Apple Scrapped Completed 64-Bit Final Cut Pro 8 to Build Final Cut Pro X?

MacRumors · Nov 30, 2011

Following the release of Final Cut Pro X back in June, Apple received a significant amount of criticism from users unhappy with the direction the company had taken with the professional-level video editing software and the many features that had gone missing in the revamp. The outcry resulted in Apple posting an FAQ on the situation and promising that updates to increase the software's functionality would be coming.

fcp.co now points (via Cult of Mac) to a recent interview with RHED Pixel founder Richard Harrington in which he claims that Apple had completed work on a new 64-bit Final Cut Pro 8 product before scrapping the software to build the revamped Final Cut Pro X. According to Harrington:

There was a Final Cut 8 and it was 64bit and it was done and they looked at it and said 'This is not what we want to do, this is evolutionary, this is not revolutionary' and they killed it.

Curiously, the video of Harrington's interview was removed from public view after his comment was publicized by fcp.co.

The report notes there has been no corroborating evidence of a finished Final Cut Pro 8 product, but also that there is no reason to disbelieve Harrington and that it does not appear that the comment has been taken out of context.

Update: Harrington did note in a Tweet that the comment was misunderstood and that he had merely "heard efforts were well underway then killed". He did also comment on the fcp.co article:

I do not have explicit knowledge of FCP8. Wasn't saying I did. Wasn't implying I did.

Just repeating rumors I had heard multiple times. I had been told many times that there were efforts to bring 64 bit to the type of interface used in FCP7.

Harrington's backtracking conflicts with what fcp.co's thought was a clear interpretation, but it does appear that "Final Cut Pro 8" was not nearly in as finished a form as had been initially thought from his statement.

Article Link: Apple Scrapped Completed 64-Bit Final Cut Pro 8 to Build Final Cut Pro X?

mobi · Nov 30, 2011

Makes sense, they already dumped professional users to the curbside...

thejd · Nov 30, 2011

This is extremely hard to believe yet not out of the realm of possibilities. In the end we'll have to chalk it up to another chapter in the FCPx Missteps and realize that in another year and a half or so we'll be hearing of how the real editors who held off on the upgrade are super happy with the new version.

I do wish Apple had handled the transition better. It makes you wonder how they got through Os9 to OsX and PPC to Intel.

Fandongo · Nov 30, 2011

Bummer.
I wish my FCP7 was worth something to Apple.

I bet they would sell thousands of FCP8 upgrades right now.
Assuming it's no worse than 7, and gets a solid benefit from 64bit.

Nuvi · Nov 30, 2011

So lets trash something that FCP users wanted and give them something they don't want... Makes perfect :apple:

sense...

Blipp · Nov 30, 2011

Ouch...

CmdrLaForge · Nov 30, 2011

If true it is really to bad. They should have released it and taken more time on the full rewrite.

I am back to using FCP 6 after I used FCPX for some month. It is not that I miss features, it is what it is. My main problem with FCPX is that it still has too many bugs and even with the 10.0.2 update they didn't fix them even so they are documented in their support forum. Not sure what the Pro Video guys at Apple are doing or thinking. Not Pro Video , thats for sure.

thederby · Nov 30, 2011

these comments to the article make some good points:

Marcus R. Moore · Hamilton, Ontario
I think the important bit of info is WHEN was he's referring to. Philip Hodgetts has previously written on his blog about how FCP was undergoing a 64bit rewrite- under Carbon. But when Apple's 64bit Carbon initiative was killed in favour of migrating to Cocoa, THIS was when Randy Ubilos and his team decided that if they had to rewrite the entire application from scratch, they might as well take a hard look at FCP and start rebuilding from the ground up with something fairly new.

This is why the "iMovie Pro" comments are so silly. FCPX has been in development for so long, it's likely very muddy where the development of one was spun off into the other.

Marcus R. Moore · Hamilton, Ontario
Here's the link to Philip's original blog post. Basically FCP7 WAS being rewritten to 64bit carbon, then Apple decided to go 64bit cocoa, so the FCP development team was left trying to decide what to push out for the FCP7 release. This is a large part of why it was such a "lacklustre" release. So yes, some cocoa made it into FCP7 as they started playing around [I know the retiming interface is cocoa, for example].

http://www.philiphodgetts.com/2010/11/so-final-cut-pro-7-was-to-be-the-64-bit-release/

roadbloc · Nov 30, 2011

Well, I suppose Final Cut Pro X revolutionised how one recognises a total failure.

mobi · Nov 30, 2011

thejd said:
This is extremely hard to believe yet not out of the realm of possibilities. In the end we'll have to chalk it up to another chapter in the FCPx Missteps and realize that in another year and a half or so we'll be hearing of how the real editors who held off on the upgrade are super happy with the new version.

I do wish Apple had handled the transition better. It makes you wonder how they got through Os9 to OsX and PPC to Intel.

- Good point about Os9 to OsX and PPC to Intel transition...it went much smoother than anticipated.

oldMac · Nov 30, 2011

Really finished or "programmer finished"

We used to have a joke at a place where I used to work.

Management would ask...

Is it "really finished"? Or is it "programmer finished"?
The joke being that when the programmers said something was finished, it was generally pretty far from being "really finished".

I suspect this guy was just upset about his project being killed. It's just unfortunate Apple decided to release FCP X before it was really ready.

slrandall · Nov 30, 2011

Probably ended up begin a good choice, seeing as how once the amateurs got over themselves and let it go, professionals loved the new FCPX. Even the biggest critics are just upset about the missing features, but still think it's "genius" and "groundbreaking". [The quotes are taken from reviewers on the App Store.]

roadbloc said:
Well, I suppose Final Cut Pro X revolutionised how one recognises a total failure.

My guess is that you haven't used and don't know anyone that has. But no, good work. Trash years of effort because you've read that not everyone likes everything about it. Do you even understand how many great new things are included in FCPX? It was completely re-written to a more modern and optimized framework. It's lightning fast and extremely intuitive. Of course it'll be incomplete, and sure, they should've handled the transition better. But features are coming back, and professionals love it.

chaosbunny · Nov 30, 2011

Well, all Mac OS X updates since 10.0 were more evolutionary than revolutionary. Evolutionary is good.

Small White Car · Nov 30, 2011

thederby said:
Marcus R. Moore · Hamilton, Ontario
I think the important bit of info is WHEN was he's referring to. Philip Hodgetts has previously written on his blog about how FCP was undergoing a 64bit rewrite- under Carbon. But when Apple's 64bit Carbon initiative was killed in favour of migrating to Cocoa, THIS was when Randy Ubilos and his team decided that if they had to rewrite the entire application from scratch

This would make a lot of sense. Not only would that have been a logical idea at the time (to convert the Carbon app rather than re-write it from scratch), but it would explain why the project was killed. (Since it wouldn't run on Macs anymore after Apple took 64-bit carbon away).

No proof, obviously, but everything about that makes sense.

CBlakeston · Nov 30, 2011

MacRumors said:
..there is no reason to disbelieve Harrington and that it does not appear that the comment has been taken out of context.

Other then the fact Richard Harrington replied to the FCP.co article in the comments and clearly stated the comment was taken out of context?

jaduffy108 · Nov 30, 2011

FCP 8 "scrapped"

So Apple scrapped FCP 8....I hope they made a Time Machine back up

interrobang · Nov 30, 2011

Final Cut 7 was a Carbon app, so far as I know. Any 64-bit version would have had to be a Cocoa app. So a "64-bit Final Cut 8" would still have been significantly different from FinalCut 7 architecturally, even if they'd made the UI and feature sets look alike. [Edit: see: ]

thederby said:
(above)

Is it "really finished"? Or is it "programmer finished"?
The joke being that when the programmers said something was finished, it was generally pretty far from being "really finished".

True. I wonder how far along this road they went before they "scrapped" it. Did they just get a development build compiled and running? Did it make it to beta?

PlipPlop · Nov 30, 2011

thejd said:
This is extremely hard to believe yet not out of the realm of possibilities. In the end we'll have to chalk it up to another chapter in the FCPx Missteps and realize that in another year and a half or so we'll be hearing of how the real editors who held off on the upgrade are super happy with the new version.

I do wish Apple had handled the transition better. It makes you wonder how they got through Os9 to OsX and PPC to Intel.

The OS 9 to OS X transition was terrible, OS X was an slow unstable mess for the first few version. You couldn't use gpu acceleration under the classic environment on OS X either which was a mega pain.

FSMBP · Nov 30, 2011

chaosbunny said:
Well, all Mac OS X updates since 10.0 were more evolutionary than revolutionary. Evolutionary is good.

True. But one could argue that going from OS 9 to OS X is what Apple is doing with FCP 7 to FCP X.

They took a huge revolutionary leap (OS 9 to OS X) and added features as they want along (look what was missing in Mac OS 10.0 compared to OS 9...a lot of key features were gone but Apple brought them back). I believe this is what is being done to Final Cut.

gugy · Nov 30, 2011

boy, I was trying to cut a movie last month using FCPX and I have too say what a frustrating experience. While it does have some cool and interesting features, some basic simple things from FCP7 are gone and way harder to accomplish in the new version. After a whole week, I abandoned it and went back to FCP7 to finish my job.

iBug2 · Nov 30, 2011

thejd said:
It makes you wonder how they got through Os9 to OsX and PPC to Intel.

You wanna know how they did that?

Hint: There are still people using OS 9 running PPC machines.

All in all OS 9 to OS X transition is still not over, and was a mess at the start. For those of us who used the first versions of OS X, our "work" OS was still OS 9 and we only played around the OS when we booted OS X. It took "years" for me to switch to OS X completely, and I think it was around Tiger.

brianbobcat · Nov 30, 2011

Fandongo said:
Bummer.
I wish my FCP7 was worth something to Apple.

I bet they would sell thousands of FCP8 upgrades right now.
Assuming it's no worse than 7, and gets a solid benefit from 64bit.

What other features would they have added in FCP8? I frankly thought that the FCP7 update was a little light (come on, they plugged colored markers as a main feature) but there was just barely enough for me to justify the upgrade. I don't think I would paid another couple hundred bucks just for 64-bit support.

FCPX really is not that bad. I know that's not a resounding review, but I think most people who trash it never even use it. I gave a review to my local Final Cut User Group, and I was honest with it's faults, but I was also able to do some good work in no time flat. Please just give me my multicam back sooner rather than later.

roadbloc · Nov 30, 2011

slrandall said:
My guess is that you haven't used and don't know anyone that has. But no, good work. Trash years of effort because you've read that not everyone likes everything about it. Do you even understand how many great new things are included in FCPX? It was completely re-written to a more modern and optimized framework. It's lightning fast and extremely intuitive. Of course it'll be incomplete, and sure, they should've handled the transition better. But features are coming back, and professionals love it.

Jeez. It was just a joke because it seems rather unpopular with the people I know who have used FCP and the members of the forums I post on. I have not used FCPX, it was just a silly joke.

Calm I'd hate to think what would happen to you if someone told you to your face that they didn't like it. You'd burst a blood vessel or something with pure fury.

wizard · Nov 30, 2011

The only problem Final Cut Pro X has is a bunch of whinny users.

Seriously you have people calling themselves professionals posting here and there claiming how bad FCP X is for them in a most unprofessional manner. In any other industry the mark of a professional is getting a tool to do what you want. It really doesn't matter what industry you are in, success depends upon making the tools of that industry work for you.

As to what FCP users wanted, giving them that would have caused stagnation in software development. That opens Apple up to more nimble competition from others. The reality is Apple would lose customers either way. In any event the so called professionals that claim FCP X isn't for professional use really do look stupid or foolish.

Nuvi said:
So lets trash something that FCP users wanted and give them something they don't want... Makes perfect sense...

whooleytoo · Nov 30, 2011

thejd said:
This is extremely hard to believe yet not out of the realm of possibilities. In the end we'll have to chalk it up to another chapter in the FCPx Missteps and realize that in another year and a half or so we'll be hearing of how the real editors who held off on the upgrade are super happy with the new version.

I do wish Apple had handled the transition better. It makes you wonder how they got through Os9 to OsX and PPC to Intel.

Actually, they got through a lot of transitions by doing exactly what's happened here - looking at finished (or nearly finished) project, realising it isn't up to the standard expected, dumping it and starting over.

The original OS 8 (Copland) was almost complete, when they shelved it and released the final OS 8 (Tempo) as a stopgap and Rhapsody was to be the Big Next Thing. An enormous amount of work was done on Rhapsody, before it was shelved and its technologies rolled into OSX. Gershwin was shelved too. And Pink. And technologies like OpenDoc. Never mind hardware projects like Power Express which went on for years though several reincarnations.

Apple Scrapped Completed 64-Bit Final Cut Pro 8 to Build Final Cut Pro X?

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