FCS 3... anyone care to guess?

[Alex Sprinkle]

In all honesty, I'm really only concerned about DVDSP's new version. If it can't burn blu-ray, I will hand write a letter to apple showing my frustration ... that'll teach 'em!

Seriously, though, that's really THE update I care about.

[Christopher Drews]

Honestly, Apple should really focus on perfecting their product before an update. Fix Media Manger (Media Mangler), Fix that annoying 1 frame transition, Fix the media offline bug that hangs compressor every time (or give me a choice) - there are loads of documented errors that affect workflow and these errors detract from Apple's "just works" product image.
-C

[Matthew Nayman]

They need to fix their Crossfade system when dealing with pure shades of grey. I recently did a whole series of crossfades between a 3D CGI sphere on an 18% grey background, and the fade quality was awful. Jumps in brightness and darkness at the head and tail of each fade. Had to do them in AE instead.

[Matt Davis]

Originally Posted by Christopher Drews

Apple's "just works" product image.

I think they meant "just about works".

Originally Posted by Matthew Nayman

fade quality was awful. Jumps in brightness and darkness at the head and tail of each fade. Had to do them in AE instead.

There are a number of third party dissolves that fix this in a myriad of ways, though I'll often ramp down the transparency or nest a keyed animation to do the transition.

There's probably a reason rather than a bug - an RGB process applied to a YUV colour space, note I didn't say 'good reason'.

Lots of things are broken in FCP. Silly little things - it feels like an Italian motorcycle. There are lots of features that are missing in FCP that shouldn't be. Reliable media management, scrolling sequence window, and so on.

SoundTrack Pro still throws a nasty wobbly if you take a stereo source to mono then start applying effects. DVD Studio Pro is full of subclauses, riders and small print (have to check paths to see which DVD you're burning rather than 'assuming' it's the current project). LiveType's virtually nailed to its perch, Color is, frankly, scary and vicious for most FCP users. I won't moan about Motion...

But Snow Leopard is all about making Leopard work in the game changing manner that it was supposed to be (fixing all that nonsense with unrealised multicore benefits) rather than a shiny new operating system.

So Apple's probably doing the right thing in theory. But I don't want to pay (and probably pay nasally at that) for what amounts to a slew of bug fixes.

Footnote: I shouldn't complain. I have a notebook somewhere with all the cryptic, idiotic and all too regular error messages I encountered that made our old Avid suite grind to a halt - plus the selection of numbers to call (at great expense) - frequently in the middle of the night. This system was kept locked away from mere mortals and had a 'laying on of hands' twice a year, yet was as stable as a blancmange on acid.

Hence Apple's pseudo promise of "just (about) works" was good enough for me.

[Christopher Ruffell]

Originally Posted by Matt Daviss

I think they meant "just about works".
it feels like an Italian motorcycle. There are lots of features that are missing in FCP that shouldn't be.

I, as many FCS users do, agree. I could sit all day discussing problems.. it's a great program, but I'd rather they pulled a Snow Leopard and fixed the back end, rather than add features. That said, it is missing features.

I wonder if they're moving the suite to Cocoa? It's clearly a Carbon-based app (been using it since version 1). With no MacWorld in the future, it sure does mean we're at Apple's whim on updates, when they announce and release. Snow Leopard is supposed to be soon, right.. so perhaps FCS3 will be as well.

[Chris Hocking]

For anyone's who's interested, here are my Final Cut Studio 3 predictions.

Here's a snippet:

So what will make this new FCX so different? Well, it’s our prediction that most of the Final Cut Studio (i.e. Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro, Color, LiveType, etc.) will be merged into the one application. We predict a MASSIVE interface and workflow overhaul. No longer will you need to Send to Soundtrack Pro, or use XML workarounds to get your timeline into Color. Everything will be in the one “box”. In typical Apple style - we predict they’ll make things better, by making them substantially simpler.

[Denise Wall]

Originally Posted by Chris Hocking

For anyone's who's interested, here are my Final Cut Studio 3 predictions.

Here's a snippet:

Thanks. Very interesting predictions. I'm glad I've been with FCP since the beginning. I can't imagine trying to learn all that (you predict) at once now.

[Liza Witz]

I too am eagerly awaiting the next release of Final Cut Studio. I'm also pretty familiar with the internals of OS X, the application platform, am a software developer, know Cocoa, go to WWDC regularly and am under NDA to Apple.

I won't comment on Chris's predictions for the program, because they are mostly about the features of the program, and I am not privy to that level of info (nor would I reveal it if I were).

I will say that I believe he's on the right track about there being a major overhaul. Apple is working on an overhaul of Quicktime called Quicktime X. It is a significant effort. Apple is also working on some very fundamental technologies in Snow Leopard that are directly relevant to Final Cut Studio. I'm being deliberately vague here-- as that's as close as I'll come to violating an NDA. The rest is public info-- Additionally, Apple has had some interesting success with the new UI of iMovie, and Apple is a company that hates to have products look stale-- just look at the changes in the Pro laptop line since 2001-- they started with "titanium" and while the machines are still grey, each one is fresh and the style changes on almost a yearly basis. I know, that may sound silly, but Apple is keen to have quality UI, and Final Cut is a product of the 1990s, and it is really starting to show its age. Final Cut is, also, a massive, professional level product and you can't just put a new UI on it in a short period of time.

You put this together and it points to Apple working on a fundamentally new Final Cut.

However, Apple is a careful company and this is a big product.

Thus we may get Snow Leopard, and then a new release of Final Cut that uses the new backend, and exploits the new OS capabilities, but hasn't really changed in usability. Performance might be the primary new feature.

I can say -- given all these facts and watching Apple for the past two decades-- that a major new Final Cut front end (on the level Chris describes) is in development now. I'd bet really good money on it. But that may not be the next release. That may be the spring 2010 release. It depends on how far along it is, and nobody knows that.

I disagree that they will call it "Extreme". That word is seems out of date, and they only used it on wireless adapters. If they don't call it Final Cut Studio 3, I think they will call it Final Cut Studio X. Or maybe we'll get 3 this year and X next year with the new UI.

At any rate, I expect we'll see Snow Leopard announced/shipping this summer at WWDC, and the next Final Cut in September or October.

I hate to say that-- because I want it now, and I would really like for it to be released in April or May. But that's my best guess.

[Heath McKnight]

Apple released new Mac Pros... WITHOUT Blu-ray burners

Apple - Mac Pro - The fastest and most powerful Mac ever.

I'm getting worried, because if they aren't putting them in, they probably aren't supporting BD authoring.

heath

[Ethan Cooper]

Apple didn't give us BluRay in the "Year of HD"... or the year after that... or the year after that...
I give up.

[Robert Lane]

There is a list of "must have" updates that FCS2 would need to have before most of the current user base would consider dropping precious cash for a newer version and BR is just one of many. However when you look at recent decisions Apple has made it's almost as if they're priming us not to expect too much from future pro-software offerings.

Since Apple officially told the world they have "no plans to support BR in the near future..." then that means DVDSP4 would get... what exactly? HD-DVD is dead so there's no further development there. And there's not much else that can be done for DVD authoring other than to bring in some more features not currently offered or, to revamp the user interface. But that's a non-starter, the public is demanding HD not more SD-DVD's.

Final Cut totally needs a makeover; from media & render file management to more native file support the list of "I need this..." updates being requested (if not demanded) by the user-base is long. One would think that since Apple has abandoned BR (for now) that they'd refocus their efforts towards the core of FCS but there's nothing to indicate they are or would.

In fact when you consider what Apple chose to do with their hardware offerings recently - by making the laptops "pretty" and reducing their functionality (no FW400 and no removable batts in the 17" inch) and putting in a slightly faster CPU in the new towers (and removing FW400 there too) - nothing they are doing tells me that they are ramping up to support their pro users as we want to be. In fact it feels more like they're trying to get pro-users to get used to more consumer-grade hardware by concentrating more on aesthetics than utility.

Not to mention that in a time when the economy continues to sink lower daily, Apple's head of sales still has his head in "Apple-land" as prices continue to increase for their hardware.

My advice is this: If you're new to pro-video and you're on a tight budget want to purchase one of the best, all-around NLE's then FCS will suit you well. If you're a FCS2 user and are hoping that version 3 will be a glorious update, prepare to be disappointed. And if you're sick and tired of FCS "media mangler" and render-file handling and are hoping version 3 will fix it, forget about it and move over to Avid.

[Mike Marriage]

Please make FCP 6 allow you an option to automatically reset the scratch disk for each project!!

I use a load of different hard drives depending on whether I need to take my work around on a laptop etc and this would be SO helpful and so easy to implement!

[Shaun Roemich]

Originally Posted by Robert Lane

And if you're sick and tired of FCS "media mangler" and render-file handling and are hoping version 3 will fix it, forget about it and move over to Avid.

Thought about it but AVID at the MC level only has 2 external I/O options, if I understand correctly and the only "flavours" of HD that Nitris wants to talk is HD-SDI. That's a deal breaker for me. If I could get AJA IO HD or Matrox MXO2 like interfaces with abundant IO options, I'd look far more seriously at Media Composer. Unless I'm wrong about IO options...

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

March 24th Event to Focus on Software? - Mac Rumors

[Heath McKnight]

Mathieu,

I think it'll happen, and if it doesn't happen on that day, it will happen anytime before NAB. Apple is done with trade shows--they said as much before NAB 2008.

heath