Apple Releases Major Final Cut Pro X Update with Dual Viewers, Multichannel Audio Tools, RED Camera Support and More

Not pro

I am an editor who is on FCP7 and yes I would have loved them to update the software and been gracious to do so seeing as I have been using it for over 10 years now.
I get students who contact my company on a regular basis asking for work, be it paid or not just so they can get experience in the real world, (Note the word real), but when we ask what are you editing with they say FCPx and like many before we cant use this person, as in the REAL world post houses dont use this and as it stands right now will never use it as we are all moving over to Avid or another platform that edits the way we all edit. We wont be changing how we edit to suit a company that decides to drop their professional app for a jumped up imovie app. Get real and if you are serious about editing in the real world then use a real editing application.

thedarkhorse said:

I wouldn't hold your breath for apple to make any new DVD authoring software. They abandoned iDVD and I doubt if there is any plans for a DVD Studio Pro replacement. Not to mention they have been omitting optical drives from all their new macs. All signs point to no.

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You CAN use an external... most users don't burn optical media... they just have an iDevice for playback. Just another cost omitted that's all.

I certainly understand how some 'pro' establishments are entrenched in their legacy systems, where you have six people sharing digital files set up like a houes of cards, that has been upset by FCPX. Those places have a finite number of copies of the program that I assume they paid for each due to the new App Store system instead or putting it on multiple systems . On the other hand, consumers like myself that bought it because it gives us a lot of power with a minimum of hassle, are probably the ones buying more copies. I don't need native RED editing, but it is sure nice to know it's an option.

I think part of the hate is from the elimination of the difficulty by which some edits are made. No more complex moves for a successful split-edit, ripple edits, multi-cam, and others. Some 'punk kid' can get up and running with this setup without learning about how things 'used to be'.

The other hate, in my personal opinion, was from the interface. iMovie got it first, and when the same logical system was used here it was slammed pretty hard for it. Had FCPx come out first, I think it is wholly possible the interface would have been more called "forward-thinking" by some haters. iPhoto now works a lot like Aperture in some basic respects, but I do not hear much complaining except in the sense that some feel by giving the lesser app more features it cheapens the pro product. Boo-hoo.

I played around with copy of FCP 7 the other day. It reminded me of how much I did not miss that antiquated timeline and editing interface. I'm chiming in as a very appreciative prosumer customer that is not an 'editing house'.

On the Mac Pro subject, they have been spec-bumping like the rest of the industry for the past few years. Heck, the iMac had not had a MAJOR shift since 2007, in terms of design. It just got new this-or-that ports during its yearly spec bumping revision. Yes, it would have been nice to 'tuck-in' thunderbolt during the last spec bump on the Pro Desktops, like the iMacs and mini have gotten. I expect to see these new Desktops either in January, or at the WWDC (but I hope it is not that long).

Wild-Bill said:

Unfortunately the only people who will be talking are here on MR. No one at Apple is talking about the Mac Pro.

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Apple has already confirmed this, redesigned MacPros will be out in 2013 when Haswell is out.

In the mean time you can go the hackintosh route or get one of the current range.

It took Apple almost a year and a half to add BACK basic features that FCP7 HAD and to add other features that Adobe, Avid, and (shudder shudder) Sony have HAD since the beginning. Truly revolutionary.

At first glance, i thought this was iMovie..

bwuaaahahahaha!

iHateMacs said:

I bet you'd feel small if someone from the 4th largest network were to post here

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pwhitehead said:

NO! The biggest thing i want taken away is the background rendering.. Eliminate being forced to save capture scratches to the movies folder! I can go on and on..

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What? you want background rendering taken away?

seriously?

jorgie27 said:

These updates are too late!

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No, you were too quick to jump the gun. FCP7 is still the workhorse it used to be.

rei101 said:

Yeap, where I work we are using FCP 7 and we will have to switch eventually but it will be to AVID. Using FCPX is very risky since Apple is a consumer electronics company now.

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Why switch from something that is/has worked for years? I've never understood that. Because it's not supported anymore? What do you need FCP7 to do that it doesn't do already?

rei101 said:

What about if they drop the Mac Pros? we would have to use PCs then but running AVID at least.

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strausd said:

Apple never once uses the Mac Pro to show off their most hardware intensive application.

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Probably cuz it doesn't have to...While our shop waits for new Mac Pros, we decided to get the 15" Retina MBP (16 GB RAM) to see if it could be a viable edit station. We have it hooked up to 2 Thunderbolt Displays, a 3TB Raid, and an AJA ioXT for external broadcast monitoring. Guess what: It can render (in some cases) faster than the 2010 Mac Pro I was using. That's both FCP 7, FCP X, and After Effects CS6...all of which we use. We choose the editing software best suited for the project.

Before anyone gets in a hissy fit, I too would like to have a new Mac Pro with better GFX cards and faster processors. BUT: this MBP works just fine.

Frankly, I couldn't care less about what "real post houses" use or don't use. For my needs, FCP X is the only next generation NLE on the market that is geared primarily for web-focused content. And since I do 100% of my work for the web, it suits my needs just fine. In fact, I've found it dramatically speeds up my ability to cut small and medium sized projects.

This update finally solidifies my ability to never have to go back to Premiere/FCP 7/AVID.

Ahheck01 said:

I'm interested to see the DVD export options. Would love a good replacement of Encore, if they can come up with a great app or extension with equal power. Chapter markers seem to foreshadow that.

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Apple has no plans to implement DVD burning software in FCPX. They rightly see it as a third parts job to support that market.

Markers is just a step necessary to do in editing, not necessarily in third party software.

SDAVE said:

No professional production house is going to use FCP X. No one wants to learn new software. They've either stuck with FCP 7 or moved on to AVID.

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Wasn't the original bone of contention, or at least one of the major concerns, that in addition to several missing features, you couldn't import FCP7 projects into FCPX? Has that been addressed yet, or is that irrelevant by now?

Cory Bauer said:

Is it still completely incapable of opening and saving projects on a network volume, limited to local storage only?

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Local and Xsan only. You will never be able to save a project file to a specific location such as your desktop, you may only export XML if you need to put in somewhere else.

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SDAVE said:

No professional production house is going to use FCP X. No one wants to learn new software.

They've either stuck with FCP 7 or moved on to AVID.

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I can confirm that this is not correct. Most production houses have waited. They are still on FCP7. And this update will make it easier for some to move now, but most won't be able to before another big release (I'm thinking NAB).

Some moved to Premiere, extremely few moved to Avid. Avid is a thing of the past.

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pwhitehead said:

NO! The biggest thing i want taken away is the background rendering.. Eliminate being forced to save capture scratches to the movies folder! I can go on and on..

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1. Go to settings -> Playback -> And remove the checkbox: Background Rendering.

2. On a system volume, you are forced to /Movies (make a symlink if you need this to be someplace else on your system volume). If you create a parition or connect another disk, it will create two new folders at root level. The symlink tricks works there too. But yes, it needs to be in one specific place on each volume.

3. Please go on, I'll love to help you out.

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Tech198 said:

At first glance, i thought this was iMovie..

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Really?

This is iMovie:



This is Final Cut Pro X:

While I'd love to see a MacPro update, we're getting by fine without it. Our assistant edit stations are primarily iMacs, and we are not to the point where we want to upgrade the main edit bays which are running fine on the same workflow we've been using for the past 3 years.

Honestly if it's not broke, we're not going to fix it... it doesn't make sense to spend thousands of dollars more just so we can have background rendering.

Joe Walker said:

It took Apple almost a year and a half to add BACK basic features that FCP7 HAD and to add other features that Adobe, Avid, and (shudder shudder) Sony have HAD since the beginning. Truly revolutionary.

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I agree with you if you count update 10.0.1, 10.0.3 and 10.0.4. But not this one. Remember that Final Cut Pro X today has tonnes of features that never exisited in Final Cut Pro 7, Premier Pro or Media Composer.

I just want to say that I LOVE IT when there is a story about video editing. It brings out all the professional video editors who seem to have a lot of time surfing rumor websites.

Not bashing, just love reading the posts.

SDAVE said:

No professional production house is going to use FCP X. No one wants to learn new software.

They've either stuck with FCP 7 or moved on to AVID.

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I really like this statement fwiw, interesting what will happen in 5-10 years to those not wanting to learn new software when all these kids who used the new stuff come rolling in with attitude like it was recess time

I'm just starting out with FCPX, yet when I look at the others I wonder, people jumped to FCP years ago from said "__" and had to adjust to things so why is it difficult to get unstuck on a one way path (I'm thinking of a rut) and I do understand hey you know one way and it flows, for now.

I watched a short clip from Adobe PP CS6 and thought, geez, looks like FCPX with more layers but very similar so where will they be going in the long run as well and how many people will say Adobe is always innovating just like they do with PS.

I guess I'm in the middle bracket (generation wise) when I hear things like I don't wan't to learn this or that and it takes too much time or all the other stuff focused around learning in an industry that you are already in. Of course then I'm also reminded about why things generally stay the same, for now anyway

I think by Apple adding back in the things they took out on everyone is because it has/had to be rewritten for FCPX for one and then second might also be they learned the hard way. Guess not one person making a comment about how they screwed up ever had a lesson learned the hard way in life until now, just a thought. It's a nice day out here so enjoy your day

adamfilip said:

There isnt much to upgrade..
check out intels latest and greatest CPU's not a big difference between whats in there now and the new stuff

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Not true at all, there are faster CPUs with more cores and quad memory bus. And aside from the CPU, mac pro still doesn't have SATA III, usb3, or TB. Mac pro is woefully out of date, intel could be blamed for a while but the current state is indefensible.

MacDav said:

Where's the Logic pro update?

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Sounds like Logic 10 is still a ways off, but I just read that 9.1.8 should be out in the next few days. Which is a good thing, there's a huge bug that has gone unfixed since before ML was released.

theSeb said:

Can we stop with the "Apple does not about the pro users" thing now? Please?

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Not until Mac Pro is up to date.

There are actual legitimate reasons why professionals left FCP X. It's not because they are 'haters' or 'whiners'... but because they had to get work done. And FCP X, as cool and needed as some of the features were, lost many of those tools. These new features are nice to see in FCP X. But there are still critical tools/abilities that FCP X is desperately lacking for a pro studio environment. Two incredibly glaring issues that still exist with FCP X are 1) the restriction to where your media is stored, and 2) No ability for multiple timelines in a project.

I own a studio with a dozen animators/motionographers and editors. We have been using FCP as our mainstay since FCP 2. We even made the attempt at using FCP X for several weeks. But there was no way we could maintain our workflow speed and effectiveness in our environment with FCP X. It was like taking 10 steps forward and 30 steps back. It handed us great new powerful tools, while simultaneously gutting critical tools for a professional workflow. Utlimately we requested the money on our purchases to be refunded, which Apple did.

Since then we've been using FCP 7 waiting for a real break in FCP X. Two weeks ago we had a studio meeting and it was determined that we couldn't wait any longer, and as such moved to Premiere as our new mainstay. Premiere has it's own set of issues, but is pro-oriented and has the toolset we need to get the job done.

hvfsl said:

Apple has already confirmed this, redesigned MacPros will be out in 2013 when Haswell is out. .

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Sorry, but they mentioned nothing about Haswell. And all that was said was "later next year".
After seeing what they are starting to do with most of their lineup (non user-upgradable memory, HDD's) I am starting to think that statement was purely to avoid a media backlash, and they will kill it off.

Sigh

SDAVE said:

No professional production house is going to use FCP X. No one wants to learn new software.

They've either stuck with FCP 7 or moved on to AVID.

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But moving on to Avid is "learning new software".

I read a lot of comments in threads like this from people who 'edit'. And I don't doubt they do. But working in a studio environment with clients who wish to see 4 variations on an edit (i.e. multiple timelines required) in a session, is pretty much a deal-breaker for the majority of studios.

I think FCP X is a very powerful tool for certain types of editors. Primarily single editors who are working on their own projects and aren't needing to pull media from multiple locations or make multiple versions of their timeline. I think a lot of videobloggers and wedding videographers find this tool to be quite powerful and useful. Considerably more useful than iMovie or other severely gutted apps.

I really do wish that FCP X had all of the tools we needed to operate. We'd be all over it.

the8thark said:

I will quote this post simply cause I agree. I am no video editing expert. But it does not make sense for people to leave FC7 to avid or PP just cause they hate FCPX. I think most professional studios would still be evaluating their options. And seeing what is most cost effective for them. (And yes time learning a new system is money).

I have used FCPX though. Totally overkill for the non professional stuff I have done. But it is really that good.

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People aren't leaving simply because of FCPX, they're leaving because of that and many other decisions that made them distrust apples future loyalties to the pro market. The combination of a lack of care/respect with regards to pro market hardware, a habit of killing pro software, and obviously being anorexic (having an unhealthy obsession with being thinner and smaller).

For many reasons already mentioned in this thread lots of businesses couldn't continue to justify being held hostage by apples "vision" as opposed to a roadmap. I think if we saw the roadmap we'd know we were on our way to 'toy ville' and 'shiny screen land'. Apples interest is in consumer devices now, albeit high end shiny weightless expensive ones.

aliensporebomb said:

But moving on to Avid is "learning new software".

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It's not about 'learning new software'.... we learn new software all the time. It's about missing critical tools to do the job. And, unfortunately, FCP X gutted several absolutely essential tools for a professional workflow. Our editors aren't "old guys stuck in their ways"... they are young, happening professionals who know their craft very well. And if critical tools are completely absent in an editing app, it means that we have to look elsewhere. Avid happens to have the tools required, despite the fact I've never been a big fan of Avid's (frequently) closed system myself.

DesterWallaboo said:

It's not about 'learning new software'....

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That post was a response to "No one wants to learn new software." Of course it isn't for everyone, but that was a response specifically to one guy's comment.