It has Levels. It has Curves (it has CURVES!). It has Shadow/Highlight, there’s a Gaussian Blur Filter, you can add text, the Layers have blend modes (Screen, Multiply, Overlay, etc.), and you can show/hide them — change their opacity — create blank layers, duplicate layers, all that stuff. There are effects filters, there’s noise reduction, you can make selections (and you will love how they implemented them). You can share images direct to Facebook, and a whole bunch of other stuff I didn’t think would be there….but is.

Of course, it doesn’t have everything the desktop Photoshop has (or there is no way it be able to run on a tablet), but I think you’ll be surprised at the cool stuff it does have.

• Chroma Aberration – Editors can simulate chroma aberration – the imbalance of RGB color channels that can occur with camera lenses.
  
• Fast Defocus – This effect can be used to simulate ‘bokeh,’ or out-of-focus lens effects. Editors can create depth of field with the use of a depth mask, rack-focus effects, and more.
  
• Pan / Tilt – A popular effect used in many motion pictures and music videos, users can create a tilt-shift setup for still and motion picture cameras, with smooth, defocused gradients.
  
• Vignette Vision – With two effects options, editors can defocus either the outer edge or the center of the image. Defocusing the outer edge simulates POV shots, vintage lenses and more. Defocusing the center of the image allows editors to censor images, create hallucinations, etc.

• Further integration with iCloud, which keeps your mail, calendar, contacts and documents in sync.
• iChat has become Messages, and includes support for messaging with iOS devices and you can download a beta today. It is still a little rough, but being able to have my iMessages synced across all my devices is very cool.
• Reminders is now on the Mac and syncs with iOS, though this should have been there from the start.
• Notes is now on the Mac as welll
• Notification Center on the Mac access with a 2 finger swipe is just like the iOS version, and looks like it will replace GROWL for notifications on the Mac.
• Share Sheets allows you to contextually aware share where you are from Safari, Notes, iPhoto
• Twitter has been fully integrated into the OS, just like on iOS
• Game Center is now integrated into the OS, and you can supposedly play some games between the mac and iOS.
• AirPlay Mirroring allows you to mirror your computer to your Apple TV.
• Gatekeeper is the most controversial new feature, initially is set to only allow apps from the Mac App Store, but can be turned off so you can install your own Apps.
• Another unannounced feature is that Sotfware Update is now gone and integrated into the Mac App Store. This one I find weird, as you don’t upgrade your iOS device through the app store, you have to go into settings to do the update, so why shouldn’t you have to go to Software Update?

Big-screen moviemaking comes to the touchscreen with Avid® Studio for iPad.We’ve distilled the world’s leading film-editing technology into an easy-to-use app that enables you to edit video, audio, and photos at the speed of your creativity.'

'Swiftly arrange your clips in the Storyboard, make precision edits using the Timeline, and add high-quality transitions, effects, and a soundtrack.Then share your movie directly to YouTube, Facebook, and more—or export your project to Avid Studio for the PC and continue editing with even more advanced tools.'
Easily Access Your Media
Work with any media on your device—video, audio, and photos
Access media from external devices via an iPad Camera Connection Kit (sold separately)
Capture video and photos from within the app
See your media organized by Albums, Events, Faces, and more
Edit
Get started quickly with how-to materials
Easily navigate your project with intuitive gestures
Swiftly arrange clips in the Storyboard
Make precise edits and trim individual frames in the Precision Trimmer
Use the Razor Blade tool to cut on the fly and delete or replace the second half of the clip
Easily replace one clip with another
Enhance
Quickly create multi-layer 3D animations, transitions, and titles with included Montage templates
Easily composite video tracks to create layered looks
Add high-quality fades and dissolves to help your story flow
Generate professional-looking motion titles and graphics with full control over text, font, color, size, position, and rotation
Create amazing Picture-in-Picture effects with full control over position, size, and rotation
Pan and zoom on your photos to create high-impact slideshows
Enjoy full-screen playback
Create Soundtracks
Use your own audio or choose from the included sound effects
Trim audio to any length, set levels, and fade audio in or out
Share
Easily share movies via YouTube, Facebook, email, and much more
Export projects to Avid Studio for the PC
Pro Technology, Pro Results
Created by Avid, the maker of the world’s leading film and music editing technology
Easy enough for the hobbyist, powerful enough for the pro

It's tedious to spend days preparing shot lists and music cue sheets using EDLs. Instead, generate comprehensive reports in seconds direct to a fully formatted Excel spreadsheet for just $99 with Sequence Clip Reporter, saving hundreds of dollars of your time

prEdit is a dramatically new way to deal with transcripts, story and the first edit. From transcript... to paper cut... to sequence for just $395.

Adobe's voice recognition technology has been locked to the Adobe CS4 and CS5 Production Premium tools. But with Transcriptize you can extract the transcription to text files, Excel spreadsheets, and place it in Markers in the Final Cut Pro clip. Now you can use the Adobe speech transcriptions in your workflow for just $149.

• Multicam editing with automatic sync and support for mixed formats, mixed frame rates, and up to 64 camera angles
• Media relink for manual reconnect of projects and Events to new media
• Ability to import and edit layered Photoshop graphics
• Advanced chroma keying with controls for color sampling, edge quality, and light wrap
• XML 1.1 with support for exporting basic primary color grades and both importing and exporting effect parameters and audio keyframes
• Multiple improvements to the Color Board, including new key commands, editable numeric fields, and adjustable parameters that act like infinite sliders when dragged
• Ability to reorder color corrections in the Inspector
• Reveal in Event Browser shows clip range in the filmstrip while in List View
• Batch offset for clip date and time
• Ability to search text added to Favorite and Reject ranges
• Automatic restore of projects and Events in case of file corruption
• Beta version of broadcast monitoring with third-party PCIe and Thunderbolt I/O devices

• Improves performance when editing text in titles
• Improves performance when applying an effect from the Effect Browser
• Improves key-framing behavior in the Inspector, with keyframes automatically added when moving to a new point in time and adjusting a parameter
• Modifies transition behavior so that all newly added transitions use available media and maintain project length
• Fixes an issue which affected audio solo while skimming
• Resolves issues related to using Synchronize Clips with media containing a silent audio channel
• Fixes an issue in which constant speed retiming was not properly applied when using the Paste Effects command

As OffHollywood’s Mark Pederson tweeted, that’s “The power of FCPX – creating change.”

• Take an unlimited number of photos
• Take sets of photos per interval for HDR (up to 10)
• Each exposure in the set can be set to a different duration
• 1/10 second resolution for the interval and BULB duration
• BULB ramping - shift exposure smoothly during the timelapse (to be implemented)
• Auto BULB ramping based on the light meter (to be implemented)

• Ease of use
• Flexibility and Extendability
• Durability

Video Support Lightroom 3 added the ability to import, manage and tag video files but as the popularity of video capture increases it’s important to provide a single, robust workflow solution that can support all of your imaging needs regardless if they’re still images or video captures. Lightroom 4 adds native playback for a wide variety of formats from mobile phones to high end DSLRs. Photographers can also apply common image adjustments to their video clips in real time. Additional video details:

• Video playback directly within Lightroom
• Video trimming (In and Out points)
• Set Video poster frame. (This is the thumbnail that appears in the grid view)
• Extract a single frame from a video as a JPEG file
• Most popular DSLR, compact camera and smart phone video formats supported including AVCHD (AVCHD is the native format for Sony DSLRs and many new Mirrorless Interchangeable Lens, MIL, cameras)
• Videos can be adjusted with a subset of the same controls we use for images.

• • White Balance (JPEG Equivalent)
• • Basic Tone
• • Exposure
• • Contrast
• • White Clipping
• • Black Clipping
• • Saturation
• • Vibrance
• • Tone Curve
• • Color Treatment (HSL)
• • Black and White
• • Split Toning
• • Process Version and Calibration

• 1/2.3" Back-illuminated CMOS Sensor (8.3 million active pixels)
• Ultra high resolution F2.8 10X Zoom Lens
  (F2.8 to 4,5 — f=6.7-67 mm) (35 mm conversion: 42.5 to 425 mm)
• Built-in optical image stabilizer
• 4K Recording: 3,840 x 2,160
  MPEG-4 AVC/H.264(.MP4) 4 Stream Separate Recording 60fps/50fps/24fps Progressive at 144Mbps
• 4K recording for up to 2 hours (32GB SDHC, x4)
• JVC file utility included for combining separate streams into single editable file
• Also functions as fully featured full-HD camcorder
  AVCHD progressive (.mts) 60i/60p or 50p/50i
• Interval (time lapse) recording in both 4K and HD modes
• JVC's patented "FOCUS ASSIST" function
• Full HD (1920x1080) trimming function
• 3 assignable user buttons
• 2 audio channels
  4K mode: AAC, 2ch, 48kHz,16bit
  HD mode: AC3, 2ch, 48kHz, 16bit
• Manual audio level controls with audio meter
• XLR inputs with 48V phantom power
• Large 3.5-inch 920,000 pixel LCD display with touch panel
• 0.24" Lcos 260,000 pixel viewfinder
• Records to inexpensive SDHC/SDXC memory cards
  4 used in the 4K mode
  1 used in the HD mode
• Wired remote control capability

Due to the large volume of media generated by our reality shows, we needed to re-evaluate our editing and storage solutions. At the same time, we were looking for a partner who would understand our long-term needs,

The Avid Assistant Editor's Handbook provides new users a solid foundation for working in Avid, and it can accelerate an Avid assistant editor's transition to a coveted editor role. There is also a comprehensive chapter on multigrouping that details this often-used process and often-encountered job requirement.

• Those of you installing PhotoLooks along with the entire suite may have noticed categories that show up in the Looks drawer that happen to be empty – this occurs because Looks created for Looks 2.0 used new tools and aren’t usable in PhotoLooks (yet). We’ve fixed things up for now so you wont see a bunch of empty categories – only categories that have Looks you want.
• “Save Image As” in the Photo LooksBuilder was never meant to be left in the application and was not working correctly. It has been removed completely. Use the host app you launch PhotoLooks from to save your images.
• For those of you who also use QuickLooks, there was a bug in the installer that would cause all of your QuickLooks presets to disappear after installing PhotoLooks. We’ve fixed this up.

• For those of you using Looks 2.0 in Sony’s Vegas Pro on non-English 32-bit Windows systems, we’ve fixed up the truly annoying OMP error that pops up on your screen.

• In Premiere Pro, dragging the power mask preview outline was not lining up with the actual mask. We’ve sorted this all out and it’s working great.

• The Timecode Start setting was always working in ‘Continuous’ mode – ‘Reset’ and ‘Time of Day’ were being ignored – all fixed up.
• Choosing “Original + Timecode” as the main format option was causing the timecode to be off by a factor of 100. We’ve got the math all working now and you’ll get the results you’re looking for.

• As we previously blogged, Denoiser will be temporarily removed from the Magic Bullet Suite. As of the 11.1.2 release, it has been removed and can no longer be installed through the suite installer. We’re getting really close with the Denoiser we’be been developing in-house and will get it in place as soon as we can!

"There was a Final Cut 8 and it was 64bit and it was done and they looked at it and said 'This is not what we want to do, this is evolutionary, this is not revolutionary' and they killed it."

• Open Finder and press ⌘K (Command + K) • Enter 'https://idisk.me.com/yourMobileMeName' as the Server Address (without the quotes) • Click the Connect button

• Fixes an issue where a title may revert to the default font after restarting Final Cut Pro X

• Resolves an issue that could cause files recorded with certain third-party mobile devices to play back incorrectly

• Addresses a stability issue caused by changing the start time on a Compound Clip

• 8.3mp 2160×3840 Super-35 CMOS sensor (4K resolution)
• DIGIC DVIII Processor
• Canon XF Codec 
• Dual Compact Flash Slots
• Exposure and focus are both manual only
• Uses existing BP-955 and BP-975 batteries
• Sold as a system, including LCD monitor / XLR audio unit, side grip, and top handle.
• Availability: Jan. 2012; Price: appx. $16,000 USD

While Walter is encouraged by the updated FCPX version last month, he hasn’t used it on any real work yet, so he is cautiously optimistic (and still traumatized he says). “Do they love us? No…I know they like us….but they keep saying they love us??”

- 1920×1080 at 24, 25 and 30fps, as well as 1280×720- at 50 and 60fps

- manual audio levels (also during recording)

- ISO range for movie shooting runs from ISO 100 to- 51,200 (surely a new low-light king)

- 2 compression options “IPB” or “ALL-I” (all intra-frames)

- The EOS-1D X still records movies using the H.264- codec but it is the compression type within this codec- that has been changed (!!!).

- ALL-I means every frame for itself!

- no more 12 minute clip length, clips can now be up to- 30 minutes. (clips over 4GB will continue in new file)

- SMPTE Timecode!!! (Nice nice) (Rec. Run, Freerun- and 2 more modes)

- live audio level meter on the rear screen during filming- and the ability to adjust the audio recording level during- filming.

- “silent control” audio level adjustment through- dedicated button.

- 29.97fps and 59.94fps non drop frame for NTSC land

- no more .THM files. –> thumbnails are now metadata- inside the actual video.

- improved (?) moiré and line skipping performance

- it looks like still 8bit (biggest booh)

Dear Jonah,

It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs.

This means no change: one website, one account, one password…in other words, no Qwikster.

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Respectfully,

The Netflix Team

To a degree, roles are a solution to a problem Apple created by making Final Cut Pro X trackless. For example, in Final Cut Pro 7, or Premiere Pro for that matter, you could accomplish the same thing by placing narration on one track and music on another, and enabling/disabling the track as necessary for preview or rendering.

In addition to preview, when rendering out to a QuickTime file, you can also use roles to create separate files for further editing in another program. This is shown in Figure 4. For most high-end users, however, OMF or EDL export in Final Cut Pro 7 provides the same capability, while those editing in sister programs like Soundtrack Pro or Color would simply use the direct export feature shown in Figure 2. Apple declined to include industry-standard mediums of exchange in their product, or direct access to Soundtrack Pro, and roles is a substitute. In my view, you don’t get brownie points for fixing a problem caused by your own questionable design decisions.

For me, all the glorious new features seem like solutions to problems that I don’t have, added complexity with no payoff. With Final Cut Pro 7 or Premiere Pro, there are projects, clips, and a timeline. You import your clips, organize them into folders, and drag them down into the timeline. Then you trim a bit, add some effects, maybe a transition or two, export, and you’re done.

With Final Cut Pro 10, you have Events and Projects. You have a Magnetic Timeline, Clip Connections, a Primary Storyline, Auditions, Roles, Smart Collections: all are completely new concepts that I’ve never encountered in the dozen or so editors that I’ve cut projects on in the past, and, in some cases, they’re solutions to problems caused by questionable design decisions like the trackless interface.

The result is a cluttered interface that you really can’t control and asset management with even less control. You have effects and other functions seemingly designed to prioritize being different rather than superior. Honestly, was every established editing convention, from marking clips in and out in a source window to three-wheel color correction, so tragically flawed that it wasn’t worthy of being implemented in Final Cut Pro X, if only because it was functional and familiar to all pro target users?

More importantly, within the context of my typical projects, whether a two-hour ballet or music concert, or a ten minute streaming clip or screencam, will these new concepts help me do my job faster or better? I honestly don’t think so, particularly because Final Cut Pro 7 and now Adobe Creative Suite already suit my needs so well.

At one point in the article Townhill notes that Apple is responding to feedback and changing the application quickly to meet the demands of the Post community.  The strange thing to me is that Apple was given much of the same feedback during the beta testing and it was roundly ignored.  Pages upon pages of information was fed to Apple with pretty much everything that has been said publicly since the application was released.   In all cases, Apple ignored the suggestions moving ahead with the product as they developed it.   NOW that there’s a tremendous outcry, NOW Apple is “responding to the Post Production community.”   Maybe if they had responded to the people who were testing the product, they could have avoided this entire fiasco.

So it looks to me like Apple’s original plan was to just release FCP X as a prosumer product that really didn’t need the full fledged Post Production community blessing because there are millions of consumers out there and only a couple hundred thousand Post Pros.   If it was truly aimed at the pros, then Apple would have listened to the pros during beta testing about all the things that were badly missing from the app.

But with all the subsequent negative press on the product, Apple is desperately trying to backtrack and figure out how to add the extremely basic functions that it left out by “skating where the puck is going.”  (read the article to understand)

If Apple was truly dedicated to the professional editing community they would have taken the two to three years to deliver something that built upon their 11 year legacy.  I just see what they’re doing now as creating a whole box of band-aids to make the product cobble along and sort of kind of do what the product has done for the past 4 years at least.  Apple is admittedly leaning heavily on third party vendors to fill in what they call gaps, what I call chasms in the software.

• Improved playback/scrubbing performance of footage from DSLR cameras.
• Media from Avid Unity QuickTime reference files was not imported.
• XML project files created by Premiere Pro did not work with DaVinci Resolve.
• On Mac OSX v10.7 (Lion), the Universal Counting Leader was missing countdown numbers.
• On Mac OSX v10.7 (Lion), Premiere Pro would crash when quitting.
• On Mac OSX v10.7 (Lion), closed caption overlays did not appear in Program Monitor.
• Preview in the Capture panel was not functioning properly for HDV footage.
• Image sequences lost their frame rates.
• Edges of a clip were highlighted during transitions/dissolves when using CUDA processing.
• Projects created by importing Final Cut Pro XML projects that contain multiple mono clips would lose some audio when the project was closed and reopened.
• Exporting to a QuickTime movie using DVCPRO HD settings would not complete under some circumstances, including if an image, graphic, or synthetic element was in the sequence.
• Using CUDA-accelerated Invert effect would reposition the clip.
• Premiere Pro could not find files after changing the location of the project.
• If an After Effects composition with a background color other than black was included in a sequence and Mercury Playback GPU Acceleration was enabled, the alpha channel transparency of the composition was ignored.
• MXF files created by Premiere Pro were not readable by Sony XDCAM HD decks, Final Cut Pro, or Avid Media Composer.
• ProRes files created by an ATOMOS device with four tracks of audio were not imported correctly.
• MCC closed caption files exported from MacCaption failed to appear in the Premiere Pro Program Monitor under some conditions.
• Incorrect data was being written to XML files for AVC Intra exports.
• Opacity effects were being ignored after a second transition when CUDA processing (Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration) was enabled.
• Premiere Pro would hang or crash when loading a merged clip with disabled audio channels.
• various other crashes

MacRumors is reporting that Apple has quietly put Final Cut Pro Studio 3 back for sale, though they are not making it easy.
You have to call 800-MY-APPLE and ask for part number MB642Z/A for $999, not through the physical stores or the internet, but at least, if true you no longer have to pay outrageous prices on E-Bay for a copy.
Took them long enough. And it should never have stopped being for sale, but this is arrogant apple so…

Track tool. This plays a huge part in how I edit and something I really loved in FCP over Media Composer. I use it to move clips downstream to open a space on the timeline to work. If I want to do the same in FCP X, I either have to insert a placeholder (essentially the OLD Avid way of working) or select a number of clips (also the OLD Avid way). Not very effective when you have an hour-long timeline. Another reason to use the track tool is to select all the clips to the right in order to apply common effects.

The shortcut, not visible in the menus, is Command-Option-C. Mark a region in the timeline and select tracks, or simply select a clip or clips. Then hit Command-Option-C. Your material instantly appears in the source monitor.

There’s been so much talk about a “new paradigm” and “a new beginning” lately courtesy of Apple.  Defenders of the “new paradigm” are quick to point out that this is an entirely new application, nothing like it has ever been done, therefore, Apple had to break with all convention to create Final Cut Pro X.   It’s stripped down now, like Final Cut Pro 1, but give it time and the things we “need” will be added back over time.  It has so much “potential for the future.”

The more I work with Adobe Premiere Pro the more I just don’t understand that mentality.   Why wait?  Premiere Pro already includes the “missing elements” of FCP X and so much more it can’t do.

My discontinued Microsoft Trackball.


The Excellent Kensington Expert Mouse.

In fact before the Microsoft Mouse I always had a Kensington similar to this, even back to my Mac Classic I had an ADB model. The current model is a powerhouse with 4 buttons and an excellent scroll wheel.

Well under the ball, there are 3 little red plastic balls that the ball sits on, and one of mine came out when I was trying to clean it, and I lost it. And the ball just doesn’t track right, so I contact Kensington, and they don’t have the part, but are sending me a new trackball. And I just need to dispose of my old one! How awesome is that? THANK YOU KENSINGTON! YOU GUYS TOTALLY ROCK!

And I do love your trackball!

By releasing a program that ought to have been a step forward from the existing app, but instead was missing many features that used to be there, Apple made it so that FCP X doesn’t “just work” for many professionals. By changing the video editing paradigm, FCP X now “gets in the way” of many pros, who will now have to spend the time to learn the “new way” of video editing.

People keep asking me what I think of the new Final Cut Pro. My answer has been consistent: “It’s hands down the best editing program I’ve ever used, and when it comes time to edit my short film this fall, I won’t be using it.”

Hi Jonah,

Thanks for your request and feedback. I'll add your name to the list of requestors for this feature request.

Premiere has clip usage indicators, which isn't quite what you're looking for (indicators in the Timeline), but can be very useful and is a feature that neither FCP nor Avid have.

You can turn on the Video Usage and Audio Usage data columns in the Project panel (list view mode). In the flyout menu (accessed via the widget in the upper right of each panel), choose Metadata Preferences. Then either do a search for "usage", or twirl open the Premiere Pro Project Metadata section and put a check in the Video and Audio Usage properties so they'll show up in the List View of the Project panel. You can rearrange the data columns in the Project panel so you can see these usage indicator columns while you're editing. Now each time a clip is used, the usage count indicates the number of uses across all sequences in the project. For example, this is great for monitoring which clips have been used in cutaways already and which clips are unused and available.

If you need more specific usage information, here's another tip: in the Preview Area (the top of the Project panel with the thumbnail previewer and clip info), when a clip is used in any sequence, "video used x times" or "audio used x times" appears next to the video and audio type description. And if you click on the small drop-down arrow next to the usage info, a popup menu reveals a list of the sequences the selected clip is used in, with its timecode location in each sequence usage. PLUS, if you select one of these locations in the usage popup menu, that sequence is opened and the playhead is parked at the timecode where the clip is actually used. This is one of Premiere's "best kept secrets" and we're working on making the feature much more discoverable.

David Kuspa | Adobe | Sr. Experience Designer, Dynamic Media

If your Mac uses the 32-bit kernel by default, but supports the 64-bit kernel, you can start up using the 64-bit kernel by holding the 6 and 4 keys during startup.

sudo systemsetup -setkernelbootarchitecture x86_64

Schechtman is a little more blunt, especially when it comes to editors who have already declared their intention to abandon FCP for the competition. "If you're making a rash decision based on a product that isn't complete, you're an idiot," he says. "We all live a technical life. We all can look back at the not-so-distant past and see that we've been through this before. Don't jump ship, permanently, while someone else is rethinking the NLE for your benefit."

1. Clip Dupe Detection in the Timeline. Both AVID and Final Cut Pro 7 have this. As it is often important to not repeat shots in Commercials, the ability to see a visual representation which shows which clips are repeated is an essential feature.
2. MIDI interface. With Final Cut Pro I uses a Behringer BFC-2000 to be able to do a good audio mix within Final Cut Pro using it's automation controls. This would be a perfect pairing with the Audio Mixer in Premiere, and it is frustrating that only Audition has the ability to interface with MIDI controls as I would prefer to be able to mix directly within Premiere Pro.
3. In the Title Overlays Final Cut Pro includes markers for 4:3 center cut within a 16:9 project, which I am often using (HD project for SD 4:3 delivery).
4. A re-sizeable, movable Timecode window, like the added to Final Cut in FCP 7.
5. Reveal in project from Source monitor and not just from the sequence.

Unfortunately by releasing FCP X in the way it was done, Apple has destroyed the existing ecosystem built around FCP and all developers start at square one again. Some are happy for the new opportunities and others express concern. By ignoring legacy support and releasing a product with many gaps, Apple has alienated many high-end professionals. You can argue all you want that these users constitute an insignificant niche, but for developers, it’s these users who will pay thousands of dollars for capture cards, accessories and plug-in packages.

The danger of re-inventing the wheel

I have nearly four decades of experience in broadcast operations, production and post, with most of it in editing. I’ve gone through numerous transitions and along the way operated, reviewed or been associated with well over two dozen different edit platforms. One of the things I’ve seen in that time is that non-standard workflows and interfaces eventually return to accepted concepts. After all, editing tools are built on over 100 years of post production practices.

For me, FCP X simply is NOT faster nor easier, just DIFFERENT – precisely because Apple has radically changed the way an editor organizes the information and works in the timeline. I will freely admit that my nonlinear days started with Avid and I first disliked moving to FCP. Now, after eight years of mostly non-stop experience with Final Cut Pro/Final Cut Studio, FCP 7 has grown to be my preferred editing tool – warts and all. It’s incredibly versatile, but that level of user control was dropped from FCP X.

I use the timeline as much as a scratch pad as the location for a final assembly. Place multiple clips onto top tracks and preview them as one option versus another. Or build little sub-sequences at the back of the timeline and then copy & paste these into the place I want. Work rough and then clean things up. FCP 7  and Media Composer give me that freedom and precision. FCP X does not. Of course, some of this is handled through Audition clips in FCP X, but that requires that you know and select the possible options first and then combine them into an Audition clip, which can be cut onto the timeline for previewing. To me, this requires more work than I go through in all other NLEs.

My ideal NLE would likely be a mash-up between Final Cut Pro 7 and Avid Media Composer, augmented by the performance features of FCP X and Premiere Pro. It’s difficult to predict the future where Apple is concerned, so I don’t want to discount the possibility of FCP X picking up steam with my customers. If that’s true, then I’ll be there ahead of them; however, today, FCP X is the wrong tool for my projects and those of my clients.

Take the Precision Editor, as an example. This highly-promoted feature is little more than a toy in my view. Trimming in FCP X is much weaker than in FCP 7 and that version wasn’t anywhere close to having the trimming control of Media Composer. Asymmetrical trimming in FCP X is virtually non-existent. The basics, like trimming L-cuts, haven’t been properly implemented. For instance, split edits (L-cuts, J-cuts) are only based on trimming audio track in-points in FCP X, instead of either audio or video as in most other NLEs.

It’s these and many other little things throughout FCP X that will hinder its adoption by the upper tier of users. That has a cascading effect. In a film school, why adopt FCP X for your students, when they’ll encounter Avid Media Composer as the tool of choice out in the “real world”? If you teach a digital media curriculum, whose graduates are destined to work in the corporate and web arena, then isn’t Adobe Create Suite better suited? What Apple has in effect done – by rebooting Final Cut as FCP X – is to pull the rug out from under its own advances earned over twelve years of FCP development. They’ve handed an extraordinary gift to competitors who can better service these smaller, but still important, market segments.

chflags nohidden /Users//Library

In its current state I would not use FCPX in a professional, client heavy environment. At this time I don’t consider it an FCP7 replacement as it lacks so many features that I’ve come to rely on. It’s a brand new piece of software so it will take years to mature into the full featured application that FCP7 is ... that is if Apple chooses to add back a lot of the features missing from FCP7. At this point in time I don’t know when / if it could replace FCP7 (or Avid Media Composer or Adobe Premiere Pro).

23) Do you think Apple is moving away from the Pro Video market towards the wider prosumer market with FCPX.

Most definitely.

51) Does your knowledge of FC7 help or get in the way of learning FC10?

That’s a great question. I’d almost say it gets in the way as FCP7 uses long established editing paradigms that work very well. In some aspects FCPX is trying to reinvent the wheel. Where there are some great things in FCPX there’s other instances where, IMHO, the wheel doesn’t really need to be reinvented because it works so well.

63) how does the magnetic timeline handle a music video where the main audio should be locked permanently?

My music video testing has found that I would create a synchronized clip with the master audio to place in the primary storyline and then connect all my angles to it via Connect to Primary Storyline. In theory that should keep them all in sync. Truth be told the inability to really lock a clip in place and lack of multiclips / group clips would make me look elsewhere for music video editing.

77) Worthwhile building new edit suite around FCPX or still shrink-wrapped FCPStudio 7… etc?

Personally I would never build an edit suite around a single NLE so I certainly don’t feel the current release of FCPX is enough to build an entire edit suite around. As one tool in that suite yes but the only tool? Not in its current form and probably not for a long while. Plus, if Apple is going to rely on 3rd parties to supply many of the pro-workflow tools that we need for FCPX then the final cost is going to end up well above $299 to run FCPX in a professional / broadcast environment.

83) What’s your favorite new feature, and new disappointment?

Favorite new features are the many different background processes from rendering to transcoding to media management. Auditions is another strong new feature. Disappointment is the Magnetic Timeline and single Viewer that changes between source clips and the timeline.

Businesses in the film and TV industry, that have to deliver a product to a strict standard within a strict deadline, can’t pin their hopes on a future upgrades or the next version while relying on an increasingly ageing product that has been EOL’ed. They need certainty and at the moment the only certainty that exists with FCP is that the current version has no future hopes and the current version isn’t suitable for their work. They have no choice but to look elsewhere.

It simply makes no financial sense for Apple – selling a $300 product that appeals, as is, to millions of people – to pursue a small market with very specific and complicated demands.

In the end Final Cut Pro X will be a success, it is a powerful and innovative application. But it will no longer be a big part of the film and TV post-production industry.

3D, 7.1, new U.I., Kona, Decklink, Matrox, Bluefish support coming soon

3rd party I/O: no announcements,  other than ‘we’re working with them for the future’

80% of pro systems are Avid, 50% of #Avid employees used to be in production

future is 64bit, new interface, WILL NOT lose known features, keyboard short cuts, etc.

Third party hardware support (Matrox, AJA, BMD, MOTU)...Plugin support from more vendors (Red Giant)...external control surfaces… #avid

Which brings me back to where I was on day two: the "magnetic timeline" is cute, but it keeps me from making the sequence I want and therefore it really has to go.

It reminds me a little bit of when Apple was introducing FCP 1.0 and Steve Jobs showed us how we could take a clip from the Viewer and drop it on this beautiful transparent overlay in the Canvas to choose insert/overwrite/replace/etc. and the crowd went, "oooooooh." But who edits that way?

Maybe you'll say I didn't give it enough of a chance. That might be fair. I just played around with it for a few days. But the truth is that we have an editing paradigm that works for us in FCP 7. It's not enough to show us that if we completely rethink our workflow then we can do the same things in FCP X as we can in FCP 7 with a couple of extra steps. What can we do that's more efficient, faster, better? Yes, the infrastructure is improved; yes, the 64-bit implementation and background rendering mean things will be much faster... if we can still figure out a way to tell the stories we want to tell.

In conclusion, I think if Apple's FCP X team really is serious about wanting professionals to use this program -- and maybe they're not, and that's okay -- we will need to see it go back to a track-based editing metaphor, at least as an option. If that happens, I can't see why I wouldn't use it eventually. I don't really care about the feature set: they can always add multicam and OMF export and whatever else, and I'm sure they will. But if they add those features while retaining the current editing paradigm, it will still be very difficult to use professionally.

Sooo ... IF Apple loses 10% of the 200,000 high-end editors (and I think this is generous … the real number is probably near 50,000) but gains these markets, will it be an even trade? No, not at all—each of these markets is 10 times the size of the current high-end editing market. If only a small percentage buy FCPX,  Apple’s installed base will double, and quickly. Almost every person I’ve talked to in these areas are excited about the new release. They don’t want or need EDLs or multicam edits, they just want to cut their story together quickly.

In the long term, the future is more fuzzy. Apple stands to gain and hold the bottom 90% of the pyramid—if they are able to develop the application effectively. This 90% will begin to put pressure on the top 10%. We’ll just have to see how committed Apple is to the future. For the many that will be entering the market with Final Cut Pro X… getting in now means that they can learn a simple application and grow with it… like many of us did with Photoshop over 20 years. It was simple when in started, really.

1. FCP XML in/out is coming via 3rd party soon…no FCP 6/7 support project support coming ever it seems…

2. Ability to buy FCP7 licenses for enterprise deployments coming in the next few weeks…

3. FCPX EDL import/export coming soon…

4. FCPX AJA plugins coming soon for tape capture and layback…capture straight into FCPX bins.

5. XSAN support for FCPX coming in the next few weeks…

6. FCPX Broadcast video output via #Blackmagic & @AJAVideo coming soon…

7. Additional codec support for FCPX via 3rd Parties coming soon…

8. Customizable sequence TC in FCPX for master exports coming soon…

9. Some FCPX updates will be free some will cost…

conigs Do they have any kind of timeframe for “soon”? Am I safe in guessing in 2011?aPostEngineer within a few weeks for some updates i.e. XSAN up to a few months for 3rd party developers to get their heads around the API.gigarafa what about the rest of the suite? Color, dvd studio etc?aPostEngineer they have unfortunately reached their EOL and will not be developed any more..

iMovie on Steroids? MaybeAfter using FCPX for a few weeks I still believe what many initially thought upon first seeing FCPX back in April: This is just the first version of a new application and in this form is essentially iMovie on steroids. There are just too many things that Final Cut Pro 7 users will be missing when they really dig into FCPX. It's not that we won't be able to make cool effects and pretty video, it's just that we'll do it in a much different way without some tools that we now take for granted. Word from people who are smarter than I am say that FCPX isn't built off of current iMovie code. I still find that hard to believe, as the similarities are striking. If they aren't based on the same code then Apple made a very conscious, very clear and very targeted decision to copy an awful lot of what's in iMovie now. Some of it is actually for the better but a lot of it is for the worse.

•No More Dual-Monitors: Also gone is the more traditional FCP7-like Viewer/Canvas two-monitor layout. The viewing window changes to the timeline or the clip events depending on what you’re doing. In my time with the new software, I have come to really, really miss that two window layout.

There is the option of importing from tape, but that's only from a tape-based camera and only via FireWire. Why Apple included only FireWire camera support is perplexing. It seems downright silly to rewrite FireWire tape support for FCPX and not include something like multi-clipping, especially when it feels like you approach something close to multi-clips when you use the new Synchronize Clips feature and have it sync multiple camera angles. Sure, the resources for FireWire support might be vastly different than support for third-party I/O hardware (which isn’t supported out of the box) but FireWire support for DV and HDV? Really? When Apple, and an entire industry, is moving away from FireWire?

When media comes into FCPX it must be associated with an Event or dropped into a new Event created upon import. Forget about project-based media; everything here is based on Events. In fact, all the media you’ve ever imported is available all the time. This feature alone can be totally amazing and/or insanely frustrating; I experienced both feelings when using FCPX. There are definitely times I don't want media from other projects available, especially in a professional environment, where you can have hundreds of hours of media from different clients on your media drive. Conceptually, it’s an interesting idea for the right environment but in practice FCPX desperately needs some type of "Event Media Mounting Manager" to keep unrelated media from intruding on an unrelated project. You can physically move the media in the Mac Finder to hide it from FCPX but isn’t this an application for the future? That seems really antiquated.

This type of project setup, and the more structured way FCPX stores and tracks media, reminds me very much of Avid Media Composer. Media Composer has always been great at both media management and mixing formats. Avid's often been chastised by FCP users for it's structured, less free-flowing way of working, but Apple is doing something very similar now in FCPX.

The timeline has done away with video and audio tracks as we know them and therefore, it’s a very free form way of working. The magnetic timeline means clips move out of the way where clip collisions might have happened in FCP7. This new, freer way of editing will suit some; others it will not. I like quite a lot of what Apple is trying to do to make editing faster and better, but there are other things in FCPX that really don’t make the overall editing experience any faster or better. You really have to try it yourself, which makes it rather frustrating that there isn’t a free demo available.

My fear is this free-form timeline will lead to some real sloppy jobs coming in the door if FCPX catches on.

The new Media management in FCPX may seem to offer more options to editors, but it actually uses a very rigid, specific way to store clips, renders and projects. If you were a sloppy editor in FCP7, then you’ll be fine in FCPX, at first. But if you don’t really understand how FCPX organizes your media you might be in for some trouble if files get moved and drives get shuffled.

I hate how there’s no real dedicated Viewer window when I skim those source clips.I hate how imprecise much of the actual editing process has become in the magnetic timeline.

How much real-world editor feedback did Apple really get before this came to market? Even though some very high profile editors got a chance to evaluate it before the release, I'm more inclined to think it was designed by a bunch of engineers who don’t actually edit for a living. Either way, it just feels unfinished. I won’t be implementing it with my paying clients as of this version, and probably not for a few versions to come. But I’ll happily bang out home movies with it.

Yes, well before all of Apple's recent shenanigans, I started to sense that Final Cut, along with all of Apple's professional apps and gear, was slowly being strangled to death. Here are a few of the harbingers of doom that caught my eye over recent years:

• Apple took nearly 2.5 years to upgrade Final Cut Studio from version 2 to 3 (and v.3 was only a moderate upgrade at that). Until then, updates had come at a much more aggressive pace.

• Apple cancelled the popular Shake, promising to replace it with a new tool that never came.

• Apple got lazy with its Logic Pro app as well, letting development creep along with an upgrade about every two years.

• Apple stopped updating the Pro page on its web site long ago. There hasn't been a new item posted in almost two years: http://www.apple.com/pro/

• Apple took more than a year to fix a glaring Final Cut 7 bug that made its Close Gap command unreliable. To break a core Timeline feature like Close Gap and not fix it for 14 months was offensive and inexcusable.

• Apple cancelled its Xserve RAID then its Xserve hardware.

• Apple started taking longer and longer to release Mac Pro workstations, and absolutely phoned in the latest upgrade last July. 511 days in the making, the newest Mac Pro was one of the most un-inspired hardware upgrades I've ever seen from Apple.

• Apple pulled out of industry trade events like NAB.

• Multiple rumors (and confirmation of rumors) of significant layoffs in the Pro Apps division.

• Multiple rumors that Apple was trying to sell off its Pro Apps division.

Take just a few of these and maybe they don't add up to anything. But take all of them together, and it's a real sign of Apple's low-to-non-existent priority for professional media. Yes, the writing has been on the wall for quite a while, and by 2010, I reluctantly began to read it. Late last year, I started to look at the two clear alternatives to Final Cut....

It’s hard to say exactly what Apple’s strategy was with their release of FCPX. Its announcement at the NAB convention seems to suggest that they were trying to get professional editors excited about FCPX, yet the lack of support and backwards compatibility with FCP7 shows either a disconnect, or outright disregard for the realities of being a professional editor.  

This release feels similar to their previous iMovie reboot. In that case, I think Apple could afford to be more aggressive with abandoning the previous version of iMovie and starting from scratch.  Many iMovie users probably don’t use it on a daily basis, so throwing out their previous experience with an older version and starting over really wasn’t that big of a deal.

For *professional* editors, this is an entirely different scenario. Pro editors use their software of choice all day, every day. They become masters at shortcuts and UI tricks to make them effective. If you’ve never seen a *good* professional editor at work, I can tell you it’s amazing. The speed and precision in which they work is staggering. They can do this because they’ve spent countless hours training on and mastering their tools. That’s why it’s unreasonable to expect that Pros would jump on board with FCPX on day one.

What happens if you’re currently on a project using FCP7, and you need to bring some new people on board to help finish the project? You’d better hope they already have a copy of the software, since now you can’t buy FCP7 any longer. I’m not sure what you do in that scenario. I think it’s these kinds of issues that show a lack of respect for the Pro editor that has gotten the community so riled up.

The bigger concern I would have if I were at Avid would be that it appears Apple is again trying to leapfrog their competition with a new paradigm for video editing. Avid’s interface was already showing its age, and now it’s only going to appear more antiquated in the eyes of young editors growing up on FCPX. Maybe Avid doesn’t necessarily see that as a big deal – they have their loyal users who aren’t going to switch and they know it. Remember also that Avid doesn’t make their money from the editor software alone – they also have big enterprise server systems that manage large amounts of media and also do things like big newsroom automation systems. These are things that Apple are not likely to compete with. However, in all those kinds of systems, the lynchpin is the Editor, and if none of the younger editors know how to use, or don’t care to learn Avid, that’s a big long-term problem.

But the real question anyone who edits is this: What are we going to do right now? I mean what are we actually going to do? As professionals, we don’t have the time to play around with multiple new programs until this dust settles as it could be months, and it might take Apple over a year to put FCP back on track.

Honestly, I’m not excited about moving to a new platform. This will be my third (Media 100, Final Cut Pro, now this – go ahead and laugh, Avid users). But the integration of AfterEffects (which is becoming a must-have item for filmmakers, see www.videocopilot.net to understand my zeal) and Photoshop make it an attractive one-two knockout punch.

I have to say that the magnetic timeline's "primary storyline/connected storyline" paradigm just does not work for me yet. The concept is this: think of a documentary. The interviews are your "primary storyline," and the music, titles, and B-roll are your "connected storylines."

In theory this is very cool, because a particular piece of B-roll is "connected" to a particular piece of interview in a particular place, and you can reorganize the interviews and the associated B-roll comes with them.

In practice it's really annoying. It assumes that you always have a block of footage that starts and ends with a cut-in video and audio simultaneously, which I actually almost never do.

The magnetic timeline also irritates me because I'm a strong proponent of track discipline. If I put something on V2, it's there for a reason. But in the magnetic timeline, items on subordinate tracks just jump up and down all over the place. Your music might be towards the top here and towards the bottom there. I suspect that in a complicated project, it will become impossible to find a given element.

Something I despise: the loss of Reconnect Media. Not having that on Avid was one of the worst things about it, and losing it on FCP hurts. A file suddenly went offline for no reason -- I hadn't moved it -- and I was just hosed. That sucks.

Ubillos returned from vacation and found that Final Cut wasn't ideal for organizing raw footage. From that experience, First Cut was born which would let you import your raw footage and quickly skip through, organizing and building a rough edit. The intention originally was to then export to Final Cut Pro. At some point, Apple officially latched onto the project and turned it into the new iMovie '08.

And back then the same questions were being asked as now – “Doesn’t Apple care about the professional market?”

In a word, no. Not really. Not enough to focus on it as a primary business.

Brinkman goes on to explain that there are maybe 10,000 "high-end" editors in the world while the market for an easier to use more casual product is "at least an order of magnitude larger". The market size, however, isn't necessarily the only reason. Brinkmann offers an interesting anecdote about how the high end market tends to be 90% driven by product requests from the big customers. Apple doesn't work that way:

After the acquisition I remember sitting in a roomful of Hollywood VFX pros where Steve told everybody point-blank that we/Apple were going to focus on giving them powerful tools that were far more cost-effective than what they were accustomed to… but that the relationship between them and Apple wasn’t going to be something where they’d be driving product direction anymore. Didn’t go over particularly well, incidentally, but I don’t think that concerned Steve overmuch… :-)

Apple's hierarchy is also described as one in which easily demo-able features tend to be easier to promote within the organization. He goes on to say that in the case of FCP, Apple would rather introduce more easy to use features for the broader audience even if it means pushing out some items for high end editors.

I installed them and a small test looks like it’s running fine with good performance for the Mercury Playback Engine with an NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 for Mac. Once installed, you get a full set of AJA presets:

If Adobe is really serious about competing in the pro video editing space (and I think they are), they’ll get on their hardware partners like AJA, Matrox and Blackmagic to be as quick supporting Premiere Pro as they have been about supporting Final Cut Pro.

I am writing you about my orders for Final Cut Pro X, Motion 5 and Compressor 4. Order numbers M3NT1XYK15, M3NT1XYK7J and M3NT1XYLSB. I want to get a refund on these because the products do not function as advertised. Today you released a FAQ on Final Cut Pro X and it’s very first entry states that I cannot open Final Cut Pro 7 projects into Final Cut Pro X (it should not be named that, what if Adobe had made Photoshop CS5 not able to open any previous Photoshop docs when it became 64 bit) and as a professional editor, that is a good 75 percent of my business, working on variations of old projects and fixing projects for other people. Without this features the program is useless to me and the FAQ says it will never happen. If this FAQ had been out when the app was released I would not have purchased any of these 3 apps. Honestly I can say I am furious! I have already paid money for Ripple Training, and have also upgraded AUtomatic Duck, and since every statement after FCP X came out was that features were coming I expected that opening FCP 7 projects would be the first priority, but since it will never happen I must get an editing suite that can open FCP 7 sequences like Premiere Pro or Media Composer with Automatic Duck (which as I said I already own).

I also never saw any documentation that said that the magnetic timeline could not be turned off and that you can’t assign tracks. I work on 28:30 long infomercials often with 20 tracks of video and must put different graphics on different tracks in order to organize so that any editor can open it and understand it, with the magnetic timeline I might be able to make a sequence that looks the same visually, but it would not be organized so any editor could see it or so that I could easily turn texted on and off. This is another reason that this suite is not usefull to me.

As for Motion, I only got it to edit effects within FCP X, and to me it does not vastly improve over the previous motion. I don’t notice any major speed increases, and I see it as a downgrade since it is missing the send to features in FCP X that made it a good companion to final cut pro.

And Compressor 4 is not even 64 bit, and I am fine with having Q-master seperate, and since it won’t get video sent from Final Cut Pro 7, it is useless to me.

Please refund my money ASAP because these apps do not do as advertised, and you have only made these shortcomings aware as of today. I tried to learn and use FCP X, and did the ripple training, but found it is not at all a replacement for FCP 7, and instead feels like a consumer downgrade.

Can I import projects from Final Cut Pro 7 into Final Cut Pro X?Final Cut Pro X includes an all-new project architecture structured around a trackless timeline and connected clips. In addition, Final Cut Pro X features new and redesigned audio effects, video effects, and color grading tools. Because of these changes, there is no way to “translate” or bring in old projects without changing or losing data. But if you’re already working with Final Cut Pro 7, you can continue to do so after installing Final Cut Pro X, and Final Cut Pro 7 will work with Mac OS X Lion. You can also import your media files from previous versions into Final Cut Pro X.

Does Final Cut Pro X allow you to assign audio tracks for export?Not yet. An update this summer will allow you to use metadata tags to categorize your audio clips by type and export them directly from Final Cut Pro X.

The release of Final Cut Pro X was the defining moment for many. In my line of work, I get to interface with a lot of video editors and other video professionals. I have spoken at numerous user groups and conferences. As a forum leader and podcaster for Creative COW, I have been hearing complaints for years. I also get to sit in edit suites with clients. The waiting for transcode on import as well as the 32-bit nature of Final Cut Pro 7 has caused a lot of impatient waiting in edit suites around the globe.Final Cut Pro X was supposed to fix this. At least that was the belief most held. It would be “awesome” we were told. I guess that can mean different things.People are not breaking up with Apple because of what Final Cut Pro X is. They are ending their relationship because their fears have been confirmed. I present to you a summary of the issues that have people freaked out. Please pass this list on to anyone who asks you what the big deal is. These are my 10 reasons that people are switching. These are just opinions. Opinions formed by my interactions with many and my professional experiences and connections.

In the blink of an eye, the release of Final Cut Pro X has caused a ripple in the Matrix so huge, I’m not sure Neo could even fix this catastrophe. But it’s much more than good software gone astray, it’s deeper than infrastructure changes; it’s about the loss of trust, faith and even livelihoods.

But switching non-linear editing applications is only part of the problem, and in some cases, only a small problem by comparison. There are many people that have devoted the last ten years in direct relation to Final Cut Pro, and as a result of Final Cut Pro X, are going through a major life/career change. These include certified Final Cut Pro trainers, value added resellers, user group organizations, third party software/plugin developers, and many more. There are many people that are questioning their livelihood because of this radical shift that Final Cut Pro X has taken. I wonder if Apple knew they were going to directly cause such an issue, or if all they were looking at was nothing but their bottom-line. To me, it shows an enormous amount of arrogance, ignorance, and selfishness from Apple, which is not the Apple I once knew.

So all of this begs the big question, “Can Apple be trusted from here on out?” For me, I will no longer buy any kind of pro app from Apple for my facility, knowing their EOL history is very strong—even if an updated Final Cut Studio 3 (based on FCP7) was released. It amazes me that all of my favorite pro apps from Apple are all EOL’ed. Literally.  For me personally, I no longer care about FCPX or even FCP7 updates. I’ve already started passing up articles on FCPX how-to’s or work-arounds, as I will not be using FCPX in my facility, and since FCP7 is EOL’ed.Because I’m switching to Avid Media Composer, all I care about at this juncture is integrating my current hardware and software with it, and what else I need to change or buy in order to make that happen. It’s a domino effect really, and all because of a 2.5-star, $299 downloadable app from the App Store. Seriously, that $299 app is costing me thousands of dollars, but luckily, none of it is going to the App Store. Just keep making powerful desktops, Apple, so I don’t cut my ties from you completely.

Apple recently introduced a completely new version of Final Cut Pro that immediately replaced the previous one. Although modern and revolutionary in many ways, this new version X lacks at least 10 main features required by any professional who uses Final Cut on TV studios, Feature Film editing, Production and Post-Production houses. In order to keep expanding the numbers of Final Cut Pro editing suites on these places we request that the Final Cut Pro 7 application should be temporally available for free as a download to all of those who bought Final Cut Pro X, while these 10 features are not addressed in the X release. They are: Add ability to import and export XML files natively;Add ability to import previous Final Cut Pro projects natively;Add ability to export OMF files natively;Add ability to change a project’s frame rate after it’s been created; Add ability to read and write projects stored on an network or SAN volumes; Add ability to switch the Final Cut Pro X layout to a more traditional 2-monitor setup; Add ability to preview true video signal, independent from the 2-monitor setup; Add support for Multicam editing; Add support from capturing and recording to tape, not only via capture now but also via batch capture and print to tape natively; Add support for importing image sequence files such as DPX and OpenEXR;

Apple/Steve Jobs also realize that there will be a group of editors who leave and go to Adobe Premiere Pro or over to Avid – but they believe that the video editing market is going to be huge in the future and they have positioned iMovie to be the basic editor – and FCPX is the pro editor (which by the way imports iMovie assets – get the hint?).They will sell tons of copies of FCPX in the next 10 years and are not afraid to lose a few old fans along the way. They would have sold even more if they were to have gotten ownership from the editing community instead of taking it away. They’re going to have to go into major recovery mode or they’re going to lose a big hunk of the community – bigger than they were willing to lose in the first place.But I still believe that in the long run, in a year or so, FCPX will rock. I’m certainly using it now and will continue to explore and learn from those who have tutorials ready (more on that shortly too).

From that experience, First Cut was born which would let you import your raw footage and quickly skip through, organizing and building a rough edit. The intention originally was to then export to Final Cut Pro. At some point, Apple officially latched onto the project and turned it into the new iMovie '08.

Which brings us on to the timeline – another massive bone-of-contention in the FCP community.  The notion of tracks has completely disappeared, principally because of the new ‘magnetic timeline’. Instead of FCP 7’s old ‘Clip Collision...’ message that either drove you mad, or was a useful warning (depending on your point-of-view) clips now move themselves out of the way – essentially creating new tracks as they go. There is no track routing so, for instance, you can’t control where your audio goes when you insert a clip. This is pretty horrible – for example, if you want to mute your sound effects you need to hunt through the timeline and disable each one individually, rather than just muting the track you put them all on – you can’t even rely on them being where you last saw them, as editing in the magnetic timeline may have moved them somewhere else. I’m not sure that the benefits of losing the Clip Collision dialog outweigh the problems the magnetic timeline causes though Apple says it’s working on a solution – I suspect this may just be a way of assigning audio to output tracks which won’t solve the layout problem I’ve just described. They also claim that Automatic Duck Pro Export will allow you to create and assign output tracks as a workaround, but I’m not sure that’s true…Editing is a little weird too, if you are used to the standard 3 point edit paradigm. It sort of still exists, but only as the illegitimate offspring of iMovie and FCP.

It feels, somehow, like Apple have taken the iMovie code and grafted three point editing onto it. I can see the point of the magnetic timeline, and it’s arguably better than a tracked timeline, but there was no need to replace the FCP 7 three (and four) point paradigm. FCP X’s implementation isn’t better – it seems to be a bit of a mess.

At the moment, you can’t set the start timecode of the timeline, so the usual broadcast requirement of programme material starting at 10:00:00:00 isn’t possible. Similarly, audio track assignment is a real problem until Apple releases an update that solves the issue. You can’t use a broadcast monitor or audio PPMs until there is a professional I/O unit supported and you’ll need the Automatic Duck software to interface to ProTools/SADiE for audio work and, potentially, your finishing solution (if you don’t finish picture in FCP X)

The funny thing is, if Apple had released this as a replacement for Final Cut Express (which has also been discontinued) then the reviews would be glowing. They could have continued to sell FCP 7, and then release a ‘Pro’ version, with all these problems solved, in a year or so. I would certainly be surprised if any of next year’s Oscar nominees will be cut on FCP X.

In FCP X, Apple got some things amazingly right. But they also got key features amazingly wrong. And if they don’t change course, this software, which has significant potential, is going to spin further and further out of control. At which point, its feature set is irrelevant, its reputation will be set. We’ll be looking at another Mac Cube.

1. Immediately return Final Cut Studio (3) to the market. If it is not compatible with Lion (and I don’t know whether it is or not) label it so. But put it back on store shelves so consumers have the ability to work with the existing version until FCP X is ready for prime time.2. Fund the development of a conversion utility – either at Apple or thru a 3rd-party – and announce the development with a tentative release date.3. Publicly announce a road-map for FCP X that just covers the next 3-4 months. Apple needs to be in damage control mode and the best way to defuse the situation is to communicate. Answering the question: “What features will Apple add to FCP X, and when?” will go a long way to calming people down.

This launch has been compared to Coca-Cola launching New Coke – resulting in a humiliating loss of market share.With Final Cut Pro X, however, the situation is worse — with New Coke, only our ability to sip soda was affected. With Final Cut Pro X, we are talking losing livelihoods.