Final Cut Studio Update Due in Late April?

[Sirmausalot]

The main problem with Final Cut (the current version) is that the mobile Intel processors are not powerful enough to run this software, you need at least a quad core to run this effectively.

I think Apple really messed up with their strategy of putting mobile processors in all their products and putting server class CPUs in the Mac Pro, and crucially omitting the standard desktop processors.

Are you kidding me? If it's not working well for you then it's not configured right or you simply don't know what you're talking about. I used the suite on a mbp core duo. It runs well on my current iMac -- though as others point out compressor is slow. Get a raid.

 

[monster620ie]

FCS to FCS3

I am still using FCS and trying to save up the money to move up to FCS 2. I wonder what the upgrade price would be to go from FCS to FCS 3 ?

 

[dAlen]

I'm really surprised to hear all the talk of Premiere on this thread. I'm not saying that my experience is universal, but I don't know a single editor using it. I work with about two dozen productions per year, and all but two (on Avid) are on FCP. All three studios that I'm friendly with have FCP and Avid.
I'm not saying it's not a good program, but just that in my experience it isn't being used professionally.
The user base of FCP editors is huge. Any studio can easily pull in a freelancer to work on a project if they're running FCP. Avid, smaller base, but generally more professional freelancers. Premiere? Honestly no idea because I've never heard of it happening.
I have CS4 which I use daily for Photoshop and After Effects, maybe I'll have to launch Premiere and check it out.

Check out the guys over at http://www.reduser.net/
They are talking about Premiere as well - and they are well above and beyond HD. {2k, 4k, 5k, etc.}

Adobe has caught my attention too, with their latest update - and Apple caught my attention, but in the other direction...their lack of communication.

Peace

dAlen

 

[zedsdead]

I am still using FCS and trying to save up the money to move up to FCS 2. I wonder what the upgrade price would be to go from FCS to FCS 3 ?

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MA888Z/A?mco=MzE2OTkyOQ

It will be between $499-699 depending on how Apple decides to treat you. Take at look at the other upgrades they have now.

 

[MacProPIMP]

From Larry Jordan's Blog

http://www.larryjordan.biz/index.html

Why I Don’t Believe the Rumors
Posted by Larry on March 10, 2009
Earlier today, I was reading some rumor sites speculating that Apple may be releasing a new version of Final Cut Studio at a media event on March 24.

I don’t think these rumors are true and wanted to share my thinking with you so you can decide yourself.

First, a very important point: Apple HAS NOT told me what they are doing. In fact, they have not even dropped any hints in my direction. If they had told me, it would violate our agreement for me to even tell you that I know what they are doing. I don’t know — this blog is simply my thinking about the situation Apple finds itself in.

Let’s look at where Final Cut stands today. The last major upgrade was two years ago, with a series of minor upgrades over the last 18 months. So, Final Cut is due for a significant upgrade sometime this year.

However, the current version of the operating system is 10.5.x. Apple has already announced that a brand new, optimized, OS 10.6 will be out this year. Why would Apple make a major release of Final Cut Studio to support an operating system that is about to be replaced? While no one knows when 10.6 will be released, March strikes me as a poor time when Apple could wait a couple of months and release it, with great fanfare, to all their developers at the World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) later this spring. There’s nothing going on in March that is so compelling as to force Apple to release the OS early.

The new OS will have, according to Apple, an entirely re-engineered version of QuickTime (QuickTime X) in it. Since Final Cut and QuickTime have been conjoined since birth, this means that Apple would have to make two major FCS releases: one to support the version of QuickTime current in March, and a second major release to support QuickTime X released with OS 10.6. Apple is a huge company with vast development resources, but two major releases in the same year for Final Cut Studio don’t make any sense to me.

As well, two new features in OS X 10.6 are also relevant: 1. Snow Leopard will only run on Intel/Macs, and 2. It only uses Cocoa in its user interface. The impact of these two statements on Final Cut is profound.

First, because Final Cut runs on both PowerPC and Intel systems, it will need to be significantly tweaked to run Intel-only. Second, Final Cut’s user interface is written entirely (or darn near entirely) in Carbon, a soon-to-be-outdated programming language. Both of these statements mean that for the last couple of years, Apple’s developers have been very, VERY busy re-programming almost every line of code in the application to convert the application to support Cocoa and Intel. This is a HUGE project, affecting millions of lines of code. The process of getting the bugs out will be lengthy. To do all this work, simply to release a “temporary major release” in March doesn’t make sense.

So the reason I tend to think we won’t see a Final Cut Studio release in March — or April, for that matter — is that there is no benefit to Apple to release a new version of Final Cut until after the new version of Snow Leopard (10.6) is out. Releasing a new version now, means Apple would need to release a second major update in a couple of months.

While Apple has the ability to do this, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when trying to allocate development resources.

So, if you want my opinion of what is going to happen – AND REMEMBER, NO ONE HAS TOLD ME ANYTHING - I think we will see Snow Leopard in June and a shipping version of Final Cut Studio in July.

 

[xbjllb]

For those that keep demanding Blu-Ray, are your clients actually asking you for it? If they are then why haven't you just bought a different NLE that does support it so that you can satisfy all those clients?

The ones who have (and they are legion) don't waste time here anymore to even hear your question, let alone answer it.

 

[SPG]

For those that keep demanding Blu-Ray, are your clients actually asking you for it? If they are then why haven't you just bought a different NLE that does support it so that you can satisfy all those clients?

Good question. Some of clients do ask for it. I'm able to do it for them with a variety of tools, but frankly I don't like the ones I've got and would hope that a DVD SP upgrade would actually do BluRay well.
DVD authoring is still my bread and butter, and though I don't use DVD Studio Pro at all for this, my hope is that Apple would offer a functional solution that would give BluRay the bump that it needs. Of course, this is all hope. DVD SP has always disappointed me and Compressor's MPEG2 engine is junk, but I can always hope, right?
When Steve Jobs mentioned the licensing issues with BluRay I believe he was mainly talking about what it would involve to get playback capabilities into the Mac, but the other end of the BluRay production also has major licensing headaches. For someone to take a BluRay to manufacturing will cost $4500 in AACS licensing fees alone the first time, then $1500 each time after that. That's not manufacturing cost, but just licensing before you can get a master made. That's nothing in the budget of a release like Wall-E, but for someone who is selling a more reasonable number, say 10,000 DVD and now wants to make 1,000 BluRay to go with it the costs are substantial. With those license fees and BluRay's higher cost, 1,000 BluRay can cost the same as 10,000 DVD by the time they're ready to ship. This is a big reason why you don't see much BluRay content outside of major studio releases.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

I wish for better triming and media management in FCP 7 and my main wish - much better roundtriping between apps !!!

In addition I hope they finally rewrite the app and I really hope for fewer bugs then the last release - drove me crazy. Besides that - I am already happy.

 

[AidenShaw]

In addition I hope they finally rewrite the app and I really hope for fewer bugs then the last release - drove me crazy.

Unfortunately, "rewrite" usually means "keep the same features and add bugs".

By "features" I mean "things useful to the end user".

Rewriting to use Cocoa doesn't add much that's useful to the end user, but gives lots of opportunities for introducing new bugs.

 

[Digital Skunk]

I wish for better triming and media management in FCP 7 and my main wish - much better roundtriping between apps !!!

I can agree to that as well. There are times when making a change to a motion clip and switching back to FCP will crash the app. Rarely it does this, but it shouldn't do it at ALL!

 

[timseley]

Larry Jordan's blog

Was about to point out Larry's post but someone beat me to it. Excellent arguments against an eminent release.

 

[iMacmatician]

So is the Shake rewrite finally taking place? I'm learning Nuke now though Im a Final Cut user so I want something that integrates nicely.

Apple will no longer be selling maintenance for Shake and no further software updates are planned as we begin work on the next generation of Shake compositing software.

But there haven't been any news/rumors I've heard about, besides that Phenomenon one.

And by the way, what happened to "Final Cut Extreme"?

 

[CmdrLaForge]

Unfortunately, "rewrite" usually means "keep the same features and add bugs".

By "features" I mean "things useful to the end user".

Rewriting to use Cocoa doesn't add much that's useful to the end user, but gives lots of opportunities for introducing new bugs.

I know - I know. That happened with iMovie 07, less features (not so many bugs) But I guess it has to happen at one point in time.

I would love if they would create a one stop box that conains all Pro Apps ( maybe called Studio Pro) including the Final Cut Pro Studio and Logic Pro Studio and maybe even Aperture apps.

 

[xbjllb]

When Steve Jobs mentioned the licensing issues with BluRay I believe he was mainly talking about what it would involve to get playback capabilities into the Mac, but the other end of the BluRay production also has major licensing headaches. For someone to take a BluRay to manufacturing will cost $4500 in AACS licensing fees alone the first time, then $1500 each time after that. That's not manufacturing cost, but just licensing before you can get a master made. That's nothing in the budget of a release like Wall-E, but for someone who is selling a more reasonable number, say 10,000 DVD and now wants to make 1,000 BluRay to go with it the costs are substantial. With those license fees and BluRay's higher cost, 1,000 BluRay can cost the same as 10,000 DVD by the time they're ready to ship. This is a big reason why you don't see much BluRay content outside of major studio releases.

Interesting, but I know there are plenty of "private" "one-off" Blu-ray discs floating around, both for delivery of product to clients, burgeoning filmmakers, and bands selling discs to fans and giving them away for promotional purposes. That's the market that Apple should be addressing, not the companies with the means to mass market discs at Wal-Mart.

 

[SimonMW]

Actually, why can't FCP just be more like Avid....

You mean buggy as hell and crashes simply for putting a window in the wrong place? Bugs never getting fixed with Avid employees telling you to work around the issues rather than updating the software. Yeah, it would be great if FCP was like that!

but frankly I don't like the ones I've got and would hope that a DVD SP upgrade would actually do BluRay well.

The biggest problem with Blu-Ray isn't so much the licensing, but jobs that don't require that licensing such as video on BD-R discs. Many players simply won't play them and there are incompatibility issues across the board.

I would prefer to give the client a WD Media Player as part of the package. This is portable, can be hooked up to any display and I can give them future productions on portable media that can be plugged into the device. It's a very neat solution.

 

[MomentEye]

I work at a public access TV station. We run a couple of FCP edit stations (FCP Studio 1). Users bring in their own drives to store their projects. It would be great to simplify this process as it is done multiple times per day.

We do this as well. We have external drives dedicated to projects.
The media path ought to be owned by the project. You can get by with diligence but where's the fun in that

Check out the guys over at http://www.reduser.net/
They are talking about Premiere as well - and they are well above and beyond HD. {2k, 4k, 5k, etc.}

Moore's law says the final winner will be After Effects. The only thing holding it back is speed.

my main wish - much better roundtriping between apps !!!

Roundtripping is the dirty secret of FCS.
It doesn't work. You just can't rely on it but it would be lovely if it did.
I have to pretend that it does to pass my Apple Pro Exams but then I go back to work and go around them as much as possible.

 

[Digital Skunk]

I would love if they would create a one stop box that conains all Pro Apps ( maybe called Studio Pro) including the Final Cut Pro Studio and Logic Pro Studio and maybe even Aperture apps.

Now that would be wonderful. Hopefully not the only thing to come out of Cupertino in terms of Pro apps, but would be nice to go along with such and update.

Every Pro app gets their tweaks and fine tunes, DVDSP gets 80% overhaul as does Compressor, Shake, Color. Then users have the option to grab the Apple Production Suite for $1999 which will include..... all Apple Pro apps.

That would keep me from dropping $2500 on the Adobe Master Collection.

You mean buggy as hell and crashes simply for putting a window in the wrong place? Bugs never getting fixed with Avid employees telling you to work around the issues rather than updating the software. Yeah, it would be great if FCP was like that!

I know that it does depend on what system you run Avid on. I hated Avid back in the 90s until I ran it on a Mac then fell in love. Switched to FCP only because I was pricing my own system and Avid was just too costly outside of the student versions.

As for Avid support, I've never run into an issue where their techs say to "work around an issue" and their updates come at regular intervals, much like FCPs.

 

[nuckinfutz]

The biggest problem with Blu-Ray isn't so much the licensing, but jobs that don't require that licensing such as video on BD-R discs. Many players simply won't play them and there are incompatibility issues across the board.

I would prefer to give the client a WD Media Player as part of the package. This is portable, can be hooked up to any display and I can give them future productions on portable media that can be plugged into the device. It's a very neat solution.

I'm seeing a lot of people in your shoes choosing to utilize the WD Media player and simply flash drives. Frankly Blu-ray's problems extend beyond licensing for playback. The AACS fees for delivering your project are unavoidable because the BDA saw fit to mandate copy protection (which I think is damn near collusion of illegal proportion) and other attendent fees make delivering on Blu-ray a poor solution for indies.

As for FCS

My fave speculation :

http://blog.latenitefilms.com/2009/02/21/final-cut-studio-3-predictions/

I'd buy it.

 

[RogueWarrior65]

Aqua or not

The question is whether or not Apple abandons the function of the Final Cut user-interface for the form of Aqua (not really impressed, btw).

 

[nuckinfutz]

The question is whether or not Apple abandons the function of the Final Cut user-interface for the form of Aqua (not really impressed, btw).

The Apple Pro Apps use their own interface that is unavailable to 3rd parties. This is witnessed by the gray UI in Aperture and many of the Final Cut Apps.

Final Cut Pro 6 hasn't had a significant UI change in years. I expect that changes with the next revision.

 

[brianbobcat]

Was about to point out Larry's post but someone beat me to it. Excellent arguments against an eminent release.

I HIGHLY respect Larry Jordan, but one possibility he didn't entertain was that Apple announces and even demos the Apps at their event, but doesn't release it yet, ala Final Cut Server. Hopefully these apps wouldn't be plagued by as long of a delay as Server had, but I can fully respect missing a deadline in order to keep quality control tops in importance. This way they can still get their publicity and talk around town before NAB and possibly even have private demos in Sin City all while maintaining just the one release, say in July like he suggested. One major holdup I see with adoption of FCS3 is I know that many post people and houses like to wait anywhere from a couple months to a year or two before upgrading OSes, so while I'm sure there will be some of us who will buy it shortly after release, I think the rate will be a slow and gradual one climbing over a 1 years span. Now if the improvements are Really Impressive, that may cause a post house to update one or two machines to be used for Compressor for the time being, and that seems like the best way to gain speed without compromising stability.

-Brian

 

[LethalWolfe]

As for FCS

My fave speculation :

http://blog.latenitefilms.com/2009/02/21/final-cut-studio-3-predictions/

Ugh. That sounds like a giant, bloated, hideous mess of a program to me.

I HIGHLY respect Larry Jordan, but one possibility he didn't entertain was that Apple announces and even demos the Apps at their event, but doesn't release it yet, ala Final Cut Server.

Actually that is what Larry said and it's also Apple's typical MO. They'll announce a product first and then release it at a later date. Typically there is a month or so lag for FCP between announcement and release, but if this version of FC Studio is 'tied' to Snow Leopard then obviously SL's development will influence the release date of the next FC Studio.


Lethal

 

[iMacmatician]

As for FCS

My fave speculation :

http://blog.latenitefilms.com/2009/02/21/final-cut-studio-3-predictions/

I'd buy it.

That would be AWESOME!

I think something like this will happen, even if it's not to that extent (I'm trying not to be too optimistic), but I hope things are going in that direction.

 

[nuckinfutz]

Ugh. That sounds like a giant, bloated, hideous mess of a program to me.


Actually that is what Larry said and it's also Apple's typical MO. They'll announce a product first and then release it at a later date. Typically there is a month or so lag for FCP between announcement and release, but if this version of FC Studio is 'tied' to Snow Leopard then obviously SL's development will influence the release date of the next FC Studio.


Lethal

Apples not going to tie a major revision of a large app like FCS 3 to an untested OS like Snow Leopard. They never have and never will.

That would be AWESOME!

I think something like this will happen, even if it's not to that extent (I'm trying not to be too optimistic), but I hope things are going in that direction.

Who knows. They've had to rewrite major portions of the code in Cocoa for 64-bit support and ProRes 422 may give them the recommended codec for creating virtual "rooms" that all share the same pipeline. Seeing what Apple did to reign in Logic Pro and distill it down to a single window leads me to believe that it's not beyond possibility to distill running FCS3 in a single window with tabs on the sidebare for engaging Motion, Color etc.

 

[brianbobcat]

Apples not going to tie a major revision of a large app like FCS 3 to an untested OS like Snow Leopard. They never have and never will.

I'm curious to know where you stood when the image and video of the new Mac mini came out, were you a believer or a "faker"? I was unsure and made claims on both sides, but I leaned towards real because I know how much work would've needed to go into making the video look real. Here I am again waging my bet that the pro apps update will be influenced in some way by Snow Leopard. Do I think it will be Intel only? Yes. The MacIntels have been out now for more than 3 years, and if a pro isn't on a MacPro yet, well then speed obviously isn't their most important factor anyways. Do I think it will be Snow Leopard dependent? This is a tough one, but again I'm leaning towards yes. There's a running joke in my local FCPUG that says "Let Gary try it first because he can fix it." I used to go to the latest OS and FCP version as soon as I got my hands on it, but not anymore. I was told quickly to wait and let the bugs get hammered out. I went to Leopard in late January after it's release, so like 3 months later. By that point, at least 10.5.1 had come out, maybe 10.5.2 and several Pros online had now tested it and said it was safe to go there. So anyone besides Apple running FCP7.0 on a brand new 10.6.0 system better have a backup of their previous system drive or this better be a test machine. Apple will be using it and people will be reporting bugs, and in a month or so 7.0.1 and 10.6.1 will both be out and FCP users will then know that it's safe(r) to migrate to that. Maybe APple will delay shipment of FCS until August or even September if that means making it rock solid. Either way, I'm sure we'll enjoy what ships when all it said and done.

-Brian