After perusing some magazines, blogs and online communties I’ve been incredibly angered by inaccurate information provided by people with the improper mental facilities to review or describe what they are talking about. I had almost forgotten a few instances that i had wanted to blog about until I came upon this 2 month old article moments ago. Granted this article isn’t necessarily wrong, it is just retarded, biased and uniformed. People with adversions to new technology and changes in workflow shouldn’t be given endorsement from reputable sources for their opinions. Bloggers have some sort of unspoken freedom to be wrong on occasion, mostly due to that many blog about opinions but also because noone is paying them or endorsing them to blog, but people who right reviews for websites. magazines and industry journals, which professionals turn to for informtion, should be held to higher standards.

Now I’m motivated to go back through and dig out one such instance I ran into recently. Ooh, luckily thanks to the digital revolution the article is also available online so we can oogle together!!!

While reading this review in Digital Content Producer, I was taken aback when I reached the portion of the Final Cut Studio review that focuses on Compressor. Jan Ozer opens the section by stating “Compressor has always been amorphous to me - hard to get my arms around.” What the Fuck? Who in their right mind puts any stock in a review of an application that is written by an author who admits up front they have no idea what they are doing with it? What kind of quality control does Digital Content Producer have that they allow this to go out? Are they that hard up for writers? The section on Compressor also cites compressor’s “reputation for glacial encodes” and then goes on to cite a chart of tests against Episode pro where Compressor is the fastest in 3 out of 4 tests.
I’m thinking, “This is rediculous” , then I look back a page at the opening paragraph. “For this review, I’ll touch Final Cut Studio 2 where I live and practice in the world of DV and HDV — not uncompressed HD and 4K — with an emphasis on getting long-form tutorials, weddings, and concerts done efficiently and well, rather than wreaking the last bit of potential creativity from a well-funded 60-second spot or full-length movie.”

So this article is being written by someone who uses DV footage all the time to shoot weddings and botmitzvahs? No wonder the magazine is free. I find that people who use strictly DV, and maybe a little HDV and know nothing about the actual ins and outs of standards make up 99% of Final Cut Owners. The other 1% are people that are actually editors and weren’t upset by that comment. I find that the majority of people that present themselves to others as editors don’t know what the fuck they are talking about. Then again I’ve seen a handful of amazing cutters who have never worked with anything but mini DV and wouldn’t know what a codec was if it hit them in the head (or rather a book containing information about codecs hit them in the head).

My Favorite line from the article “There’s tons more enhancements in Final Cut Pro, of course, including the new ProRes codec and a number of new FxPlug filters and transitions, including a killer vignette filter I can’t wait to use on my next wedding video.”

WTF. In comparison these aren’t so bad, but I picked out some horrible ones in the other pages of that issue as well as a recent issue of DV. I’ve never actually bothered to read either cover to cover, just recently in my many hours on many planes. I realize why now. They are aimed at “videoguys” and event videographers, nothing against either and they are respectable ways to make money, just not the way I make mine. I probably won’t ever read Digital Content Producer again, I’ll put it on the shelf with all the other Bullshit like the Weekly World News.