A Wish List for the 2011 Final Cut Studio

[Jonathan Poritsky]

Now that Steve Jobs made it clear (via a user e-mail) that Final Cut Studio will be getting an update early next year, I took some time to parse through what I think are the biggest improvements Final Cut Studio needs. The most important, I think, is an update to DVD Studio Pro. It's remained mostly unchanged for 5 years. Also the interfaces of each app may be in need of an overhaul.

[Dominik Seibold]

It should include my RGB-curves plug-in by default. ;)

[Jonathan Poritsky]

Originally Posted by Dominik Seibold

It should include my RGB-curves plug-in by default. ;)

Well that would be lovely now wouldn't it? But then it wouldn't be *yours* anymore, would it?

Scroll down my piece and you'll see I ask for a plugin App Store. How does that sound to you?

[Arnie Schlissel]

I'll tell you what I want:

Native image sequences. At least .tiff, .tga, .png, .dpx (with seamless log to lin, of course), and while we're at it, .exr, .jpg and .j2k. It makes no sense that an edit platform with finishing tools like Color can't work with commonly used native image sequences.

Native AVCI and h.264. Other people do it.

Leverage my graphics card to provide better real time performance. Limit my choices of graphics cards if you have to, people like me will gladly upgrade for the benefit.

Native stereoscopic 3D editing. This couuld work similar to multiclip where you line up your clips & sync them by timecode or inpoint. Let me choose my 3D display method (which color anaglyph, or side by side, top & bottom, interlace (row, column or checkerboard) or dual-link SDI. And let me adjust the 3D alignment (with keyframes) as needed. In real time, since I sprang for the fatter graphics board!

Tracking.

Rotoscoping. With point by point softening. Both b-splines & Beziers.

Upgrade the 3-way CC to add vignettes or roto-mattes, similar to Color.

A little bit of paint. Just enough for dustbusting, rig removal & some cool write on effects.

Nodal compositing.

You know, when I look at this, It looks like I want FCP to be more like Smoke! But these are all features that I can use now, on projects I've recently worked on.

[Evan Donn]

From a functionality standpoint I can't think of too many things I'd like to see, primarily better media management both in browser & in moving projects. It would be nice to see a more unified interface across the apps, and both Compressor and Color could really do with a major interface overhaul. Couldn't care less about DVD studio pro, haven't had a need to make DVDs in years, no Blu-ray at all, and for online interactive stuff I can build whatever I need in html/javascript or flash.

[Josh Bass]

Track level effects. . .i.e. apply audio/video filter to entire track so all clips on said track would have that effect

-an easier way to select "target tracks" (I think this is the term). For instance, if I copy a clip, I should be able to simply click anywhere on a track, to make that the target track, and then paste the clip on that track. I hate the auto select/router thingies. Sorry.

-easier way to select v1, a1, a2, or all of those or any of those when doing basic editing, dragging from the preview window to the timeline.

-undo history

-I would like to see it tell me what I'm undoing when I undo. Sometimes I click something accidentally, and have no idea what I did. It'd be nice if said "undo paste clip" or whatever I just mistakenly did.

The list goes on. These are just a few.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Better use of the hardware, less rendering time, within FCP.

Ow, and a seperate capture window/program. Yes, tape is on it's way out, but we still have to capture tapes, and not being able to use Final Cut while capturing a 4 hour tape is a pain.

[Mike Marriage]

An option to link scratch drives to specific projects.

I often work from different external drives and it's a pain to have to set them every time I switch between projects.

[Jonathan Poritsky]

I'm curious what everyone thinks of possible (probable?) interface changes. Lion is coming, whether we like it or not, and with it comes enhanced multi-touch gestures and an OS-wide focus on Fullscreen, state-saving apps. No one knows what the Final Cut team is going to do, but we do know that the overall interface of FCP has been virtually unchanged since v1.2.5.

Personally, I think the studio suite, strictly from a design and usablility standpoint, is a mess. Most of apps don't "match" in terms of window/panel/tab interfaces and they don't take into account multi-touch advances from the last few years. For the most part, it's still a mouse-and-keyboard environment. Which isn't to say we should change for the sake of changing, but is there a way that Apple could gradually bring the interface up to date? Will there be a mass exodus if they nix the window/panels in FCP in favor of a single window but configurable display?

Either way, I'm excited. FCP, is still the best in my opinion, but changes are always going to come. They've basically maxed out the transition, plugin and codec as upgrade market. I think an interface overhaul is next. What do you all think?

[Josh Bass]

Then you basically have to relearn the program. . .not good, in my opinion.

Take MS Word.

Whatever recent version it is that came out for PCs (I use them for work sometimes). . .I have no idea where anything is! Why did word need to be changed? It didn't!

[Jordan Hooper]

- 64 bit for all apps in the suite.

- ability to create simple 3d objects in Motion (ie, real 3d text)

- more of the features that After Effects has.

[Jonathan Poritsky]

The more I think about what Final Cut 8 will look like, the more I think it is going to look like a cross between Aperture and Final Cut. For that matter, the more I *want* to act more like Aperture. If you look at where 10.7 Lion is going and how many of the features of Aperture fit with a lot of the requests people have, it seems like an inevitability that the two applications would collide, much like Camcorders and DSLRs have already collided. Extensive thoughts, if you please: Final Aperture Pro, An Idea for What’s to Come

[Hamish Reid]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Poritsky

The more I think about what Final Cut 8 will look like, the more I think it is going to look like a cross between Aperture and Final Cut. For that matter, the more I *want* to act more like Aperture. If you look at where 10.7 Lion is going and how many of the features of Aperture fit with a lot of the requests people have, it seems like an inevitability that the two applications would collide, much like Camcorders and DSLRs have already collided. Extensive thoughts, if you please: Final Aperture Pro, An Idea for What’s to Come

I think the two things I've long most wanted most from any putative FCP 8 are:

1. An app that looks and behaves like a modern OS X app; and,
2. An app that does for video what something like Lightroom does for photography.

You've covered the first point several times, so I won't touch on it any further (it's a don't-get-me-started topic :-)); my second wish is sort of covered by your new article (Lightroom and Aperture are pretty similar, at least conceptually). Yes, I really really (really) wish I could browse media anywhere within a repository (or whatever we call it), associated keywords and other metadata with one or hundreds of clips with a few clicks of a mouse and keyboard, associate a clip or group of clips with one or more specific projects, search for clips by keyword or length or attribute, have optional mouse-over animated thumbnails, process groups of clips together, etc. -- all the sorts of things I can do for images in Lightroom. The current FC browser always seems like something from 1992.

All else is optional :-). (Actually, I'd like slightly better audio features, but I can't have everything...).

[Jonathan Poritsky]

Originally Posted by Hamish Reid

(Actually, I'd like slightly better audio features, but I can't have everything...).

There's another don't get me started. Mapping audio in Final Cut for output, or even for a multi-track Quicktime, is terrible. They don't need to bring all of the functionality of Soundtrack Pro into Final Cut, but would it hurt to make the audio tracks look a little more like an audio track? Right now it's identical to the video track. Even just a mapping audio dropdown menu instead of the "right click in gray space to left of media but before the green ball" method. Time will tell.

Sidenote: Anyone remember the Final Cut Extreme rumors from January 2006? There was talk of 64-bit apps and a hardware-accelerated break-out box. Almost 5 years on and even the most mundane of those rumors haven't been delivered on. Supposedly the FCP team built Aperture, then was needed on Snow Leopard or something. Who knows anymore.

[Aaron Fowler]

Originally Posted by Josh Bass

Take MS Word.

Whatever recent version it is that came out for PCs (I use them for work sometimes). . .I have no idea where anything is! Why did word need to be changed? It didn't!

I'm thankful that nothing has changed in the Mac version of Word. :) Maybe it'll be the same for Final Cut.

I'm surprised no ones said anything yet about Bluray in DVD Studio Pro! I'm just hoping there's something in the New Final Cut Studio that's worth the upgrade, don't really care what it is, just as long as it something useful (and hopefully works like it says on the box).