First Final Cut Pro X Hands-On Videos Coming Out

[drewyboy]

Yes... I would rather pay $1,000 and wait until December....

Then here are some instructions...

1. Wait till December
2. Save up $1000
3. Purchase FCPX, Compressor, and Motion 5
4. Drive to nearest Apple Store
5. Insist to the cashier they take your money, $600 to be exact.
6. If they refuse and say they'll call the cops, purchase $500 iPad2 + $100 iTunes Gift certificate and give it to some random chap for christmas (or someone in the store).

All things solved. FCPX will be up to par for your specs by December. Purchase all programs for $400 and give $600 of apple gear away.

 

[acslater017]

Hopefully Apple will put out quick updates and get this app up to par soon. They keep saying that they want Final Cut to be a huge success, so they'd better be listening to their customers!

Seems like most of the complaints can be solved relatively easily(?). Especially if a feature was present in Final Cut 7, that seems like a small task to put it back in. Most of the large interface/design issues seem very good though. Seems more like a matter of adding those support for formats, timecodes, etc.

I have a feeling that things will get better in the coming weeks and months. Not being desperately faithful or anything. The "big picture" stuff seems thoroughly modernized, but many of the important details crucial to pros need to ironed out pronto.

 

[Jerome Morrow]

Actual pros do not whine on mac rumours site. I myself like the idea of an early beta tester. I get to use the new UI and all the new ways of doing things and with time i will receive the updates i need.

 

[nerdo]

Actual pros do not whine on mac rumours site. I myself like the idea of an early beta tester. I get to use the new UI and all the new ways of doing things and with time i will receive the updates i need.

Whining and lecturing seems to be the main thing on MR these days.. oh damn just started whining.. duh! Winning!

Ok, played some more and found that the cheesy transitions and effects are supercool. First of all they play in real time with the selected material on the timeline, not only that, inside the effect preview you can scroll to the desired moment. AND you can open them in Motion to tweak, so basically they are not cheesy effects but presets apple dropped in for us to play with.

If you are really curious what FCPX can do, try the "i" button and re-discover a lot of the tools we know.

One weird choice: F9 F10 and F11 are now Q W and E, well sort off.

Why they would drop F9 F10 and F11 is beyond me, but my guess is this is a typical homebrew personal project upgraded to FCPX because they ran out of ideas for FCP8.

So yes a lot of supercool features, now when we get all the tools we actually think we need, it is going to be groovy.

Do I miss Avid? Sure from day one when switching to FCP, do I move to Premiere CS5 again? Psssh no way, prefer FCP7 over that stupid program.

Funny thing: FCPX fills a lot of the holes for me, just too bad , for now anyway, it ripps a few big new ones.

So far: nice start of a new breed.

 

[Truffy]

a lot of the effects look cheesy, but so did the old ones that I never used.

And the transitions/title templates. I hope the cheese can be removed.

 

[Truffy]

Ok, played some more and found that the cheesy transitions and effects ... you can open them in Motion to tweak, so basically they are not cheesy effects but presets apple dropped in for us to play with.

OK, perhaps nopt so bad :|

 

[25ghosts]

Oh gosh you people bug the CRAP out of me. Pro this Pro that. I'm a pro and I don't like it therefore it's not pro. That article is misquoting him. If you actually READ his site, he goes on to say that, that is not what he meant. Plus he had not even asked ANY questions. He said after he had made that comment, he realized how wrong he was because he actually starting asking the FCP software engineer questions and it has changed is whole mind.

Also as said NUMEROUS time EVERYWHERE but on MR, there will be substantial updates coming quickly to bring some of the missing piece that "pro's" "absolutely" need. You people make me sick with your whining, and I know this will be down ranked into oblivion because the truth is hard to swallow.

Do your freak'n job. If the new FCPX is not "pro" enough for move on and don't complain. People who are successful don't talk, they do. So instead of saying "OMG apple, you lost a $400 sale. I'm going to spend at least $1500 on other software!" Or $2500+ if you fancy AVID.

You really think REAL pro's give a crap? No. Cuz the don't plan on upgrading till it's at least 2.0. Heck, why even upgrade until your current system doesn't do what you want it to? Then they'll at least THINK about it, until then, they keep there clients and make big $$$.

You are a funny guy. You mash good folk for whining in one direction. Then you start to whine in the opposite direction.

There is a name for that; Hypocrite !!!

Pro = Professional = Making Money off of ones profession (Job) !!!

Pro != GOOD, GREAT

Amateur = One who had not taken his talent or interest and made a profession out of it

Amateur != BAD, CHILDISH or lack of Creativity !


FCP X does indeed lack certain features needed. No doubt about that.
However, use FCP X for what it is GOOD at and that is - Taking a BUNCH of clips and combining those to a SINGLE long clip.

Then do the rest of the job like color-grading in an environment BUILT for color-grading like DaVinci Resolve or better yet AE latter is what I refer to as an app that doesn't wipe your arse after taking a dump.

I see lots of folk doing color grading and even attempted compositing in FCP. This always makes me smile. Such is just as DUMB as treating after effects or nuke as an NLE !!!

You dont use a screw driver to bang in a nail like you dont use a hammer to drive in a screw. You could but that would classify you as an idiot !!!

I for one am going to enjoy FCP X's great ambience (I need that when I cut) and super skimming capabilities which will turn my cutting into a joy. Am I ever going to manually color correct, stabilize, motion track, rotoscope in FCP X --- H*** no... I've got Mocha & AfterEffects for that !!!

On a final side-note - ANY cutter with GREAT footage who cant bring a story across with iMovie, sure as H*** wont be able to bring it across at all....

If you cant tell the story in FCP X - chances are that you aint no story teller !

 

[smetvid]

Yes... I would rather pay $1,000 and wait until December....

Agree! We have always preferred waiting and paying for a good update. Some of the kids around will never get that. In the pro world there is no such thing as compromise. When a client is sitting over your shoulder waiting you cannot just tell them you can no longer do something. We don't just work on our own indy projects that we can spend 6 months trying to iron out bugs. WE have to get stuff done right away.

 

[winston1236]

1% lol? u clearly have no idea of the number of professional editors out there using final cut pro 7. This used to be an proffesional application (im not saying it is not now) but it sure does look like it. 1% of all there consumers maybe, but surely 85% of the current FCP studio users. NOT because it looks like iMovie but because its lacking pro options and has too much ''consumer'' like **** in the interface, using iPhoto as an import for photo's? thats the worst crap ive ever heard. we dont edit f*ng family vacation movies. Its probably changeable but please...

Yea, the creative professional community is much larger than 1% unless your talking about the iphone which is entirely unrelated.
Remember the movie True Grit? Edited in Final Cut 7.

 

[Duluth Baptist]

I think there's a difference between a Pro saying:

A. "This app is not sufficient for me to do my job,"

And saying,

B. "Apple doesn't get it, FCX will always stink (or will never be a pro program), they have lost me as a customer."

Statement A is perfectly legitimate. Statement B is a dramatic overreaction to one's own unfulfilled expectations.

If FC7 is wholly inadequate, then I guess I can understand someone leaving it and moving on to something else because they really need that Avid or Premiere Pro functionality that FC7 isn't providing. Otherwise, saying that you're leaving Apple software because you don't like how they debuted a new program is rather drama queenish.

Apple appears to be using the OSX strategy with this release. Get it out there, let people use it, progressively improve the product. Remember, the OSX we all know and love was buggy and lacked key features when it came out, and they didn't even preinstall it on the computers for months after release.

The very fact that Apple is willing to completely rewrite a successful program tells me that they are intent on making it perform up to Pro standards. If they weren't, they would rename this program "iMovie deluxe" and keep FC7 running to mollify the smaller pro user market.

Since this appears to be the case, the sensible thing for a pro FC7 user to do is to... wait. You don't need to buy it just because it's available now. If you were willing to wait until December (or next June) for a truly primetime-ready program, well, wait until then. If Avid or Premiere Pro are better than both FC7 and FCX, go get them... but why hadn't you done that already?

 

[peejay3]

.mxf files.... a way in to FCP X?

I'm a newbie to all this stuff. In FCP 7, 'log & transfer' took care of my .mxf files but in X there is no way to get import those files. Have tried a few converters, none work. And the camera, a Panasonic AG-HVX200P DVCPRO P2 is even listed as being 'supported' by Apple.

 

[BrianMojo]

I gotta say... I'm totally surprised at the dumb fan boi comments that are happening in this thread. I've been in the video/film post-production world for nearly 20 years. I've been an early adopter and embracing the newest tools for as long as I've been in the business. When I watched the keynote on FCP X I was stoked for the new tools for editing. It sounded like it was going to make my job much faster and reduce the amount of likely errors, particularly when dealing with long-format film/video.

...

Hope this answers a lot of your questions as to why the pro community was stunned today.

THANK YOU for posting this. It sums up all of my thoughts without resorting to name calling or implying that the product will never be suitable to the professional market. Right now there's no way I can upgrade to this product and use it professionally, for exactly all of the reasons listed above -- it simply isn't a professional option. That doesn't mean it never will be, but it most definitely isn't now.

In the meantime I hope to pick it up and learn the new features and interface so I'm prepared for when it's ready for primetime.

 

[Sirmausalot]

Those of us who use Final Cut Pro 7 on a daily bases expected a significant upgrade to a long in the tooth program.

A multitude of features were stripped out and we cannot upgrade as expected. The features we need are not in iMovie, nor are they in Final Cut Pro 7 (native DSLR editing, 64 bit multi core processing power for HD footage)

Please don't call us whiners or spoiled or some such when the upgrade of the tool we use day to day for our livelihoods doesn't have the features we need.

We are, as a community in 'shock' because we are forced to find another editing program -- not insignificant mind you -- or stick with outdated software.

We cannot adapt to Final Cut Pro X. If for example I want to work with a sound designer, there is not way to get him the files necessary to do so. And there is NOTHING official from Apple that they will suddenly support what we need in the future. It's all hearsay and rumor.

No one could have predicted the massive amount of features that were dropped so there is no way to predict what they will decide to put back in.

 

[pooprscooper]

*
8. Can't choose scratch disc locations.

10.* Can't choose where to save the actual edit files.*

At least those two issues can be solved using Alias'.

No one could have predicted the massive amount of features that were dropped so there is no way to predict what they will decide to put back in.

I think plenty of people predicted it and Apple is known for 1.0 releases being like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezXVRtksuIQ

 

[Cre8vtv]

Those of us who use Final Cut Pro 7 on a daily bases expected a significant upgrade to a long in the tooth program.

A multitude of features were stripped out and we cannot upgrade as expected. The features we need are not in iMovie, nor are they in Final Cut Pro 7 (native DSLR editing, 64 bit multi core processing power for HD footage)

Please don't call us whiners or spoiled or some such when the upgrade of the tool we use day to day for our livelihoods doesn't have the features we need.

We are, as a community in 'shock' because we are forced to find another editing program -- not insignificant mind you -- or stick with outdated software.

We cannot adapt to Final Cut Pro X. If for example I want to work with a sound designer, there is not way to get him the files necessary to do so. And there is NOTHING official from Apple that they will suddenly support what we need in the future. It's all hearsay and rumor.

No one could have predicted the massive amount of features that were dropped so there is no way to predict what they will decide to put back in.

Right on Target. For those of us running 5 HD/2K edit bays daily with work flows in place that cost $100'ks, and clients that we aim to always be on the cutting edge with... this FCP release was a HUGE disappointment and dis to the pros who made apple a pro level tool in the Television and Movie industry. We feel like we've been hit with a hammer. The future planning and build outs we made mean possibly taking our huge investments in backbone and trashing them. We now face returning to AVID, a company most of us were reluctant to leave in the first place and then charmed into becoming big Apple FCP fans, supporters, and ultimately share holders. For the first time in my history with Apple, I'm not sure I trust they know what they just did.

I know for my company, we face some big decisions if we don't see the features needed to serve our clients efficiently appear.

My father once told me (Very successful investor) the moment a company builds a monument to themselves... (ie Stadium, glorious building...) it's time to sell. So far, rest his soul, he's been right. I may indeed.

Six months from now... the bridge between staying with Apple or writing them off as a failure will be crossed. Yes, Apple, while your $ may be made by families and kids buying your computers now....lest you forget the people who praised and used your computers in 1990 in a business environment was us. We go away... so does your fan base.

 

[Bearxor]

Let me just say...

This app is not sufficient enough for me to do my job.

I also think that saying it will all be magically fixed by December is probably really wishful thinking.

Don't get me wrong... When I first saw iMovie '08, I thought to myself, "this is the future". It wasn't until iMovie 09 that it could really replace iMovie HD. I think in this case, it might take two good revisions before this starts really replacing FCP7.

I still think this type of editing, "linear NLE" if you will, is the future but I don't think the future is quite here yet.

So I'll be plugging away with FCP7 for the foreseeable future and stick to checking out videos of each FCPx update in the hopes that it won't just amaze me, because it basically does that now, but will make me say "I need to start using this now."

 

[TWillett]

 

[bremberg]

I gotta say... I'm totally surprised at the dumb fan boi comments that are happening in this thread. I've been in the video/film post-production world for nearly 20 years. I've been an early adopter and embracing the newest tools for as long as I've been in the business. When I watched the keynote on FCP X I was stoked for the new tools for editing. It sounded like it was going to make my job much faster and reduce the amount of likely errors, particularly when dealing with long-format film/video.
....

I totaly agree, and in my opionon there are only two problems with this app.
1) Wrong name, it should be called iMove X.
2) Wrong price, it should be 24.99€.

And if still compared with FCP, well at least some of the OS/X Carbon junk is gone at least...

 

[Gasu E.]

My guess is that the marketing department wanted this out long before the engineers were ready.... so they had to make do with what they had. I suspect that had this waited until December for release.... all the requisite pro functionality would have been in place.

Here's to hoping they fix this travesty quickly..... if not... then I'm waiting for FCP 8.

I doubt it's the marketing department as much as the finance department. A business can't afford to invest years in development without showing a return. The tech business arena is strewn with the corpses of programs and companies that were perpetually "in development." Sometimes you just have to ship even if it only satisfies a portion of the target market, as long as it's reasonable quality.

My company is facing a similar situation to FCP, in that we're replacing a long-established-but-aging product with a new generation based on a ground-up redesign. The nature of business is such that the first few releases will be lacking some features of the previous generation, We plan to address the gaps in subsequent releases. The saving grace for us is that our customers are very large corporations and we're able to present them with credible feature roadmaps under non-disclosure, so they understand our strategy and plan. Apple really can't do that, legally/practically with most of the current FCP base, since it's impractical to put them all under nondisclosure agreements. But I suspect they may have a plan to backfill some of the holes pros are seeing.

 

[ajahn5]

They should have called this iMovie Pro and made it $49. Then updated FCP 7.

 

[179202]

After using this for a little while, here are my 2 cents:

Everyone should stop thinking it's an update to FCP7. It's an entirely new program. That's why they skipped 2 versions instead of calling this FCP8.

Final Cut Pro X is a new program that approaches editing in a new way. Right now, the basics are there and the basics blow FCP7 (and everything else) out of the water. I'm hoping that Apple will be listening to feedback and will work quickly to address needs of its customers (pros and consumers alike).

Another thing I adore about this app is that it's no longer 'scary' to look at. Anyone could dive into this and make sense of it quickly. That doesn't mean it's not pro, it just means it's an intuitive program.

They should have really called this 'Final Cut Express' and then added the high end, pro market features we all expect and released Final Cut X. Trouble is, no one would have bought the upgrade to express but look how many people we have feeding back issues and missing functions? It's a great beta test and I'm going to learn the hell out of this program so I'm in on the ground floor when it blossoms.

Strong start, Apple! Now get on with adding in those features the editing houses etc expect and need to do their work.

In the meantime, I suggest everyone stops freaking out. Anyone expecting to jump to this right off the bat was clearly not thinking straight. Just use FCP7 (you now, that program that did everything you needed it to but just looks a tad dated?) until this is ready for your needs.

 

[Ashyukun]

the inability to keyframe effects. Unlike quick home projects where you use simple presets for everything, in the pro world you craft your video. When you're watching that amazing NFL commercial... do you think they are using presets? LOL Nope... it's a crafted spot with very intentional timed and controlled effects.

What, really?!?!

I would fall into the category of Amateur Video Editor- I've done a fair bit of it, but am happy with keeping it as a hobby and enjoying doing it at my own pace vs. making a career out of it. Since I started non-linear editing back in 1996, I've used Adobe Premiere since it was inexpensive and ran well on my PCs (and was what the school's limited media computers had on them). I've happily used it since then, though resisted the jump to the newer versions in favor of the more familiar and stable (to me) older versions.

However, I got away from editing for a while to pursue other interests but am now looking to get back into it. Unfortunately, I'm basically at a point where I need to upgrade both hardware and software to be able to really do things effectively- and I had been planning on picking up a new iMac to replace my aging MacBook... and picking up FCP-X to do my editing on.

Most of the things on that list- and that others have pointed out/talked about in regards to the missing features like multicam- are things that I understand the importance of for a production environment/professional but are things that a hobbyist/amateur like me really won't miss.

But not being able to keyframe effects? That's just flatly retarded. It is apparently possible to do some keyframing (http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/335/2671) from some searching, but it also sounds like it falls FAR short of what I'd expect (I'm used to using After Effects, where keyframes are EVERYTHING). If it's really that nerfed, even more advanced amateur editors like myself may have trouble using it.

Thankfully, it's going to be 2-3 months before I'll really be seriously looking at getting the new computer and into editing again, so I'll have to keep my fingers crossed they can get things right by then...