Adobe & Avid attract FCP-defectors with special discounts

When I began publishing my FCP-exodus articles last year, even some other ProVideo Coalition magazine writers thought and commented that my words were an exaggeration. However, now some of them are defecting from Final Cut Pro, and several other award-winning editors are doing the same. Part of the enticement to jump ship are the special crossgrade pricing being offered by Adobe and Avid, and part is the fact that they need either features which are currently missing in FCP X and/or the need to import FCP 6/7 projects in their new editor. In this article, I’ll round up the crossover pricing from Adobe, Avid, and SingularSoftware, which has reversed its prior policy based upon this new era of turmoil in video editing tools. I’ll also offer some quotes from editors who have moved or declared intentions to move.

FCP7 back for Enterprise/new features for FCPX within weeks

Yesterday (July 6, 2011) Apple reportedly held a briefing in London. According to Arnold Kim of MacRumors.com, Alex4d summarizes tweets by attendee @aPostEngineer which reveal the nine points, which range from FCP7 licenses being back for Enterprise, XML i/o coming for X soon, AJA support for tape in X, xSAN support for X. Here are the nine points, verbatim:

Adobe Premiere Pro CS 5.5 brings better handling of medium framerate videos recorded as PsF

You may have noticed that even many late model AVCHD cameras shoot medium framerate progressive video (i.e. 1080/25p and 1080/29.97p) as PsF (Progressive Segmented Frame), meaning that they (unfortunately) record 25p-over-50i and/or 29.97p-over-59.94i. This regrettably occurs with both consumer and even some of the latest professional AVCHD cameras with the mentioned progressive framerates. Fortunately, this practice doesn’t damage the internal AVCHD video recording quality to any perceptible degree since the encoder knows that it’s progressive, but unfortunately it makes the video more susceptible to being mistreated later on, either by a video editing program which mistakenly thinks that it is interlaced and consequently de-interlaces it when importing it into a progressive timeline, or by an HDTV set that does the same thing. Unnecessary de-interlacing is a bad thing and should be avoided when bringing progressive footage into a progressive timeline… or into a progressive display device, like an LCD, Plasma, or projector. One of the best ways to prevent unnecessary de-interlacing is by recording the progressive signal natively (not as PsF), but that’s not the case with many cameras when shooting 1080/25p and 1080/29.97p. This article will clarify the issue further, explain how we overrode it manually with Premiere Pro CS 5 and Media Encoder 5, and how the 5.5 upgrade resolves it automatically!

Izzy Video produces free 2:39 FCP X video tutorial

Our colleague Israel (“Izzy”) Hyman of Izzy Video has produced and published a free 2:39 Final Cut Pro X video tutorial. Yes, I said free. Yes, I mean 2 hours and 39 minutes, and yes, it is extremely well organized and well presented, and demonstrates that FCP X (despite several initial limitations) is extremely powerful. I have invested the time into seeing the entire production, and have absorbed it. I must applaud, congratulate, and thank Izzy for investing the considerably more time producing it. Finally, I must encourage any video editor to invest the time to absorb it also, and then (if you agree with me) you can applaud, congratulate, and thank Izzy too. The tutorial is divided into 26 digestible chapters, so you don’t have to watch it all in a single session.

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