Apple Responds to Reports of Final Cut Pro Refocusing

[Atkins]

Apple's response is hot air without any meaning or real facts. Regarding professional software development, full or partial specs are released by such companies as Avid, Red, Sony etc. before the actual product release so users can evaluate the product and decide if it meets their requirements. If for some reason Apple doesn't even know the specs of the new FCP themselves then they have lost the ball big time.

You are missing the point here - the companies that release the evaluation specs do that when they decide and when they are ready for this. The leak about "refocusing the FCP" created some tension as you might've observed. Apple is responding to that - my guess is they are not ready for an announcement yet. Don't compare a response to a leak to an announcement.

 

[rhett7660]

Apple's response is hot air without any meaning or real facts. Regarding professional software development, full or partial specs are released by such companies as Avid, Red, Sony etc. before the actual product release so users can evaluate the product and decide if it meets their requirements. If for some reason Apple doesn't even know the specs of the new FCP themselves then they have lost the ball big time.

Specs of the yet unreleased Avid Media Composer 5:

http://www.avid.com/US/products/Media-Composer-Software/features

And when has Apple ever released the specs of any of it's new software to the general public? Hell, do they even release it at trade shows? IE NAB or NAMM?

 

[Nuvi]

And when has Apple ever released the specs of any of it's new software to the general public? Hell, do they even release it at trade shows? IE NAB or NAMM?

...and this is the source of the problem. Discussions about "refocusing of FCP" wouldn't be necessary if Apple would release the specs that support professional editing application development. If not then let the speculation continue. However, due to their own actions it won't be in a context how "awesome" or "kick-ass" it will be.

 

[Ries]

Good God! That'a about as graphically ugly as is possible to design. I haven't seen such an ugly interface since Windows 3.1. Have they never heard about positive/negative space...everything can't be a headline...usability...proportions....color usage...legibility...etc. Everything is wrong. This was released?

You know, it not how you tool looks that counts, but what it can produce...

 

[Digital Skunk]

So what you are saying is that Premiere is being used instead of avid or fcp? I am not baiting, I am asking. From everything I read, not only on this forum but others, Premiere and Vegas are the bottom of the barrel when it comes to video editors.

No not at all. If an editor wants to move up the chain from FCP the only way to go is Avid.

If a user wants to stay in the sam price range and get the total package like FCP the only way to go is CS5 Production Premium or Master Collection.

Vegas is the bottom of the barrel in most people's minds, but Premier is definitely going toe to toe with Apple's FCP and in many regards defeats it. I keep bringing up the round tripping issue with Final Cut, mainly because it was one of the many features that got me to switch from Avid, but Apple as of late can't make it as spotless as Adobe.

Premier being at the bottom of the barrel is far from the truth.

 

[z4n3]

You're welcome! Massive is great for crowd simulations it's probably the best tool out there for that, though Houdini 3D also has crowd simulation, along with particles like realflow. You might want to have a look at Houdini, Aprentice HD is only $100. It's essentially everything in the $8,000 Master edition except that you can't do 2k and 4k work and some network rendering.

PS. Have a look at my signature. Trying to get a grassroots movement going to get FreeBSD Jails into Mac OS X for added security and resource management.

Thx!

Have no need for Massive at the moment, but it looks amazing!! sadly no demo available to see it work, some companies need to learn that demos need to be made available!!! those of us who have the final decision in what programs are bought do not do so just looking at demo reels!!! 😱

Houdini is a great piece of software and saw the 99$ price tag for the HD version, may just buy a copy to have it around 😀


Will gladly support your get FreeBSD Jails on

 

[z4n3]

It may be ugly, it may not be the best laid out - but for $79; the features, the precise controls it gave you, I thnk it was 15 video an 15 audio timelines, easy to separate the video from the audio tracks (I used to take one video and set a totally different audio to it), etc.

I Used that software for a number of years with Windows XP.

I hear premiere in CS5 is still this way, but who has $1,000 for one piece of software. it would be a different story if I did video editing professionally, or was paid decent for the stuff I do. Even a person I know who has a good job and puts out more professional videos uses the macs at the college he works at, as he cannot afford the software either.

79$ 😱 sounds like WAY too much money for that 😀

 

[z4n3]

Doubly agreed.

😎

 

[Winni]

After the iPad, OS 4 and consistent lack of Mac Pro update a lot of people are really jumpy; Apple seems to be consumerizing all their products to a sickening degree.

Apple "Shiny Bullsh*t" Inc. should be their new name.

You haven't noticed it yet, but the consumer market is where Apple makes all the money. The business and professional market belongs to the Microsoft Windows platform.

 

[Lord Vader]

You haven't noticed it yet, but the consumer market is where Apple makes all the money. The business and professional market belongs to the Microsoft Windows platform.

What?

 

[z4n3]

I HATE APPLE 😡
I have been doing my compositing with shake for many years.
Since apple stopped supporting shake Everyone has switched to Nuke.

I miss the good old days when mostly pro users had Macs and Apple cared about them.
Seriously, look at Snow Leopard. I can`t even think of upgrading to it. Maya, shake, nuke... work like crap on Snow Leopard.


Why should apple care about FCP when it`s selling millions of ipods?

I still use Shake with NO ISSUES on 10.6 😕 I think it boils down to possible problems with your set-up?

I use Shake on a Macbook Pro (late 2009) and also on a MacPro (8-core) both with 10.6 and have had NO problems what so ever so I think it could be something to do with your system as Shake is a VERY light program!

I also use Smoke,Combustion, Toxic, Surface, Modo and Maya with no issues. Granted I do not use Maya allot as I dislike the interface but it works fine trust me.

I have tried to like Nuke but I am just a Shake softy 😀 (personal choice)

As for hating Apple 🙁 Hate is a big word I would never use, but kinda understand your frustration with what Shake was and could have been today!!! 😡 but lets wait and see if the LONG TIME rumor that Shake will make a comeback in some form with FCS (let me keep my dream alive eh hahaha) anyway back to work...

 

[Sirmausalot]

Premiere is light years ahead of Final Cut Pro, there are things I used to do in Premiere back in 1999 in my beige Powermac G3 233 that Final Cut Pro can not do today.

Try to playback different clips in different formats in the time line without rendering in Final Cut Pro. 15 years later and Final Cut Pro cannot do that still, you need have to re render everything like the old video toaster.

Not to mention the low quality of the basic effects FCP has, and I am talking the FC Studio 3 I just installed yesterday.

Put your hands in an Avid system and you will tell the difference.

Are you kidding? You don't need to render mixed formats int he timeline. Avid doesn't have drag and drop and I don't know any commercial editor who uses premiere (doesn't mean it's not good) Avid is king and Final cut, until the very lame last release, was making excellent ground.

 

[Sirmausalot]

Have fun editing that Long-GOP consumer format video. There's a reason why Apple recommends/forces a flip to ProRes -- it's a better workflow. Does it really kill you to flip to ProRes during ingest? Trust me, the bottleneck in that flip is more than made up for in the added efficiency of editing I-frame video, vs. Long-GOP.

*sigh* I wish I could go back in time, and convince camera manufacturers that using Long-GOP formats that were designed for content distribution, for video capture and editing, is just plain stupid.

At least IMX and AVC-Intra are I-frame-only versions of the MPEG-2 and H.264 codecs. But HDV/XDCAM HD/XDCAM EX (all Long-GOP MPEG-2) and AVCHD (Long-GOP H.264) are crap. Crap. Crap.

I dunno. native HDV edits just fine in FCP, Obviously HDV isn't optimal, but it serve(d) a purpose for a couple of my features.

 

[z4n3]

You haven't noticed it yet, but the consumer market is where Apple makes all the money. The business and professional market belongs to the Microsoft Windows platform.

And Us Pros are what made Apple today! and trust me Apple cannot afford to lose the Pro industry! for all the iPods it sells!

You really need to Google a bit before using Strong words 😀

The PC part will not go into! as it bores me to death sorry 😛

Yours faithfully LONG TERM PRO fan boy

 

[Sirmausalot]

What about making FCP multi core aware? Compressor takes 3 times as long as many other compression programs. Overnight MPEG 2 outputs are ridiculous. Avid and Adobe seem to be jumping Apple in the editing arena and I might switch back to Avid. But we'll hope WWDC brings some pro app news. FCS3 was barely an upgrade and not worth the money.

I'm not going to sit here and say that Studio 3 was mind-blowing. But let's not forget things like ProRes 4:4:4:4 and native playback of AVC-Intra, as well as some general improvement to retiming tools, etc.

If Apple HAS been concentrating on a big retooling of Final Cut, to make it leverage some of the new technologies 10.6 offers, wouldn't it make sense for it to take some time to do this, and in the meantime, drop an update that adds features that people were asking for, to buy some time for the significant upgrade?

I don't think people realize how much work goes into:

• Getting 10 year old code fully up to Cocoa and modern APIs

• Getting Quicktime architecture fully up to Cocoa and modern APIs (basically a requirement, before Studio itself can go 64-bit/etc.)

• Retooling a user interface that hasn't really changed significantly in 8+ years

 

[Otaviano]

You haven't noticed it yet, but the consumer market is where Apple makes all the money. The business and professional market belongs to the Microsoft Windows platform.

🙄

Ever worked in TV? Walk into a film studio and tell me how many PC laptops you see. Get your facts straight.

 

[Nuvi]

Are you kidding? You don't need to render mixed formats int he timeline. Avid doesn't have drag and drop and I don't know any commercial editor who uses premiere (doesn't mean it's not good) Avid is king and Final cut, until the very lame last release, was making excellent ground.

Fully agree. Just one thing regarding Avid. Media Composer 5 does drag and drop. MC5 allows you to edit on time line the same way FCP does. This makes it really easy for FCP editors to switch.

 

[snowboarder]

I use Shake on a Macbook Pro...
I also use Smoke,Combustion, Toxic, Surface, Modo and Maya...

This is quite funny 🙂
Are you also a doctor and a lawyer?

 

[arkmannj]

I do wonder how Apple is doing with the other pro apps.
* Shake
* DVD Studio Pro

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

What?

Hes right. Microsoft makes so much of its money in the business sector. AD, Exchange, Sharepoint, Cloud Services, EA agreements is Microsofts bread and butter. They do what Apple can't offer businesses... a total solution.

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

🙄

Ever worked in TV? Walk into a film studio and tell me how many PC laptops you see. Get your facts straight.

I work in that industry. Hes still right. I work at one of the largest movie, tv, media conglomerates in the world and the Mac users and small because Apple cannot offer the business what Microsoft can. Now we do have macs but its around 2500 Macs oppose to our 45000+ PC's.

 

[reel2reel]

What about making FCP multi core aware? Compressor takes 3 times as long as many other compression programs. Overnight MPEG 2 outputs are ridiculous. Avid and Adobe seem to be jumping Apple in the editing arena and I might switch back to Avid. But we'll hope WWDC brings some pro app news. FCS3 was barely an upgrade and not worth the money.

You need to setup a virtual cluster. I can export an hour show with my best DVD settings in 30 minutes. Only catch is you have to export a self-contained of your show, but that only adds about 20 minutes for me. Still, beats the he11 out of 2 hours or longer.

 

[z4n3]

This is quite funny 🙂
Are you also a doctor and a lawyer?

Nop!! just someone who users VARIOS tools to get the job done!!!

p.s. was NOT a bragging about the various programs I use! simply it was to respond to a person who for some reason has problems with some of those programs under 10.6..

 

[z4n3]

This is quite funny 🙂
Are you also a doctor and a lawyer?

Maybe next time you can quote the full text!!! not what you wanted to understand o understood 😀

I still use Shake with NO ISSUES on 10.6 I think it boils down to possible problems with your set-up?

I use Shake on a Macbook Pro (late 2009) and also on a MacPro (8-core) both with 10.6 and have had NO problems what so ever so I think it could be something to do with your system as Shake is a VERY light program!

I also use Smoke,Combustion, Toxic, Surface, Modo and Maya with no issues. Granted I do not use Maya allot as I dislike the interface but it works fine trust me.

I have tried to like Nuke but I am just a Shake softy (personal choice)

As for hating Apple Hate is a big word I would never use, but kinda understand your frustration with what Shake was and could have been today!!! but lets wait and see if the LONG TIME rumor that Shake will make a comeback in some form with FCS (let me keep my dream alive eh hahaha) anyway back to work...

 

[reel2reel]

I dunno. native HDV edits just fine in FCP, Obviously HDV isn't optimal, but it serve(d) a purpose for a couple of my features.

We do HDV and XDCAM (glorified HDV) too with no problem at all. If you know FCP, the key is to switch your sequence to render to ProRes.

Although we're all very impressed by Nicky G's factoids and use of the word "flip" (10 years working in the industry, I've never heard that stupid term before).

It's very nice that current Mac's have no problem transcoding (oh, sorry, flipping) to ProRes on the fly now. It's definitely preferable, if you're working with multiple formats, to conform (flip) everything to one codec.