I would be happy with a new version of FCE with 24p support and native avchd support. 24p is now in what, a gazillion avchd consumer cams? Why not release FCE to support those cameras?

Because FCE is SUPPOSED to be Final Cut LITE. It piggybacks off the R&D done on FCP for people who require a lesser infrastructure. My UPGRADE costs 4 times what your outright purchase price does. If Apple wanted to pursue iMovie Prosumer, I'd be all over them providing whatever support they want to to it. As long as FCE is a derivative work of FCP, let's keep the pros happy first. Or the folks that are willing to shell out the cost to buy FCS (and I'm sure there are an awful lot of FCS suites out there that AREN'T running legitimately...) <gets down off soapbox>

Ripple Training is offering 30% off their FCS DVDs... Hmmmm... sound like PERHAPS they know something about the life expectancy of tools aimed at FCS2? Just more fuel for the fire...

I suspect Ripple are clearing their DVD inventory so that they can deliver their product purely as downloaded "iTunes editions" in future. That was the impression I got.

Interesting. I read it as getting rid of "soon to be obsolete" hard copies as downloadable content can be updated at any time. We shall see...

Good point, Shaun.

Any news or new rumours on Final Cut Studio 3 from NAB's floor?

Have a look at this

Pro Apps and MacBooks to see update at WWDC | 9 to 5 Mac (http://www.9to5mac.com/pro-apps-macbooks-updated-wwdc)

Thanks Hans!

I also just found that link. ;-)

Without native AVCHD support and/or Blu-Ray support, I won't consider Final Cut Studio 3 a significant upgrade. They will continue to loose some market share to Adobe if they keep this up.

Without native AVCHD support and/or Blu-Ray support, I won't consider Final Cut Studio 3 a significant upgrade. They will continue to loose some market share to Adobe if they keep this up.

I expect that Apple is readying FCS 3 to work with Snow Leopard technologies like OpenCL for improved HD encoding times as well as a totally new ground-up build of QuickTime that should support Blu-ray playback etc. That is the hope.

Check this out about OpenCL:

5-Fold Increase in Video Encoding with OpenCL-like Technology - Mac Rumors (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/04/23/5-fold-increase-in-video-encoding-with-opencl-like-technology/)

Heath

I'm getting ready to purchase Final Cut Studio 2. But in December I bought a new iMac and iWorks, and then a month later the new version of iWorks came out. Of course, Apple's been hounding me to upgrade (at a really good price, of course). I don't want that to happen again. If FCS 3 is about to hit the market, I can wait a few weeks instead of having to buy an upgrade. Any inside information?

Does FCS2 do what you need it to? If so, buy it.

I won't be buying FCS3, when it does come out, until there are enough "test pilots" who have found out what is broken in it and Apple has made the necessary fixes to it to make it worthwhile to me.

And BTW, thanks to all the "test pilots" (early adopters) out there. I was one for FCP 1.0.0 and again for FCS2 so I think I'll sit the next couple out.

Any inside information?

As a forum rule any speculative threads belong in the "Area 51" category; and there's already a very old and large thread on this topic. Read that before continuing with this thread.

Apple's big announcements are typically kept under heavy lock-and-key. Leaks from theme are very rare. No one here will have any facts until Apple let's us have them, which will be whenever they announce. Maybe that will be during the WWDC in June, maybe it will be later in the year. Heck, could be next MacWorld conference in 2010 for all anyone here can know.

Anything else is speculation which, as Robert pointed out, belongs elsewhere.

Of course it's all speculation.

And while this is probably wishful thinking, this sounds tempting:

Final Cut Studio 3: WWDC 2009 Mac Soda (http://macsoda.com/2009/04/21/final-cut-studio-3-wwdc-2009/)

That being said: the normal upgrade path of Final Cut Studio has been about every 2 years. So, just looking at the statistics, it should make FCS 3 release imminent, so maybe not the best time to buy.
But if you need it, you need it. You'll pay a lower upgrade price anyhow if FCS 3 is released, and FCS 2 is still an awesome value for the money.

Moved per suggestion to Area 51 where it belongs.

Moved per suggestion to Area 51 where it belongs.

While I do appreciate the wealth of knowledge this forum provides, I can say that I am oftentimes reluctant to post here because there seems to be an attitude of officiousness at times... especially in the Mac forums.

Forgive me for thinking "Non-linear Editing on the Mac" would be the place to ask a what I thought was a legitimate question about editing on the Mac, and hoping someone here might have some insight.

I feel like such a dork. I promise I'll be more careful in the future.

Charles,

I started the long running thread they're talking about from before in the Mac section and it got moved to Area 51. I've had another post on this forum moved too. No big deal.

Please keep posting. I've been with Macs since the beginning and FCP too, but I still can't come close to tapping into the full potential of them. I need all the experience and inspiration from the other Mac users I can get.

On topic, I'm waiting it out for FCS 3, Snow Leopard, and hopefully a new mid range sized Mac Pro from the current upgrade. I already have FCS1 to use until then though so I can wait.

Thanks for starting the topic up again.

While I do appreciate the wealth of knowledge this forum provides, I can say that I am oftentimes reluctant to post here because there seems to be an attitude of officiousness at times... especially in the Mac forums.

Forgive me for thinking "Non-linear Editing on the Mac" would be the place to ask a what I thought was a legitimate question about editing on the Mac, and hoping someone here might have some insight.

I feel like such a dork. I promise I'll be more careful in the future.

The mission of DVinfo is to share *factual* information either about new technology and "how-to use it" or assist others in their self-help troubleshooting efforts. Speculative threads or anything that is pure guesswork falls into rumour-mill category since it's neither factual nor assistive in it's nature and thus falls outside the intended purpose of this forum.

Unfortunately when people see the word "forum" these days they assume that it's a veritable free-for-all and can post whatever they choose whether the information is purposeful or not, and many other forums are exactly that, with thousands of useless posts full of rants, baseless opinions etc.

Since it's inception the forum owner, Chris, has made a strong effort to distance DVinfo from the preponderance of blatherskite that exists on the 'net and to keep nonsensical posts to a minimum and keep the information factual, useful and timely.

We are all curious about what various companies might be doing with their product lines but because guesswork isn't factual information Chris created the Area 51 category, so that those of us who just can't help but ask the unanswerable questions can have a place to do just that.

It's important to keep in mind that DVinfo is free to all it's users - and I hope that in these lean economic times that it's able to stay that way. And from my perspective speculative threads have no real value; it's a curiosity at best but doesn't help solve a problem and it's not sharing usable information, so I'd consider it a bonus that the Area 51 category even exists.

Charlie, don't feel like a dork and keep posting. This place is augmented by its members, old and new. But just so you understand, you weren't really asking a question about editing on a Mac, but rather asking for information about something that does not yet exist, and therefor was a solicitation for speculation. It is on that merit that your message belongs in Area 51 rather than the Editing on a Mac.

We're pretty open and friendly people here. We love to share information, but we do try to make an effort to keep the place tidy.

Bottom line: welcome to the forums and don't feel embarrassed. :-)

Bottom line: welcome to the forums and don't feel embarrassed. :-)

Yeah, what he said. (^_^)

If Apple doesn't announce FCS 3 at WWDC it probably isn't coming anytime soon.

June 8th is right around the corner so I'd give it a wait.

Sometimes I have problems believing that FCS3 will be reliant on Snow Leopard but there is a good bit of sensibility in that suggestions.

1. Snow Leopard is the first OS X version that is 64-bit through and through.
2. Snow Leopard is ushering in Quicktime X and though it's primarily playback half of what many people do is playback media they've captured.
3. PowerPC is history so FCS3 is likely going to be Cocoa and may be 64-bit only.

If this happens there will be complaints from those with G5 computers but if the performance and workflow gains are worth buying a new computer then it makes sense.

Charlie, don't feel like a dork and keep posting. This place is augmented by its members, old and new. But just so you understand, you weren't really asking a question about editing on a Mac, but rather asking for information about something that does not yet exist, and therefor was a solicitation for speculation. It is on that merit that your message belongs in Area 51 rather than the Editing on a Mac.

We're pretty open and friendly people here. We love to share information, but we do try to make an effort to keep the place tidy.

Bottom line: welcome to the forums and don't feel embarrassed. :-)

Thank you for your positive feedback. I'll try not to bother anyone with a "preponderance of blatherskite," as indicated in the above reply.

My bet for FCS 3 is NAB 2009. Big money, big money, big money!

Dag nabbit...

Well shoot, since NAB was last month, I guess the house wins again.

I've been here for over 6 years and I love getting news, joining in the discussions, etc. Don't be shy!

I heard FCS 3 would debut now at WWDC 09 in June, but that was about a month ago or so, and I haven't heard anything since then. I'd love to see a FCS 3 by the fall.

Heath

Final Cut Studio 3.0, Final Cut Server update in Apple's pipeline - AppleInsider (http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=98713)

AppleInsider | Final Cut Studio 3 to bundle major Motion, Soundtrack upgrades (http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/06/01/final_cut_studio_3_to_bundle_major_motion_soundtrack_upgrades.html)

I saw that earlier; if true, what a disappointment for DVD Studio Pro users (which is all of us, pretty much, using FCS). No major upgrade since 2005 (4.0), only a minor bump up from 4.1 (2007). And NO Blu-ray?! Sheesh, that's not great.

FCP 7 offers real-time editing? Of course, every version does but you still have to render any filters, transitions, etc. Will we see no rendering for some FX?

If this is all true, I'm a little disappointed.

Heath

If this is true, big disappointment. I guess the only advantage for upgrading is with FCS3 being 64 bit apps (hopefully) we'll finally have FCP be able to access more than 2.5 GB of ram. Boy do I hate when I have 18 GB ram sitting in the computer and FCP only can use 2.5 (not to mention the plugins I have that are RAM dependent).

Either way, without Blu-Ray support (REAL Blu-Ray support) I may have to look elsewhere. Though I have to admit that Toast does an OK job (if you don't care about menus).

THIS JUST IN!!! FCP for iphone! Now we see why there was a 2 year wait. Yeah! (just kidding...)


Again, I was kidding about FCP for iphone. :)

Todd

Of course, before I ranted a bit there I should've said what I also thought: even if true, a lot of this info/rumor stuff we're reading is probably only part of what's going on. For all we know we could be seeing 64-bit apps here, little-to-no rendering times, Blu-ray support (at least we can encode in FCP 6.x/Compressor 3.x), and more.

Sorry to help fan the flames, but obviously we need to take a wait-and-see attitude to see what Apple actually does.

heath

Well, I may have heard enough. Sadly, I guess I'll stick with my old mac and FCS1. I'm sure Apple won't miss my measly 4k.

Either way, without Blu-Ray support (REAL Blu-Ray support) I may have to look elsewhere. Though I have to admit that Toast does an OK job (if you don't care about menus).


Toast makes beautiful BD discs with footage from my XH A1, but it has two problems.

1) No way to define useful chapter points.

2) Sloooooooooooooooow.

I could live with slow if it had a simple window to scrub through and drop in chapter points.

I'm willing to wait another week before hitting the panic button over DVDSP updates, but I can pretty much guarantee that I won't be upgrading to FCS3 if it doesn't burn BD, even if it's nothing more than Toast level functionality.

Now the magic question is whether to get the Adobe suite for mac or bail out and start using Vegas with Windows 7.

I have FCS1 and still waiting for FCS3 to come out. Is there anyone waiting for it? May be on June 12.

>Is there anyone waiting for it?

No. Only you Jose ;-)

>May be on June 12.

And then again, maybe not.

-------

Rumors are just rumors. Those who know won't tell. Those who tell don't know. If you've waited this long then waiting some more won't hurt :-)

We *might* get a peak at FCS 3 at the WWDC but it won't be shipping then. I doubt it will be shipping before Snow Leopard. And once it does ship give it another month or so for Apple to fix the worst of the bugs.


-A

Jose

You are not alone! I have the same set up and am waiting to update.

I await with baited breath, (well not really as I use a toothbrush on a regular basis).

Regards,

Max

I'm in the middle of several projects and I've been waiting to upgrade to even FCS2 for the longest time.

I bought the FCS2 upgrade earlier this week and had to take a risk, and now I see that FCS3 may not offer Blu-Ray (which is what I wanted from FCS3 first thing)...but I'm not going to lose faith just yet. Apple has disappointed but has also continued to surprise us...so we'll see what happens at WWDC...

OK, it might help some people with AVCHD, but no BD support (hardware and software) there is hardly any point in getting the upgrade. FCS2 Compressor was a major step back imo (as far as simplicity). To be honest I'd rather buy a new version on Clipwrap2 instead of spending a wad of money on minor upgrades

The WWDC keynote is today at 10:00 am pacific (1:00 eastern) so we only have a few hours to go before we can be officially disappointed :)

Macrumors compiled a list of rumors, and of course most of them revolve around that damn phone. It's supposed to do video now (shudder) so maybe we'll get iMovie for iPhone.

They also listed a little info on Snow Leopard and some possible laptop bumps, but that's about it.

Indeed very disappointing. Wining more then an hour about a telephone but nothing about Final Cut Studio 3. I guess we'll now have to wait until IBC 2009 in Amsterdam, and that's in september!

I wonder if we'll just get a generic announcement later this summer? No event, just an announcement. If they're avoiding announcing stuff at existing, non-Apple events, I doubt they'll announce at IBC 09.

Heath

I wonder if we'll just get a generic announcement later this summer? No event, just an announcement. If they're avoiding announcing stuff at existing, non-Apple events, I doubt they'll announce at IBC 09.

Heath

I would not be surprised if Apple just held a Press event where they demoed the latest versions of not only Final Cut Studio but Logic Studio and Apeture.

I'd presume this event would be coming upon the launch of Snow Leopard and would showcase optimizations and multi-core benefits of the OS with regard to how they benefit Pro users.

Harrison, I think you're right--nothing until Snow Leopard is out. From what we've heard, rumor-wise, FCS 3 may need Snow Leopard to run the best (probably not necessary but it will help), and I doubt PowerPC processors will be supported. That's about 1/2 the people I know buying new systems, if that's the case.

Heath

Harrison, I think you're right--nothing until Snow Leopard is out. From what we've heard, rumor-wise, FCS 3 may need Snow Leopard to run the best (probably not necessary but it will help), and I doubt PowerPC processors will be supported. That's about 1/2 the people I know buying new systems, if that's the case.

Heath


At first I was staunchly against the idea of Apple delivering a new major version of FCS on untested OS (Snow Leopard) but then NAB came and went and then it began to sink in.

1. Apple cannot deliver a 64-bit version of FCS for Leopard as it doesn't support it.
2. The features of Snow Leopard like OpenCL and Grand Central Dispatch are tailore made for Pro apps running on beefier hardware.
3. PowerPC support makes debugging and Quality Assurance harder.
4. Every Apple Pro app has gone through the same "hibernation" with little updates or word about future versions.


All in all this leads me to believe that the next Pro apps will be 64-bit and thus Intel only and they will be multi-core savvy. You may as well doing a good ole single day event ...show them all running on a fast Mac Pro and let the Press go crazy.

Well, if they're going to make it 100% Intel, might as well make it 100% Snow Leopard. Looks like I'll need to get that MacBook Pro upgrade, though the 13" and 15" models don't have ExpressCard/34 slots (BOO!).

Heath

Well, if they're going to make it 100% Intel, might as well make it 100% Snow Leopard. Looks like I'll need to get that MacBook Pro upgrade, though the 13" and 15" models don't have ExpressCard/34 slots (BOO!).

Heath

Oh yes ..that was a point I forgot to make. Any developer that choses to support only Intel pretty much has to just support Snow Leopard since the only reason to support Leopard is if you have PPC clients to support.

You know I wonder when Firewire 3200 is finally going to rear its head. I was doing a bit of fact finding and basically the circuits used in FW 3200 are the same as FW800. So the physical interface should stay the same.

Now if Apple was to move towards FW 3200 next year it would lessen the blow of losing Expresscard for some people who primarily used the slot for eSATA Arrays. eSATA is still only 300MBps so FW 3200 could deliver 400MBps theoretical with a good chance of actually hitting 300MBps real world speeds.

FCS 3 may need Snow Leopard to run the best

I want 64 bit so FCS gets the memory I purchased to finally handle long sequences and thousands of clips. I want Grand Central so FCS knows how many processors I have and how to use them. I want OpenCL so FCS redlines my GPU like any half decent game does on a PC. I want QuickTime X so FCS understands colorsync and H.264.

How could FCS3 NOT be pure Snow Leopard? It needs more Cocoa!

I'm joining the camp that believes that FCS3 (or 'whatever comes next') is a sort of waypoint watershed 'end of the beginning'. The elephant in FCP's room is definitely becoming more and more apparent as legacy bugs remain unfixed or worked around in a pretty little dance. FCP is a classic, and the bodywork and interior are cool, but the chassis is creaking.

So (hopefully) Apple has made a new chassis with a pretty much unchanged cockpit layout and the same lines with a few new grace notes to distract you from the huge shift below. Okay, so you may need to run Snow Leopard. And why not? So you may need to ditch the PowerPC. There comes a time for any computer. Yes, there will be cock-ups. There will be problems. The editing Cavalry will have to wait for the Infantry to do their job, but at last we will have progress.

Sheesh, sounding like that chap in 1984.

Matt,

You're right, there are still a few bugs here and there that haven't been fixed yet, though it looks like the High Quality DVD encode in Compressor, that was always giving many of us bad video, was fixed in the last major updates. Along with Export to QuickTime Conversion (thank you, H.264) which always gave me ugly QuickTimes.

Heath