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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Final Cut Pro X Released

I'm surprised more people aren't talking about the price point in relationship to the features and the future of the product. Seems to me to be a smart strategy to sell little upgrades and plug ins through the app store for $10 or $100 a pop. This way, they can keep the price low enough for the folks who want to upload their cat videos, while eventually having the features sold a la cart that are applicable for pros. Not only does it expand their user base and corner the market, it allows us to have a quick, simple program that only has the features we want and need.

I personally would love to buy it for $300, then get the features installed to fit the software and hardware that I prefer. I shoot features and commercials on RED and the Alexa. I've never even seen an XDCAM in person. So XDCAM support isn't something I'd want, so why should I pay for it?

I think the interface is slick and there are a ton of little things that change the way you edit...in a good way. I think by the end of the summer, the conversation is going to be about all the Vegas and Adobe users switching over to Final Cut X with the r3D plugin and the Resolve exporter app. Or, I could be wrong, and Apple just took themselves out of the game by releasing Super iMovie...
 
It's now rated 2.5 out of 5 stars from the 302 ratings from the people that purchased it.

I have nothing against Apple... it's because of Final Cut Pro why I'm on the Mac platform. It won me over back in 2003 and made me purchase a dual 2GHz G5. Still have a substantial amount of investment in a Mac Pro 12 core Davinci workstation. It's because of that investment in a RED camera, BM card, Flanders Scientific 24" monitor & Davinci Resolve... why I was so disappointed in this release. How the heck can I use what I have with FCPX? The darn FCPX windows can't even stretch across my dual 30's. So much for color calibrated monitors via SDI, for tape based workflows, for windows stretched across dual displays, for compatibility with other apps.

Yeah I would love FCPX... if all I had was a MacBook Pro editing Canon T2i footage or if I had a time machine and could go back to the HVX200 days.
 
For those who are contemplating what to do in light of this FCPx release and the other options available to you, consider the following:

1. What formats do you work with most, and are those supported by the NLE? If so, are the supported natively or do you transcode to another format?
2. Can you mix and match formats, codecs, framerates, etc? If so, is this done in realtime or with a render?
3. Is there acceleration for effects? What kind of hardware is involved?
4. What is the I/O support? How many interfaces are supported? How is the signal passed to a broadcast monitor? Are all codecs supported on that I/O?
5. What plugins are supported? If you move to a different NLE, can you cross-grade those plugins?
6. EDL/XML/OMF support. Can you take an edit out for color correction, sound mixing, VFX? If so, are there limitations?
7. How is processing handled? 8 bit, 10 bit, 32bit? RGB, YUV support?
8. Export options. Delivery options. Tape options. machine control.
9. Tech tools built in. Waveforms, vectorscopes, RGB parade, audio meters. How do these function, how accurate are they?
10. How does it function as an editor? response time, trim tools, UI, media organization, timeline options, shortcuts, etc.
11. Media management. How robust is it? Are projects easily archived? How easy can you move projects around?
12. Reliability, i.e. is it stable or does it crash often?
13. Custom user settings. When multiple editors are accessing the NLE is it easy to customize settings for that user?
14. Upgrade and support policies
15. Multicam support

There are many more, but I'll stop there. There's a lot to consider, and it goes well beyond whether or not it supports RED files. Even if you are a one-man-band there are still a number of things you have to ask yourself when choosing an NLE. Unfortunately, none of them get it 100% right. But some of them are improving, and others remain to be seen.
 
The situation is simple: there's no reason to tolerate the missing features. Use something else.

We shouldn't be Apple's beta testers.
 
Apple is the new Nintendo, catering to the masses while leaving its hardcore faithful ( who got them where they are now) in search of more $$$.
 
Leigh Scott said:
I'm surprised more people aren't talking about the price point in relationship to the features and the future of the product. Seems to me to be a smart strategy to sell little upgrades and plug ins through the app store for $10 or $100 a pop.
Click to expand...

Sure but Apple have to say this then. For me to get bit and pices for a few bucks here end there is just a waiste of time. This is not FCP, this is iMovie X and if they named it this, then I would have got it for 300. Now I'm just pissed at a usless app and that I have to start thinking of changing my workflow.
 
Final Cut Pro X serves 90% of the FCP user-base well.

There is only a very small percentage of users that need features such as EDL, XML, OMF and SDI support. Red is a niche format, less niche than Arri-Raw or Phamtom-Raw but still not widely used. DSLRs, videocameras etc... are the big target group of FCP-X.

I was told that all the pro features, including R3Ds support are coming in a later release. So for FCP die-hards there is hope.


An Adobe Production Suite is a must for any edit bay. In case you haven't tried Premier Pro yet give it a chance. I cannot recommend PremierPro CS5 enough. It reads R3Ds directly, with a Cuda card has impressive RT features and, foremost important for me, talks via XML, AAF, EDL, OMF with all important tools in the industry, including my beloved Smoke. Lastly, PremierPro has a terrific video/sound synch tool via TC that is second to none.

Otherwise FCP-X seems to be great value for the money. Just not for redusers.

Hans
 
David McGavran said:
We work very very hard on making sure the mac is a great editing platform.
Click to expand...

I can only confirm (independently!) that Adobe has been working hard on making it bit by bit as good on Mac as on PC (we use both platforms). It works very stable if you give it the right hardware, only with very limited resources (GPU or RAM) there are some instabilities. But the real fun starts with a CUDA-capable GPU, more than 2 cores and a minimum of 2 GB RAM per core.

And now that the demo supports all codecs, give it a test drive. You have nothing to loose (other than FCPX).
 
@Tim Morten lol you're a Red beta tester! Double standard much? Day 1 and everyone's jumping ship. If you had the same attitude about Red the company would have gone under before the first Red One shipped. Red is still a platform for early adopters. We almost abandoned Red for a feature film because we couldn't get a VIEWFINDER for a new Red One camera a year after production started. We persevered, bought a second hand viewfinder and shot the film. Now everyone is lining up to pay 50k to BETA TEST an epic, but you're angry to pay 300$ to use a ground up rebuild of a stalwart editing package?

Does FCP X have every feature everyone wants for every purpose ever? Nope, never going to. Will it ultimately support the features and capabilities we need? Yes, but like every package, not on day 1.
 
It seems pretty obvious to me that they released when they had a product they thought would be useful to a significant number of people, instead of waiting around until they had a product for everyone. This should come as no surprise. Remember all the griping about missing features on the first iPhone, or even the panic caused by the first version of OS X? Shipping 1.0 products that lack what might generally be considered 'critical' features is a well established pattern for Apple. They get a product to market faster they start getting real user feedback faster, and people for whom the product is immediately useful get something sooner rather than later.

It's not as if Apple is going off in fundamentally the wrong direction here. Everything they've done -- the rich media organization features, OpenCL/GCD/64-bit, the rendering engine that works in float color space, the flexible format support, etc. is extremely useful to our market... we just need a bit more on top of that. And I suspect that's the next step. Remember, the old Carbon/QuickTime codebase had to go; it simply wasn't a viable foundation to build the next 10 years of Final Cut Pro on. FCP X might be lacking some important workflow features today, but from a core technical perspective it can absolutely be that foundation, and that had to be Apple's main focus for this release.

Realistically, most post houses and pro editors weren't going to move to such a significantly overhauled app immediately anyway. As long as some of more important missing features fall into place in the next 6-12 months, the fact that they weren't there from day one will barely be a blip in the long run.
 
My take on FCP X ...

First off, its not a disaster. It's actually really cool.

That said the big feature that makes it unusable for most of my work TODAY is the lack of XML support for both import and export. If this feature was enabled I could use it today for everything. Oh, I wouldn't be happy from time to time, but I could use it.

Following that is the inability to import FCP 6/7 projects. This would really make my life easier- frankly though if I had XML in FCP X, then I could deal with getting stuff into and out of FCP 6/7 adequately.

Then there is the lack of broadcast display support. Especially when coloring, having broadcast display support is incredibly important.

Of course ... I can work around that with this little thing called Resolve ... except for the lack of XML!!

Then the poor multiple monitor support.

Lack of native R3D support.

Finally, the lack of configurable windows.

So, I have the same complaints most of you have.

Where I differ is in my attitude to these issues.

I expect that all these things will be fixed in relatively short order.

I've poked around the software with a hex editor ... there is some support for XML, and arranging windows built in, as well as more extensive i/o options. I'm fairly confident that we'll see that stuff finished and turned on sooner than you might imagine. I mean ... why bother touting 4K support in your application if you don't plan on supporting Red?

I think we can expect updates on a very short cycle with some of these features. Part of the App Store concept is to get software updates happening quickly and smoothly on an iOS software model. Expect to see App Store updates with a frequency that many of us with very conservative edit bay tech ways will find annoying. (I'm one of them!)

What does surprise me is that the features that are there now are rock solid. Oh and its FAST.

I'll be buying it ... but I'm not in a race to buy it.

I've got to get Resolve 8 first after all!
 
Brian Boyer said:
Some thoughts on FCPX:
If the tool meets your current needs and helps you further your art in some way, it's the right tool for the job, period...no matter what it's lacking. And, I guarantee you someone is going to finish something kick-ass in FCPX that blows most of you whiners out of the water. It won't just be good, it will be amazing, and it will be due to the fact that they saw past the limitations to all the possibilities and worked around everything else. Hell, any grip worth his or her salt has a story about how they saved a shot with a stick of gum, a shoestring and a baby's pacifier. You pride yourselves on how well you adapt to situations in your industry. So, those of you who bought it and hate it for all that it doesn't do, we get it. Now, try to see where it's revolutionary or a game changer. Will Avid and others follow suit? Will this be the preferred method of editing 5 years from now?
Click to expand...

I completely agree with everything you said but at the same time don't you think that same person would be capable of doing the same, if not better project utilizing more specific tools available in older versions (FCP7/Color/XML to Resolve, ETC)? I agree that the quality of the product is 99.99% up to the user behind the gear, but at the end of the day, why should we have to adapt to something when we had something great, but just needed it updated to streamline with faster systems and add a few new features?

Hopefully Apple is on to something with their new vision of magnetic timeline or whatever and hopefully WILL in fact revolutionize the way we see non-linear editing... but for now I have to agree with what someone else said a few pages ago... I can whip up a web video in a matter of minutes in FCP7, but it's the complicated offline/online long form projects with visual effects and audio work, and heavy color correction that take time to navigate and work with. If I can't even use FCPX in these workflows, the potential speed increase of their timeline editing tools is utterly useless.

Also, there's been a lot of bantering over the word PRO, and like Brian said, all that really matters is using the right tool to carry out your vision. My problem is a "PRO" app should give me the creative freedom to do whatever I need to carry out that vision. FCPX does not do this, which is upsetting. Additionally, the majority of us editors cut a LOT of material that is simply a product for someone else's vision, and we just have the creative input, technical knowhow, and gear to carry out ANY sort of editorial needs for the client FCPX vastly limits those abilities and options as editors. So for now I'll stay on my own ship and continue cutting just the same as before on FCP7 for as long as I need to until FCPX is usable, or I switch to Avid.

Fortunately I had no expectations of FCPX being anything more than it currently is, so I'm not disappointed at all :)
 
AVID's biggest party ever yesterday !!!! ... I bet they have been holding there breath for weeks... Shitting them selves about what APPLE are about to launch.
What a relief that FCP-X is a complete professorial dud.!

Good on you Avid :) and Adobe.. True PRO's.
 
It it late, that's all this is. Late sux. But most great things take time.

Some aren't allowed to be late. Maybe stocks played a role. Late scares people.

That said, being a Vegas fan, this is the NLE I've been waiting for... err... still waiting for.
 
Looks like Apple just rushed out a totally unfinished product...the fact it cannot even open a project file from FCP7 is just stupid! What are they thinking?

No XML...crazy crazy crazy!

Does it have potential? Yes, is it ready for pro use? NO

AVID and ADOBE are happy campers today!
 
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I'm very surprised how many people that acknowledge all the problems with Final Cut X, who acknowledge all the lack of professional workflow which so many rely on and STILL say "it's coming, it's coming, I'm sure, it's coming". Please, for how long will you keep saying that. Both Avid and Premiere are seriously good tools with improvements which put Final Cut Pro 7 in the shadow. And they still improve them and their next version will be even better then today...

So, all who are REAL professionals who rely on stable, good software for their workflow, how can you be so into Apple that you keep with them however unprofessional they made the new Final Cut? I really don't get it.

Hans von Sonntag said:
Final Cut Pro X serves 90% of the FCP user-base well.

There is only a very small percentage of users that need features such as EDL, XML, OMF and SDI support. Red is a niche format, less niche than Arri-Raw or Phamtom-Raw but still not widely used. DSLRs, videocameras etc... are the big target group of FCP-X.


Hans
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I really like to see some numbers to back this up. Isn't this just made up facts from Final Cut fanboys? Almost all postproduction houses in Stockholm use FCP for post production as an example. There are a lot of Hollywood productions who use FCP as well. Also, Red isn't niche, both Adobe and Avid made a huge deal out of the Red R3D-support and there's a lot of productions who use Red instead of the other formats. Phantom is only used for high speed shootings, there's no production using it as a main format.

Once again, stop lying to yourself about Final Cut Pro X, it ISN'T made for professionals, it's quite clear out of the specs presented and now tested. No one knows when support for all this is coming. It could be a month from now or a year and what are you going to do in the meantime? Yes, you can use Final Cut Pro 7, but when other NLE's is becoming better is it a good idea?

A professional NLE has the greatest strength in it's support with every other part of filmmaking and post production. Not being able to use OMF's, EDL's, XML's is such a screw up it's stunning. Apple can force onto professionals all they want about doing everything inside FCP, but you are NOT ALONE when doing a production, sound-designers, VFX-people, composers, colorists DON'T WANT TO USE FCP when working in their field. They want their baselight, Da Vinci machines in a real professional grading station, they want their protools, they want their after effects and they want SUPPORT from the editor calling himself a professional.

So to be realistic, Larry Jordan said it's not ready for professional use and got mailbombed by apple fanboys. But he is dead right, it is in no way near ready for professional use.
I love some of the technology that apple brings but I seriously think the hardcore apple fanboys are mental to say they least. They need a reality check, stop making things up and realize that working with Iphone 4, DSLR etc. is more niche, more youtube and no way near professional. If Final Cut Pro X focus so much on those formats and not on professional support, then it's NOT made for professionals, period. There's nothing that tells anything otherwise.

Final Cut Pro X is not professional, it's Imovie X, focused on youtubers, Iphoners, consumers and amateur filmmakers and nothing say that it's going "to become" more professional anytime soon. If you truly are a professional you will want to look at better alternatives if you want to upgrade from Final Cut Pro 7, or else just use the 7.
 
Jason Hilton said:
Now everyone is lining up to pay 50k to BETA TEST an epic, but you're angry to pay 300$ to use a ground up rebuild of a stalwart editing package?
Click to expand...

I don't think anyone was upset about putting out $300, the thing thats been bothering everyone is that they did a ground up rebuild with a different audience in mind and made it less of a professional tool. Apple already had the Final cut line working fine and now they went and completely scrapped that for something that gives you less to work with.
 
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