Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Your tools and you

By now there has been a lot of talk about how Apple really screwed up with the launch of Final Cut Pro X.

Both Avid and Adobe are using this opportunity to woo users with really enticing upgrade offers.

I urge everyone to take advantage of these offers before they expire, because you never know if you'll get a better deal later.

You can find all the commentary about the FCPX launch if you look it up on all the usual FCP forums and sites, so there's no need to rehash.

A lot of FCP Studio only users are going to have to figure out what to do next. Will they move forward with FCPX as it matures or will they go to Avid, Adobe or another NLE.

Back in December I posted a comment about forget switching to a new NLE, use them all.

I once again say, it shouldn't be an either/or answer, but all the above.

Despite how Apple handled the FCPX launch, they still find the pro market important to them. Many of you may not believe it now, but you may be persuaded a few upgrades from now, when FCPX has matured a bit.

Avid, Apple and Adobe all leap frog each other with each new release. In addition, there are usually features or additional applications that are exclusive to one developer that the others haven't attempted to take on or match.

All the developers are aware that a good amount of their user base want their applications to handshake with many other applications as smoothly as possible.

Avid and Adobe have added support for Apple's ProRes codecs and the XML format to work nicely with FCP Studio. We'll see how this all evolves with FCPX in the future.

Now it's understandable that cost is an important consideration with using more than one suite of tools, and more hardware may be needed so that some of the other tools can be used with optimal performance.

If you're in the business of post, it's easier to pay for these costs, because you can seek out clients who will pay for the versatility you can bring to their projects.

Indie filmmakers may be too cash strapped to do so, but I still recommend they take advantage of these deals when they come along. If a tool can save you time and enhance the quality of your work, it's valuable, especially as those tools get more advanced.

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