Apple releases free update to Final Cut Pro X with multi-cam editing - Page 2

I doubt many switched. I think most like myself just stayed on FCP 7 waiting to decide. I have Premiere but now I am going to buy FCPX. We do use multi cam and I just got our titling plug in update that now works with it so I will give it a try. Plus I just upgraded to Lion on one Mac Pro so we are good to go.

While that might be true for some 'old farts', it is pretty dismissive of us as a whole group.
A lot of us have absolutely no problem learning a new interface and new way of doing things, in fact I was looking forward to it and liked many of the changes to FCPX. The biggest reason most of us didn't like or move to FCPX was simply the features it lacked that used to be possible on the previous version (like allowing us to share projects with other software). Although you might not believe that, Apple obviously does, as evidenced by these updates that haven't changed the new interface/workflow but simply added missing features. If they thought that 'old farts' were simply scared of using a new interface/workflow these updates would have been to simply rewrite FCP 7 in 64 bit


Hindsight is a great thing but that statement isn't exactly true, alongside the the growing focus on consumer products and the lacklustre initial FCPX release, we'd seen the demise of Shake, the disappearance of other pro apps (that are still needed by a lot of us i.e. dvdstudio), a lack of mac pro updates and the, once actively updated, pro section of the Apple website not being updated in several years.
A simple PR release from Apple stating that they were looking into things was too little and too late for many people who were understandably losing faith in Apple and their pro focus.

The only real time that we KNEW Apple was adding these features was when they released them today, up until today it was only PR we had to go by and for many pro users PR suggestions are not enough to base a business decision, and potentially large business investment on, especially when you consider the increased focus on the consumer market at the expense of Apple's previous pro focus.

It is great that Apple have followed through on their initial press release but it is over simplifying things a little to assume the switch threats were simply due to fear of learning a new interface and spite. More than anything, they were about pro users lacking faith in Apple's commitment and focus on the pro market, if you look at that particular market over the past few years (compared to the few years before) Apple really only has itself to blame for that diminishing faith.

Apple's attitude towards secrecy has served it well at the consumer level where it builds hype and excitement, but it has also worked against the company servicing pros and the enterprise for as long as I can remember and if I'm surprised by anything, it is that a company as smart as Apple hasn't been able to develop a better dual strategy for both the consumer AND enterprise markets.

That guide has been wrong since 2008. The current wait is only longer than the second-longest by about ten days. And it's all based on the chips, anyway.

Let us know how it goes!

Lion means you never have to say you're sorry [that you didn't save your FCP X changes]...

Why is that? Is it because they have counted releases that were not true architectural changes?

Yeah, good idea, that's pretty much what I'm doing.
One place I do freelance work for has bought a copy and most of the training available, I've been patiently watching the software develop and also familiarising myself with the new version when time permits, so I'll be ready when/if the software is ready for me.

Right. It counts the ADDITION of an 8-core option to the first gen Mac Pro as an "update".

Absolutely nothing changed about the computer. No price changes, no hardware changes, no software changes. Everything that was currently being sold remained identical. You could just click a radio button and get a $3,400 8-core option.

To the extent what you say is true, that is completely different. The display is a commodity you can buy from anybody. Final Cut could only be acquired from Apple.

Moreover, professional production houses needed to acquire Final Cut licenses, but the new version of Final Cut wasn't suitable for large professional production for the lack of third party plugins and relied on features (some of which Apple is slowly adding). Apple was essentially depriving people from acquiring a product the professionals relied on and needed to do their jobs while Apple improved its newly released product.

Consequently, some big name professional production houses jumped ship. Apple could have avoided that just by continuing to offer the old product, while improving the new product. After the new product was out a while and added the needed features, Apple could than announce that within a couple of months the old product would be taken off the market.

Exactly. This, I think, has been one of Apple's flaws, especially when Steve got involved. His desire for a Zen aesthetic forced Apple to leave out details. This is my fear about the supposed upcoming Apple TV set. I'm sure it will be really simple to operate, but my bet is that you won't be able to get at any of the detailed controls to really refine the image.

I'm not claiming it's easy but advanced users need both elegance and power. And in this instance, we see a lot of the power coming back to Final Cut Pro. Multicam is one example. I bet someone at Apple though, "well, 35mm narrative film generally only uses one camera, dramatic TV shows generally use single camera, amateurs use one camera, so it's mainly live TV and situation comedies that use multi-cam and that's a tiny percentage of users, so we don't need it." And Apple was either extremely naive or extremely arrogant to think that they didn't need conversion from FC7 to the newer software. But at least they've learned some of those lessons and at least it's a free update. In terms of functionality, it always had some wonderful features. Most of the failures were in workflow-related functions.

Yes, I think that one should have been left off, given what most people (I suspect) use the bars for.

We have already switched to Premiere and haven't looked back. We have no plans to go back to FCP and are seriously considering moving to PC based systems (the rumor of Apple discontinuing towers is driving this).

Shake was a great loss. Many films like Lord of the Rings relied on it. I think a lot of the cuts have had to do with Apple's migration from carbon to cocoa. It had to rewrite applications like Final Cut from the ground up. That is likely why some apps like Shake were abandoned. Apple probably thought too much work would go into rewriting the applications and the payoff wouldn't cover the cost.

That is basically the top and bottom of it. That and they should have stated FP7 would remain available to those requiring it for a few years to give large production houses time to parallel work and ease over on going projects.

Erm...

Hardly.

It's still almost entirely unusable as a professional piece of software, thanks in larg part to the clunky interface that makes the most basic functions impossible.

Sticking with FCP7 for feature films for now, but if 10 continues as is am definitely going the Avid route in a couple of years.

Enjoy. Everyone else will keep using Final Cut Pro for its innovations and iMacs/Mac Pros.

I can totally understand and appreciate this sentiment.
I don't personally need to buy a new pro machine until the end of the year but when I do, I'll be looking at two aspect of Apple before making the same decision;

What is the current situation with the mac pro
What is happening with FCPX

This new FCPX update may be a minor .0.3 update but it does give me some hope for both points.
I'm ready to switch to Windows if Apple aren't focused on making the pro products I need but I would be disappointed to leave the mac behind after so many years.

I'd prefer my pro workhorse machine to be a mac but I can imagine a situation where I have a powerful windows based workhorse as well as an Imac for email/phone sync and to open legacy files.

Easy for me to say as my own boss but I would rather learn to weave baskets for a living than move to PCs running Adobe products to earn my living

Windows is ok if you are doing a dedicated task like video editing. Once you are inside the Adobe CS interface it is really similar regardless of platform. The big difference for me between Mac and Windows is when you are doing many diverse creative tasks and general computing using the filesystem, in which case, the Mac is a much more pleasurable experience.

Can you elaborate on "It's still almost entirely unusable as a professional piece of software, thanks in larg part to the clunky interface
that makes the most basic functions impossible."

Specifically, which basic editing functions are impossible with FCP X?

CS 5.5 rocks. You really cannot work professionally in the creative arts industry without it.

Since there are no currently shipping chips that would serve as an upgrade for the mac pro, and the likelihood of ivy bridge chips being released in the next 10 days is pretty slim, I don't see this as a terribly inaccurate statement.

Just a head's up, Photoshop CS6 is the absolute worst thing to happen to the industry since Adobe started scarfing up all those other companies.

Your posts made this thread worth reading, (I won't comment about how often that happens here Thanks for the time you took to let us see your viewpoint, your clarity and lack of bluster are refreshing.

One side-note you brought up really got my attention....


Nailed it.

The pro video workstation market (i.e. Mac Pro) is vanishingly small. It's 20,000 or something units... one hour's iPad sales or something. It's a non factor in terms of the scale of today's Apple. Apple wants to give millions of people the ability to create pro quality content. Not TV professionals. Millions of people. Sorry guys. This just isn't the old days when Apple video geeks had major clout. Look at Apple's sales numbers. They are not that boutique house anymore. Unless it serves their greater purpose having these halo users. But I doubt that is the game plan for FCPX.

The real use for FCPX is allowing people to post top quality youtube, facebook, blog and other web videos. Let's be honest, that is where the volume is. Not network TV (although that, too has expanded... )

I just migrated an FCP 7 sequence with 6 Video Tracks and 3 stereo Audio tracks to FCP X using the 7toX tool!

It was surprisingly good for a first effort.

1) All the edits and media came across

2) A 5-level video composite came across but need adjustment to the mask and repositioning of a couple of videos -- about 20 seconds to fix

3) Most Titles and effects didn't migrate, but track space was set aside so I could include comparable additions

I don't think this will satisfy a Walter Murch sequence with hundreds of tracks... but it's a start

Have you used it yet? Those will change to in agreement when you do.

Do you honestly believe that the differences between FCPX 10.0.2 and 10.0.3 are big enough to warrant the classification as 'Express' and 'Full' version? It is still very much the same application, just with a handfull of additional features.

The roll eyes was for the attitude and hyperbole. It is not even a shipping product. How can it possibly be the absolute worst thing to happen to the creative arts industry? As you often say: Abject Nonsense!

Right, that makes sense.

Okay, then, if they keep it how it is, it'll be the worst thing to…etc. etc…

Seriously, HOW…

Okay, here's the pencil tool. And since apparently no image of the actual cursor exists anywhere on the entire Internet, we'll have to do with the one in the UI.



Now, where would you expect it to start drawing? Perhaps the tip? Maybe even the eraser?

NO. It draws HERE:



Starting from the top left corner of the invisible bounding box that defines the size of the cursor itself.

Okay, well, that's not too bad, is it? YES. IT IS. Because they have arbitrarily assigned the various cursors in all of their tools to start performing their actions in the top left corner, in the bottom left corner, and in the bottom RIGHT corner. It's completely at random where you'll have your stuff happen. Absolutely no consideration has been taken to past versions of the software or where, based on the cursor, these actions should logically take place.

If that is not fixed, I tell you what…

Avid.

Does it still say Thomas Knoll as the first name in the credits? If so then it will be just fine. You are complaining about a beta release. The pencil tool is not supposed to even have a pencil looking cursor since you can change it to all sorts of different brushes. The default one pixel is always a cross hair and the other brushes are the size and shape that is indicated in the brush selection menu. Besides in order to have an authorized beta release you have to agree to an NDA which you have just violated.

Good thing we have people like you to defend Apple.

As for dismissing the "whiners": Has it ever occurred to anyone that Apple was waiting to see how many people would "whine" before they decided to do something about the issues in Final Cut Pro X? Why devote time and resources to fix something if nobody complains about it? So it was good that people "whined" about the missing features that you now get to enjoy.

What? You can't honestly think that Apple looked at Final Cut Pro and said, "Let's see how many people complain if we don't include something as fundamental as multi-camera editing."

It's not a case of 'what can we make them do without', it's a case of 'what can we get working the way we want working in time for launch'.

The launch should always happen when the product is ready not when an arbitrary launch date is established. Exactly what was the urgency to release FCP X at that time?

I thought that was one reason Apple withdrew from MacWorld. Because they didn't like having to meet a specific launch deadline for new products. At NAB they only showed a beta release because they knew it was not ready. Apple apparently did consider FCP X ready when they released it. The quality control seems to be slipping a bit lately as judged by the recent 1.0 release of iBooks Author which is also rather beta-like in my opinion.

Agreed. I also wish that Apple would incorporate the professional graphic cards line (ati firepro and nvidia quadro) into the customisation options.
On the CPU front however, Intel hasn't released many new Xeon CPUs other than bumps in the Ghz area. This is probably why there hasn't been a need to update the MacPro line.

I do 3d rendering work and have a dual Xeon hex
Core workstation (24 rendering threads if u include hyper threading) from dell which was bought this year for work. It's basically running the same CPU options as the MacPro and this is a 2012 machine.

I just can't see apple abandoning the MacPro at anytime soon. I reckon osx marketshare will eventually increase to a point where software companies are forced to release osx versions of the wintel equivalent to capitalise on the user base and revenue. Software like Autocad is now on osx. I am waiting for the likes of 3d studio max to be ported over and then I will rid my wintel setup forever.

Same here!

See the post above there was software just released that will import fcp7 projects into fcpx now.

Don't mean to be rude, but that sounds like an amateur talking. You and Apple may think this new UI is more productive - and who knows, probably for making youtube videos, it is - but as professional editors are but one cog in a post-production machine, the new UI apparently sucks. Imagine if Apple decided that they were going to introduce a new, more "productive" arrangement of letters on a keyboard and shoved that down everybody's throat. "The [keyboard] is different for a reason - take the time to learn it, and be more productive with it in the long run." Yeah, right.

Exactly. The fact that multicam support is here now is important for those who require it, but the fact that they didn't know in the slightest if it would arrive in time to use it on what was on their year's calendar is moreso.