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Posted by Luis Ortega on 04/14/07 08:48
Thanks. It being a school, I have no illusions that we will be migrating to
FCP 6 anytime soon. I will be lucky if they migrate from 4 to 5.
Does FCP 4 have similar features ot FCP 5, or was 5 a major redesign of 4? I
understand that 4 was not a studio bundle, but for my purposes that's not a
fatal problem as the school already has site licenses for the support
software that could be used instead.
Just to clarify things, my main interest is in using them for animation
projects. We do some projects on Flash but we also do drawn cel animation
and stop motion projects that are basically shot with digital cameras and
then the large number of shots are imported into Photoshop to batch prepare
them with the correct dimensions, simple levels adjustments and creating an
alpha channel of the backgrounds to allow chroma key effects when layering
the elements in the Premiere Pro timeline for doing motion on elements or
doing bluescreen on some shots.
We use Premiere Pro 1, Acid Style for creating music loops and sound effects
files and Photoshop 7 for the preparation of raw materials. If even FCP 4
and things like Garage Band will be comparably featured then I can live with
it (for now!).
On the PC side, we have no hope of upgrading the current setup anyway, as
the school is going over to the mac side and my little department can't
afford the licenses on our own budget and still have money for basics like
paper, paint and clay. So it's really a question of comparing that setup to
the features of FCP 4 or 5.
For my own use, I am still researching the idea of getting myself a mac
laptop and FCP 6 studio as opposed to upgrading my existing PC by building a
core 2 duo machine and buying the CS3 production premium bundle that will
include After Effects, PPro, Photoshop and Flash, among other things.
I read that Apple are planning a FCP Extreme to cost tens of thousands of
dollars. Does this mean that the FCP 6 or beyond will be relegated (and
maybe neglected) to the amateur market while they pile on the main goodies
in the Extreme versions? I imagine that all of the serious production houses
that are using FCP 5 to make professional movies will be enticed into
migrating to an Extreme version and the professional market for the regular
versions of FCP will collapse. I would prefer not to get stuck with an
obsollescent software in that case.
"Smarty" <nobody@nobody.com> wrote in message
news:4cednRc94aeipL3bnZ2dnUVZ_o-knZ2d@adelphia.com...
> One final thought Luis,
>
> If the 12 G5 machines you refer to are your intended platforms for running
> the eventual successor / update to FCP, you might want to carefully
> research the performance issue of this new release on the older G5
> processor chips. It is extremely likely that Apple will heavily optimize
> all future releases of FCP or its' successor for the Intel chip, and
> essentially abandon the older G5 customer base in terms of speed /
> performance. It is Apple's style and pattern to drive their customers to
> new hardware, and this new FCP or whatever they call it will NOT be
> intended for G5 users. You may have superb new software running as slow as
> molasses unless you move to replace these G5s. Just wanted to convey a
> word of caution to you in this regard.
>
> Smarty
>
>
> "Luis Ortega" <lortega@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> news:MBSTh.63$mk4.3@newsfe4-win.ntli.net...
>> Thanks, guys.
>> I will wait until after NAB to see what they come up with. I am currently
>> using Premier Pro 2 and want to see what PProCS3 has to offer along with
>> their production suite.
>> As a teacher, I can get a good deal on this.
>> One reason I have for wanting to go to FCP is that at my school I will
>> inherit a dozen G5s next term for my art studio and I need to be able to
>> use it well. They are currently running FCP 4 but the school may upgrade
>> to studio 5. Right now my lab has PPro 1 as the editor the kids use.
>> At home I use PPro 2 mostly. I haven't upgraded to Avid beyond version
>> 5.2 of Xpress DV Pro HD because it seems to have outgrown my hardware
>> specs and has become more finicky. Also, for my interest in doing stop
>> motion animation, PPro seems to be a lot better to manipulate motion and
>> layers. What I always liked best about Avid was its great control in
>> basic cutting and trimming. I was equally impressed by what I saw FCP do
>> in that area. In my brief experience with it, it looked like it had the
>> best features of PPro and Avid plus a few other very attractive things. I
>> never did get a chance to explore the other apps in the FCP studio.
>>
>> "Spex" <No.spam@ta.com> wrote in message
>> news:461f2a62$0$8741$ed2619ec@ptn-nntp-reader02.plus.net...
>>> Since we are top posting....
>>>
>>> FCP Studio is really looking its age compared to other offerings such as
>>> Adobe's suite of applications. But, you'd have to be living up your own
>>> ass if you weren't aware that Apple are making a big announcement at NAB
>>> just a few days away now. If you are interested in FCP wait until Apple
>>> have done one of "their look at us aren't we great" presentations at NAB
>>> then make a decision.
>>>
>>> It has been heavily rumoured that FCP has been given a drastic rewrite
>>> to make use of GPU and multi-core processors along with QT itself. The
>>> new 8 core Mac Pro is showing little or no improvement in speed over the
>>> 4 core Mac Pro in FCP so if Apple want to keep selling its Mac Pros for
>>> editing they had better have got FCP multi threading like crazy.
>>>
>>> You might just get a free grading system thrown in too. Apple bought
>>> Final Touch so that might end up in the FCS box.
>>>
>>> Other applications in FCP Studio, IMO, are excellent. Motion and DVD
>>> STudio Pro are the two apps I bought FCS for. Motion is not an after
>>> effects and it is not meant to be. It is much more useful than Smarty
>>> indicates. I use it for pre-viz, DVD menus, 2d animation and IMO it is
>>> almost superb. It lacks some features that prevent me using it more
>>> e.g. a tracker.
>>>
>>> FCP - Showing its age.
>>> Motion - Good start but lacks some really useful features like a tracker
>>> and 3d! Still work in progress.
>>> Soundtrack - Looks nice but fails to deliver and feels like a beta
>>> release. Logic Pro is well worth the money though.
>>> DVD Studio Pro - IMO still second best to Scenarist.
>>>
>>> Luis,
>>>
>>> My advice would be to look at PremPro2 and its productions suite,
>>> certainly have a _serious_ look at Edius and its HD accelerator boards
>>> which are superb.
>>>
>>> Vegas has a very poor GUI. Ideal for educators...
>>>
>>> Wait 'til NAB before jumping.
>>>
>>> Smarty wrote:
>>>> Luis,
>>>>
>>>> I have the same opinion as nappy. Using the very latest version of FCP
>>>> Studio HD on the very latest / fastest Apple Desktop workstation (Xeon
>>>> Quad MacPro 3.0GHz) I have found the rendering and previewing of
>>>> content to take far longer than the PCs I use here which are much less
>>>> expensive and have much less expensive software. I am seriously
>>>> considering dumping the entire system in fact, although there are
>>>> situations where this Apple solution does make a lot of sense, namely,
>>>> if you are in an already established Apple environment, or if you do
>>>> mostly multiple camera NLE. The program called Motion is a lot like
>>>> After Effects but to me is less appealing. The Compressor software in
>>>> Final Cut is terribly slow. Most irritating to me is the Apple
>>>> pre-occupation with their Quicktime formats and the lack of support for
>>>> mpeg2.
>>>>
>>>> I use the Vegas / DVD Architect suite, Premiere, and several other PC
>>>> tools which get the job done very efficiently, and I almost never turn
>>>> the MacPro on. I think a laptop running this suite would be even more
>>>> disappointing in terms of performance to say nothing of the screen
>>>> space limitations unless you also add a big monitor. Even if you did,
>>>> Motion and other Apple software uses the graphics processor card(s) for
>>>> rendering, and even the extra cost very high performance $450 card I
>>>> added to this MacPro is still marginal.....and I hate to imagine how a
>>>> laptop's graphics card would waste a lot of waiting time.
>>>>
>>>> I hate to get into this Apple versus PC discussion at all, because it
>>>> sparks a lot of discussion with a lot of heat and smoke, but very
>>>> little "light". I would only caution you before spending many thousands
>>>> of dollars as I did for FCP Suite HD and Apple hardware to get a lot of
>>>> opinions before taking the plunge.
>>>>
>>>> If this is Apple bashing, so be it...but I readily admit that I have
>>>> owned many Macs starting with the 512K machine over 20 years ago, have
>>>> owned Apple stock, etc......but I just do not think FCP and the
>>>> hardware to support it make the most sense for many if not most users.
>>>>
>>>> Smarty
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> "nappy" <spam@spam.com> wrote in message
>>>> news:atzTh.23$Yo2.2@newssvr19.news.prodigy.net...
>>>>> "Luis Ortega" <lortega@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
>>>>> news:eTyTh.499$633.495@newsfe4-gui.ntli.net...
>>>>>> I value the advice that I have been given here on many occasions. I
>>>>>> recently took a course on Final Cut Pro 5 and I was very impressed by
>>>>>> what I saw.
>>>>>> The studio version includes a music creation program and a special
>>>>>> effects program that some say is comparable to After Effects, plus a
>>>>>> dvd creation program and some sort of file format converter, which I
>>>>>> think is called Compressor..
>>>>>> My current software is Avid Xpress DV HD and Premiere Pro 2 on
>>>>>> Windows.
>>>>>> FCP seems to have all of the features of Avid and Premiere Pro plus a
>>>>>> few more very interesting workflow features.
>>>>>> My question is what people who are really familiar with these
>>>>>> programs think about the idea of getting a macbook pro and FCP studio
>>>>>> 5 as opposed to continuing with the Windows series of programs that I
>>>>>> already own.
>>>>>> I didn't have enough time to really get into all of the programs of
>>>>>> FCP, and I am not that familiar with how stable Apples and FCP are.
>>>>> Don't be swayed by the hype PPro2 is vastly capable. As is the AVID
>>>>> offering. You would be wasting money. IMHO.
>>>>> Get After Effects.
>>>>> I never saw any realy use in the music portion of the Soundtrack Pro
>>>>> tool. Others have. But as a composer.. it was useless to me.
>>>>>
>>>>> YOU would be spending a great deal of money for hardware and software
>>>>> for minimal benefit.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>
>
>
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