First-Person Final Cut Pro X, Day Three: Media Management

this part of the review is moronic. it misses all the basic functions of whats great about FCP X's media management and is downright wrong about things it does and doesn't do. I am a pro editor and think alot of people are going to look pretty stupid twelve months from now, when everyone is singing this program's praises. Yes this is a 1.0 release - but its a really great start.

frankly the media management is leagues ahead of FCP 7. That was criminally bad.

I'm finding this review extremely interesting for the fact it is confirming a view i have long held, that in the pro market, negative reaction to change is extreme and often informed by ignorance and a desire to avoid learning anything new. Despite what most of the lay-audience might think, Pro users are often the least exploratory and rarely embrace change. And if you aren't afraid to break a few eggs, then in the end you will end up with something that has as interface as god-awfull as Photoshop. I used to be a pro user of Photoshop (right from its' inception), switched job some years ago and didn't use it for several years. It was only on returning, having forgotten many of it's strange ways that i realised what a truly dreadful experience it has evolved to be. Yes it's quick and effiecient for a pro user, but intuitive it is not. The can be no doubt, if Adobe were more prepared to break a few eggs, it could now be a far better product than it is (though admittedly, no more powerful) and offer better workflows. Also there was similar outcry from many XCode developers with the upgrade to XCode 4. But I'm willing to bet few would go back now. It's clear Final Cut Pro X is missing a couple of important features, but this has fed into the pro "I've paid, i'm a pro, so i have a right to stay ignorant" feedback loop.

This guy has a BAD ATTITUDE.

He doesn't have any mindfulness. He is approaching Final Cut Pro X with a rigid mind.

Of course, he will fail.

If he approached it like a film student, he will wonderfully succeed. But no. His ego is TOO BIG.

This guy needs to take some Final Cut Pro X training before he spouts off. Check out Larry Jordan's training.

All this vitriol aimed at the author is utterly stupid. Go read the Mac App Store reviews from the people who actually bought the software. Both FCPX and Compressor are getting utterly savaged, and the complaints echo everything this author is saying.

In DCC, programs within a particular discipline usually follow the same basic paradigms with only minor variations. 3D software, photo editing etc. and video editing software is no different. There are very good reasons for those conventions and standards, they've been well honed over several decades and people in design fields have come to expect it. It's how we are able to move to other programs if and when needed without a huge amount of pain, and limit the variation in workflow from one suite to another.

If you force people to change what they know with radically different paradigms, especially when their livelihoods are at stake, and there's very little actual benefit to learning the new paradigm, people are going to revolt.

FCP has some nice new features, but there are radical departures from convention in layout, metaphor and workflow that add almost NO value to the editing experience. It's difference for the sake of difference.

I've tried to allow myself to accept this series for what it is, but the problem is that this is not just somebody's personal blog. There's an expectation of professionalism and editing, and even a hint of fact checking, for a site of the size and reputation of TUAW's. It's not as though it's day 1 of the app's release anymore, so allowing so much misinformation to be published when better knowledge exists isn't responsible. If they want to have Matt just talk about how he felt, without any factual accuracy, that can be handled with one posting and leave it at that. It's time to cut the losses and refer the author to blogger.com, or tumblr, or something.

Wow. Has TUAW abandoned any desire for credibility? Can't you at least find out before running something like this that almost everything he is saying is factually incorrect?

Matt, Events aren't FCP X's version of Projects; conceptually they're equivalent to FCP 7's bins. Perhaps Apple changed the nomenclature because none of us actually place strips of celluloid into containers anymore.

So readers can you reconnect media, that sounds like a woeful situation?

I always stuck with FCE cause my projects only required one feature from FCP and I could not justify the cost. I was keen on FCX but have decided to hold off until I have read enough.

This series of stories has devolved into idiocy by now. The writer clearly doesn't know anything about the software, and most of his complaints so far REALLY come down to, "But this is different from what I'm used to, so I hate it." As a result, he's throwing out incorrect information that has to be corrected later. This is really, really, REALLY bad journalism. I used to be a newspaper editor, and I would crucify whatever editor allowed such a ridiculously unbalanced and unfair series to run. It needs to be yanked before it does even more damage to your credibility.

I don't have any opinions about the new version of FCP, because I haven't used it. (I'm a wannabe filmmaker whose only short so far was edited on a previous version of FCP.) But the idea of taking an expert at one piece of software and giving him an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT VERSION -- when he clearly hates the change -- and asking him to write about it is clearly just asking someone to voice his gripes. It's crazy.

I suspect the new version of FCP will be good enough for its "pro" label one day. For most editors, that day isn't here yet, simply because of many features that are missing in the first version. We all get that. If you need those missing features, keep using what you have and wait until Apple updates the new software with the features you need. Or look at products from other companies if you MUST upgrade right now. But the whining I'm hearing from many video editors right now sounds more like what I'd expect from children who feel entitled to what they want when they want it.