Re: Real World Editing: From Avid to FCP and Back Again

[larry towers] "FCPX is a wrong way philosophical shift. It isn't missing features so much as trashing a paradigm. FCPX is a semi-linear editor, not a nonlinear editor. It is too clip centric."


That's one opinion. And I think it's a totally wrong one.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that opinion is TOTALLY insupportable on the basic facts.

X allows file based editing in a totally "non-linear fashion." Period. To suggest otherwise is to completely miss-characterize it.

Clip centric? How exactly is Legacy any different? They both arrange clips on a timeline. You can shuffle and soft them. You can jump to any point in time in either. That makes both "non-linear" on the face. (Sorry, larry, but you don't get to "define" non-linear in your own terms - it's an accepted definition already.)

The major differences is that X gives the editor a well functioning database in addition to an editing environment. Also X provides the user a choice of working in the magnetic timeline with clip attractions or developing a workflow that is based on manipulation via the Position tool and Gap Clips that mirrors most of the functions of a traditional timeline except for the fact that in X, you have space prior to the ZERO point, where in Legacy you didn't.

Once you learn X. You can not just edit as rapidly, you can actually edit FASTER. That's my experience after six months or so. I shudder when I have to launch Legacy since it operates so much slower and clunkier. (and that's after having spent most of 10 years cutting in Legacy)

The truth is that you can't achieve a result in Legacy that I can't achieve in X. The only different is how we get there.

So I call total BS on this view.

I accept people who contend that package Y will do specific functions better than FCP-X - and those who point out it's less-developed feature set and specific capabilities that haven't shown up yet. But arguing that it's an insufficient or incompetent general purpose video editing tool - or even dumber that it's somehow less "non-linear" than it's competition is just flat out wrong.

Your MENTAL mileage may vary - but too many of us know the truth of this view to accept it.

"Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions."-Justice O'Connor