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So...new MacPros are out...where's new Final Cut?

The normal update cycle for FCS is around 18 to 24 months, the last one being released in July 2009, thus still five to eleven months to go.
 
All we can do right now is wait. There are a lot of expectations for the new FCS to make it competitive with Avid and Premiere again, including 64-bit support. And that will require a complete rewrite.

Right now, it's totally frustrating because if it weren't for the fact that I need to stay compatible with industry colleagues, I'd almost jump to the dark side and cut exclusively in Premiere CS5. Its Mercury Engine totally rocks. On my system (2008 8-core 2.8 w/flashed 8800 GTS), it effortlessly plays 3 layers of R3D (REDCODE RAW) on the timeline at 2K resolution in REAL-TIME, without dropping a single frame. FCP 7 doesn't come close to doing that. It's sad, really.

Premiere used to be the clunky NLE nobody took seriously and lately, it's been an extremely viable alternative to FCP and Avid.
 
I guess some of us were hoping for a free.5 update since the latest release was rather lacking to say the least. I remember how awesome and what a surprise FCP HD 4.5 was. I want that again!
 
Converting FCP to 64-bit is no small undertaking as I understand it... they need to completely rebuild it in Cocoa (it's built on Carbon currently).

I gather the team is tied up right now with iMovie for iPhone though 😛
 
VirtualRain said:
Converting FCP to 64-bit is no small undertaking as I understand it... they need to completely rebuild it in Cocoa (it's built on Carbon currently).

I gather the team is tied up right now with iMovie for iPhone though 😛
Click to expand...

Yes, that is indeed the case. The transition from Carbon to Cocoa is a long one.
 
And that's not all - they have to upgrade all the framework hooks, too. A lot of people didn't really notice what was going on with Quicktime X - it was a total overhaul to the almost two decades old Quicktime framework.

Quicktime is the engine that makes Final Cut go. Upgrading Quicktime in Snow Leopard was a critical first step; rewriting FCP in Cocoa and changing it to use Quicktime X are big steps as well.

The old framework, while pretty cool, was built on a lot of assumptions and goals that no longer apply, and so they needed to overhaul the whole damn thing.
 
CaptainChunk said:
...I'd almost jump to the dark side and cut exclusively in Premiere CS5. Its Mercury Engine totally rocks. On my system (2008 8-core 2.8 w/flashed 8800 GTS), it effortlessly plays 3 layers of R3D (REDCODE RAW) on the timeline at 2K resolution in REAL-TIME, without dropping a single frame. FCP 7 doesn't come close to doing that. It's sad, really.
Click to expand...

I've been hearing good things about Premiere, lately. How do you find the user interface, compared to FCP?
 
I think I am switching over to use all of Adobe. I'll come back when FCP get's its act together.

1. I'm a graphic designer and already use the premium suite at work.
2. This website is awesome! My work signed us faculty all up:
http://www.foundationccc.org/CollegeBuys/CollegeBuysHome/tabid/484/Default.aspx

Master CS5 suite = $600. From Adobe educational store: $900!!
3. stick it to Apple - they are making me make a Hackintosh when all I wanted to do was buy a 6 core with decent memory upgradability and price!
 
CaptainChunk said:
Right now, it's totally frustrating because if it weren't for the fact that I need to stay compatible with industry colleagues, I'd almost jump to the dark side and cut exclusively in Premiere CS5. Its Mercury Engine totally rocks. On my system (2008 8-core 2.8 w/flashed 8800 GTS), it effortlessly plays 3 layers of R3D (REDCODE RAW) on the timeline at 2K resolution in REAL-TIME, without dropping a single frame. FCP 7 doesn't come close to doing that. It's sad, really.

Premiere used to be the clunky NLE nobody took seriously and lately, it's been an extremely viable alternative to FCP and Avid.
Click to expand...

You're telling me. When I was working for BorisFX, we had to test on Premiere as well as every other NLE out there pretty much (how I learned smoke and flame 🙂 ).

Anyway, I have been in the post side for years now and FCP has been my NLE strictly for quite some time. First time I dealt again with Premiere was working around the audio problems with fcp and the 5d back a while ago. I was blown away with how far premiere has come. It has always been a part of my adobe bundle but never gave it much thought until that day. Also, the seamless integration with AE is so clutch.

But still I am a FCP user as are most everyone I know minus the few Avid users. And hardware optimization aside (which is in dire need in almost every FCS app), things like automatic duck ability should be programmed into FCP. I shouldn't need to buy AD or BFX XML transfer to get from FCP to AE.

The thing is that FCP is so ingrained in our industry now. It is going to take a serious ****up to make everyone switch. It would cost so much money for a company to completely change over its main NLE dealing with backwards compatibility, new clients needs, etc, etc.

/rant
 
I am glad to see someone mention Avid for once! I have been working on Media Composer since before our FIRST 5.0 release back in 94.
 
hopefully Apple will use FCP as a demonstration of using GCD to make it use 24 threads thus justifying splurging on a dual hexacore
 
TheStrudel said:
Quicktime is the engine that makes Final Cut go. Upgrading Quicktime in Snow Leopard was a critical first step; rewriting FCP in Cocoa and changing it to use Quicktime X are big steps as well.
Click to expand...

Actually, QuickTime X is a bigger problem than you think...

Quicktime X is playback only. You cannot do any editing in the QuickTime X API, as it is pretty linked to H.264 (which is not good for editing) and hardware playback of H.264 (which is also not good for editing). This is why the QuickTime X player does not really do editing, and is also why QuickTime Pro is stuck with QuickTime 7.

I've seen hints that Apple is adding a new, separate API for editing, although it may not show until OS 10.7. They ARE shipping a brand new editing API with iPhone OS 4 as part of AVFoundation, and are using it for iMovie on the iPhone. I've seen hints the same API may be the one they plan on using for OS 10.7.
 
I've been hearing good things about Premiere, lately. How do you find the user interface, compared to FCP?
Click to expand...

It's different, but it makes sense. But for the most part, it's something I've just started playing with. It's still difficult to fully embrace Premiere when other trades are cutting on FCP and Avid.
 
goMac said:
Actually, QuickTime X is a bigger problem than you think...

Quicktime X is playback only. You cannot do any editing in the QuickTime X API, as it is pretty linked to H.264 (which is not good for editing) and hardware playback of H.264 (which is also not good for editing). This is why the QuickTime X player does not really do editing, and is also why QuickTime Pro is stuck with QuickTime 7.

I've seen hints that Apple is adding a new, separate API for editing, although it may not show until OS 10.7. They ARE shipping a brand new editing API with iPhone OS 4 as part of AVFoundation, and are using it for iMovie on the iPhone. I've seen hints the same API may be the one they plan on using for OS 10.7.
Click to expand...

And as I understand it, QTX is essentially AVFoundation brought over to the desktop. iMovie for iPhone clearly shows AVFoundation/QTX can handle editing without the need for the QT7 fallback, so the basics are there.

Also, QTX doesn't have codec plugins at the moment. I think they'll be using the QT7 fallback at least for awhile. The good news is that whole thing kind of abstracts the QT X/7 decision not only from the programmer, but also the program itself. So they can just write it for QTKit, and let it grow into QTX. I think.....I'm mostly talking out my ass about things I learned in Ars' snow leo review.
 
sirnh said:
I am glad to see someone mention Avid for once! I have been working on Media Composer since before our FIRST 5.0 release back in 94.
Click to expand...

I'm |-| F*ing close to going back to Avid. If 95% of my clients weren't already balls deep in FCP I would but I seriously don't have much of a choice right now.

CaptainChunk said:
It's different, but it makes sense. But for the most part, it's something I've just started playing with. It's still difficult to fully embrace Premiere when other trades are cutting on FCP and Avid.
Click to expand...

I agree. The problem I had with Premiere was the keyboard shortcuts but I guess with any new NLE there is going to be a learning curve. 😱
 
J the Ninja said:
And as I understand it, QTX is essentially AVFoundation brought over to the desktop. iMovie for iPhone clearly shows AVFoundation/QTX can handle editing without the need for the QT7 fallback, so the basics are there.
Click to expand...

QuickTime X and AVFoundation are NOT the same thing. QuickTime X is actually older than AVFoundation (at least the modern AVFoundation implementation).

If you look at Mac OS X, QuickTime X and AVFoundation are not even the same framework, at all.

QuickTime X still can't do editing, you just simply can't with the basis of the framework as H.264. AVFoundation, on the other hand, does not use H.264 as the intermediate format for editing.
 
CaptainChunk said:
All we can do right now is wait. There are a lot of expectations for the new FCS to make it competitive with Avid and Premiere again, including 64-bit support. And that will require a complete rewrite.

Right now, it's totally frustrating because if it weren't for the fact that I need to stay compatible with industry colleagues, I'd almost jump to the dark side and cut exclusively in Premiere CS5. Its Mercury Engine totally rocks. On my system (2008 8-core 2.8 w/flashed 8800 GTS), it effortlessly plays 3 layers of R3D (REDCODE RAW) on the timeline at 2K resolution in REAL-TIME, without dropping a single frame. FCP 7 doesn't come close to doing that. It's sad, really.

Premiere used to be the clunky NLE nobody took seriously and lately, it's been an extremely viable alternative to FCP and Avid.
Click to expand...

As I understand, Avatar movie was done using Adobe CS4. So I guess it indeed is quite a viable alternative.
 
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