Apple scaling Final Cut Studio apps to fit prosumers - Page 3

There is alreaady 3 options for video editing with Apple software, isn't enough?
It seems this topic is pure especulation based on jobs announced by Apple...

yes, final cut needs a redesign of the user interface. in fact, final cut is full of user interface errors! i also prefer imovies user interface, but imovie is not very good when it comes to precise and more sophisticated tasks.

however, it's still quite strange to see that apple is risking its reputation as a serious video software producer.

It's been awhile since Avids products were in that price range.

Media Composer is $2495... it's $2295 if you opt for the direct download option rather than get a physical disc.

http://shop.avid.com/store/category....media-composer

A guy on twitter threw this up: http://twitpic.com/1p0ftb/full
Steve Jobs often writes customers back these days but his emails are always really short and not very specific.

I could be wrong but it seems to me that anyone who makes money with their computers does so because of their talent, rather than great tools, although having great tools makes it easier, for sure.. Allowing us common folk to participate because of an easier to understand software program would allow more people to get involved, but the cream (read talented) artists will always to rise to the top. Don't worry, be happy.

That's too bad, rescaling for prosumers. I thought FCP was on its way as an Avid killer, but rescaling will lose that battle. Avid, however, retains much of its Hollywood and perhaps newsroom users, while FCP appeals to indie filmmakers. But a rescaling could lose the indies.

I guess that's all OK with me, being that I've been eyeing Avid Media Composer. Although it's expensive, Avid seems to be forthcoming, especially having restructured the company. I've been mostly a Logic Pro user for eight years, but recently have been using Pro Tools (Avid) more readily. I think Apple is going backwards on pro apps, so I'll probably migrate fully to Avid, but it depends on what this prosumer FCP is all about. If I do go Avid, I could also migrate away from Apple computers.

I just bought a new Core i5 MBP and one of the apps I was most excited about using was Aperture. As it turns out, I don't really like using it. iPhoto has a MUCH quicker, easier interface and is fun to use. If I want to go in depth, I use Photoshop CS5.

I consider myself "medium-high" when it comes to computer proficiency - it's not my profession, but I do a lot of photo/video stuff at an intermediate level. I grew up (i.e. high school/college) using harder stuff like Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro but I'm not embarrassed to say that using iLife sometimes is just easier and more fun. I did a slideshow the other day, and iMovie was a life-saver, because it is so easy to rearrange things (people were constantly giving me new photos, changing their music requests, etc.)

If Final Cut could retain its capabilities but get a more Apple-esque UI makeover, that would be right up my alley.

I completely agree with you that the value of an editor is not in their ability to operate the tools; however, time and time again as the tools of trades become simpler to use, that actual talent is lost on the ignorant masses. There is the danger of diluting the value of any position by making the tools stupid-simple, because unfortunately too many people mistakingly presume they're paying for a tool operator, not an artist. "Why would we pay someone hundreds of dollars an hour to do what my middle school kid can do on her iMac?", they'll say.

And it comes from the other end as well. It has taken Final Cut Studio a very long time to find it's place as a respected edit suite in hollywood; dumbing it down now would depreciate it's image to something a little better than iMovie, making it once again not a serious editing tool. I already know guys who just a few years ago were expected to work for a lower day rate if they were cutting on Final Cut instead of Avid, clearly showing people's lack of understanding what you're paying for when you hire an editor.

You don't offend me. All they can do to iMovie is keep adding features. But I LOVE it's interface. They have added a similar interface to QuickTime and I bet that yes.. Even Final Cut will get an interface overhaul. The problem I have is that professionals as slow to change and to progress... even if something is a "Better" way of thinking than what they are used too. Apple still needs to be very careful but I bet they can do this in a way that will make EVERYONE happy. One thing they ABSOLUTELY need to support is BluRay Services. At least on a professional and Prosumer level. They are simply too many HD cameras out there and no one wants to load an hour of HD quality up to YouTube. (Okay.. maybe some people do), but you just cannot dismiss optical media just yet. BluRay Does compete on some level with iTunes downloads but not as much as some people think. It also deters people from Buying Macs in the first place. I know some people who WILL NOT Buy one until it supports BluRay.

I don't know why you're complaining.... This has been the American Way for 30 years now!

I don't think we're looking at another iMovie completely although the iMovie interface is really kind of Genius. I do believe Apple is heading to touch screen all the way through their line-up including professional computers. That said.. they are just trying to reach a broader market with FCS and more likely FCExpress. They thing is.. There has to be similarities in Final Cut Express and FCS to bridge the gap. They also HAVE to keep up with Competition. What bothers me is I hope this isn't TOO late in the game for Apple to be doing this. Surely they aren't just making these changes now.

iMovie has been extremely disappointing. On one hand, they gave it the engine under the hood it always needed (a good thing), but removed the simple and intuitive interface and replaced it with a quasi-timeline type of thing in iMovie 08. iMovie 09 fixed a few things, but the interface is still a disaster. Sure, it's okay for a 2 minute Youtube video, but not for something like a wedding.

FCE is priced well, but I've never been a fan of the dumbed down Pro product offering. A middle tier product needs an easier interface. It needs to include themes, etc. I'm hoping this new effort will be about building a quality Prosumer product.

At the same time, they had better not dumb down FCP. There are many pro users that depend on the power and flexibility of this product. Apple needs to continue to be a player in this market, even if this isn't where the money is. I'd like to see them drop the price further and put Avid out of business.

I've used FCP for tv shows and love what it can do. But it also has always frustrated me by how hard it is to use in a few areas. It is not that I am dumb - I setup fiberchannel SANs for multiseat multicam HD production houses.

When I first saw the new iMovie I immediately recognized that it had a number of improvements over FCP. What I want is to see a new FCP that is 64 bit native with the improvements of iMovie, particularly in media management. This would be like rolling FCP Server into the regular FCP. I also would like to see Color, Motion, and Soundtrack merged into one master app. This is what I think Apple has been working on for the last couple of years.

To hear that Apple is just now looking for a programmer to help do these things implies that Apple is still years away from making this dream a reality. I don't buy it. Like Cory said in one of his posts, what have the FCP programmers at Apple been doing for the last two years?

In fact, I expect Apple to release a new FCP soon with all or some of these advancements. Some people might see the iMovie influence and assume that FCP is getting dumbed down. I see it that FCP is finally getting easier to use. Realize there is a lot of bias with what gets posted and said. There are business reasons why some people want to spread lies.

Avid is trying hard to make people think Apple is abandoning their Pro Apps. Why? Because Apple is putting them out of business. Avid also owns Digidesign and its ProTools hardware and software. You should have heard all the things about how Apple was abandoning Logic in favor of Garageband. They were trying to get people to keep from moving away from ProTools.

Same thing has been going on with Avid, FCP, and video. In fact, same thing has been going on with Aperture, LIghtroom and Adobe. Scare people away from using Apple software and hardware. Heck, Microsoft has been doing this stunt for decades. Information warfare. Control the press, spread lies, doubt, uncertainty.

The only surprising thing about all this is that Daniel (Prince McLean) should know better then to fall for all this FUD. Daniel knows his history and his tech and should not fall for this garbage. I think he got conned on this one.

I couldn't agree more. If this is the direction Apple is going with video design user interfaces, count me out. There was a time where I'd point to iMovie as a great starting place for would be video editors. Now, Windows Movie maker is a much better choice. iMovie 08 & 09 are just an embarrassment. I can only guess that it has been designed for the "video from you phone and post to YouTube" generation. Trying to do anything but the most trivial edits is a big source of frustration. It's a real step backwards in terms of user interface, even though the engine itself is noticeably better.

Apple denies it.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20005409-37.html

Way to not update your story with Apple saying you got it wrong.

I was a dyed-in-the-wool Avid user until I could not afford to upgrade to Avid's latest software-hardware config. I kept my Meridien-based system (still have it) until I realized FCP had surpassed its performance. I will think about returning to Avid if Apple were to "dumb down" FCP. I want a system based on professional specs. I don't really care if amateurs are have a rough time. These are professional tools and one needs to learn them as if careers is depending on it. Avid still rocks and their data filing method is superior, in my opinion. With FCP, files get scattered all over the place unless you really take the time to make sure everything is going to one file. I find having to worry about that in the heat of battle is a drag. Avid keeps it all together, I like that.

Check the link in the post above yours. Apple says it's not true.

Right, so let's go back to needlessly harder to use tools, so people can appreciate real talent.

Film stock and scissors, anyone?


"Making easier" is not "Dumbing down". It actually is "Smartening up".

And if some studio people are dumb enough to access some tool on how it is marketed or if it is easy to use rather than quality and speed of results, then let them.

Smarter people, using the more advanced tools will drive them out of business...

This is all a big fuss about nothing.
I can't think of a single reason why Apple would sabotage a strong healthy product like FCS. The rewrite of the Studio apps is a big Job and will rely on QT 10 maturing to the standard of QT 7.

The work involved in getting studio to 64bit could leave us with a 1st release that matches the current FCS product feature list- with new features coming in a later release. or maybe we will get something bigger, who knows- the important thing is that the current FCS already does the job and pays the rent.

Strong robust updates and improvements are always welcome. it would be great to have a scrolling timeline, for FCP to be able to use all the processors for rendering, and better metadata handling & management- but FCS still remains a strong link in the production chain. so whats the worry? what editor has the time to spend looking at the interface, so what if it's the more or less the same as version 1.

The only thing the article raised that was 'new news'- was that apple might be defining the difference between FCE and FCS, maybe we will get more pre production & production tools in FCS like the Adobe package offers, in addition to the all the current post production tools, along with workflow management and collaboration tools, with FCE remaining the more or less the same not needing a full production toolset.

Im not worried- i can only see FCS getting stronger as a package. I always let out a little sigh now when i read appleinsiders coverage of pro apps, they always seem to be missing the point and out of touch regarding pro apps and products. this all seems to be a self generating story.

+++ qft

.

Another false report from Apple "Insider".

You guys really ought to quit while you're ahead. Oh wait, that ship sailed a long time ago.

Let me ask all of you. Do you feel that the market for editors is over saturated as a result of low- cost tools? Was it better when an Avid system cost $75,000 and only the professional post-production companies could afford the gear? Do you think FCP and its low price has affected your business opportunities in a positive or negative way? Do you feel clients are willing to pay you well for your talent or is it harder to charge a decent fee because there is always someone willing to do a job for less? Do clients or potential clients care more about cost than talent (who is working the controls). I know the low barrier to entry has affected my business, how about you?

I run a small but high end production company and we are using the demo of Smoke for the Mac as a back up plan in case Apple has any notion of doing to FCP what it did to Quicktime. ( neutering it via X)

iMovie and FC Express are great for prosumers - but if Apple wants to maintain/hold on to some place in the Pro market it will PUSH FCS to new heights beyond the minimums: 64 bit, and Open CL support.
Smoke is 15,000$ and while a TON of money i would happily pay double the current FCS price to feel like my last 8 years building a studio around Final Cut and its great additions - Motion and the FxPlug in architecture.

NAB was painful to see how far Apple has slipped - it smelled Like Quark failing to believe the move to OS X was worth the effort.

Anyone use Quark anymore?

Alas my production company is not so high end but I do have nearly 30 years experience having been senior editor and chief engineer at high end facilities.

I think the article is deliberately alarmist. Quicktime X is an interim step to new technology which is why 7.6 is still available. X avails itself to HTTP streaming for example, not built in to 7.6.

Both X and Final Cut Studio are undergoing radical transitions in my estimation. FCP itself was built on very old code from Macromedia and was being developed for Windows. It also moved through OS9. I suspect that's meant a very long development time. It's probably way FCS3 was only incremental from FCS2. The real resources are vested in a ground up rewrite. Apple has to juggle rushing a product to market vs doing it right. Apple's history has almost NEVER been first to market. The iPod wasn't the first MP3 player and the iPhone wasn't the first smartphone. FCP, was just a neat new NLE approach that really couldn't touch professional feature rich Avid when it first came to market. Look at how big FCS grew to.

I really think FCS is in the next "caterpillar to butterfly" and we're going to see the next butterfly. Apple tends to "survey the market" and find a "new way" to fill a need and I suspect that's what will see. I believe that's why Jobs sent me an email, when I pointed to this article, and said the next FCS will be awesome. It might be a vague statement but Apple rarely is wrong about "awesome." Their pattern is to be slow and awesome rather than hastily seeking parity competitors.

"I think the article is deliberately alarmist. Quicktime X is an interim step to new technology which is why 7.6 is still available. X avails itself to HTTP streaming for example, not built in to 7.6."

I guess i respectfully disagree on this re quicktime X - losing the ability to do quick in and outs as well as the ability to Export and use QT as an export tool was lost in X. Yes you CAN reload it form the Utilities folder but you can not make it the default for all Quicktime operations. Apple has placed a runtime deamon in that even if you elect to make QT Pro the default - on reboot it defaults back to X.

Most filmmakers i know who complain louder than I about this has less use for streaming functionality then In and Out quick edit & exporting functionality.

I sincerely want to be incorrect but this and no update in over a year, to 12 yr old legacy code has made us here start to get familiar with Smoke...just in case.

The next 3 to 5 months will tell.

Well, here we are more than a year later and Final Cut Pro X rolls out and its....Final Cut Express 5 not Final Cut Pro 8. The pro's (with big multi-user workflows) have the pitchforks out and can't believe it.

Apple Insider called this one to a tee. Hopefully Apple brings back the pro focus in the future, but based on this article and how the rollout has been, its hard to think they will.

Its amusing Apple went through the effort to deny this way back when, even though it turns out they were doing exactly what this article talks about.