Apple's Final Cut Camera 2.0 to Support ProRes RAW and Genlock

[uacd]

Define "pro," because the line of what constitutes Pro Video has been stratifying for 25 years since MiniDV/DVCAM and Final Cut 1.0 landed. Your comment sounds like all the "Pros" that laughed and said Apple's $999 offering was a 'toy' and would never compete with their $100,000+ Avid and ProTools workstation setups. In 10 years Final Cut was dominating everything from high schools/colleges, corporate and event video, news, and even blockbuster movies shot on film. Do you know why?

Because suddenly you could buy everything you needed to produce broadcast quality video for less than $10k. Power Mac + Final Cut Pro + Canon GL1 + A Half Way decent microphone and you'd only have been at $7,000 back in the day. Plus, Apple was smart, they let Final Cut run on almost anything and made it easy to pirate. So you had an entire generation of high school and college kids LimeWireing it onto their G3 iBooks learning the software for free. Some of those aspiring pros made it big, and some of those high school and college kids went on to get jobs in production with years of Final Cut experience already under their belt. The rest is history... until Apple messed up a great thing with the initial release of FCP X. But that doesn't change the key to the original success of the technology was accessible by anyone that wanted to engage with it.

History repeats and here are some observations:

• Apple is doing something that breaks the video mold again, only this time on the hardware side, improving with every Pro iPhone release.
• They are partnered with Blackmagic who, with Davinci Resolve, are the rising star of the industry.
• The current crop of high school, college kids and other aspiring pros already have the iPhones in their pockets.
• Blackmagic offers Resolve and their Pro video camera app for Free.
• The free version of Resolve runs better and is more capable on a $300 used M2 Mac mini than on most new $1500 PCs.
• The Blackmagic Camera app has an identical UI/UX as every "Pro" video/cinema camera that Blackmagic makes from the $1,000 4k pocket to the $32,000 Immersive/Spacial Video shooter.

None of that is on accident, and none of the next generation of "Pros" currently using these affordable/accessible tools are going to have the same hangups you have about using an iPhone as the means to accomplish their vision/idea/story.





This guy get's it.



If there is a true raw signal path, I wonder if Blackmagic will bring BRAW to their camera app if Apple will let them. 5:1 or 8:1 compressed RAW would be an even bigger game changer on an I phone.

No disagree at all!

I am just highly critical of modern iPhones (due to computations they have made step backwards: noise reduction is UNNEEDED in pro video setup, especially with way more advanced noise reduction apps), as well as HDR all around that can bring artifacting.

Mac on a contrary is a revolutionary device. I bet we all learned editing on free iMovie! And yes, yes, yes: you can literally still pirate FCP by deleting license file or running terminal script each 90 days. Free editing studio at cost of your Mac.

But times definitely changed. 90% or modern bloggers and influencers would shoot their videos right on iPhone and edit on iPhone, no FCP needed. More serious productions (especially YouTube) are done in FCP, tho, as well as movies and documentaries.

Competitors are indeed lagging behind and overpriced.

In that regard Apple is winning, they cater to actual professionals

 

[sevoneone]

No disagree at all!

I am just highly critical of modern iPhones (due to computations they have made step backwards: noise reduction is UNNEEDED in pro video setup, especially with way more advanced noise reduction apps), as well as HDR all around that can bring artifacting.

Mac on a contrary is a revolutionary device. I bet we all learned editing on free iMovie! And yes, yes, yes: you can literally still pirate FCP by deleting license file or running terminal script each 90 days. Free editing studio at cost of your Mac.

But times definitely changed. 90% or modern bloggers and influencers would shoot their videos right on iPhone and edit on iPhone, no FCP needed. More serious productions (especially YouTube) are done in FCP, tho, as well as movies and documentaries.

Competitors are indeed lagging behind and overpriced.

In that regard Apple is winning, they cater to actual professionals

If ProRes Raw in the 17Pro is truly RAW, there should be no noise reduction or HDR, just raw data and metadata. I guess we'll find out soon enough how true they are to that. Raw video and curiosity of where they're going with Blackmagic pushed me over on upgrading from my 14 Pro, battery life was another major factor, and maybe the Deep Blue color a little bit if I am honest.

While I'll agree that we have become a much more video literate society and video tools/usage is much more diverse, the true line line between amateur and pro video will always be overall media literacy. Structure, story, what you say and how you say it still matters more than technical details. There are many influencers and vloggers that do this well, but the vast majority do not.

 

[uacd]

If ProRes Raw in the 17Pro is truly RAW, there should be no noise reduction or HDR, just raw data and metadata. I guess we'll find out soon enough how true they are to that. Raw video and curiosity of where they're going with Blackmagic pushed me over on upgrading from my 14 Pro, battery life was another major factor, and maybe the Deep Blue color a little bit if I am honest.

If it is what it is then it is definitely a gamechanger. Hope it is not limited to 512GB models (google says it isn’t). Maybe will get 17 Pro after all, since I edit a lot of photos and videos straight on my phone and they finally got PWM switch, as well as wanna test their new water chamber, if iPhone would be as cool as older ones - that alone is a reason for upgrade, I dislike that modern iPhones tend to overheat during such energy-intensive tasks

 

[PPGMD]

If there is a true raw signal path, I wonder if Blackmagic will bring BRAW to their camera app if Apple will let them. 5:1 or 8:1 compressed RAW would be an even bigger game changer on an I phone.

I doubt it, that would be very unApple like. Why would they make a special exception for Blackmagic to make a file that can be used outside of the Apple ecosystem?

 

[aknabi]

But probably 100% of the YouTube/social media content creators that help sell these for phones for Apple do and that’s likely enough to make regular people feel like this is a worthy upgrade overall.

I'd wager that it's less than 50%... heck I think I'd be safe by saying it's < 10%... most of the content (slop) creators aren't broadcasting or video professionals...

Though I'm sure now some number of them are asking ChatGPT about Genlock and finding ways to make their productions even more shinny

 

[sevoneone]

I doubt it, that would be very unApple like. Why would they make a special exception for Blackmagic to make a file that can be used outside of the Apple ecosystem?

Apple makes a lot of exceptions for BMD though. Resolve was as optimized for Apple Silicon on day one as Final Cut. The Blackmagic Camera App was ready for the iPhone 15 Pro and Apple Log. Blackmagic built an entirely new camera for VisionPro content creation. They have a pro camera USB-C dock ready for the iPhone 17 announcement. Going further back, resolve had eGPUs ready to use when Apple announced support on Intel machines… it’s been clear for a few years that Apple and BMD are scratching each other’s backs. I think Apple is acutely aware that Final Cut is not going to make a big break back into the major leagues and will remain a mid-market tool. Attaching themselves to Blackmagic as they make that climb is a smart way to continue selling Mac’s to that segment of the market.

 

[PPGMD]

Apple makes a lot of exceptions for BMD though. Resolve was as optimized for Apple Silicon on day one as Final Cut. The Blackmagic Camera App was ready for the iPhone 15 Pro and Apple Log. Blackmagic built an entirely new camera for VisionPro content creation. They have a pro camera USB-C dock ready for the iPhone 17 announcement. Going further back, resolve had eGPUs ready to use when Apple announced support on Intel machines… it’s been clear for a few years that Apple and BMD are scratching each other’s backs. I think Apple is acutely aware that Final Cut is not going to make a big break back into the major leagues and will remain a mid-market tool. Attaching themselves to Blackmagic as they make that climb is a smart way to continue selling Mac’s to that segment of the market.

Those are all things that keep people on Apple or encourage them to move over.

What I think is more likely is for Apple to encourage Blackmagic to license codec technology into Prores Raw.