Why everyone is so painfully wrong about FCPX

[Terry VerHaar]

Do you really think that everyone commenting on FCP X's current lack of features doesn't believe Apple will add them?

If that's truly the case, then the whining and complaining and "well I guess I'm switching to premiere!" comments just all seem a little childish. A case of "I want what I want right now and if I can't have it then I'll cry until I do".

What he said.

Have fun bouncing back and forth. It's just something I really would prefer not to do.

[Bruce Allen]

This is a must read for anyone that wants the real scoop on what is going on. Turns out 90% of the panic is misinformation.

Did you even read the article you linked to? It contains major factual errors. EG:

"Complaint: No support for RED digital cameras. The RED camera is a favorite of filmmakers; it records incredibly high-resolution video directly to a hard drive. But FCP X can’t import its files.

Answer: Apple is working with RED to create a plug-in that will give native RED support to FCP X. In the meantime, you can set your RED camera to shoot and capture video in the QuickTime format, which FCP X imports just fine. "

Oh really?

Have fun bouncing back and forth. It's just something I really would prefer not to do.

Right, you post only with factual information and substantiated arguments.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[D Fuller]

Give it some time, folks. No one is putting a gun to your head telling you to uninstall your current FCS3 system and upgrade to X. It's always a personal choice to become an early adopter.

Really. It's not like the EOL's FCP7 or anything. Oh, well they did, but it'll still run for you, won't it? If you upgrade the OS? Won't it?

It's not pissin' anybody off that Apple is trying to re-invent editing. That's all good. What's pissing people off is that they've got 10 years of client projects that Apple just told them they can't revise with the new software. And on yes, we're not going to sell the old software anymore either. It's that sort of stuff that is making editors crazy, and it's all through the choices Apple made in this release. The fact is that all the evidence we have before us suggests that Apple has just walked away from a market segment that has built its businesses on the foundation of FCP as the core technology. They really appear not to care (i'd say not to have considered, but I think Apple is smarter than that) that it will cost people tens of thousands of dollars to re-engineer systems and develop workflows all over again. It's a huge breach of trust, and they deserve every bit of heat that's being thrown their way.

[Terry VerHaar]

Folks have waited through 4 years of stagnant FCP development.

Apple kept them waiting, just telling folks it would be "Pro" and "Awesome." Folks kept up investments in Final Cut Server etc faithfully.

Now that the curtain was finally pulled back, it is revealed to still be a work in progress.

Of course we know features are coming. And there are a lot of things we like.

But the basic reaction is "WTF - this looks like 2 years' worth of work, not 4. Why did they hype it up to us so much then release something so lacking?"

It just feels like dishonesty from Apple and is a bad sign for the future.

Funny how the upgrade time frame keeps sneaking higher as people exaggerate. FCP was released July, 2009. Last time I looked at my calendar, that wasn't four years ago.

[Jason Svatos]

What he said.

Have fun bouncing back and forth. It's just something I really would prefer not to do.

Ha, no bicker-fest for me sir. I said my peace and will just enjoy what other's can't seem to. ;)

[Bruce Allen]

Funny how the upgrade time frame keeps sneaking higher as people exaggerate. FCP was released July, 2009. Last time I looked at my calendar, that wasn't four years ago.

That was a huge upgrade, wasn't it?

Remember all of the Reduser threads giving Apple the benefit of the doubt for no R3D support etc - because "most of the team must have split off to focus on an awesome re-write." And the version before that was incremental as well - and given the benefit of the doubt for the same reason (64 bit FCP rewrite taking up most of the developers' time).

Anyway - here you go - my justification for the belief that they have been working on a 64-bit FCP in various forms for 4 years:
http://www.philiphodgetts.com/2010/1...4-bit-release/

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Zach Gray]

FCPX might be the first pro-app to survive a rewrite. Every other instance I can think of killed it. Everyone abandoned it until it reached maturity and by then the competition had rewritten their cores to continue into the future. I think one of the most impressive instances is 3ds max right now.

It's interesting to look back at what Alias|Wavefront did with Maya. They did start over, and I remember how Maya 1.0 was pretty weak in features, but revolutionary. What Alias did was to create a new product, then migrate users over to it as the features grew. I can't help but wonder if that is what is going to happen at Autodesk. Keep developing for Maya/Max/XSI but then work on a new platform, and migrate the users and features at the same time.

On the other hand... look at how LW Core just imploded. Link.

[Terry VerHaar]

...

"Complaint: No support for RED digital cameras....

Answer: Apple is working with RED to create a plug-in that will give native RED support to FCP X. In the meantime, you can set your RED camera to shoot and capture video in the QuickTime format, which FCP X imports just fine. "

Oh really?

This is getting crazy but I'll go one more round...

Which part don't you believe? David Pogue is a pretty well respected journalist. Whether you respect his editing skills or not is irrelevant. I am betting that if he said that RED was working with Apple, he has a source that has indicated so. Do you know for a fact that is NOT true?

And... I believe I read right here on REDuser yesterday that someone did open RED footage with FCPX but did comment that it was only opening the proxies, not working with the R3Ds. We do all remember that FCP7 would open the R3D proxies, do we not? Maybe I am wrong on this but it seems feasible. I'll go try and find it.

Finally, Pogue also notes in the article (conveneiently left out by you) that, of course, you can convert RED footage to the ProRes of your choice with RCX and, as we all know, get some pretty damn good looking footage out the other end. Mark Toia gets some fabulous pictures with this workflow in FCP7.

So what is the factual error?

[Terry VerHaar]

That was a huge upgrade, wasn't it?

Remember all of the Reduser threads giving Apple the benefit of the doubt for no R3D support etc - because "most of the team must have split off to focus on an awesome re-write."

Bruce Allen

I can see you just want to vent about all the injustices Apple has done to you over the years. You know, my first 128K Mac in 1984 was pretty damn slow, now that I think of it. And it set me back $3,000 with that shitty little ImageWriter printer, which wasn't even color. I see what you're getting at here. Apple just sucks.

[paulherrin]

once you open those proxies, there's no way to relink to the original files for export. that's the problem being referenced. defeats the purpose of red workflow. hopefully they'll fix that...