Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • 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 :)

New FCP in Early 2011?

Waiting...Waiting...

Waiting...Waiting...

Gunleik Groven said:
That certainly seemed to be the idea when Apple aquired the software, but who's heard much about that since 2008?

I really remember NAB 2008 as an exciting step foreward:

Final Cut Server
REDCODE in FCP

Then came IBC with the first preview of RAW in Color and the Compressor WraptorPlugin.

Then...

FCS3, a great bugfix experience...

And Snow leopard with its QuicktimeX promises...

And...
Click to expand...

we are still waiting, and waiting and dodging the barrage of iToys... Wait Wait I just Remember I have been waiting 3+ years for DVDSPRO to support Blu-Ray Authoring. I Also remember that the last time it was updated was in 2005. WOOOOOOOW. that is some serious Neglect. We do not need that. do We?
I will Hypothesize here for a bit.
IMHO. I think Steven Paul Jobs' Agenda is that we all use streaming or the Web for everything so he can make more billions with his "soon to be cloud iTunes" and in order to do that he is neglecting Support for blu-ray. so we say heck with it I will just post it to iTunes and have them play it, sell it, Rent it, etc. from there.

Me In Character "Steve Jobs". And now Folks I have the pleasure to introduce to you (Brief Pause). iTunes Cloud... "Yes They Invented this stuff"(steve says). (steve looks down and scratches his head) amazing stuff you will be able to do with it. you will be able to upload your movies and share, rent, sell, buy them, and most important of them all. you will be able to Play them at amazing 720p. (The Crowd) Jumps in awe. The end.
Terrible ah?... I Know that is why I am not a Writer.

My Point is: we do not need to support a company that pushes us around by neglecting products vital to our businesses Just so they can saddle their agenda.
 
MichaelHalsell said:
Ben, agreed. :iagree: My hyprocrisy runs deep, my sentiments are shared. I was a frequent follower of the Apple Professional Profiles (http://www.apple.com/pro/profiles), but noticed that section of the site stopped being updated on almost 1 year ago.

Our shop is channeling the negative Apple energy differently by divvying up resources in case Apple slides out the back door in the middle of the night.
Click to expand...

it sounds unlikely but the past occurrences point in the same direction for Anything Pro From Apple.

Overnight Phenomena By Apple.
Do you remember A Company called Apple Computer?
Do you remember Shake?
Do you remember XServe RAID?
Do you remember Xserver?
 
Martin Weiss said:
Yesterday I spent over an hour to fix a font problem that FCP has had since whenever.
Argh.
Last month I had to dump 500 DVDs because FCP screwed up the audio.
Argh!
R3D support. Not.
Argh @*!
Gamma.
ARGH @*xx**!!!
Click to expand...

Yes, Yes and Yes.

But there are several things to consider:

1) FCP was NEVER a professional finishing tool. Many used it for that but knew that it has its shortcomings, be it graphics, matte handling, colour correction, audio tools, media management and last but not least gamma shifts.

For them those shortcomings were either not important, not even visible because the over-all quality of the project was not so famous anyway or a sacrifice that was willingly made because the workflow was dead cheap and easy.

Most post-houses that use FCP or Avid for creative editorial would never "leverage" their finishing capabilities. They use different tools for that because their clients never accepted the mediocre quality and happily pay for the "big-iron." This is still the case.

With the advent of the RedOne we see a community growing which has a keen sense of delicate pictures. This community now learns that creating good pictures is one thing but maintaining them another. They are used to use FCP as an finishing tool before Red came into their life. But this wonderful cheap camera disclosures with its 35mm similar pictures badly the pitfalls of post production software. You would never finish a 35mm shot project on FCP, would you?

2) People tend to invest an enormous amount of money into camera gear but are close-fisted when it comes to IT hard- and software. They build hackintoshs, try to work with un-licensed software (to put it politely) and complain when an 1k software bundle does not perform like a 130.000k Autodesk Flame. As an Red user who invested 50k+ in the camera I would suggest to rethink whether a new Angenieux Rouge or a Smoke on Mac (both in the same price realm) will improve the over-all quality of the projects one does. Of course there are other options with different targets and price tags such as Avid DS, Scratch, SpeedGrade, Pablo....

3) Regarding business, I can see that one wants to know what the future brings. But to be honest an upgrade of FCP costs less than a Red CF card. And if the old tool does not cope with new developments you have to buy a new tool; in this case Premier Pro CS5 with its native R3D support which again costs just about what Red is selling a single CF card for.

Furthermore, I understand that the decision to buy a Windows machine or a MacPro does also depend on the software that will be used with the new box. Both, Apple and Windows boxes are an major investment. But the usage of FCP solely does not turn the balance to buy either a MacPro or a Windows machine. There are many great software packages from consumer to professional level on the Apple platform that justify the investment of an Apple box.

4) Steve Jobs' comment that FCP will be "awesome" is not saying anything. But what can we expect from him? The quote is telling us at least that Apple will continue FCP and that it will have new (awesome) developments integrated.

5) The lion's share of FCP user don't use RedOne's for image acquisition. Only for the technology hungry RedOne user who utilizes a complicated RAW format is FCP an outdated NLE. The vast majority is still finding that Apple's FCS suite a great postproduction bundle that can do a lot for the buck.



Hans
 
I can see your points, Hans, but have to make some comments:

1) Apple has been marketing FCP as the suite "to do it all", along with nicely packaged stories on how the Cohen Brothers cut their film on FCP, and the inclusion of Colo(u)r and Sound Track Pro suggests that it is meant as a finishing tool.

So to answer your question: depending on the budget, I would use FCP. I'd triple-check everything, budget in extra time for checking, and make hysterical use of the auto-backup. But I'd rather take it to a finishing house to do a proper job for me.

2) I wouldn't compare Apples to, well, diamonds. But I expect my editing software (which calls itself Pro with a capital P) to be able to keep track of audio files.

3) Yes, switching to and from FCP costs little in terms of software price, but there is a steep(ish) learning curve whenever switching software supplier. Most smaller video production houses I know rely on FCP because of their bang-for-the-buck. "Everyone" knows it. Which is exactly the reason why I am still hanging on to FCP — I got used to all the short-cuts, work-arounds and, yes, features.

4) I'd like to hear something more concrete. Actually, I would have liked to have had a new FCS *last* NAB. Just no announcement, no roadmap, not even a serious attempt at bugfixing is just not good enough.

5) I would expect FCP to support a file format that is gaining a lot of market share, especially in the indie market that Apple is marketing FCP so hard towards. A file format that is supported by all its competitors, and has been for a while. A file format that Apple was the *first* to implement via proxies. To me it shows that despite a head-start and no cash flow concerns, they just don't seem interested. Which is ok, I would just like a statement, rather than having to guess.
 
Amen Hans, couldn't said it better.
As I hate the gamma shifts. It's the biggest pain ever. There's millions of FCP editors out there. How many of them are realy doing RED projects? Maybe 20 to 30 thousand?
Apple could piss on us and it wouldn't realy hurt them for one second. Maybe in the long run, but what's long in this business.
They are a little late and I hate it. But they will be back soon.

The 64 bit and Quicktime thing are the most important things to change.
Maybe that needs a little bit more time than expected. RED has the same problems when it comes down to bring out stuff on time.

So let's give them some more months. I think they know exactly what they have to do this time. Adobe is bringing the heat and I like it.

Heads up.
Tim
 
Apple software development was just a "facade" to sell boxes.
Apple doesn't need anymore to work on software to sell their hardware.
As Hans said, "There are many great software packages from consumer to professional level on the Apple platform that justify the investment of an Apple box".
I bought a refurbish 8 cores 3 weeks ago in the bigest Apple store in Paris, the seller was really surprise to sell it. He helped me bringing the tower out. Once in the street he did admit, they had hard time selling the Mac Pro.
So why should they spend money in software development when their high end products don't sell as much as the "i" thingy products?
The Apple brand is well recognise now, you just have to watch an US movie, when a computer is involve it's most frequently a Mac.
Despite the pro App it is still "chic" owning a Mac.
And I own 4 of them hé hé.
I still wish I'm wrong, but business is business.
Just my two cents
 
Martin we are on the same boat.

I follow you when you say that Apple marketed FCP with testimonials like the Cohen brothers and hence the connotation that FCS is an all-in-one-box hollywood finishing tool. Your are right, this is misleading. I dislike such an advertising policy which is far from that what we call humble.

I love your quote of "hysterical use of auto-backup" but one thing FCP surely is: it's pretty stable. And yes, carrying a FCP project to a proper post-house is more than meaningful IF you've got the budget. I heartily encourage anyone who is deep into postproduction to evaluate tools like Smoke on Mac, Scratch or SpeedGrade XR and of course Resolve on the Mac to find out wether one of those tools would solve many problems and may generate income.

And yes, you are right when you complain about audio in NLEs. All audio manipulation tools in the NLEs I know are underwhelming except Smoke on Mac which has only a few Audio tools but they are very good. And although FCP can load WAVES plugins it's not able to use them with their interface. Not keeping track of audio files sounds like a major accident. Sorry to hear this.

You said: "I would expect FCP to support a file format that is gaining a lot of market share, especially in the indie market that Apple is marketing FCP so hard towards..."

The interesting part is the word "indie market". This word is very often quoted here on the boards. I'm not quite sure what it means. Does it mean no-budgte film making, does it mean independently from the major studios produced films, does it mean that the market is rather small, hence the income made of the films is rather low...? Either way it probably means hardly any money involved. I'm pretty unsure wether someone like you or me who own a RedOne, some lenses and work in the industry as professionals are indie-filmakers? I'm question this because I also question wether FCP is the appropriate tool for Red shot projects.

I guess we all ask for too much.

Warm Regards to beautiful Norway,

Hans
 
Well no one knows what FCP will look like next. But I can assure you it will support Red files, DSLR editing etc. Contrary to what I read on these threads daily its a false assumption that Apple does not believe in Pro users. Its just that some of their apps don't always turn out as powerful as other dedicated Apps out there. Its a competitive market, companies continuously come out with very innovative easy to use products or very powerful intuitive products. there are quiet a few camera manufacturers out there shooting on various codecs. The SDK's for some of theses codecs are not cheap. For one company to attempt support of every codec as Adobe has is no small feat.

But seriously think about it, is it the software manufacturers like Apple's fault or is it the Camera manufacturers.
One of the reasons we all love RED is because they are moving in the direction of "yes we understand that our red code needs to be easy to use, but we wont compromise on quality. We will help you out".
Hypothetically speaking if The Red-mx camera got rid of all the Quicktime Proxies generated alongside Redcode and rather adopted ProRes 4444-4K (using the beautiful rec 709 images we see in our monitors on set) we wont be having this discussion, because as opposed to the 20 - 30,000 Redusers mentioned above, there would be like 800,000 Redusers overnight. This would offer a clear choice for Red post.

All that said even with a new phenomenal FCP, all Adobe would have to do is infuse the Mercury playback engine into After Effects, you will all still buy PPro CS5 even if you never open it.
 
shashbugu said:
Well no one knows what FCP will look like next. But I can assure you it will support Red files, DSLR editing etc. Contrary to what I read on these threads daily its a false assumption that Apple does not believe in Pro users.
Click to expand...

Without some form of factual basis (Besides Steve Jobs saying "It'll be awesome") that kind of statement is just as speculative as saying "The next FCP will suck". Have you seen the new FCP? If not, how can you make a declarative statement like that?

And the idea that Apple doesn't care much for its pro users anymore, while it is an assumption, is based on some fairly obvious trends. Given the black hole that is Apple information, trends are all we have to go on, and the trends aren't very good.

The SDK's for some of theses codecs are not cheap. For one company to attempt support of every codec as Adobe has is no small feat.
Click to expand...

See my previous statement about Apple having more money than God. Apple could, if they wanted to, *BUY* Adobe. So implying that Apple can't afford the SDKs is incorrect.

Hypothetically speaking if The Red-mx camera got rid of all the Quicktime Proxies generated alongside Redcode and rather adopted ProRes 4444-4K (using the beautiful rec 709 images we see in our monitors on set) we wont be having this discussion, because as opposed to the 20 - 30,000 Redusers mentioned above, there would be like 800,000 Redusers overnight. This would offer a clear choice for Red post.
Click to expand...

One of the main reasons for working with RED is the RAW nature of the footage. Baking it into ProRes4 would negate that. Not necessarily a bad thing, mind you, but something to consider. Also, ProRes *IS* quicktime. Quicktime is just a wrapper. Right now the camera proxies are wrapping the RedCode. So I get what you're saying, but it comes across wrong due to an apparent misunderstanding of the camera proxies.

all Adobe would have to do is infuse the Mercury playback engine into After Effects
Click to expand...

Except... No. Mercury works (When it does) in Premiere because all it's doing in playback. Throw it into AFX and start piling on the FX and that GPU power is going to be processing FX and not running playback. AFX might get faster, but it's not going to be as magically fast as people seem to think it is.
 
Of course my statement abut Red and DSLR support is 100% speculative. I have absolutely no clue whatsoever that goes on at Apple, but I would bet 4 to 8k res sizes will be added.

I clearly know what Quicktime is. All I meant was as opposed to the Raw proxies which currently very few people use, Red could create Prores 4444 proxies based on a look created in camera, which could be used alternatively alongside the recording of raw R3Ds.

AS Per mercury playback in Adobe, Gpu playback of adobe's built in efx is pretty flawless, and I'm talking about 10 layered efx deep.
 
Under 10,000 Redowners.

Many, many, many more Redusers.
 
I think if you are using this sort of casual number to justify any sort of leverage with Apple in developing RED-centric features into some future version of FCP, then you are being highly optimistic. Compare that same yardstick to Canon5D/7D users and that number would go up tenfold. Still hasn't changed much with FCP and not likely that it will. There are also a lot of those 10,000 cameras that are sitting on the shelf and not working. At least not generating prime revenue.

- Oliver
 
Oliver Peters said:
I think if you are using this sort of casual number to justify any sort of leverage with Apple in developing RED-centric features into some future version of FCP, then you are being highly optimistic. Compare that same yardstick to Canon5D/7D users and that number would go up tenfold. Still hasn't changed much with FCP and not likely that it will. There are also a lot of those 10,000 cameras that are sitting on the shelf and not working. At least not generating prime revenue.

- Oliver
Click to expand...

Perhaps one big reason Apple may pay attention to RED is that they own two RED ONE cameras and shoot with the all the time. :ohmy:
 
Is that why Pixar cuts their films on Avid Media Composer? ;-)

- Oliver
 
Liam Hall said:
I'm not sure what your point is...
Click to expand...
I guess my point is that a) I challenge the validity of the number, and b) I don't see it as particularly meaningful as a motivation for anything that Apple does or doesn't do. I'm not trying to be argumentative, but it's a number that's being tossed around as important.

Even if it's accurate, I don't see the correlation between an AC or DIT working with a RED One camera and that impact on Apple's development decisions. Now, if RED cuts a deal to record ProRes in the camera, then that would be a different story.

- Oliver
 
Oliver Peters said:
I guess my point is that a) I challenge the validity of the number, and b) I don't see it as particularly meaningful as a motivation for anything that Apple does or doesn't do. I'm not trying to be argumentative, but it's a number that's being tossed around as important.

Even if it's accurate, I don't see the correlation between an AC or DIT working with a RED One camera and that impact on Apple's development decisions. Now, if RED cuts a deal to record ProRes in the camera, then that would be a different story.

- Oliver
Click to expand...

I broadly agree, I mean, does Apple listen to anyone?

Though, on the subject of Red users, there are over 36,000 members of this forum alone. I'll guess less than half of them have used a RED One or the footage produced by one, maybe it's a lot less than that, but given most DPs I grew up with don't even know how to switch a computer on, let alone surf the net, I'd say that figure counts for something:)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top