FCP X Now available to buy and download from App Store

[Ryan Douthit]

There are plenty of professionals producing for YouTube and other online video outlets (and getting paid a fair amount). Yes, there are cat videos, but to equate all YouTube producers with Uncle Bob is simply incorrect. I see FCP X as providing a new rapid edit environment, which should suit my sport productions quite well - especially the ESPN.com "we need it hours after the finals wrap" schedules.

And, I don't have any problem with not importing the old projects. I would never move a job from an old editor to a new version before it's completed.

[Craig Seeman]

Originally Posted by Barry Gribble

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.

You won't because Apple doesn't talk about these things. You can look at Apple's business model. They're all about ecosystem and even the tiny (compared to iPad/iPhone) market feeds an important strategic niche in the system.

I've heard from people who have talked with Apple directly. While they can't say details due to NDAs they have said Apple/FCPX has said they intend to support the Pro Video Post part of the ecosystem.

[Barry Gribble]

Originally Posted by Ryan Douthit

There are plenty of "professionals" producing for YouTube and other online video outlets (and getting paid a fair amount). Yes, there are cat videos, but to equate all YouTube producers with Uncle Bob is simply incorrect.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to make that assertion. When I say "professional" product, I mean one that will fit in to a professional post house for doing broadcast stuff.

Certainly there are tons of people making money who need no more features than what FCPX delivers. And that is exactly my point. You are their new main market, and I don't think they have any regrets about that.

Craig - in terms of whispers that they will be evolving the product to meet professional needs... they failed so horribly with this release on that, I don't think anyone will be waiting around. Certainly no one who needs to buy equipment today or train new people today are going to use FCPX hoping that they fix it, and they aren't going to use FCP7 (which they likely can't even buy) betting that one day Apple will change course and fix FCPX and then they'll make that jump.

It would be a hard sell even if Apple WAS saying that they'd upgrade it, but they're not.

Professionals who have spent significant money buying monitors, decks, plug-ins, etc, who have now seen that investment shown a dead end road are not going to sink another dime in to Final Cut.

And me... starting a new project today and given the choice of FCP7 which has no upgrade path, or Premiere which certainly does... which does a sensible person pick?

[Zach Love]

Originally Posted by Ryan Douthit

And, I don't have any problem with not importing the old projects. I would never move a job from an old editor to a new version before it's completed.

My first problem is that I'm never finished with all the jobs I'm working on at one time. There will always be open & ongoing projects on my plate. Yeah I can have FCP 7 & FCP X installed at the same time, but I think that just proves that FCP X isn't ready yet, at best it is a Beta release that only is 60% done.

What is going to happen when FCP X2 & FCP X3 come out? Will I still need to have FCP 7 on my computer for the rest of time? It happens all the time when I get a call for a completed project, that someone wants the graphics to be changed, but everything else the same. Or maybe they just want a few tweaks to a project from 4 years ago.

In 2015 & even today, I don't want to switch the NLE I'm using, just because I'm working on an older project.

To me it is like Apple coming out with a new iPod / iPhone / iTunes that doesn't play mp3s. What to listen to your old music? Time to start from scratch.

[Craig Seeman]

Barry, there's no reason to wait for FCPX develop if waiting is a hinderance. It will happen. That's not the same as it will happen fast enough.

I think we'll see major improvements within 6 months. Apple has said major updates should happen once or twice a year rather than 18 months or longer (as was the case with disc and ship).

If you're building a facility you can not do it with FCPX today. If you're expanding a facility you can't buy new seats of FCS anymore.

There's lots of very good reasons that a business can't wait.

None of that precludes that FCPX will eventually be an advanced professional product used by high end professionals working in a collaborative environment. BTW Thunderbolt is very much part of it. Just because others can use it doesn't mean Apple wasn't thinking of how their products can use it. I can speculate there but I wont.

Given the lows cost of movement between NLEs, someone moving back to Premiere or Avid today may well move back to FCPX when it's more capable. It happened the first time when FCP progressed. As to whether people/facilities will be emotionally inclined to do that, that's up to Apple's marketing and whether FCPX workflow is "killer" vs just competitive.

There's no reason to base today's business decision on a future promise. That doesn't mean the promise won't come to pass though. The indicators, to me, are that it will. People will reevaluate when those days come to pass.

[Marc Hangl]

Hi Guys
Been interesting following this thread and taking in peoples opinions.
I have a quick question about the new version of compressor for those who have downloaded it - I know technically not fcpx, but as it was formerly part of the fcp suite i think it is relevant

The question is basically is it quicker, any differences in quality of the exports, any differences good or bad

thanks

marc

[Justin Benn]

[removed because it was surplus to requirements]

[Louis Maddalena]

So its been a while since I've added any information to this thread but I have been reading it.

Here is what I have to add to the thread for those people who are thinking about buying it or those who have but haven't really played with it much.

Having worked in a education environment (school), a professional environment (work) and on side projects for weddings and such in the past couple of years I feel I have adequate experience in editing to give real feedback.

First, I have to say that if you work in a typical production environment that is not a one-man-band, you're not going to be able to much of anything with this software. Your projects and footage need to be stored on the same system that you're working on (as far as I've been able to tell so far) meaning that you will not be able to work from servers and remote drives over your fibre network. Also, you can't version, or import or export a variety of formats that have already been covered in this thread.

Although, this software is no where near ready to be used in a production environment, I can see how the one-man-bands, like wedding videographers, short film makers, youtube producers, etc. are going to enjoy using this software. I have been cutting together some footage to test and learn X and I have found it to be buggy for somethings (ex, I can't rename folders, and I've had a few problems with keywords), and as mentioned it doesn't do much. But what it does do... it does well. Editing is fast, rendering in the background is great and the magnetic timeline does have its benefits once you get used to it (however, it can be extremely annoying in the first couple hours of getting used to the system when you want to put a clip in one location and the timeline won't let you)

So yes, this software is not amazing, and it needs a lot of work, but it is functional and can be useful to you if you are a one man band kind of a producer. I'm keeping 7, thats not even a question. However, I'm going to keep trying to get used to this because once its stable and they add features that we all miss, I want to be ahead of the game on actually knowing how to use it.

[Louis Maddalena]

Originally Posted by Marc Hangl

Hi Guys
Been interesting following this thread and taking in peoples opinions.
I have a quick question about the new version of compressor for those who have downloaded it - I know technically not fcpx, but as it was formerly part of the fcp suite i think it is relevant

The question is basically is it quicker, any differences in quality of the exports, any differences good or bad

thanks

marc

I haven't had the opportunity to actually use it, however, I can tell you that it is much easier to use the new version as a qmaster node than the previous version. After I get to the point of exporting a project through fcpx through the new compressor I'll post a review of what I think of it.

[David Tamés]

Originally Posted by Zach Love

My first problem is that I'm never finished with all the jobs I'm working on at one time [...] What is going to happen when FCP X2 & FCP X3 come out? Will I still need to have FCP 7 on my computer for the rest of time? It happens all the time when I get a call for a completed project, that someone wants the graphics to be changed, but everything else the same. Or maybe they just want a few tweaks to a project from 4 years ago.[...] I don't want to switch the NLE I'm using, just because I'm working on an older project [...]

This is the scenario that has me very concerned. I would have thought that Apple would have thought this through, but sometimes "insanely great" means a total break from the past. I had hoped for many years that a good XML inport and export architecture would resolve these issues, the ideal way to back up a project would be to collect the media and an XML document represents the project and then anytime in the future you could rework the project.

The optimist in me thinks (wishes, hopes) that Final Cut Pro projects will be importable eventually via an XML mechanism. But that probably requires some software magic to accommodate the radically different interface semantics between the two applications in terms of how the timeline is structured.

[Oliver Neubert]

Originally Posted by 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?

I am using FCP7 and will do so in the near future. but it hasn't been good enough for a while. Most things we do today are HD and with a few effects or anything that needs rendering, speed has become an issue. I cannot work the way I like, the system is slowing me down. (running current 8-core MacPro) So I was looking forward to FCP finally becoming 64 bit, I expected a similar performance increase as Adobe demonstrated when they switched to 64 bit. And the speed of FCP X is WOW! its what I wished for in speed and it lets me hope that someday they might fix it.

i just got back from the London Supermeet. Interesting. Larry Jordan was there as well as a few representatives from 3rd party developers. From Larry's comments and (informed) answers to questions, all the necessary "hooks" to fix issues like OMF, XML and such are present in the software but Apple leaves it open to third party developers to come up with answers and solutions. Same with i/o card support.

What still worries me is the apparent shift in priorities to (again) CNN iReport and similar consumer tricks.
What I heard from a representative of a 3rd party developer was a rumor that Lion will not support FCP7.

Some people need to set up an edit station, but FCS is not available any more and FCP X is unusable in a productive environment.

I installed it on one non-production machine, I will play with it and learn, get comfortable with the new approach observe the issues, problems and wait for updates.

[Barry Gribble]

If Lion doesn't support FCP7 that's going to force the issue pretty quickly and eliminate the option of running FCP 7 and FCPX concurrently until they sort it out.

Who wants to be left running an out of date editing system (which FCP7 was when it came out) on an out of date operating system, all in hopes that Apple will change its strategy and support pros.

[Josh Dahlberg]

Originally Posted by Dom Stevenson

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?

FCP7 is not good enough for me anymore. When you service a core group of loyal clients, you frequently dip into past projects for elements (titles, cutaways etc) and as Zach says, you often return (sometimes years later) to make a minor change at the client's request.

X isn't ready for action. But starting new projects in FCP7 doesn't make a lot of sense when you know the program is in its death throws.

Even if/when X allows me to use my Blackmagic Card, XF files, production monitor, plugins, I can see there are some features of X that look irksome: the inability to quickly export discrete portions of a sequence (which I do all the time) and the media management interface being the prime two.

Looks like it's time to give Adobe a go.

[Bart Walczak]

Originally Posted by Oliver Neubert

From Larry's comments and (informed) answers to questions, all the necessary "hooks" to fix issues like OMF, XML and such are present in the software but Apple leaves it open to third party developers to come up with answers and solutions. Same with i/o card support.

In such case it was very clever for them not to allow the third parties access to code API before the launch.

I guess the $299 price is just bait and switch then or the marketing team is in damage control mode.

/sarcasm mode off

[Simon Wood]

The Inevitable video (but sums up what I've been hearing effectively enough):

YouTube - ‪Hitler hates FCP X‬‏