Reality TV heavyweight drops Final Cut Pro for rival Avid - Page 3

...and that's their choice. They see themselves as a consumer electronics company: iPod, iPad, AppleTV, iPhone, iTunes, Apple Computer Inc -> Apple Inc, etc.....

As many others have said before, there is a hell of a lot more money in the consumer market than in the pro market. The only reason Nikon and Canon are able to offer up D3's and Mark IV's is because they sell boat loads of Coolpix and Rebels.

I do wish Apple would continue to offer a small selection of pro tools like Nikon and Canon for those of us who need and use them everyday.

I am a professional photographer and I CANNOT do my work effectively on an iMac or a MacBook (I have tried). I need the horsepower and options that a MacPro or MacBookPro offer.

I love my Apple products, but if the MacPro and MacBookPro get dropped...I will most likely switch to Windows based machines.

For me, they are just tools. No use bitchin' about it. It is what it is.

Final Cut Pro didn't exist in the 90s. So which pros were you talking about were at Apple's "core"? Certainly not video editors - they were using Avid in the 90s. Graphic Artists and desktop publishers? Apple didn't cater to them any more than they do now. There's lots of other pros - scientific researchers, for example, are ecstatic about GCD, XGrid, and other technologies that Apple has added over the years.

This idea that video editors are the keystone to Apple's success is ridiculous hyperbole. It's just a clash of egos. Apple is revamping their software to take advantage of up and coming pros in the coming years, and the old timer pros don't want to change and are bitter about it.

I'm not saying the first release of FCPX is perfect or that Apple handled the transition perfectly. But when multi-cam and other features come back to FCPX in a year or two, what's your argument going to be then, other than you don't like the new interface? You pros talk as if it was invented by some novice programmer, but it wasn't - it was designed by one of the forefathers of digital video editing.

In a year or two, this will all blow over. Only a few luddites will complain, just like they do about how MacOS 9 was better.

Translation: major media outlets give it to one guy to try it out and he says "this is no good" without ever doing a real analysis of whether or not change in procedure and workflow will result in benefits in the long term.

Often difficult knowing when to say "No." Apple's decision to "walk away" from high-end video editing may turn out to be a better move than throwing more cash and other resources at something that pursuing may not serve their better interests.

Which is scary considering I've seen articles speculating that if Windows 8 isn't a huge success that MS will abandon the desktop OS market to focus on their server line.

Then what do we do? Dust off my NeXTCube?

Oh, I don't buy that. It's MICROSOFT. They wouldn't ever do that. Where'd you hear it?

Of course, if Microsoft was still playing the game of "let's raze Apple to the ground", that would be the easiest way to do it.

Imagine it's 2015. Windows 8 has done exceptionally poorly. Think Vista-bad. Think Windows ME-bad. Microsoft stops making new consumer operating systems.

Now it's 2019. Windows 8 is still being sold on new PCs, but it hasn't received any attention from Microsoft beyond the standard slew of security updates.

So people start moving to Apple. En masse.

2020. Apple can't keep up with the demand for their computers. Customer service quality sharply dips and the online Apple Store shows perpetual wait times of 2-4 weeks. The analysts that weren't killed in the Great Analyst Purge of 2017 write that if Apple COULD keep up with this new demand, they'd have 40% US and 25% worldwide marketshare by now as people jump the sinking ship that is Windows 8.

And the rest.

O~R, we can imagine that on the day that Microsoft announces they won't be making consumer OS' anymore (heck, Apple would send someone to the conference where Ballmer announces it to be able to respond immediately), Apple would start negotiating for more land, more manufacturing buildings, and more contracts to anticipate this new demand.

But again, I don't believe Microsoft would do that.

This has got to be the best thing I've read today.

At least the MBP could work for you. I tried a fully loaded iMac last July (right after the refresh) and it didn't cut it for for some of the rendering/encoding I was doing. I ended up returning it and am currently waiting (with finders crossed) for one more MacPro update. I really need more than 4 cores.

Arstechnica? Maybe?

It sort of makes sense. Windows phone has been a dud. Windows Zune was a dud. Windows tablets have been duds. From what I've seen based on the Beta Windows 8 is a sad attempt to create one all encompassing OS for phones, tablets, desktops (kind of like Lion). It's outright horrific. Touchscreen is not appropriate in all instances. It just isn't.

I foresee (ours included) most businesses hanging on to Windows 7 (which is a great OS) even longer than businesses held onto XP.

MS's largest revenue streams are Office and their server products. In addition I believe they get X amount of $ for every Android phone sold. So they're not hurting for money. They might just do a Steve Jobs and know when to step away from a product line. Imagine the irony of MS getting out of consumer products while Apple is abandoning the professional market.

I call BS.

First, the MacBook isn't even a current product, so your knowledge is obviously out of date.

More importantly, you can do your work on a MacBook Pro, but not on an iMac? Please explain what professional features the MacBook Pro offers that the iMac doesn't? Even if you're one of the "it's impossible to use a glossy screen" loonies, you can buy a matte monitor and attach it to your iMac, so there isn't a blasted thing that a MBP will do that an iMac won't do. And the iMac is significantly better in many regards (such as the ability to have both an SSD and hard disk as well as better CPU options). And since you say that a Mac Pro will work, portability obviously isn't an issue.

So, pray tell, what requirements are there that an iMac won't fulfill but an MBP does?

Based on the fact that Windows gives Microsoft about 25% of their revenue, I could much more see them continue supporting Windows 7 until 2030 than abandoning the market completely. And with the server/business market depending so much on individual clients for the users, I see no reason why they would drop the "consumer" line at all. I'd say that would be farther fetched than Apple buying a phone/internet company.

That's funny, since the iMac has a lot of upgrade options to blast MBP away - completely. I know it I tried them both for heavy C4D renderings. Of course the MacPro is still a different category. But there is absolutely nothing on earth that you could do better with a MBP then on a iMac. Except traveling around.

FCP was a bit long in the tooth and barely capable for half hour TV production, but it was never really suitable for feature films.

Some TV production will switch to Avid or Premiere, some will stay on FCP and some will eventually migrate to FCP X. No big deal.

Post houses have always supported Avid, FCP, and Premiere so that is a non-issue.

You do realize FCP has a long list of Hollywood feature films its been used for?

Nobody is saying this is going to kill Apple. It's a rounding error of their iPhone income. What it does do, however, is hurt a lot of long-time customers.

It doesn't have to be that every product Apple makes sells bazillions of units. Unfortunately, that seems to be Apple's thinking - Apple wants to get maximum profit for everything it makes, and it doesn't want to bother with creative professionals anymore.

I don't know why Apple can't continue to make some of their "insanely great" products for smaller market segments, but it seems like they don't want to.

One irony in all this is that despite all the celebrating of Steve Jobs' obsession with creativity, Apple is taking away the tools that creativite pros need.

What company is in business with this mantra?

"Not everything we make need to make us a lot of money. We can make less money to keep a small group of people happy."

Mmmm....

Here's a very reasoned and evenhanded discussion of FCP X vis a vis the "pros" of today and tomorrow -- by Walter Murch, an editor of some renown.

Walter Murch Talks FCPX

Watch all 3 videos.


Then there is this, by Walter -- his original reaction to FCP X when it was originally announced:

Walter Murch: the FCPX situation

Way off topic...

People here have been complaining that Apple is doomed™ because they don't support their customers and stand behind their products.

Below is a copy of an order I placed for an iPod Nano on September 7, 2005.


Recently, Apple detected that there was a potential overheating problem:

Apple Replacing First-Gen iPod Nano Due to Overheating Risk


My no-cost replacement arrived today -- The latest iPod Nano Multitouch (6 GB as opposed to the original 4 GB):

One Tap Wonders


What a shoddy way to treat a customer after 7 years....

<sarcasm> Man these guys are so old school. TV? Puh!! The future is on YouTube man. FCP X rocks! No silly tracks to worry about, fantastic grading, sound mixing all in one app - and straight to YouTube! Tell Bunim|Murray they're history man. Long after anyone can remember the Kardashians, my stuff will be up there on the web, getting hits! Clients, well, working on that. Avid's just too hard, man, why bother? </sarcasm>

We run a post house that straddles the worlds of Final Cut and Avid. It tends to fall about 50/50, projects for broadcast mostly. In the six months or so since FCP X arrived can I tell you how many people have brought a project to us that they've begun on Final Cut? 0.

...that could cause the Nano to explode or self-combust causing a fire that could kill you and/or your entire family.

I love that Apple replaced these devices (I received an 8GB replacement of an old 4GB Nano! ) but let's not pretend it was a selfless act on their behalf.

Nokia was number 1. Did that stop Apple from developing the iPhone?

Apple may have better use for their people and money than competing in the professional video editing arena. I get that. What worries me is breaking that bond people have with their Macs. Take the Mac off my desk at work and I may choose different hardware for my home. Now I've stepped outside the walled garden where I could be tempted by handheld devices from non-fruit companies.

Windows didn't achieve 98% market share by slick marketing to consumers. They got there by making sure everyone had a Windows PC at work. People's natural preference for the familiar did the rest.

The fact that they didn't have to do it at all (and wouldn't have without class action litigation if they were another company) sort of makes Dick's argument more appealing.

Apple is making a huge mistake in blowing off the professional level of their product slate. It's a very short-sighted approach because that's where all the innovation comes from which eventually makes to a consumer level. If it weren't for Final Cut Pro we wouldn't have iMovie, and if it wasn't for Pro Tools and Logic, we wouldn't have Garageband.

I think the only shortsighted thing here is people's reactions to Final Cut Pro X.

+++ qft

Where did the innovation that created the original Final Cut Pro come from?

Apple bought a pro-level editing company, I believe. Shake was the same way. Apple took the price of Shake from $10,000 to $500 by the time of its discontinuation. That's big.

Do tell. I know of Cold Mountain, Jar Head maybe a few others but nothing blockbuster.

I've used it for 30 min shows and it was a real struggle. I can only imagine the frustration for something feature length.

Macromedia developed Final.cut. And not big, pathetic. Shake is what is was when Apple bought it and that was so last decade.

I want some of what you're smoking!!!



Apple didn't recall the Nano's simply because the product was faulty (often companies will shirk that responsibility as you mention) but because it was a "safety risk" (Apple's words, not mine).

As in, those specific Nano's could self combust and burn your house to the ground, killing you and your entire family.

Not only is there a long history of products getting recalled due to a "safety risk", but there is also a history of other companies recalling products due to the same self-combusting-battery-burn-your-house-down-kill-your-family problem as the Nano has.

(e.g. from HP, Dell, Lenovo and Sony)

Granted, it's nice of them to give me a 6G replacement for my 1G although I'm sure if they didn't exhaust their 1G stock with the recall they wouldn't have done that either.

I just watched the remake of True Grit by the Coen brothers and they actually list that the movie was edited in Final Cut in the credits at the end of the movie. I found that a bit odd because I can't remember ever seeing that in the movie credits.

PS Wasn't the LOTR series edited in Final Cut?

You can find a list of movies it's been used in at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Cut_Pro

People keep saying this because they don't want to hear Apple being criticised for making a mistake. The critics include people who have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in Final Cut Pro and the same in supporting hardware and their job is to get up every day and sit in front of one of Apple's workstations. You can't dismiss their criticism as short-sighted when they describe the requirements of the jobs they get paid a high salary to do and the shortcomings of the product Apple expects them to use to do it.

The same thing happened with the iPhone antenna. There has been a perception built up that Apple is flawless and so anything that goes wrong can't be their fault, it must be the editors to blame or AT&T or the users. Then Apple comes out and apologises for the antenna saying they screwed up and still people say there wasn't a problem, even after they said they screwed up and redesigned the antenna in the 4S.

Apple posted an FAQ detailing the shortcomings of Final Cut Pro X, they started selling extra licenses of the old software, they introduced volume licensing on the App Store and within a couple of months they released an update detailing major new features as well as what's coming next:

http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/software-update.html

When has Apple ever announced what features are coming in future releases? They have a migration guide for moving from FCP to FCPX:

http://images.apple.com/finalcutpro/...tors_final.pdf

where they even resort to telling little white lies about FCP:

"In Final Cut Pro 7, the Export QuickTime Movie option provided many simple choices for exporting a sequence at lower quality for low-bandwidth scenarios. In Final Cut Pro X, choosing options within the Export Using Compressor Settings window offers all those choices and more at 10-bit quality."

The Export Quicktime Movie provided many advanced options for exporting clips at any frame size, rate, codec and even applying filters and they removed it so that you now have to pass exports that you want to change advanced settings on through a batch compressor. I should add, a batch compressor that is probably one of the least stable and least reliable Apple products every built with the same UI it had with FCP Studio.

Those aren't indicators that the industry was archaic and couldn't cope with Final Cut Pro for-the-rest-of-us, those are indicators that Apple released their product prematurely. It would be like shipping an iPhone without wifi:

http://www.macrumors.com/2009/11/03/...-since-launch/

The phrase to keep in mind going forward would be 'we're not perfect':

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...t-perfect.html

Apple's innovation, legacy and commitment to quality are undeniable but we should hold them to the same standards we expect from anyone else and not use their achievements to excuse their mistakes. They are a company which prides itself on being a place where excellence is expected, if they operate contrary to the ideals that put them where they are today they won't be the same company and this will show through their products and their actions.

I agree with the statement about short-sightedness when it comes to claims of Apple abandoning professionals when they have stated that isn't their intention (nor to redefine what it means) but editors have to make their concerns heard and ensure they are rectified to prevent this happening. They have to make it clear that Apple cannot dictate the toolset for a job they know better than anyone. People will then say, well let the short-sighted 'professionals' go elsewhere and lets have a scenario where consumers get a decent editor but this goes against Apple's stated intentions and the reality is consumers edit in iMovie. The people who spend even $300 on software are people who aspire to do this for a living or people who spend a long time editing.

In both cases, you will at some stage require a collaborative workflow between software and between users that FCPX largely failed to deliver by design. If they don't fix this adequately, the software will no longer be used by people who aspire to do this for a living and there will be a knock-on effect. I don't think I've ever heard anyone mention FCPX in a positive light and that's not the Apple I respect. With MobileMe, nobody really cares because it's not that important. Movie editing is as much a part of Apple's identity now as the iPod and they should handle it with care.

Yawn. Not this again. The urban legend of the "long list of Hollywood feature films its been used for"... LOL. Must see this list some time as an actual list.

None from top to bottom except for a VERY small handful. To say it's "been used for" is completely different than saying "done on".

I'm a total Apple apologist, but please, stop with this line. Ain't true. FCP and FCPX have a huge user base and is a great piece of software, but it could disappear tomorrow and Hollywood is one place that wouldn't miss a beat.

Well, here's the thing, and I'm glad you mentioned the Mac Pro, because no one else is in these FCPX discussions yet it's a key factor.

To wit, the capabilities of FCPX relative to the other options available to pro editors of all varieties is only one side of the coin of FCPX. The other is that you have to run it on Macs. That's not a terrible thing, I love Macs and OSX, and as an Aperture user who needs snappier performance I can always get a Mac, any model, that will kick it up for me. But even if, hypothetically, FCPX works well for 80% of Joe the editor's gigs, his MBP might only be suitable for 70% of those. The rest he needs his long-in-the-tooth Mac Pro desktop. Apple can Thunderbolt until the cows come home for interfacing, but that won't do anything for the motherboard and the chips, and the horsepower and MHz. There are LOTS of jobs where the software is fine but last years top level laptop isn't, and the biggest abandoning among Apple users by far has been of their over-priced and under-powered desktops, because now most users don't need them anymore.

But some of my video friends laugh at this, as they show me their Windows workstations that they make their livings on, and their racks for rendering and etc in the machine room that they upgrade whenever they need to, not whenever Apple springs a sudden secret new machine on them. They add some twist to their arsenal that requires doubling the horsepower at their fingertips? They just spend a few hundred and do it. Swap something out, add something else and blammo.

Where FCPX users are screwed is NOT by FCPX but by Apple's hardware getting slimmer and Airier and Pad-ier (love them for what they do, absolutely) but without the bulkier, chunkier boxes than sit under the desk or in the other room Apple is either saying "Trust us, you don't need it." or "We simply can't make a powerful desktop worth buying". Either way, I'm not crazy about the prospects. I can't remember the last Apple desktop update that I thought signified they had a handle on how to service the users that needed the hardware horsepower.

Not talking about working in a cubicle, talking about running a facility. If you have a Mac at home but have to outfit your studio with PCs, it doesn't really matter what features they left out. You'll be shopping for a Windows editing rig.

I wasn't going to do it, but you made me go and do it.

Also note FCP was used to edit four films that were nominated for Academy Awards in Best Editing and won Award for Best Editing.

• The Rules of Attraction (2002)[11]
• Full Frontal (2002)[11]
• The Ring (2002)
• Cold Mountain (2003) (Academy Award nominee for Best Editing Walter Murch)[11]
• Intolerable Cruelty (2003)
• Open Water (2003)
• Red vs. Blue (2003)
• Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
• The Ladykillers (2004)
• Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)
• Super Size Me (2004)
• Corpse Bride (2005)
• Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story (2005)
• Happy Endings (2005)
• Jarhead (2005)
• Little Manhattan (2005)
• Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005)
• 300 (2007)[11]
• Black Snake Moan (2006)
• Happy Feet (2006)
• Zodiac (2007)
• The Simpsons Movie (2007)
• No Country for Old Men (2007) (Academy Award nominee for Best Editing Roderick Jaynes)
• Reign Over Me (2007)
• Youth Without Youth (2007)
• Balls of Fury (2007)
• Gabriel (2007)
• Enchanted (2007)
• Traitor (2008)
• Burn After Reading (2008)
• The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008)
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) (Academy Award nominee for Best Editing - Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall)
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
• (500) Days of Summer (2009)
• Where the Wild Things Are (2009)[11]
• A Serious Man (2009)
• Tetro (2009)
• By the People: The Election of Barack Obama (2009)
• Gamer (2009)
• Eat, Pray, Love (2010)
• True Grit (2010)
• The Social Network (2010) (Academy Award winner for Best Editing - Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall)
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
• John Carter (2012)
• Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012)

I don't see how this any relation to what I said.

I know where Apple got FCP from. Since polyhedron feels Apple's innovation is tied to its pro apps, I wanted him to acknowledge where FCP came from.

None of the post production facilities I know of operate in this fashion. Perpetually tweaking hardware is risky. Most facilities build their machines. That is the way the machine is until they decide to upgrade it to something new.

Facilities need their machines to be stable and always working. Its way too risky to constantly switch out hardware components.


Haven't you noticed the picture of FCP X in all of its marketing materials? What computer is it running on?

That should give you a clear sign where Apple's priorities lie.

Didn't say anything about perpetually tweaking. When they need more power they add more power.



You just made my point



Nonsense. Complete foolishness.



You're adding words like "constantly" and "perpetually" that don't belong. Facilities have staffs that keep the the machines stable and always working, and they don't do it by never opening the cases.