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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 :)

New FCP Studio rumors. All in one app. Entirely re-written, interface deeply modified

Apple will need that to be true. Right now FCP is eating Avid's dust
 
I won't upgrade unless Apple throws in a iPod!

Very hard to believe that apple is trying to vitalize fcp. This would be nice!
 
It would be a mess if they didn't continue to offer FCS (2009) or at least some backwards compatibility. It sounds awesome but I too worry about "jack of all trades, master of nothing." I kinda hope they just update the FCP interface to match Motion and Soundtrack Pro, and copy and paste the functionality into the "Edit" room in the super-app. Heck, their tagline should read "64-bit rewrite, not a feature has changed".

I cannot emphasize enough how much this can't resemble the iMovie HD to iMovie 08 transition.
 
That speculation sounds off. Soundtrack and Motion were never serious software... they're just consumer junk to help sales within that market. FCP's cachet comes from its usefulness to professionals (ie, its increasing use in features and TV) and that segment doesn't want to even think about composing music, mixing sound, and making titles in the same box as an editing machine. There's Logic, Pro Tools, After Effects, etc. for the real work -- the work that editors aren't doing.

Color is pretty good, but it should stay a separate app.

If anything, Apple needs to re-work the editing portion of the suite -- Final Cut itself. It has barely changed since the beginning. It works well enough, but if they could improve in-timeline trim edits (avid style) and slim down the menus by ditching the useless features, and re-write it all for 64 bit, and add some fresh good ideas that are actually useful, that would be nice. And improved media handling would also be nice. I would like an option to keep assets consolidated in a project's folder, Avid-style.
 
Live video switching please. If final cut could become more than just a post editing tool but something to create live broadcasts for Quciktime/Flash streaming I would jump with joy.
 
If anything, Apple needs to re-work the editing portion of the suite -- Final Cut itself. It has barely changed since the beginning. It works well enough, but if they could improve in-timeline trim edits (avid style) and slim down the menus by ditching the useless features, and re-write it all for 64 bit, and add some fresh good ideas that are actually useful, that would be nice. And improved media handling would also be nice. I would like an option to keep assets consolidated in a project's folder, Avid-style.

if you like avid so much, why don't you just use it?
 
all-in-one application? Hummm...
 
if you like avid so much, why don't you just use it?

I don't like Avid, I just think since Apple's gone 90% of the way in ripping it off it should go the last 10%. And keep the good stuff that's all Apple's own, like being able to throw any kind of media in the timeline, and timeline click n drag to move clips. Making FCP the most robust editing app on the market will make Avid vs FCP a non-question. The suite is unimportant.
 
I can see why they wanna do this, i can also see how it's gonna be a failure all at the same time if they don't do it right. complete integration means less lag time, faster turn overs, ie saving time with all the loop arounds in software, rendering, and doubling the amount of existing footage. however integration has it's flaws, it's inherent that a piece of software that only does 1 thing, will be very very very good at it. a piece of software that does many things do them all well, but isn't VERY good at all those things. u'll run into more bugs, less effective work, and what is supposed to be a seemless workflow becomes a mess.

i think they should go with ALL metadata translations in certain areas. the loop to color should be metadata application of color, no drive space increase and still the ability to make some finer edit adjustments after a look is applied.

if possible something along the lines with soundtrack and motion too.

most important things they really should be working on is backwards compatibility with older project files. no forcing the project file to upgrade so that someone using a older version of FCP can't open it again.

media management that isn't what it is now, u don't know how many times i've seen somebody accidently knock out their drive cable from their external by accident and they can't re online their footage for the life of them. and it needs to force unique file names for captured footage in whatever location it's going to.

better rendered media management, i've open and closed projects dozens of times and have to re render because it lost the render file magically.

if it just did those few things FCP would be light years better then it is now
 
I too wish FCP would just concentrate on improving its features such as trim and media management etc. Its not a competition thing, its just that I like and feel most comfortable working in FCP and would like the tools to support a faster more efficient way to work. I do like Avid as well and try to use both depending on the show. In any case, an all in one app makes me a bit hesitant, i guess we will have to wait and see. And. can I get an audio keyframe selection tool finally, please!
 
I really would like an equivalent to trim mode without "mode editing". It is possible to mimic the tool with keyboard shotcuts but it's somewhat roundabout and not a selling point. In fact, FCP7 includes a new "Play from Pre-roll" shortcut that you can assign. All it does is play from the pre-roll amount you designate in the settings. It doesn't interrupt playing you can just keep pressing the shortcut and go back 2 seconds. It's really nice. I set mine to just do that every time I press D (who needs the distort tool?!). I can use the V-U trimming, manipulating the cut via [ and ] then just press D as many times as I want to see that cut to make sure it's right. Not as elegent or sellable as Avid's Trim mode but I'd rather do that than have mode editing.

Also, am I the only one that likes FCP's media management over Avids? Avid treats you like you're an idiot, like you can't do it yourself. Not only is everything proprietary, you you can't manage it yourself. If you want too delete media, you have to do it in Avid or you're stuck guessing what media file goes with what. When onlining offline media files in FCP I'm able to FORCE FCP to recognize media as whatever file I want. If I even tamper with the Avid Media Files, boom, relinking option gone. I've been stuck unable to relink files in Avid, having to rely on my backups to relink the files when I KNOW the files are somewhere in the Avid Media Files bin. It's awful.

However, FCP does need to be able to online via reel and edgecode. That's key and probably a deal breaker for a lot of offline/online editors.
 
it's inherent that a piece of software that only does 1 thing, will be very very very good at it. a piece of software that does many things do them all well, but isn't VERY good at all those things.

That's a pretty big "inherent". I don't believe it makes sense to say software "should only do one thing in order to do it well" since software is made up of programming modules/objects anyhow. So 3D modeling software shouldn't have animation capabilities? And texturing should be another application? Photoshop should be what it was in version 1.07 and I should have 30 applications to handle all the different functions?

How far do you break something down before you define software as doing "one thing"?

There's going to be a team of software engineers for each app and those guys are focused on doing their application right. The only difference is there's a protocol for the interface & data handling that plays well with other apps in the same family.

Odds are they won't even load up an application into memory until you tab over to it and do something. I'd love to have access to all of Color's features and interface right on the FCP timeline simply by opening a window and beginning work.

Sounds like a great idea to me.
 
Here's my counter idea to the all-in-one: have all the other apps in the suite be able to open FCP project files. No intermediate formats. On the flip side, FCP would have to be able to understand what the other apps have done when you're back in FCP. It's a two way process. But imagine -- open your FCP project in colour, colour the sequence, come back to FCP, FCP knows what you did and if you change the cut and go back to colour, colour reflects those changes.
 
most important things they really should be working on is backwards compatibility with older project files. no forcing the project file to upgrade so that someone using a older version of FCP can't open it again.

Try exporting the project as an XML file
 
I hope Apple surprises us all at NAB 2010.

Based on what I've seen from others ... they will need too.

Like most of you ... I have a love / hate with Apple - mostly because I know they could make all my dreams come true ... but they just keep teasing me.

I do love my iPhone ...
 
I hope Apple surprises us all at NAB 2010.

Based on what I've seen from others ... they will need too.

While I agree with what I know you're saying...

There's not a lot that Apple "needs" to do. Their stock has more than doubled in less than 6 months, it's been targeted to rise at least another 1/3 of its current price, the company had gross margins of over 36% and total revenue of almost $10 billion in the last quarter alone, during one of the worst consumer economies in history. While we all see what we want to see, the inescapable fact is that Apple as a company is doing just about everything right.
 
There's not a lot that Apple "needs" to do.

I recognize this is not a scientific or necessarily logical view, but all I need to know about Apple's commitment to FCS, I learned the day of the launch.

That day, on the Apple homepage - there was not *one* mention of the launch. Not one. That day, the homepage was dedicated to the Nano and iPhone.

While ProApps is huge for our industry, it is very clearly not core to Apple's mission as a company.

Lucas
 
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