Anyone heard about possible Dolby's buyout of FCP?

[Mike Harrington]

did some digging....
ron brinkman, developer of shake... recently left the apple development team, and joined the foundry had this to say when questioned about phenomenon

I really can’t say much about where Apple may or may not be going with future products. Although the fact that I decided it was time to move on might be a reasonable clue as to my confidence level that any alleged ‘next generation’ tool will be focused on the market (high end vfx and animation) that I’m interested in… And why I’m now working with The Foundry on Nuke…

here's the link
http://digitalcompositing.wordpress.com/about/

this guy developed shake...and would have been in charge of phenomenon
the answer basically says it all

 

[Deanan]

did some digging....
ron brinkman, developer of shake... recently left the apple development team, and joined the foundry had this to say when questioned about phenomenon

I really can’t say much about where Apple may or may not be going with future products. Although the fact that I decided it was time to move on might be a reasonable clue as to my confidence level that any alleged ‘next generation’ tool will be focused on the market (high end vfx and animation) that I’m interested in… And why I’m now working with The Foundry on Nuke…

here's the link
http://digitalcompositing.wordpress.com/about/

this guy developed shake...and would have been in charge of phenomenon
the answer basically says it all

If I remember correctly, Arnaud Hervas was the original developer, Allen Edwards was his partner and Ron wrote the manual and other stuff.

 

[Christian Berg]

A sidenote: Apple is working on QuickTime X. This could be a big rewrite and could be out at the same time as FCS3 next summer. It could be a gamechanger, more pro-features.

 

[Mike Harrington]

Ron was as co-founder....
he may not have wrote the entire program, but he is highly respected in the compositing community.

I think he has some skills, unless nuke really needed some good manuals
Louis Cetorelli of the shake development team, also worked for apple joined the foundry in 2007.

sounds like apple had nothing for them to do...

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

1.2 billion reasons

1.2 billion reasons

I have heard there are one million Final Cut seats worldwide. A serious upgrade (horribly overdue) might retail for $600 or more. Perhaps 600 million dollars is not enough to motivate Apple - of course there is the potential to sell a couple hundred thousand more high margin top of the line towers at $3K each for another $600 million in revenue.

I'm convinced, heck I won't even get out of bed for less than 1.5 billion myself :clown2:

 

[Mike Harrington]

interesting analogy...how much would you get out of bed for

apple made 24 billion revenue last year
they are on track for 32 billion this year

1.2 billion compared to 32 billion is about 3 1/2%

Lets say you made $70,000 this year...about $50,000 last year, and next year you'll probably make $80,000

are you still going to get out of bed for your $50 dollar a week paper route?



in 2008 they will sell 10 million computers
in the first 3 quarters alone they have sold 43 million ipods (they listed revenue at $181 dollars per unit or a 7.75 billion total revenue from the ipod in the first 3 quarters)
4.7 million i phones
and these figures are up from 15-50% depending on the product over last years sales...
last year they made 600 million from the itunes store alone...the same as if every final cut user in the world upgraded...this year itunes could surpass a billion...
EDIT (600 million profit for itunes in '07....revenue 1.9 billion)
pro apps is a very small fraction of apple profits..

which do you think is harder to code...FCS3 or itunes 8

 

[Charles Angus]

The only reason I came back to Mac was because of FCP. When Avid made the switch in the 90's to PC, I was perfectly happy jumping ship to what was really a much better platform at the time. And later when I began working on the Discreet Smoke - man, not a single complaint here w/respect to the SGI platform... Frigen screamers :excl: And now, I split my time on Avid DS Nitris running on the HP and FCStudio running on a Mac Pro and my personal MBP. If tomorrow Mac got rid of it's pro apps., and certainly whoever buys them would likely port them over to PC, I'm not so sure I'd stay w/Mac... And certainly the premium price makes you think twice.

A computer identical to my Mac Pro (except that it only runs windows) would have cost $1000 more from any other manufacturer. I looked into it.

The "Apple Tax" myth is just that - a myth. You get what you pay for, or more, with Apple.

 

[Chosei Funahara]

One thing worries me that Apple is promoting CS4 already.
What does it mean?
I got an email from apple today and says " Be the First to work with waht's next. Adobe Creative Suite 4. Coming soon."
But, doen't include Premier.

What is that?

 

[Brandon Kraemer]

Ron Brinkman is the man. I am interested in what he is working on for sure.

 

[Ian Laurie]

No offense meant towards anyone on this board but i just don't see apple discontinuing FCS. reasons being that they spent many many millions aqcuiring said companies products in order to integrate them in some cases (color) at no extra charge in their suite. Why? because it is a growing mac market. most post secondary schools use final cut for their training. this leads to more final cut trainees which eventually are in the field using final cut. which run post houses with final cut. which influence studios to use final cut. now all of this would be moot if you didn't consider that it is a very STABLE market for potential Professional customers. education institutes always have money. so does the film industry as a whole. these are solid markets that apple will not abandon as they can be relied on to get apple through tough times (like today perhaps) when consumer spending drops off because of financial downfalls. every copy of final cut studio represents a guaranteed mac. because technology moves so fast it might even be a new mac.the tie in of mac and FCS is a self sustaining business. A customer buying a Mac MAY buy FCS. a customer buying FCS WILL buy a Mac. just safe business.

 

[Michael Hastings]

A computer identical to my Mac Pro (except that it only runs windows) would have cost $1000 more from any other manufacturer. I looked into it.

The "Apple Tax" myth is just that - a myth. You get what you pay for, or more, with Apple.

I agree. 3 years ago when I bought Media composer so I could work with my Ikegami Editcam files the approved Macs were substantially cheaper than the HP workstations that were approved.

Part of this is that Avid has to make their stuff work on the available MACs which these days usually is just 3 models in the pro line plus the laptops which do have a premium over generic PCs with similar processors/graphics/memory (although I think there is significant value in the MAC cases as well) but those PCs aren't certified for AVID use.

Whereas on the PC side they can dictate among hundreds of models and will usually only choose one of the higher end PCs to get best performance so you are stuck buying the Cadillac that HP or whoever REALLY charges a premium for.

 

[chocblu]

I've posted else where the technical Difficulties that Apple have to contend with to release a new Version of FCS.

1. Quicktime is old. Theyre making a new one for Snow leopard. They are dependant on that at least being mostly finished before they can finish FCS to use it.

2. Carbon (the api that FCP uses) is 32-bit. Only Cocoa is 64-bit. If they are going to keep going, this means an entire rewrite... this takes a LOT of time...so be patient... and hopefully they will take the amount of time required to get it right...