Re: One year later... NOW: standardizing on one tool or using them all?

[Walter Soyka] "If you stick with one NLE, you are exposed to all its weaknesses. If you use multiple NLEs, you minimize your exposure to any one NLE's weaknesses, but assume much greater complexity. It's a trade-off. It's not the right call for everyone, but it may be the right call for some.

If I were a freelance creative editor that used to use FCP7 exclusively, you can bet I'd be learning MC, Pr and FCPX.

In your business, I suspect your infrastructure and project management -- and their stability -- is a competitive advantage. I'd guess that many of your projects are fundamentally similar, so you would be penalized for reinventing the wheel on every project.

In my business, we often have to fit into other people's pipelines. The projects often have different requirements, so I'm forced to reinvent the wheel on each project to an extent."

So now that FCP7 is gone, you all of a sudden have to retrofit your pipeline, and buy windows, linux, nvidia an iMac, a sizzle core beast, cs6, mc6, symphony, smac, vegas, edius, pro tools, logic, and the Blackmagic "Cinema Camera"?

Now that FCP7 is gone, you have to reinvent the wheel?

I guess what I don't get is when someone says, "I'm sticking with Avid for broadcast, and Premiere for web videos". Avid can't deliver a web video?

I have mentioned, that if I was a freelancer, I would have to learn to love whoever is feeding me, and that's fine. If I was cool enough to work @radicalmedia, I'd probably have to get on the FCPX train.

I am not against learning new things, believe me. It's just that the argument of "throw them all in the tool box" doesn't make any sense to me, as there's simply not enough time in the world to learn it all.

Or projects are similar in the fact that we shoot and edit. Every single one is different. Yes, we driver to tv, web, and the occasional blended projection, and sometimes to PAL standards. They are all different.

[Walter Soyka] "Data archive is already a disaster. You need to keep a copy of FCP7 around forever for all those .fcp projects, unless you had the foresight to start exporting XMLs of your projects back in 2004.

I've been shrieking like a banshee here about interchange for almost a year, and this is one reason interchange is so incredibly important.

It's also the reason that primetime broadcast episodic TV requires those old dinosaur EDLs as a part of the deliverable. They don't care what system you cut something on -- they care if they can recreate your cut if they have to. It's a degree of protection against an uncertain future."

Yes, archive and dragging legacies is hard enough. Adding fourteen more applications "to the toolbox" isn't going to solve this. I have a tiger drive that I can still boot from my Lion machine. The MacOS hasn't let me down in the respect. Yet. I don't see it letting me down soon. In the future, yes, I will need to keep a working boot drive of FCP around for as long as I possibly can. This next go around, I am going to try and avoid keeping four NLEs around for the same amount of time. It seems a bit contrived or unnecessary.

Soon, EDLs simply won't be enough.

Eventually, the projects will fade. They have happened for all the old Media100 projects I have on zip/jaz drives.

[Walter Soyka] "DPs use different cameras all the time, exploiting their strengths and minimizing their weaknesses. Why should post be different?"

Even though there's too many tapeless formats, they are all based on a standard. A windows NLE, a Mac NLE, a Linux NLE can all ready a Panasonic created MXF file. Avid cannot read an FCP project, can't read a Flame project, can't read a Premiere project. There's a big difference.

[Walter Soyka] "If I have a heavy mograph piece in a custom resolution, I'd like to work on it in Pr/AE because anything else would be painful. If I had a mixed format documentary style project, maybe I'd prefer FCPX. If I'm finishing an existing project from FCP7, maybe some combo of FCP7/Resolve/Smoke is appropriate. If I'm doing a reality series, Avid offers a killer workflow from start to finish."

I just don't see it this way. Avid has it's strengths, so does Premiere. While FCPX is the new kid on the block and needs to do some pushups, it also has some strengths. But why do I have to cut web videos on Premiere when I could do the same with Avid, or vice versa?

In your case, if you cut custom resolutions, why can't you also do a mixed format doc in Premiere at 1080?

Again, I am not discouraging anyone from learning new things, but buy the tool that's right for you, which doesn't mean you need to buy the entire tool aisle.

Jeremy