Hurry Up Apple

[Steve Connor]

Despite all these efforts from Adobe, they still haven't managed to get anywhere near the FCP user base, however if Apple keep us waiting much longer then I expect that situation to start to change.

FWIW I think that if the new FCP arrives and it leverages 64 bit Snow Leopard and Open CL it will be well worth waiting for.

[Robert Lane]

Originally Posted by William Hohauser

$2550? And no SDI or other standard HD input besides HDV over FireWire? Yeesh! I wonder how it handles files from the SDHC card.

I agree; that's not a "pro" device at all. There is a professional, rack-mounted BR burner used for creating master copies for the glass-mastering process for replicators but it's a $10k+ device and last I heard (last winter) the unit was on limited production and demand is outstripping supply by a factor of 100-1 making for an almost 6-month back-order log. Rumor has it that by the time that company (produced in the EU) gets around to ramping up production Sony, Panny or even JVC will come to market with a lower-priced competitor, so if you're hot for a replication-standard burner wait until late summer and you *should* be getting your wish.

[Robert Lane]

Originally Posted by Steve Connor

Despite all these efforts from Adobe, they still haven't managed to get anywhere near the FCP user base, however if Apple keep us waiting much longer then I expect that situation to start to change.

FWIW I think that if the new FCP arrives and it leverages 64 bit Snow Leopard and Open CL it will be well worth waiting for.

Actually that's hype and not reality. Up until my inside contact left Adobe for Dolby Labs 3 weeks ago their research showed that the new license installs for PP CS4 in 2009 did in fact outpace FCP by a small margin. But that is *only* Mac installs, when you consider that PP is cross-platfom and combine the PC and Mac userbase license counts in the past 3 years alone the actual PP installs has a footprint 5x or more larger than FCP.

We Mac users have a habit of thinking we rule the roost in pro A/V because of FCP's popularity and Apple's visible and glossy marketing but the fact is our PC counterparts outnumber us by a *huge* margin, both in one-man-band shops and pro post houses.

However I agree: If (big *if*) Apple comes to the table with an uber-advanced/updated FC suite then it'll be a whole new ballgame.

Time will tell - and it's worth waiting a few months before pulling out the wallet to find out.

[Steve Connor]

I would doubt those figures personally

I'd agree that PPro may be gaining ground in one man band shops, but I don't know a single Pro post house that uses it.

[Andy Mees]

>... solely so he and his grandson could share some Blu-Ray movies on a wide-screen while in their first class seats on the way to the UK for a family vacation ... "compelling proof that the market has spoken".

I'll bet if he tells his grandson that he took back a state of the art Mac laptop because it didn't play BluRay then his grandson will wonder incredulously what the old fella's whole deal is and why on earth he didn't just watch one or two of his favorite movie downloads or something ... or indeed why he couldn't have just bought him the iPod or iPad that he'd really wanted all along anyway ;-)

Ok, lets assume that your compelling proof was meant in jest anyway, nonetheless your two questions remain.

1. How much longer will Steve Jobs hold his "bag of hurt" stance on BR (or Flash for that matter)

Well, as far as the broadcast television market is concerned, he can probably hold the stance forever without giving any real cause for concern. But I'd agree that BR support will likely come eventually, but that regardless of the demands of the few it'll take the demands of the many before Apple give it any priority ... and I personally don't see enough of the many being that bothered as yet, if ever.

2. When will FCS get it's much needed ramp-up to stay competitive?

Now that's a fair question, and I'm glad to see you separate it from the question of BluRay support. Yes, there are plenty of ways both big and small in which FCP / FCS could be improved, and any "improvement" obviously helps to maintain the suite. Sadly tho' I don't have a definitive answer as to exactly when any such changes will happen / should be expected any more than anyone else ... I wish did as I'm sure I could capitalize on such information! I do know for certain, as do you, that the Pro Apps product managers are already very well aware of the wants and needs of the full gamut of their users, after all, Apple have beta testers too, plus a very active community. But if and when the feedback they're receive, either solicited or otherwise, is acted upon .. who knows? The golden rule as ever is that those who know won't tell, and those who tell don't know.


Which leads us to core issue of this silly thread I think ... expectation. From my irritatingly uniformed perspective, it seems to me that a large part of the current issue with the ever present "woe is us" crowd is that at sometime prior to the last release a number of Final Cut pundits (those in the "tell but don't know" camp) mistakenly assumed / unilaterally decided that FCS "3" was going to be a full 64 bit Snow Leopard, and OpenCL ready rewrite and therefore some kind of NLE second coming. So certain were they of their predictions that they utterly convinced themselves (and many of the fanboys) along the way that this was in fact a foregone conclusion and all that remained to be seen was how incredible it was all going to be. And then of course it didn't happen did it? First of all the absolute fact that FCS 3 would NOT be released before Snow Leopard completely fell apart when it clearly was released well before the Snow Leopard update, and then the certain fact that the release of Snowy would magically unlock all sorts of amazing but hitherto hidden stuff didn't pan out for those pundits and fanboys either ... and whilst all that panned out months ago the seeds of discontent were sewn, not so much (or at least not solely) by Apple, but by those whose adamant but false predictions set up such a large number of product watchers and users for a fall. And what worries me is the alarming confidence with which oh so many posters continue to bandy about this fully rewritten "next" version. It never ends eh?


Just my 2c
Andy

[Shaun Roemich]

Originally Posted by Robert Lane

suffice it to say that PP CS4 is *already* far ahead of FCP7 in many areas such as native codec handling, user interface and on the PC-side, hardware IO/acceleration options (see the Matrox add-ons). None of the *cool* stuff about PP has anything to do with BR, just everyday core work across the board that anyone from the one-man-shop to professional post houses can appreciate.

Thanks for that well considered response Robert. My opinions follow:

1. Native codecs - personally, I don't want them. THAT aspect of FCP is what breaks every new iteration of FCP for SOMEONE. Support the Big Ten (or however many are decided to be the REAL industry representation) and FORCE everyone else to transcode to an intermediate and get rid of FCP bloat. Include an app to do exactly that and update the app.

2. Interface? Next to Media Composer, FCP is the most straight ahead interface I've seen. Quit mucking with it. It's clean and it works.
3. Hardware acceleration - IF you follow and buy in to my take on ProRes as a digital intermediate, we have acceleration available.

[Shaun Roemich]

Originally Posted by Shaun Roemich

I'm interested by the "new" JVC offering. I've asked my dealer to report on it once he's had a chance to "beat on it" a bit.

JVC Professional Features page

Originally Posted by William Hohauser

$2550? And no SDI or other standard HD input besides HDV over FireWire? Yeesh! I wonder how it handles files from the SDHC card.

Originally Posted by Robert Lane

I agree; that's not a "pro" device at all.

Couldn't disagree more IF it is more reliable than the Burn from an FCP Timeline option or some Toast runaround. To get proofs into the hands of industrial or corporate clients or for one-offs, it's a great first step for a certain market segment - MINE.

Would I love to see HD-SDI support? Absolutely but then all of a sudden people are going to ask for HDMI input and DVI input (and then ask why the colours aren't what they see on their computer screen) and SOMEONE will ask for USB2.0 input, all of which drive up costs. In fact, including HD-SDI would drive up the cost. Go the 70's and 80's Sony Broadcast route and require an auxiliary input card (actually, probably not cost effective as just manufacturing the card bay to accept the upgrade would probably add too much to the production cost of the base).

It's a stop gap but IF it is more reliable, it's a way to get BD's into the hands of our clients at a reasonable cost. I have a consumer DVD recorder around here that HAS A PLACE - Timecode window burns, archives of live events like conferences and conventions that don't want to pay for tape costs.

It may not have a place in your workflow but to suggest that it isn't a pro solution is short sighted.

PS. My UNDERSTANDING of the JVC device is that all discs MUST be burned from the internal hard drive so the Firewire becomes a data transfer point, and as such is completely in the realm of good sense. HD-SDI is a fantastic VIDEO transfer, not data.

[Chris Korrow]

Originally Posted by Andy Mees

>... Which leads us to core issue of this silly thread I think ... expectation.

25 years ago I was a pro photographer, I’d spend days doing pinregistered rubylith cut outs for layered photos which takes minutes now. I would have loved to have gotten into film back then, but the cost and the limited market made the prospects of being a filmmaker unapealing at best..

Now for around 10k I have almost no limitations as to what I can do for a fraction of the cost and even a smaller fraction of the time of 25 years ago.

Sure I have some issues with the limited opions that Apple offers, but having the ability to be a viable filmmaker for what even I consider to be peanuts, is IMO amazing.

Just putting things in perspective a bit, as we tend to think way too much of what we don't have and not marvel at what we do have. Personally, I'm thankful for all the innovation that we do have and the speed at which it's come about.

That being said, I do feel for the ones who's workflow needs the up to date technology. Hope you get what you need ASAP.

[Robert Lane]

Huh? What? This thread is still going? Gee... I don't think I care anymore - I'm just soooo distracted by this "brazilian butt workout" informercial that all I can think about is, "I need some gigs like that!".

Gimme some lights, grips and sunny-faced beach babes with abs that could bounce a quarter and I'll cut it on anything. Heck I'll even cross over and do it on Vegas, I don't care!

No more talk, gimme stupid-consumer-driven cash-now gigs! Now, where's all my Pelican cases...?!! (*_^)

[Shaughan Flynn]

Meaning no disrespect but there AREN'T signs that Apple isn't moving forward with FCS or any other Pro Apps.

Not true...

Logic studio is part of Pro Apps. They recently did a free upgrade to bring it up to 64 bit. There was also an FCS update but I think that was mostly bug fixes.

Consider that FCP is an application written in the legacy Carbon API framework. It has to be rewritten into the current Cocoa API. This is not a trivial task. FCP is written in C. It must be re-written in the more object oriented version of C known as Objective C in order to bring it into the 64 bit Cocoa framework.

Not a trivial task...

[Shaun Roemich]

Originally Posted by Shaughan Flynn

Not true...

Logic studio is part of Pro Apps.

Soundtrack Pro (which is also a part of Logic Studio) is a part of FCS. Logic is not a part of FCS. You are correct that Logic is a Pro App. I don't understand your point. FCS is independent of Logic.

[Shaughan Flynn]

I was responding to the statement "Or any other Pro Apps" and pointing out that Apple had indeed updated Logic recently. What part is unclear?

[Shaun Roemich]

I said:
"there AREN'T signs that Apple isn't moving forward with FCS or any other Pro Apps."

which means that we have NOT seen signs that Apple is not updating Pro Apps.

Your post seemed "hostile" to a point that your argument fundamentally agrees with. That is the part that is unclear. I believe you may have misread my post.

[William Hohauser]

Can we get back to talking about Robert's fantasy job again?

[Shaun Roemich]

Originally Posted by William Hohauser

Can we get back to talking about Robert's fantasy job again?

To heck with talking, that's for RADIO! I work in video - I want MOVING PICTURES!