Very interesting Blog by Edgar Burcksen, A.C.E. titled " The End of Final Cut (for me) "

http://ace-filmeditors.blogspot.com/

Very good dialog on the L2 forum surrounding this blog. 

http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/Avid-L2/message/80210

and here 

http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/FinalCutPro-L/message/64154 

Many of our community memebers have posted comments so it is worth a read.

Marianna

 

It is a great blog, and not to take anything away from it, but when I first read it, I couldn't help hearing this guy's voice ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CrQjfgvqJQ

I have been following the discussion on the L2 since the beginning, and couldn't agree more with Mr. Burcksen, whenever I worked on FCP I experienced the same things; moreover, I happened to be at a FCP demo earlier today, and the system wasn't even able to play some Timewarp like effects; soon after the operator was demonstrating the revolutionary time saving new feature "apply transition from in to out", something Avid has had for quite some time now; then we had an overview of Motion, something I do not really want to deal with as an editor: I leave the post to a post technician after I'm done with the editing; I had enough with the demo and moved to another room to see other products. To be fully honest FCP's Color is better than MC/Symphony built in colour correction, but it's not built in, and again, I'm an editor, and don't do colour correction myself, but I'm sure many has to do it with Avid and would like to have better tools. To cut a long story short: I try to avoid FC as much as I can, it's unreliable (it doesn't even work as it should during a demo, when it is supposed to shine), and I find it annoying to have to hit Apple-r (render) all the time, being used to the real time capabilities of MC, but to my surprise FC is widespread, and its users seem to enjoy it despite all of its shortcomings.

Luca, it's Apple.  It must be good.

luca.mg:

FC is widespread, and its users seem to enjoy it despite all of its shortcomings.

The shortcomings aren't really apparent on short-form, and they're not so much of a problem if you're a one-man operator.  Factor in the fact that Apple marketing are excellent at making a negative appear positive.  Anywhere material management isn't an issue and prime cost is, FC will  win.

Your points about not needing or wanting the capabilities of Motion or Color are less relevant to an FC user.  My experience has been that they usually prefer to do everything themselves.  They often don't see that colorgrading is a specialist skill - with the right software anyone can do it, can't they?  And the same applies to compositing and effects work.

The reality is that most people don't appreciate the power and tools that whatever the software they're using already has.  I've been using MC for over fifteen years now, and freely admit that there are whole sections of the NLE I've never used and probably never will.  I've also used FC since version 3.1 and the same thing applies.  Nonetheless, the features that FC offers are used as a "gee whiz" factor to aid marketing.  It often hasn't been the case with MC marketing.

What governs my preference for a NLE is nicely summed up in that blog.  I find Avid stable, fast, and highly reliable.  The only way I've ever lost media is when I've done something really stupid.  Even so, I've never failed a delivery nor missed a deadline.  I've never had to re-render effects because Avid has arbitrarily de-rendered them for no apparent reason.  I've never had to track down my media because the drives were mounted to different locations.  For me, MC just works.

That's not something I can say for FC.

I've had to use FC mainly for indie low budget projects, with these projects there's always a ton of footage as tapes are very affordable as much as a large USB drive to store P2 files; people who don't pay for crew and talents tend to shoot as much as they can feeling safe as "whatever happens we'll be able to fix it in editing if there's a lot of footage"; this is also happening with people usually working with film: when they work with digital cameras they overshoot as there are not the costs of film/lab/prints/telecine/DI and the like. The only time I appreciate FC is when I work for multiscreen projections (Pandora, WhatchOut and the like): the ability to work on a custom size "canvas" is great, and this kind of projects are usually short. Every single time I've had to output to tape from FC I've had a message at the end of the run that some frames were skipped/dropped, frightening when You have to sync audio to the tape at a later stage, after mix has taken place at a sound facility, so except for non standard frame size short projects FC is a useless piece of software IMO, too many problems I'm not accostumed to deal with being used to use Avid, but I understand that if someone never took a drive with MC can't really tell the difference between a toy and a NLE.

I really found this blog annoying in it's tone and tenor.  Ok, Edgar, we understand you had problems on your gig.  But please don't act like a spoiled child, stomping your feet about it.  A more professional tone would have made me more sympathetic to his situation.  But by whining so much, I was like "ok, we get it, now move on.".

I think a lot of his issues were due to system setup and operator error/ignorance than the actual software itself.  As a user of both platforms extensively, I would have never attempted a long form project like his on FCP.  It's just not a strength of FCP and MC is rock solid for this.  Shorter form, spot work, "finish in the box", straight to web?  FCP is as good and maybe faster than MC.  As I commented on his blog, its "horses for courses".  This guy, ACE or not, does not know his horses well enough.

 

Scott, a google search for Edgar Burksen seems to prove that the man knows what he's talking about, moreover, he surely has class A assistants, he may not know his horses but his team does, if things go wrong it has to be the software; regardless of tone and tenor, FCP crashing and being iffy at best is a fact, chrashes, endless beachball, rendering over and over again, random lost connections to media, lack of interoperability are things that I've seen in person; FCP is a sort of swiss army knife of video: editing, finishing, colour correction, lettering, post, audio, DVD authoring, You name it, all in one box, such a complex environment needs a huge development effort and massive testing, which is not happening, as FCP is merely a mean to sell PowerMacs for Apple, their focus is on hardware rather than software, perhaps more on iPhone/iPad/iPod than computers, and this is why the software is OK for hobby but not for professional use in my opinion. The guy was enough open minded to experiment with the software, obviously he didn't like it, let him rant over it, what are You expecting, a joyful complain?

luca.mg:

a google search for Edgar Burksen seems to prove that the man knows what he's talking about, moreover, he surely has class A assistants, he may not know his horses but his team does, if things go wrong it has to be the software;

I now know who the man is and his credentials.  I am not arguing that he is not a good storyteller.  But there are many folks (some who commented on his blog) who do his workflow without those issues.  I can only assume that either he or his "class A" assistants were not up to speed on that "horse".  This stuff happens.  My point is, act like a pro about it and move on.  No need to rant like a child.

luca.mg:

FCP crashing and being iffy at best is a fact, chrashes, endless beachball, rendering over and over again, random lost connections to media, lack of interoperability are things that I've seen in person;

Again, some of us don't see this.  I had a mad rush session for a client yesterday, sources were all over the place (files) and FCP worked like a champ.  None of the issues described in this blog.  This was a short form, direct out piece and I chose FCP for a couple of reasons.  Had it been a longer form piece, MC would have been my default.  And I am sure MC would have kicked butt too.  Like I said, 'horses for courses'...We certainly don't have to make this yet another MC - FCS thread, as there are plenty of those.

luca.mg:

You expecting, a joyful complain?

No, but a professional tone, especially from an editor of his pedigree.

Just my humble opinion, of course... 

switthaus:

It's just not a strength of FCP and MC is rock solid for this.  Shorter form, spot work, "finish in the box", straight to web?  FCP is as good and maybe faster than MC.

Why would anyone choose a different horse for a course when in your words the option on offer has no strength for staying the distance and MIGHT, on a good day win a sprint by a nose?

luca.mg:

Every single time I've had to output to tape from FC I've had a message at the end of the run that some frames were skipped/dropped, frightening when You have to sync audio to the tape at a later stage

I can totally relate to that, Luca.

Late last year I did an hour-long special for commercial TV.  Our first attempt at a playout ended up with audio regularly drifting with respect to video by up to 6 frames (or video drifting with respect to audio, who can say).  The only fix that we came up with that allowed us to meet our deadline was to stop at every commercial break and restart.  If the segment then appeared to drift we'd repeat until subjectively it looked fine.

Because the material we were working from was supplied as SD QT 10-bit 422 YCbCr on external hard drives I was suspicious of drive speeds.  I copied all the media onto known reliable fast drives on the Mac and disconnected the originals.  I then did a full render.  The problem was still there, a real head scratcher.

So then I imported some of it into one of my MCs and rebuilt a segment.  I laid up the sound mix against it and did a digital cut five times.  On none of the playouts did the audio sync slip at all - which allayed the fears of the sound mixer - and left me scratching my head even more.

No reason was ever found for this behaviour on the FC system.  Since it was not my equipment I was limited in what I could do to find the problem, but it's not an issue I've ever encountered with MC.  Yes, you can dismiss it as a "wrong horse" decision, but the decision was not mine.  We don't always have total freedom of choice in the tools we must use.

switthaus:

My point is, act like a pro about it and move on.  No need to rant like a child.

Does that mean that to complain about perceived failings in our tools is childish?  But if no-one complains, Scott, how does anything ever get fixed?

AndrewAction:

MIGHT, on a good day win a sprint by a nose?

eh, if you know what you're doing, this horse acts very well AND won going away....!

jwrl:

Does that mean that to complain about perceived failings in our tools is childish?  But if no-one complains, Scott, how does anything ever get fixed?

My pointis that he could have been far more professional. What if he titled his post "Avid Works Best (for me)."?  Suddenly we hear positives about MC and its not a "whine-fest".  Again all in my humble opinion.  Great storyteller, could have been better blogger.