Early Final Cut Pro X Response Mixed, Updates Coming

[MorphingDragon]

You mean like they do on their technical support forums...?

It always blows my mind how religious people get about Apple products: Apple can't do wrong, Apple products are ALWAYS awesome, even if they're buggy like hell or miss critical features, Apple knows what's best - I think you get the idea.

In my experience, Apple's dot zero releases are usually among the worst in the industry, especially when you look at the so-called Pro Apps and their operating systems (Leopard and Snow Leopard both were extraordinarily buggy dot zero releases). It always takes Apple several updates to get the stuff working; and when certain features are missing, well, just wait for the next pay-for dot zero update.

I could say the same things for many companies and products. Apple is hardly a unique case.

 

[iBug2]

And while you're waiting, check out some of their competitors that already have real-time editing, no transcoding, handle dslr natively, x64 bit, multicore funtimes. They've had these features for a couple years now.

Really? Avid Media Composer is still running at 32bits on OS X, which is the most widely used NLE tool.

 

[iBug2]

I am not a video editor but when an Apple App is getting this much hate something is clearly wrong because normally people are overly forgiving of Apple.

Oh, you should have checked all the negative comments when they released the first iPod. Following those comments, nobody could have imagined that the product would actually change the music industry.

 

[hob]

You guys need to calm down. No-one's forcing you to buy this release. If you want to be an early adopter, you take what you're given. I, for one, will be training myself on the new system ready for when new features come along and we're ready to ditch FCP7. I think this will take about 18 months...

 

[iBug2]

The difference is that FCP 7 hasn't been updated for a couple of years almost and thus is lacking quite a few features already. Apple essentially actively ceased support in order to supply resources to a new version, but yet this new version is lacking features that many find critical.

Now, in comparison, OS 9 still was seeing regularly updates up through and even after OS X's release (likely due to the less-than-desired performance/functionality of OS X). From a "My job partly depends on this" perspective, OS X offered nothing. FCP 7, by comparison, is lacking quite a bit, and from the reviews and responses I've read through, FCP X just wasn't ready.

Apple needed to take Blizzard's approach and "release it when it's ready", instead of releasing a half-baked product.

OS 9 was not receiving any significant upgrades when OS X was released. OS 9 was released in 1999 October, Mac OS X was released in March 2001, that's 1.5 years inbetween. And that was the beta as we know it. 10.1 was released in September 2001, exactly 2 years after OS 9 was released, and any update OS 9 got during those 2 years is exactly like the updates FCP 7 got since 2009, just maintenance and bugfix.

So I don't see how that is any different. And the analogy that guy gave was correct. When OS X was released, nobody used it for several years for doing actual work. People would play on it and boot to OS 9 to do their work. Many professionals didn't do the switch until Tiger.

Btw, about Blizzard, as a 6 year and counting WOW player, I can assure you that each time after a major patch, all hell breaks loose and Blizzard takes couple of months to fix all the issues.

 

[iBug2]

Compressor is .. well stoopid: 32 bit and never got it to go beyond 400% CPU on a 8 core with a Quadro 4000. Adobe's converter gets up to 1200% (in certain cases) and squeeze uses the Cuda cores.

FCPX is a good sketch of what they are thinking, but compressor is nothing more then a micro upgrade.

I have used Compressor to use 10 cores, 8 from my Mac Pro and 2 from my MBP, back in 2008.

Compressor is clunky, you just need to learn how to make it use all your cores through QMaster.

 

[woodbine]

My feeling too, it feels really light even on an old 1,1 mac pro.

Compressor is .. well stoopid: 32 bit and never got it to go beyond 400% CPU on a 8 core with a Quadro 4000. Adobe's converter gets up to 1200% (in certain cases) and squeeze uses the Cuda cores.

FCPX is a good sketch of what they are thinking, but compressor is nothing more then a micro upgrade.

Don't understand '400% CPU' does that mean 40% of total CPU, all cores? I run Compressor full steam 2/3 days a week doing standards conversion. On my MP 8-core, I get 99-100% CPU, on all cores. I use Q-master.

 

[hob]

Don't understand '400% CPU' does that mean 40% of total CPU, all cores? I run Compressor full steam 2/3 days a week doing standards conversion. On my MP 8-core, I get 99-100% CPU, on all cores. I use Q-master.

If you have 8 cores, then 800% is 100% on all 8 cores. 12=1200% etc...

(you shouldn't ever see any process using all of your processor though, there'd be nothing left for other processes!)

 

[iBug2]

If you have 8 cores, then 800% is 100% on all 8 cores. 12=1200% etc...

(you shouldn't ever see any process using all of your processor though, there'd be nothing left for other processes!)

Well, not exactly. Even if you see 800% on an 8-core machine, that's usually like 790% most of the time. And a core will be freed up if another task requires it, but most of the everyday tasks don't require a full core, mostly 5-10% of a core.

 

[xper]

Well, not exactly. Even if you see 800% on an 8-core machine, that's usually like 790% most of the time. And a core will be freed up if another task requires it, but most of the everyday tasks don't require a full core, mostly 5-10% of a core.

1) He was just explaining what 800% was equivalent to.....
2) He did say that a process cant take up 100% CPU

So why on earth did you correct him when he didnt even say the thing you corrected, you corrected him by saying EXACTLY what he just said....

Try to read and understand a post before you correct it, mkay?

 

[orangerizzla]

Be interesting to see what Adobe make of it. As far as I can see they are still knocking out Production Premium for around £1.5k

Can't help feeling a little deflated that there's no upgrade path and feeling sorry for a friend who had to buy the full FCP7 suite a few months back just to get an out of date copy of motion (now retailing for under thirty quid!)

More than happy to embrace the future though (in about six months...)

 

[iBug2]

1) He was just explaining what 800% was equivalent to.....
2) He did say that a process cant take up 100% CPU

So why on earth did you correct him when he didnt even say the thing you corrected, you corrected him by saying EXACTLY what he just said....

Try to read and understand a post before you correct it, mkay?

He said that "you shouldn't ever see any process using all of your processor though, there'd be nothing left for other processes!"

Which I corrected. You can see that a process is actually using all your cores for a second, that doesn't mean there isn't anything left for other tasks. That's due to slow update on activity monitor and when you see 800% that's really not 800%.

 

[chrono1081]

You mean like they do on their technical support forums...?

It always blows my mind how religious people get about Apple products: Apple can't do wrong, Apple products are ALWAYS awesome, even if they're buggy like hell or miss critical features, Apple knows what's best - I think you get the idea.

In my experience, Apple's dot zero releases are usually among the worst in the industry, especially when you look at the so-called Pro Apps and their operating systems (Leopard and Snow Leopard both were extraordinarily buggy dot zero releases). It always takes Apple several updates to get the stuff working; and when certain features are missing, well, just wait for the next pay-for dot zero update.

And it always blows my mind how many people think they are the worst company ever, make the worst products, and think anyone who uses them is some religious Apple fanatic who worships Steve Jobs.

And your experience must not be much if you think Apple has the worst dot zero releases in the industry. You obviously don't deal with Microsoft for a living.

 

[nerdo]

Glad to see people still love to skip the point of the post and pick whatever piece of the puzzle they do understand and start a pissing contest over it.

the point is: compressor is the same, 32 bit stupid program it has been for years. And yes I know how to setup qmaster, also know how many stupid problems i get because of it. And I'm very happy for you if you never had any problems. For now I think Squeeze is a lot easier and definitely more reliable.

the fact they didn't turn compressor into a sleak bugfree 64bit app that is clever enough to take care of business is just... !!!

 

[tgmthegreenman]

Apple is losing it!
Cant import projects from Previos versions? why doesnt the program have a different name then???? Apple Movie X or so

 

[iBug2]

Glad to see people still love to skip the point of the post and pick whatever piece of the puzzle they do understand and start a pissing contest over it.

the point is: compressor is the same, 32 bit stupid program it has been for years. And yes I know how to setup qmaster, also know how many stupid problems i get because of it. And I'm very happy for you if you never had any problems. For now I think Squeeze is a lot easier and definitely more reliable.

the fact they didn't turn compressor into a sleak bugfree 64bit app that is clever enough to take care of business is just... !!!

I never said it didn't cause any problems. I said specifically that it's clunky. It caused tons of issues with me as well.

Simply turning it to 64bit wouldn't solve any of those issues though. I think they should have done it from scratch.

 

[iBug2]

Apple is losing it!
Cant import projects from Previos versions? why doesnt the program have a different name then???? Apple Movie X or so

It has a new name. It's not FCP 8. It's FCP X.

 

[vladi]

Really? Avid Media Composer is still running at 32bits on OS X, which is the most widely used NLE tool.

Well that is the problem you are running it on OSX. Sad really, professionals and creative who made Apple different from MS are left behind in a chase for regular consumer.

Unfortunately I switched all my video editing to Windows long time ago. We have a MC in a studio, I personally don't use it, but its running hell of a fast and almost bug-free on W7 x64. OSX just doesn't have a chance.

What I do is Image Compositing and that game has been Windows only for quite some time. I actually set up a nice workflow between Vegas Pro 10 and Eyeon Fusion. I love VP10 for near real time editing and simplicity to draft out what I have in mind for editors and then they take over in MC.


DAW is where we are 50/50 between OSX and W7. Logic and Pro Tools are running on OSX while Nuendo and Ableton are on W7. Because of that setup VSTs are bitch to acquire

Its sad that I use my Mac now as everyday PC and my W7 as a workstation. How things have changed since late 80s.

 

[NickFalk]

Apple is losing it!
Cant import projects from Previos versions? why doesnt the program have a different name then???? Apple Movie X or so

While the answer is obviously “brand value” I think that’s a fair question. It’s a complete rewrite from bottom up with a completely new interface and work methodology. It has some cool new features, but lack several of the features from earlier versions. When you can’t even open projects from earlier versions it sounds like a reasonable argument that this isn’t really Final Cut Pro at all.

If it looks like a pigeon and makes sounds like a pigeon it’s probably not a duck.

 

[iBug2]

Well that is the problem you are running it on OSX. Sad really, professionals and creative who made Apple different from MS are left behind in a chase for regular consumer.

Unfortunately I switched all my video editing to Windows long time ago. We have a MC in a studio, I personally don't use it, but its running hell of a fast and almost bug-free on W7 x64. OSX just doesn't have a chance.

Well I suppose that's why a 250mil picture (Transformers 2) was cut on AMC on OS X. I suppose Dreamworks didn't know that Win7 was much better and OS X didn't stand a chance.

 

[iBug2]

While the answer is obviously “brand value” I think that’s a fair question. It’s a complete rewrite from bottom up with a completely new interface and work methodology. It has some cool new features, but lack several of the features from earlier versions. When you can’t even open projects from earlier versions it sounds like a reasonable argument that this isn’t really Final Cut Pro at all.

If it looks like a pigeon and makes sounds like a pigeon it’s probably not a duck.

Doesn't the same argument apply to OS X then? Why did they keep using the name Mac OS and just changed the version to X?

OS X was not compatible with OS 9 applications unless they were carbonized. So backward compatibility wasn't really there. The compatibility was made to work through the "Classic" layer which was basically the same as running all OS 9 libraries on top of OS X, which is analog to running Final Cut 7 and X side by side.

 

[MacsRgr8]

I think Apple is betting that your profession is going away, and "prosumers" are moving up.

Professionals in many fields have been bitten this way - they think there is no way that automation or unskilled labor can ever replace them... then one day, technology sneaks up and they become obsolete.

Hmm... indeed, much like System Administrators.
Setting up services on a network used to be a specialized work. Nowadays, getting these services up and running on a server is easy enough for "knowladgeable users" on Apple software.

Over time: Consumers become more and more pro-sumers. Pro-sumers become much less dependent of specialized professionals tnx to easy-to-use software.

This is what Apple is trying to do:
Create software so that consumers can create pro-sumer-level stuff, and pro-sumers can create professional stuff.
Knowledge of the technical side of things is getting less and less important.

 

[NickFalk]

Doesn't the same argument apply to OS X then? Why did they keep using the name Mac OS and just changed the version to X?

OS X was not compatible with OS 9 applications unless they were carbonized. So backward compatibility wasn't really there. The compatibility was made to work through the "Classic" layer which was basically the same as running all OS 9 libraries on top of OS X, which is analog to running Final Cut 7 and X side by side.

I have no argument with you reasoning. As far as I can recall though Apple never really pushed OSX as Mac OS. They made it quite clear that this was a new begining and have been building OSX as its own brand.

 

[iBug2]

I have no argument with you reasoning. As far as I can recall though Apple never really pushed OSX as Mac OS. They made it quite clear that this was a new begining and have been building OSX as its own brand.

They also said the same with Final Cut. Randy said over and over that this was a new app redesigned from the ground up during his demo, and it wasn't Final Cut Pro 8.

 

[organerito]

It's a part of these forums you'll have to get used to - if MS, Adobe, or any other company were to release a product such as FCP X that wasn't nearly finished, people would rail on them to no end.

Since it's Apple though, it's "all part of the plan" and "people are just whiners", etc.

I never quite understand why people have to exhibit such blind loyalty to any company... Praise them when they're good, criticize them when they're bad.

Do you mean like normal intelligent people do?