Can't believe I'm saying this...

Lion seems to be all about play, nothing about work

Very disappointed with 10.7 announcement. All toys and frivolous apps, nothing that would suggest anything moving us closer to our desperately needed pro apps update. Hoped they would say something about a new QuickTime at least.

Maybe I'm saying this because I've been following the ProApps saga too closely, but I didn't have any expectations for mention of ProApps here, especially FCP. Here's my take on the situation. Starting in '06/'07 the iDevices took priority at Apple because that's where they saw a huge hole in the market they could expand in to. That pushed back OS X development (which Apple publicly admitted to). With OS X getting pushed back the re-write of FCP got pushed back as well. The way OS X handles video under the hood is changing in 10.6 and 10.7 and until those new foundations are in place there is only so much work that can be done to FCP. Now that 'the big push' to get the iDevices out there is over more man power is going back to OS X which means there is finally a light at the end of the tunnel for a ground up rewrite of FCP. I would love to be surprised by Apple and get a new version of FCP out in '11 but I don't think we'll see a new Final Cut Suite until '12.

A big question is, how much more ground will Apple have lost by the time it comes out? Adobe and Avid certainly aren't standing still so Apple's next version of FCP really needs to hit it out of the park if Apple is serious about remaining a relevant player in the creative professional market.


Lethal

EDIT: Also, I agree that some of the things in iMovie would be great to have in FCP (facial recognition, assuming it works well). iMovie gets love, because, IMO, it's an easier place to experiment and test new things. iMovie and FCE were also the first to support HDV on the Mac Kinda like how commercials are typically the testing ground for new technology before they are used on TV shows or movies.
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The likely lack of a real Blu-Ray authoring app is not going to help, either.

2jaded2care said:

The likely lack of a real Blu-Ray authoring app is not going to help, either.

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From what I have seen of "real" BluRay authoring apps, they are hella expensive.

If it was a business proposition, buy a PC to make them and the right software to do them with. Money's money, business is business.

Well, by "real" I meant something comparable to DVD Studio Pro. Not a high-end app used to author a retail Blu-Ray, but more than Toast.

I just don't like having to tell the boss, "Sorry, we need a PC to do that", or "we need this Adobe suite just to get Encore for that." Plus, I have to imagine that many FCP users are indeed burning BD-Rs.

But point taken.

It's a ton of work to update the ProApps. As memory serves, they're on a roughly two year update cycle, and it hasn't been two years since the most recent (lackluster) update.

As has been explained before, the entire Quicktime framework needed to be overhauled and redone from the ground up, plus all the legacy carbon code, which is why it didn't make it into the last update.

I'm not sure what you were all expecting?

Hopefully though the longer wait would mean more awesome features and a brilliant update instead of some mediocre thing that doesn't really help in any way.

Wasn't there a rumor though that it was delayed because of disagreements of the user interface

Merthyrboy said:

Hopefully though the longer wait would mean more awesome features and a brilliant update instead of some mediocre thing that doesn't really help in any way.

Wasn't there a rumor though that it was delayed because of disagreements of the user interface

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There was, but the rumor was utterly baseless. Unless, of course, you believe that Shake still has an active development team at Apple even though work on the app ceased in 2006.


Lethal

Watching from the peanut gallery allows me to say just about anything. So here is my 2 cents.

Apple has had years to consider the required port of Final Cut Studio from the old crusty classic environment to the new Cocoa toolset. One has to assume that they have actually been working on the port unless one thinks that they are going to outright dump their pro apps. When they started and how long it will take is a mystery to the public. I take the positive attitude that they are well into the development process.

Like many others, I expect this will be a full rewrite from the ground up. Using source conversion scripts or other tricks would be very ugly. They'll want to take full advantage of the new toolsets and set them selfs up well for the future.

Apple has been selling only 64-bit hardware for a while now, so I won't be surprised to see that the new FCS is 64-bit only. This would be the perfect time to drop 32-bit support and the extra maintenance issue that come with it.

In iOS 4, Apple introduced the AV (Audio Video) Foundation Framework. I see that being introduced in Lion next summer and freeing them from the crusty QuickTime toolset they are currently using. Sure, FCS will also have private APIs, but this new framework will be heavily leveraged.

Given that pros are seeing advantages in recent iMovie releases, you can be sure Apple is aware of that and there will be a similar and more advanced changes in FCS. Oh, I don't expect them to drop the classic time line as pros require the precision it affords.

I expect the new FCS to require Lion because FCS will take advantage of Lion specific technology. So the earliest you'll see for the new Final Cut Studio will be sometime after the public Summer 2011 release of Lion.


P.S. If you want a full featured Blu-Ray creative package, you'd better let Apple know directly via what ever feedback mechanisms that are in place. Whining on sites like this will not help. Perhaps some interested party needs to organize a massive feedback day. Alternatively, work on getting a third party package onto the Mac where their is obviously an opportunity.

xStep said:

In iOS 4, Apple introduced the AV (Audio Video) Foundation Framework. I see that being introduced in Lion next summer and freeing them from the crusty QuickTime toolset they are currently using. Sure, FCS will also have private APIs, but this new framework will be heavily leveraged.

Click to expand...

That's what Quicktime X was for - the bare bones, if nothing else, of the framework are already in place. Be interesting to see just how much faster the next version of FCS is. I'm expecting Final Cut to clock in at 4-10x faster on the same intel hardware.

I lost tract of all the i apps over the years but looking at the demo video for imovie.... looks sick. I definitely want the colored waveform. The next version of Final Cut PRO (I put pro in caps for a reason) better wow the socks off of me, and not charge an arm and a leg for it either. We have great mac pro available and we can't take full advantage of them :/

2jaded2care said:

Well, by "real" I meant something comparable to DVD Studio Pro. Not a high-end app used to author a retail Blu-Ray, but more than Toast.

I just don't like having to tell the boss, "Sorry, we need a PC to do that", or "we need this Adobe suite just to get Encore for that." Plus, I have to imagine that many FCP users are indeed burning BD-Rs.

But point taken.

Click to expand...

I use Compressor to burn blu-rays. You just need to put in a little more work in FCP like adding chapter markers and compression markers. It gives you the option to do menus. Compressor also doesn't create the computability issues that toast does when trying to play blu-rays on certain (mostly pioneer) blu-ray players.

The past three months I've been using Adobe Encore CS4 to author Blu-Rays and I'm looking to rebuild my DVD templates that I was using in DVDSP for use in Encore. DVDSP was in serious need of an update when FCS 3 was released and in its current form, it can't hold a a candle to Encore with its tight integration with AE and PS.

Being in the wedding and event videography business, I'm really tempted to ditch FCP in favor of Premiere CS5 if the claims of mixed formats, no transcoding, and real time effects are true.

Gymnut said:

Being in the wedding and event videography business, I'm really tempted to ditch FCP in favor of Premiere CS5 if the claims of mixed formats, no transcoding, and real time effects are true.

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In the early days of Premiere Pro, I would occasionally see it being referred to rather disparagingly as "great for wedding videographers, but not a serious video editing application" which completely misses the point: some (many?) people need a good "get it in, get it out" workflow. In addition, PP is a very capable application and has good tie-in with the other Adobe apps.

It will be interesting to see where it heads.