FCP X Now available to buy and download from App Store

[Sergio Perez]

Dom,

I think getting a 15" would be a safer bet, specially due to the better graphics card. The processor of the 13" is good enough, however, I'm not sure about the graphics card, and FCPX is a heavy user of the graphics card...

[Bart Walczak]

Hayden, Adobe has excellent pricing on education software, check them out. Also, Premiere is very similar to FCP in terms of operation, including a possibility to change your keyboard shortcuts to FCP ones. There are some differences, of course, but not that many, and not that important in my opinion.

My take on FCP X is that it looks like their software engineers said "we need more time", and the management said "we need a new version now! What can we have? We'll deal with the rest later."
I have not downloaded the app, so I can't comment, but that was my impression from what you guys wrote.

However, it might be that they really for some reason decided to make some not so wise decisions in development. Perhaps they wanted to ride on the FCP brand, but this release and lack of support for FCP7 seems to actually be a huge blow for the FCP brand in the professional market.

Also, so far the lesson seems to be: don't get bought by Apple if you want your product to go on. :)

[William Hohauser]

"X" is a new program charting untested waters. It is not "7" in anyway except that it's an editing program with Apple integration. It is missing support for many pro features that FCP also didn't have at the beginning many years ago. As with FCP, third party or updated Apple programming will fill the gaps as time moves on.

I will not use this program for major client work until I feel I have a reasonable understanding of the program, transitions and titling especially. I already have reconstructed several small projects as tests and I have to say that the program is very impressive and the help menu is informative when I get confused. Much of my work is either disc bound, web bound or files bound for transfer at outside dub facilities so I feel that FCPX is mature enough for much of my work. The client who needs tape delivery and I have the decks, well FCP7 is still there and working well.

[Brian Grossman]

One point that I've seen referenced several times is the inability to capture footage from tape. According to the review on Ken Stone's website, this is FALSE. It is simply found under the "import" option now, where you will select "import from camera".

Alot of great info here, though. I think I'll stay on the fence for now and continue using FCP 6 until I see how this all plays out!

Brian

[Andy Wilkinson]

I was working in the centre of Cambridge this morning so after I'd finished I nipped into the Apple store in the hope of trying out FCPX for a little while (basically to get a bit of a feel as what all the fuss is about for myself...).

Unfortunately, they have not got FCPX loaded on any of the demo MBPs etc. in store just yet. Not sure if this is just a local delay with Apple here in Cambridge or mostly UK wide - but I bet you can try it at Apple's main London store.

Looks like I'll be keeping hold of my money a little longer!

[David Parks]

Brian,

Actually it is true and false. Youi can capture DV or HDV tape formats via firewire. However, you cannot currently capture/or/digital cut via HD-SDI through Matrox or Aja or even legacy componenet analog.

See. most post facilities/TV stations etc., big and small, commercial and corporate, even one man bands,,invested a lot of money in capture cards,,,and FCP X clearly didn't address the fact that a lot of workflows are based on SDI capture.

A facility with multiple edit suites are usually connected with a central control room that has tape machines, digital routers, etc. Again, a massive investment in dollars. FCP X, at this stage would not fit into a facility style workflow at all,, as I see it.

Cheers
Edit: I left out DVCPro HD and DVCAM tape formats via firewire.

[Oliver Neubert]

I am getting angry at apple for this release.

At our company, we have invested a lot of money into the finalcut workflow.

If I look at my shopping list of urgently needed features (ability to save Versions - Save As..., OMF, Mutliclip, Monitoring, SDI and on and on) I am very skeptic if they will be able to implement all this within a reasonable timeframe to earn the pro back...

Without all the necessary Pro elements, this cannot even be called iMovie Pro.

Who the hell gave the developers input for what is needed and what not?
CNN iReport? YouTube? really???? wtf...

[Dom Stevenson]

Sergio

Already checked the graphics card requirements and the 13 has one that is recommended, so i don't see that as a problem.
Obviously the 15 would be better, but it costs a lot more, and i like the smaller size. I also have a 23" Apple Cinema Display for a good view. I'd rather spend the saved cash on a 256 SSD card and a thunderbolt drive when they arrive.
If i decide i need a more powerful set up down the line, i'll get an imac as they are superb machines right now. My Mac Pro is going on Ebay this week.

[Dom Stevenson]

Oliver

You still have FCP7 i take it?

Why not just use that till X is ready for your work?

I agree it's a little odd for Apple to put out an APP that is not ready yet, but nobody is forcing you to use it. I shall wait until it's up and running. There's no hurry. Or is FCP7 not good enough for you anymore?

[David Parks]

My big beef is how they are trying to change the terminology of editing. It is really confusing if you have been editing a long time. There is a venaculer of editing terms that has existed for many decades.

Case in point a sequence is now called a project? (Which defaults to surround sound matrix vs. stereo or single channels)
A timeline is a storyline? Okay.
A bin is called a smart collection/ (Vs. a stupid collection?)
A project is an Event? (Like my cousin's daughter graduation?)
Effect based clips in timeline ,,,umm storyline are called "Video Animations"??

Mark in and Mark outs are called selections?

A simple DVE/transform move/zoom on a still is called "Ken Burns". So, now my post supervisor/producers are going to say,, you need to add a Ken Burns to that timeline...I mean storyline..sequence...I mean project...in yesterdays event edit session??

Those stills need to be imported into a smart collection. Genius.

The more I play with this..the more I realize that I cannot even think like a seasoned editor...I have to think like my Uncle Jim editing his grandsons birthday party.

Also, we're comparing FCP X to Avid AMA. And so far it looks like I cannot edit XDCAM EX, Red, MXF, and a host of other codecs natively. If it see the qiucktime file it transcodes it to ProRes,,,which is fine but even with background rendering is nowhere near as fast as Premiere or Avid AMA native editing/ingest. Those programs direct link to the file and yo see it instantly in a bin. Which BTW, the term "bin" actually refers to "film bins" which are like laundry bins with hangers for your "film clips". I just cannot call a "bin" a "smart collections". I just cannot do it. it is my hang up I know,,but...I just can't.


I've seen enough...for professionals...Apple threw the baby out with the bath water. This is for iMovie for Video Prosumers.

[Jason Lowe]

Originally Posted by David Parks

Brian,

Actually it is true and false. Youi can capture DV or HDV tape formats via firewire. However, you cannot currently capture/or/digital cut via HD-SDI through Matrox or Aja or even legacy componenet analog.

See. most post facilities/TV stations etc., big and small, commercial and corporate, even one man bands,,invested a lot of money in capture cards,,,and FCP X clearly didn't address the fact that a lot of workflows are based on SDI capture.

A facility with multiple edit suites are usually connected with a central control room that has tape machines, digital routers, etc. Again, a massive investment in dollars. FCP X, at this stage would not fit into a facility style workflow at all,, as I see it.

Cheers
Edit: I left out DVCPro HD and DVCAM tape formats via firewire.

I'm sure Apple's solution for this is to replace all that clunky old stuff with shiny new Thunderbolt components. Your 6 month old Mac Pros don't have Thunderbolt? Too bad, cause we're not supporting add-in cards.

[Jason Lowe]

Originally Posted by Dom Stevenson

I agree it's a little odd for Apple to put out an APP that is not ready yet, but nobody is forcing you to use it. I shall wait until it's up and running. There's no hurry. Or is FCP7 not good enough for you anymore?

To be blunt, no it isn't.

FCP 7 was a stopgap measure. No 64 bit, lousy media management tools, limited BD support, etc. And that came after two years of little progress from the FCP camp. FCP X addresses a lot of this, but no one expected that they would be trading other features for these improvements. Given the pace this software is developed, it may be a long time before Apple realizes that multicam is more important than iReport.

[Daniel Trout]

Originally Posted by Michael Wisniewski

As it stands right now, I think Apple has given us a very clean way to slowly transition to this new FCP. I'm happily running FCP 7 and FCP X on the same machine. One foot in the old world, and one foot in the new. I have the opportunity to learn a new workflow, while still being able to depend on old ones. When I take a big, long term perspective, that's a pretty good place to be in.

As for new features we"ll just have to wait and see.

That does seem to be the case, and I recall a similar situation many moons ago when Apple released both the public beta of OSX, and even the first release of 10.

Those applications we had to pay for too. They were VERY limited in ability, were buggy, and had extremely limited software/hardware support. BUT, you could run OS9 on a separate partition, and even if you didn't partition, you could reboot to OS9.

Like FCPX, OSX had the EXACT same arguements made about it. "What has Apple done?" "All this hype, and we get THIS POS?" "I'm going to Windows!"

But there were also people that were looking at the infant product, thinking, "given some time, some adoption by 3rd party developers, and some constructive feedback beyond...'this sucks...why didn't you just keep developing on OS9?' this is going to be GREAT!"

I was in the latter camp at the time. I have yet to get FCPX, and I'm going to give it a little more time before I dive in. Even when I do, I'll continue to use FCP 7 on paying gigs.

Bottom line, for professionals, there's nothing wrong with Final Cut Pro 7. Yeah, you can't get it through Apple directly anymore, but there are plenty of places that still have old stock they'll sell you.

Apple didn't abandon anyone. You didn't "Upgrade" Final Cut 7. It's still there, unaltered, undamaged, and completely servicable. You've got Multicam. You've got EDL, OMF, and XML import/export. You've got external display and 3rd party card support.

Apple had a choice; Discontinue support for FCS 3 and focus everything on FCPX, or divide their efforts between 7 and 10, consequently slowing the development they've promised.

It may not be the choice YOU want, but it's the choice they made.

I think the only thing that Apple may have dropped the ball on here is in their marketing of this product. Their support pages for it clearly stated what it would and wouldn't do, but the hype lead a lot of folks to believe that all those shiny new features came with all the bells and whistles they were used to.

I don't know if I'd call it "iMovie Pro." On the current surface, maybe. But you could have called OSX 10.0 "Etch-A-Sketch Pro" too, for all the initial functionality it had, (I didn't find OSX remotely usable until 10.1. Until 10.1, I couldn't get any networking to function on my system! and it was still not great then.)

From what folks who've actually got in there and played with it have described, FCPX CURRENTLY is very responsive and fast. Once you wrap your head around the new editing style, it's VERY useful, intuitive, and logical. Background rendering is great, and the new metadata-based media management is a HUGE step in the right direction. What it DOES do, it seems to do very well. What it DOESN'T do can be corrected in a big way considering the architecture they've built it on.

In general, I think Final Cut X is a huge step in the right direction. To some folks, it looks like a step backwards, but I think time, development, and attention will correct that.

For the folks that need all those features it's missing NOW, stick with Studio 3 a while longer.

[Barry Gribble]

I've been chewing on this a bit, and here's what I think is happening:

When Apple came out with FCP in 1999, they were a company that serviced professionals. Graphic design, video, etc. And the professional video market was THE video market. There were amateur video hobbyists, but they weren't where the money was.

Now everything is different. Starting with the iPod in 2001, Apple became a company that serviced consumers - and now that focus dominates. Also in that time an entire new class of video producers evolved - people who make semi-polished videos on YouTube, avid hobbyist who make videos for fun. These people now certainly outnumber video professionals by a large margin, and they are people who are already in Apple's consumer base. They are people who are not going to spend the money or take the time to learn AVID or FCP Suite. This is a whole class of user who did not exist in 1999, and who has never had a product that fell between iMovie and FCP.

I think that FCPX is designed for exactly that person. They are not doing broadcast, they are doing YouTube. They don't need to send audio to a sound mix, the don't need to grade in Color, they don't need to drive a production monitor, they don't even need to burn DVDs -- and they never will need any of it. They outnumber video professionals and they are growing MUCH faster.

I think it's a fabulous business move for Apple to focus on them. It makes sense.

I don't believe that they will ever come back to service the the professional video market, and I don't think that they've said or done a single thing to make anyone think they will. What I hear from people here is that they think that Apple should, so of course they will. I haven't heard anything like that from Apple.

[David Parks]

Well said Barry. I think you pretty much hit the nail directly on the head. I imagine in big media production markets like you guys in L.A. , New York, and Chicago that switched from Avid to FCP and invested in collaborative relationships, infratructures, and workflows must be hugely disappointed. It is as if Apple just bowed to Adobe and Avid and said it is all yours,,we don't want the pro market anymore.

Which is sad becuse I think Apple FCP as a whole did a lot for the pro market by forcing down prices and pushed Avid and Adobe to innovate more.

Fortunately for us out here at NASA/JSC we stuck with mostly Avid. And really didn't have much choice. The amount of NASA archival footage in a wide array of formats going back to the 60's is mind boggling.

I like Apple..I edit with Avid on a MAC Pro here at work and a MAC Book Pro at home. Now I'm worried that Apple won't develop and innovate products for media professionals,,which means we go back to PC's exclusively again for Adobe and Avid ....again? Microsoft? NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Cheeers.