Aindreas, I am sympathetic to your sentiment here and I do hate to disagree with you, but I think Bill has a point.
There was a time (granted, it was the Middle Ages -- but still, there was a time...) when you hired someone to write your letters for you. Today, practically everyone is literate and nearly all people write nearly all of their own correspondence. Of course, there is still a good market for professional writers, but the skill of writing is no longer their exclusive domain, and there's no longer any such thing as a scribe.
Video will not be as widespread as writing. After all, we're a group of video professionals communicating with written words! However, I think Bill's point stands: video literacy will only increase from here.
[Aindreas Gallagher] "they are wrecking the technical market for the pursuit of the art and craft of editing. they are about destroying the entire market. Apple are nearly the worst thing that ever happened to the moving image software maket at this point. think about it - they are killing the entire market in a pure microsoft fashion by making it economically inhospitable. Immense market leverage for the price of a proverbial burger. Does this remind you of anyone? Do we think we will see any other new innovations? in a 300 dollar perpetuity pagemaker market?"
On the subject of falling prices, I think post-production was caught in the middle. The costs of both acquisition and distribution have plummeted, which has broadened access to both. Someone had to fill the gap in the middle of the process. Apple is following here, not leading. Blame Sony for the VX1000, or Flip for the FlipCam, or the big electronics conglomerates for every video camera in every cell phone in everyone's pocket. Blame YouTube.
Is Apple wrong to expand access by lowering the barriers to entry? I'd have a hard time arguing that, since I was a big beneficiary of Final Cut Pro's insanely low pricing ten years ago. Does it really make a difference if they sell it for $300 versus $995?
If FCPX doesn't deliver the features that pros need, or if Apple doesn't make pros feel better about buying Apple products again, does it matter how cheaply they sell it?
Has FCPX really impacted the market at all -- other than driving new Avid and Adobe license sales? All the facilities seem to have glanced at FCPX, blinked, and then gone about their business.
Walter Soyka
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