But then you cannot upgrade to Lion either. Just figured out today that FCP6 needs Rosetta (dunno about 7 though)
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Apple Says MultiCam Support is "Top Priority" in FCP X and More
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If Apple wanted this to be a "Soft Launch" as some are suggesting they would have/should have made that clear. In my mind this falls squarely on the shoulders of the person running the Final Cut division and his head should roll. I don't remember what the guy's name is, but I do remember he was introduced as the new media manager, I believe that's the title, when the re-written iMovie was released and that looked like a mess and overly complicated for amateur consumer editors in the demo. With the iMovie rewrite I spotted out that that was probably the direction they were going with Final Cut and was doubtful about that being very successful. Hopefully they'll name a new director to change the course of that ship ASAP. Hopefully, if they do name a new director and soon that new person will have the guts to tell Apple to pull their collective head out of their asses and re-release the Apple server considering most production are multifaceted and data from many disparate sources...data asset management for all of these is where Apple should be in the professional media space. Avid has identified that and Apple needs to get back up to speed.
This happened when the original iPod became popular.
I think Jobs decided at this moment it makes more sense to invest
in the shiny consumer iGadgets than the pro market which actually
saved the frickin' company when it was in the toilet (easy to forget).
Remember Quadras? Nobody was buying this cr@p except
online editors. They now got the amazing Final Cut Pro X.
What happened with Color? I guess it's gone. The same way Shake
ended its life. Where is any pro laptop with a good screen
(Steve please take a look at Dreamcolor) for any color work?
They get 50% profit on iGadgets, who cares about pro support?
Do you guys honestly think that the application selling for $300
is gonna have any real pro support?
They already have been.
You do realise that he designed the original FCP don't you?
As you said, you are not a pro. And with comments like that there is no point in making them. Pro's aren't angry because the interface has changed. We're angry because FCPX isn't compatible with ANYTHING else. It can't carry out basic functions that are essential. People like you might like to think that tape is dead and that we should move on. Well here's a news flash. We don't like tape, but our clients, you know, the people who pay us to do a job, quite often NEED us to be able to input and output tape. They don't give a rats arse what Steve Jobs thinks the future is. All they know is that they have a tape they want us to deal with and to do the job.
Quite often we have jobs that can be a few years old that need re-editing or updating/changing. Are we supposed to keep ancient old Mac computers just so we can load up an old FCP6 project?
The patch for the AJA cards for FCPX is a fudge. FCPX cannot output to a proper display for colour accurate grading. It can't output in interlaced form, so broadcast material cannot be properly evaluated and errors with interlacing spotted. Not being able to do this is a total and utter joke.
FCPX projects cannot even be organised and sent off to sound mixing or colour grading on dedicated systems. Only a person with a melon for a brain would have decided to go ahead and release this software in its current form.
If you aren't a pro and do not know what is involved in editing for a living, don't bother commenting. Especially if it is some such rubbish about pro's needing to move with the times. You have no clue at all of what you are talking about.
Most likely power users are going to stay with FCP 7 (for now), wait for fixes and updates to FCP X, while looking around for other options. Power users aren't just going to jump to another software.
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I think that maybe it is time for the pros to take this giant hint and accept that Apple is moving unilaterally into the consumer market.
Basing your business on Apple may have made sense at some point but it is simply too risky these days, IMHO.
I don't blame Apple for doing this although I do feel they should make it absolutely clear to their pro customers what is going on.
I'm not a pro in your business. I'm a software developer but the same is true in my business. Apple axed the Xserver without warning. They allowed a lot of doubt as to the future of Java on the platform. As a matter of principle they don't provide pros with roadmaps. They reserve the right to change their minds at a moments notice.
Caveat emptor.
Basing your business on Apple may have made sense at some point but it is simply too risky these days, IMHO.
I don't blame Apple for doing this although I do feel they should make it absolutely clear to their pro customers what is going on.
I'm not a pro in your business. I'm a software developer but the same is true in my business. Apple axed the Xserver without warning. They allowed a lot of doubt as to the future of Java on the platform. As a matter of principle they don't provide pros with roadmaps. They reserve the right to change their minds at a moments notice.
Caveat emptor.
Problems I have found so far:
Awesome things I have found:
All in all, it's missing many things but if you're not going to use special file formats and special equipment, you can still do a professional edit. I think the rest will get fixed soon.
- You can't save your file, it autosaves, but it doesn't always work: you sometimes quit and you realize that it didn't save your project, this one's really bad!
- Reverse Speed doesn't work
- Scrubbing sometimes stops working
- Undo often stops working
- Making a compound clip of just audio channels can knock them out of sync even if they're linked to video
- Doesn't import MPEGs, and QuickTime 7 files, wtf?
- I don't see the point of events
- Sometimes it's doing something in the background, stops, and then starts doing something huge again for no reason.
- Keyframe editing is not as flexible as it was with FCP 7
- Can't copy/paste effects onto other clips
- Some interface glitches with animations and the inspector
- The timeline scrolls vertically even if your clips are small enough to fit
Awesome things I have found:
- Editing is actually fun with it
- Magnetic timeline is really useful
- Precision editor is pretty cool
- Match Color is very useful and actually works
- When you slow down a clip, you can choose to natively have Twixtor-like (though not as good) vector-based slow motion to create smooth 3D movement (takes ages though)
- Very good performance!
- Extremely fast final export, and accurate time estimate
- Responsive
All in all, it's missing many things but if you're not going to use special file formats and special equipment, you can still do a professional edit. I think the rest will get fixed soon.
I don't think "For some, it just works" is a catching slogan. Even if it's true here.
"For non professional work, it just works"
"It just works, unless you're trying to editing your old work"
Aren't very catching either
The possibilities here are endless though...
Replace the words FCPX with "WTF, they took out the floppy!" and you could be reading this same thread years ago (when pundits were screeching that Apple was headed towards the Cliffs of Insanity).
But what if Apple took out the floppy and said, don't worry the CD will be here at some point.
Why is it a problem that it won't edit FCP 7 projects? Just finish your FCP 7 projects with FCP 7, and start any new projects with FCP X whenever you want to. Just because FCP X is out doesn't mean you can no longer use FCP 7 for as long as you want. Maybe it will even take a year of having both apps installed... It's like Photoshop, I mostly keep the 3 previous version installed at all times because the new version always has some issues, while I do need some of the new features too...
Agree, they should just edit their old projects with FCP 7 and then get Adobe Premiere Pro for their new projects.
Edit: I would be surprised if Adobe isn't going to offer a reduced price for new customers switching from FCP 7. Crisis and opportunity and all that...
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Which will also open old FCP7 projects.
In a nutshell, Apple disenfranchised 2 million FCP7 users from migrating their projects to FCPX.
Not only that, but since FCP is exclusive to Apple, these users were tied to using Apple hardware in a way that many other users aren't. Now I doubt that a lot of them will switch, but now they have the possibility to do so. (There might be some that get so mad that they will switch just because of FCP X.)
While I certainly empathize with all the pros who are faced with major decisions about the future of their businesses, I, for one, am looking forward to future "potential" of FCP X.
Yes, I'm currently editing several feature length films on FCP 7 and I'm not "upgrading" mid-project on any them. I haven't even tried to demo the product anywhere because of all the bad reviews. I have seen a first hand demo of the new Compressor and was impressed with the performance increase that it had on our existing systems. Might get that one after a few more tests especially since it's only a $50 app.
And yet, I am still eager to finish my current projects and get my hands on FCP X and put it through it's paces and see what I like and dislike about it.
Why?
Because my current workflow is painstakingly slow with all the current render times working in HD on 90 min timelines with literally thousands of clips scattered across 24+ tracks. No, I didn't create these monstrosities. I inherited these films from other "pro" editors.
But, now let me add more 2 cents to all the opinions out there.
I'd like everyone to remember that FCP is just another tool in the whole workflow, albeit a very integral part of many pro workflows. And the workflow, it's efficiency and it's capital costs, are very important to most if not all businesses that use it.
There is a bigger threat to the workflow of many in our industry that should overshadow any of Apple's error's with FCP X. That threat is at the very end of the workflow. I'm talking about when the video/film has passed beyond our hands in post production. Yes, I'm talking about the decline of viewers in the traditional media markets which in turn has produced a decline in ad revenue which in turn is putting the squeeze on which productions will actually get bought and aired/distributed by the traditional media outlets.
Has everyone editing with FCP forgotten that there is another company that Steve Jobs is head of? A company that makes it sole earnings on the sale and distribution of it's film productions? Remember Pixar? And then there's that little thing with Disney... How much is Cars 2 going to make?
Sure they have bigger budgets, bigger staff and different work flows than many of us who edit with FCP for a living, but...
Do you really believe that Steve Jobs and Apple have no vision or have given little to no serious thought about the future of this industry? How to keep it relevant to the vast consumer public? You know those consumers who pay the money to watch those things we produce on FCP? Sure those consumers don't pay us directly, but they sure do pay our clients (and their advertisers) who in turn hire us. oh yeah, anyone concerned about the future of TV broadcasting and film in the internet age? Not the problem of us FCP editors? True. But it is a very major concern to companies like Pixar and Disney (you know that company that also owns ABC?) and presumably from guilt by association - APPLE.
Really, it's going to be pointless about which tool you use for your business if there no more clients for your business.
Personally, I choose to look forward to the changes in our industry including a lot of changes to our existing workflows even if they are painful to adjust to and cost money, because I love what I do and I hope to be a part of the future of this industry and still be making a living in it.
Yes, I'm currently editing several feature length films on FCP 7 and I'm not "upgrading" mid-project on any them. I haven't even tried to demo the product anywhere because of all the bad reviews. I have seen a first hand demo of the new Compressor and was impressed with the performance increase that it had on our existing systems. Might get that one after a few more tests especially since it's only a $50 app.
And yet, I am still eager to finish my current projects and get my hands on FCP X and put it through it's paces and see what I like and dislike about it.
Why?
Because my current workflow is painstakingly slow with all the current render times working in HD on 90 min timelines with literally thousands of clips scattered across 24+ tracks. No, I didn't create these monstrosities. I inherited these films from other "pro" editors.
But, now let me add more 2 cents to all the opinions out there.
I'd like everyone to remember that FCP is just another tool in the whole workflow, albeit a very integral part of many pro workflows. And the workflow, it's efficiency and it's capital costs, are very important to most if not all businesses that use it.
There is a bigger threat to the workflow of many in our industry that should overshadow any of Apple's error's with FCP X. That threat is at the very end of the workflow. I'm talking about when the video/film has passed beyond our hands in post production. Yes, I'm talking about the decline of viewers in the traditional media markets which in turn has produced a decline in ad revenue which in turn is putting the squeeze on which productions will actually get bought and aired/distributed by the traditional media outlets.
Has everyone editing with FCP forgotten that there is another company that Steve Jobs is head of? A company that makes it sole earnings on the sale and distribution of it's film productions? Remember Pixar? And then there's that little thing with Disney... How much is Cars 2 going to make?
Sure they have bigger budgets, bigger staff and different work flows than many of us who edit with FCP for a living, but...
Do you really believe that Steve Jobs and Apple have no vision or have given little to no serious thought about the future of this industry? How to keep it relevant to the vast consumer public? You know those consumers who pay the money to watch those things we produce on FCP? Sure those consumers don't pay us directly, but they sure do pay our clients (and their advertisers) who in turn hire us. oh yeah, anyone concerned about the future of TV broadcasting and film in the internet age? Not the problem of us FCP editors? True. But it is a very major concern to companies like Pixar and Disney (you know that company that also owns ABC?) and presumably from guilt by association - APPLE.
Really, it's going to be pointless about which tool you use for your business if there no more clients for your business.
Personally, I choose to look forward to the changes in our industry including a lot of changes to our existing workflows even if they are painful to adjust to and cost money, because I love what I do and I hope to be a part of the future of this industry and still be making a living in it.
This version should be free and beta...
This whole new vision of the product and lessened features, should have been free, called beta and received feedback from the rest of the world.
Other companies have done this with major releases of the products to decent affect. It allows massive growth of the marketplace, acceptance of the new vision, and allows you to move back into the marketplace for money when the product is ready.
Making customers pay to be beta testers is crappy. Especially for tools people are trying to make a living off of.
This whole new vision of the product and lessened features, should have been free, called beta and received feedback from the rest of the world.
Other companies have done this with major releases of the products to decent affect. It allows massive growth of the marketplace, acceptance of the new vision, and allows you to move back into the marketplace for money when the product is ready.
Making customers pay to be beta testers is crappy. Especially for tools people are trying to make a living off of.
No worries, I bet Steve Jobs is going to give us iMovies Match, where we all can match our pirated copies for better copies. All for $25/year. I bet that is his vision!
12 months? Apple has been screwing pro users for years as evidenced by all things iToy and killing off everything that wasn't.
If you you want to do more than just look cool, perform basic consumer-level projects and play with cheap apps, apps and more apps then Apple stopped caring years ago.
First of all Jobs is not head of Pixar. He is on the board of Disney. He may have some influence over Pixar's decisions, but he is not involved in their day to day operation.
I don't know what thought he has given to the future of the film industry, but it looks as though his people at Apple did not give sufficient thought to FCP. In fact, given the past and current connection that Jobs has with Pixar, it is odd that there was not more vetting of the product by editors.
One of the major issues appears to be not that the product is difficult to use, but that its lack of some key features may render it currently unusable for some projects until an update is available.
As an interested observer, I find Apple's stumble here fascinating, especially after their string of very smart moves in other areas.
Thank you for reading my post
and catching my error. To be complete, it should be noted that Steve Jobs was CEO of Pixar before Disney acquired Pixar and added Steve to their board.I really do like your observations that there isn't more evidence (if any) of vetting of FCP with Pixar or Disney and that Apple stumbled here.
The concern for me is indeed what is the future direction of Apple and the Pro Apps after there's a change in leadership there. With all their recent success, it is very disappointing to NOT see the same level quality and attention to detail applied to their Pro Apps and the management, presentation, and delivery of those apps.
It may just be wishful thinking, but I would be greatly encouraged about the future of the Pro Apps if I could see Apple devote the same level of quality and enthusiasm with their delivery of the iPod, iPhone, and iPad towards the Pro Apps, specifically with FCP.
Best wishes to us all!