time has pasted and SE has long been discontinued what’s the current consensus on Final Cut Pro X vs SE? FCP got lots of additional features over the years and unfortunately Speed Edit is gone.

While I no longer use SpeedEDIT, having moved over to LightWorks (and now thinking of moving over to BlackMagic's Resolve) and after re-reading this thread, my answer to your question would be; the things that I take away from all of this is:

1) Looking at things from a business perspective, what it really highlights for me are the consequences of the decisions made and the effect those decisions have on your customers and therefore the bottom line. From Apple and NT's perspective I guess they feel vindicated in the decisions they made with relation to their focus strategies and think their respective businesses have prospered as a result.

2) Looking at things from a customer's perspective, as an SE customer I feel very let down. But if I were an Apple customer, happy (maybe?).

As a comparison of the tools themselves; I'm not really in a position to comment as I don't have any experience of FCPX.