Sorry to say but FCP is over. While it may be decent tool for editing, in todays movie age editing live footage is probably the least amount of production work that gets done. Unless they step up to the plate and address the real pro competition, They are over in the pro market. Luckily Adobe is not going to replace them.
I work in the industry and from what I see, Nuke is the way to go, especially since the 6.2 release which incorporates 3D into the suite. Node based editing is the future. Don't believe me?, go to ILM or Framestore to see what I mean. Freakin sad.
Although I will admit After Effects is hanging in there, but mostly for roto and keying.
Evidently you havent used Final Cut Express recently. It's massively deprecated. If memory serves the stable build is something like two and a half years old. At this stage, it's so outdated it practically doesn't exist.
I have it ... it works.
Rephrases my question then: At this present time, they have two related apps. FC & FCE. FCE is marketed as their pro-sumer app, FC as their pro app. Why would they deprecate their pro app to a pro-sumer app when they already have two lines? Wouldn't it make sense to update them both and keep both?
With all the major digital camera manufacturers now shooting their professional TV/Video Media commercials using their, usually not their top-of-the line, digital SLRs, and now a few Hollywood and Independent film companies shooting with them as well, perhaps the days of declared-wannabee 'pro' editors/users and their proclaimed high-end software expertise is over.
At least their threats are beginning to sound childish while the real pros will continue to entertain us without the tears of the sorrowful few.
And Apple will do amazing well with whatever they introduce.
In what way? Jobs was very clear about touching displays that require your arm to be extended.
I think iOS-like fullscreen modes will be included, but not touchscreen elements.
Jobs also panned netbooks before releasing an 11-inch MacBook Air. If you have an iMac that can adjust to a table-like position, voila! Timeline at your fingertips. Add another display and now you've got a monitor.
Anyway, I don't think there'll be overt necessity for touch in the next iteration of Final Cut, but I do think we'll start seeing interface devices (other than full-screen mode) that make the idea of touch feel more desirable. For instance, the current version iMovie has the appearance of touch compatibility. The iPhone version serves as a miniature proof of concept.
I should add that I believe this will open up some fascinating possibilities for professional video editors. I think mutli-touch gesturing will be far more effective than a single point and click to make complex and precise adjustments in a short period of time.
Rephrases my question then: At this present time, they have two related apps. FC & FCE. FCE is marketed as their pro-sumer app, FC as their pro app. Why would they deprecate their pro app to a pro-sumer app when they already have two lines? Wouldn't it make sense to update them both and keep both?
Well that's the big question, isn't it? There's very little reason for them to have let FCE Languish, they've already done the work, but they won't upgrade or even issue more updates to it. Either they're just being annoying, or they're planning to shakeup the range.
My current thinking? They're unifying on FCP (Probably just called Final Cut) and the FCE replacement is buying Final Cut solo on the Mac App Store - where the FCS/FCP replacement is buying the bundle either in a box or on the MAS.
Folks nothing has changed regarding FCS. HardMac basically regurgitated info that is already known by those close to the software or industry.
Currently it uses QuickTime 32-bit legacy which is Carbon. Apple is not supporting Carbon for 64-bit so a major rewrite is underway.
QuickTime X isn't full featured enough enough to take over but it's the heir apparent 64-bit API. QuickTime X in Lion should close much of the functionality gap between it and legacy QuickTime.
As for features I think a lot of editors will simply be happy with h. 264 editing without transcode, a spruced up interface and better project management features.
I suspect OpenCL & Grand Central Dispatch will help performance as well.
For all its rep as the creative person's platform, in the big three, photography, video and the music world that they used to rule, Apple does not know how to service the creative pro user. And I say this as a person who ONLY works on Macs. The Apple has maintained whatever they have in the pro audio world thanks to third party developers. Logic users assume that if they have a problem that needs an answer they won't get it from Apple. Aperture fortunately has only Lightroom to fight for the OSX image DAM market, because many people (like myself) use it not altogether happily. FCP's lack of relevancy has been well explained in previous posts.
I used to think that the success of iPods, iTunes and phones would only be good for the audio/video/image OSX professionals. Then I wasn't so sure. Now I'm sure it wasn't.
Makes perfect sense for node-based to take over compositing/effects...but layered timelines is still the way to go for editorial apps. Two totally different functionalities/interactions w/ the process and media. And there's no reason you shouldn't be able to design an app to allow different ways of viewing the workflow/process tree of how you're affecting the media source...a la Discreet/Autodesk FFI, who have had that going for years w/ the action layered interface and batch nodes. AE has tried it, but never implemented fully.
What Pros want is a new version of Shake bundled w/ FCP and Color so they can handily go up against the new Nuke/Avid combos and Smoke on Mac offerings.
And don't get me started on Blu-ray--Steve is totally wrong and is contradicting himself and his philosophy of quality first if he wants to shove downloads down our throats. I want full bit-rate HD and all the extras...and its a handy format for shelf storage of DATA! BD-R is cheaper than DVD-R per GB, and that makes sense for archiving jobs.
Jobs also panned netbooks before releasing an 11-inch MacBook Air.
Seeing as how netbooks came to exist because of Intel?s creation of the cheap and slow Atom CPU it?s a hard sell to say that a notebook with a fullsized keyboard C2D CPU that alone costs more than most ?netbooks? is itself a netbook because of the display size is erroneous measure.
Nuke has pretty much surpassed Shake. Ron Brinkmann, the brainchild that created Shake is at The Foundry after all.
Apple should have put him in charge of Final Cut Studio. Too late now unless they acquire The Foundry. Would be interesting if they did, along with acquiring SideFx (Houdini), Assimilate (Scratch) and Luxology (Modo) to create a powerhouse film/vfx suite.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ellusian
What Pros want is a new version of Shake bundled w/ FCP and Color so they can handily go up against the new Nuke/Avid combos and Smoke on Mac offerings.
It?s the fastest way I know of to crop and stitch files. iMovie works, but I can finish a simple a project in QT7P before iMovie has even imported the files.
Exactly. Quicktime 7 Pro bar none is the fastest way to crop and do simple audio switches without re-encoding out of any app I've used on any platform. I can do frame-by-frame comparisons using the frame counter, I can do quick video filters in real-time and save them without rendering. It is an irreplaceable app.
If they dropped it without migrating the features over, I'd bet some of the folks at Pixar would have something to say. I'm sure they will anyway because that internal window bar is not workable. It hides artifacts in the footage that show up in other players where you can see the full frame.
Quote:
Originally Posted by zoetmb
They make most of their money from the low end, but their reputation comes from the top-of-the-line and its use by pros.
I agree and what then happens is that consumers look to what the pros use and then it becomes a problem as they bleed marketshare. Still, I don't think they will alienate pro users with Final Cut. They will probably just not do as much as they should.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ellusian
What Pros want is a new version of Shake bundled w/ FCP and Color so they can handily go up against the new Nuke/Avid combos and Smoke on Mac offerings.
Pretty much, although you could use Nuke with FCP too. It would just be more affordable if Apple had it bundled. I wouldn't care if they even just bundled Nuke as it is with FCS, the price alone would be worth it. But sadly it would conflict with their Motion app to some extent. Although they could merge Motion with FCP.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ellusian
And don't get me started on Blu-ray--Steve is totally wrong and is contradicting himself and his philosophy of quality first if he wants to shove downloads down our throats. I want full bit-rate HD and all the extras...and its a handy format for shelf storage of DATA! BD-R is cheaper than DVD-R per GB, and that makes sense for archiving jobs.
You can get some Blu-Ray functionality for the Mac already, it's just that encrypted playback isn't supported in OS X and FCS doesn't have menu authoring. The archival use is fine and the Sony bdx-s500u with Toast would be ideal for it.
A complete rewrite of FCS was always going to be problematic.
Apple probably didn't want to go the iMovie route, switching to a firm foundation but then being savaged for not having all the expected features in the first version. And those pros would have yelled long and loud.
But that's often the best way to do a major rewrite. The foundation has to be battle-tested and then whiz-bang features added on top in the next version. That's certainly how it worked for OS X.
I hope the individual apps become available on the App Store; at work we only need DVD Studio Pro. We have used Soundtrack simply because it was there.
That said, we are looking at producing BluRay at some point in the future. It would be nice to get a BluRay version of DVD SP. Heh heh.
Sorry to say but FCP is over. While it may be decent tool for editing, in todays movie age editing live footage is probably the least amount of production work that gets done. Unless they step up to the plate and address the real pro competition, They are over in the pro market. Luckily Adobe is not going to replace them.
I work in the industry and from what I see, Nuke is the way to go, especially since the 6.2 release which incorporates 3D into the suite. Node based editing is the future. Don't believe me?, go to ILM or Framestore to see what I mean. Freakin sad.
Although I will admit After Effects is hanging in there, but mostly for roto and keying.
Those are COMPLETELY different aspects of post. The last thing picture editors want is their tool cluttered with high end compositing features, and the last thing anyone would use for basic cutting is Nuke.
Seeing as how netbooks came to exist because of Intel’s creation of the cheap and slow Atom CPU it’s a hard sell to say that a notebook with a fullsized keyboard C2D CPU that alone costs more than most “netbooks” is itself a netbook because of the display size is erroneous measure.
Yeah, I understand the differences, though the Air is after the crowd looking for extremely lightweight, portable computing. My point is more along the lines that Apple has a tendency to downplay existing ideas, then eventually find a way to make them work, minus the originally perceived sacrifices.
Comments
I work in the industry and from what I see, Nuke is the way to go, especially since the 6.2 release which incorporates 3D into the suite. Node based editing is the future. Don't believe me?, go to ILM or Framestore to see what I mean. Freakin sad.
Although I will admit After Effects is hanging in there, but mostly for roto and keying.
Evidently you havent used Final Cut Express recently. It's massively deprecated. If memory serves the stable build is something like two and a half years old. At this stage, it's so outdated it practically doesn't exist.
I have it ... it works.
Rephrases my question then: At this present time, they have two related apps. FC & FCE. FCE is marketed as their pro-sumer app, FC as their pro app. Why would they deprecate their pro app to a pro-sumer app when they already have two lines? Wouldn't it make sense to update them both and keep both?
At least their threats are beginning to sound childish while the real pros will continue to entertain us without the tears of the sorrowful few.
And Apple will do amazing well with whatever they introduce.
Why not?
I want it to, but if they don't have any reason to, they won't, and there's no compelling reason to.
In what way? Jobs was very clear about touching displays that require your arm to be extended.
I think iOS-like fullscreen modes will be included, but not touchscreen elements.
Jobs also panned netbooks before releasing an 11-inch MacBook Air. If you have an iMac that can adjust to a table-like position, voila! Timeline at your fingertips. Add another display and now you've got a monitor.
Anyway, I don't think there'll be overt necessity for touch in the next iteration of Final Cut, but I do think we'll start seeing interface devices (other than full-screen mode) that make the idea of touch feel more desirable. For instance, the current version iMovie has the appearance of touch compatibility. The iPhone version serves as a miniature proof of concept.
I should add that I believe this will open up some fascinating possibilities for professional video editors. I think mutli-touch gesturing will be far more effective than a single point and click to make complex and precise adjustments in a short period of time.
Node based editing is the future. Don't believe me?, go to ILM or Framestore to see what I mean. Freakin sad.
Node based interfaces are DEFINITELY the future (and present).
Just a few samples:
xmEdit Traffic (NLE)
Houdini
Nuke
Vantage - You would think that Final Cut Server would have a node interface like this for creating workflows along with Compressor (no brainer)
Color FX
Modo (Schematic View)
PFMatchit
I have it ... it works.
Rephrases my question then: At this present time, they have two related apps. FC & FCE. FCE is marketed as their pro-sumer app, FC as their pro app. Why would they deprecate their pro app to a pro-sumer app when they already have two lines? Wouldn't it make sense to update them both and keep both?
Well that's the big question, isn't it? There's very little reason for them to have let FCE Languish, they've already done the work, but they won't upgrade or even issue more updates to it. Either they're just being annoying, or they're planning to shakeup the range.
My current thinking? They're unifying on FCP (Probably just called Final Cut) and the FCE replacement is buying Final Cut solo on the Mac App Store - where the FCS/FCP replacement is buying the bundle either in a box or on the MAS.
Currently it uses QuickTime 32-bit legacy which is Carbon. Apple is not supporting Carbon for 64-bit so a major rewrite is underway.
QuickTime X isn't full featured enough enough to take over but it's the heir apparent 64-bit API. QuickTime X in Lion should close much of the functionality gap between it and legacy QuickTime.
As for features I think a lot of editors will simply be happy with h. 264 editing without transcode, a spruced up interface and better project management features.
I suspect OpenCL & Grand Central Dispatch will help performance as well.
I used to think that the success of iPods, iTunes and phones would only be good for the audio/video/image OSX professionals. Then I wasn't so sure. Now I'm sure it wasn't.
Node based interfaces are DEFINITELY the future (and present).
Just a few samples:
xmEdit Traffic (NLE)
Houdini
Nuke
Vantage - You would think that Final Cut Server would have a node interface like this for creating workflows along with Compressor (no brainer)
Color FX
Modo (Schematic View)
PFMatchit
Makes perfect sense for node-based to take over compositing/effects...but layered timelines is still the way to go for editorial apps. Two totally different functionalities/interactions w/ the process and media. And there's no reason you shouldn't be able to design an app to allow different ways of viewing the workflow/process tree of how you're affecting the media source...a la Discreet/Autodesk FFI, who have had that going for years w/ the action layered interface and batch nodes. AE has tried it, but never implemented fully.
What Pros want is a new version of Shake bundled w/ FCP and Color so they can handily go up against the new Nuke/Avid combos and Smoke on Mac offerings.
And don't get me started on Blu-ray--Steve is totally wrong and is contradicting himself and his philosophy of quality first if he wants to shove downloads down our throats. I want full bit-rate HD and all the extras...and its a handy format for shelf storage of DATA! BD-R is cheaper than DVD-R per GB, and that makes sense for archiving jobs.
Jobs also panned netbooks before releasing an 11-inch MacBook Air.
Seeing as how netbooks came to exist because of Intel?s creation of the cheap and slow Atom CPU it?s a hard sell to say that a notebook with a fullsized keyboard C2D CPU that alone costs more than most ?netbooks? is itself a netbook because of the display size is erroneous measure.
Apple should have put him in charge of Final Cut Studio. Too late now unless they acquire The Foundry. Would be interesting if they did, along with acquiring SideFx (Houdini), Assimilate (Scratch) and Luxology (Modo) to create a powerhouse film/vfx suite.
What Pros want is a new version of Shake bundled w/ FCP and Color so they can handily go up against the new Nuke/Avid combos and Smoke on Mac offerings.
Node based interfaces are DEFINITELY the future (and present).
Just a few samples:
xmEdit Traffic (NLE)
Houdini
Nuke
Vantage - You would think that Final Cut Server would have a node interface like this for creating workflows along with Compressor (no brainer)
Color FX
Modo (Schematic View)
PFMatchit
If Apple wants a full fledge 3D environment to offset work in FCS they could fork Blender 2.5.x Trunk and be 95% there.
I'd personally just like them to leverage Blender as a Service in the next FCS.
deleted
It?s the fastest way I know of to crop and stitch files. iMovie works, but I can finish a simple a project in QT7P before iMovie has even imported the files.
Exactly. Quicktime 7 Pro bar none is the fastest way to crop and do simple audio switches without re-encoding out of any app I've used on any platform. I can do frame-by-frame comparisons using the frame counter, I can do quick video filters in real-time and save them without rendering. It is an irreplaceable app.
If they dropped it without migrating the features over, I'd bet some of the folks at Pixar would have something to say. I'm sure they will anyway because that internal window bar is not workable. It hides artifacts in the footage that show up in other players where you can see the full frame.
They make most of their money from the low end, but their reputation comes from the top-of-the-line and its use by pros.
I agree and what then happens is that consumers look to what the pros use and then it becomes a problem as they bleed marketshare. Still, I don't think they will alienate pro users with Final Cut. They will probably just not do as much as they should.
What Pros want is a new version of Shake bundled w/ FCP and Color so they can handily go up against the new Nuke/Avid combos and Smoke on Mac offerings.
Pretty much, although you could use Nuke with FCP too. It would just be more affordable if Apple had it bundled. I wouldn't care if they even just bundled Nuke as it is with FCS, the price alone would be worth it. But sadly it would conflict with their Motion app to some extent. Although they could merge Motion with FCP.
And don't get me started on Blu-ray--Steve is totally wrong and is contradicting himself and his philosophy of quality first if he wants to shove downloads down our throats. I want full bit-rate HD and all the extras...and its a handy format for shelf storage of DATA! BD-R is cheaper than DVD-R per GB, and that makes sense for archiving jobs.
You can get some Blu-Ray functionality for the Mac already, it's just that encrypted playback isn't supported in OS X and FCS doesn't have menu authoring. The archival use is fine and the Sony bdx-s500u with Toast would be ideal for it.
Apple probably didn't want to go the iMovie route, switching to a firm foundation but then being savaged for not having all the expected features in the first version. And those pros would have yelled long and loud.
But that's often the best way to do a major rewrite. The foundation has to be battle-tested and then whiz-bang features added on top in the next version. That's certainly how it worked for OS X.
That said, we are looking at producing BluRay at some point in the future. It would be nice to get a BluRay version of DVD SP. Heh heh.
Sorry to say but FCP is over. While it may be decent tool for editing, in todays movie age editing live footage is probably the least amount of production work that gets done. Unless they step up to the plate and address the real pro competition, They are over in the pro market. Luckily Adobe is not going to replace them.
I work in the industry and from what I see, Nuke is the way to go, especially since the 6.2 release which incorporates 3D into the suite. Node based editing is the future. Don't believe me?, go to ILM or Framestore to see what I mean. Freakin sad.
Although I will admit After Effects is hanging in there, but mostly for roto and keying.
Those are COMPLETELY different aspects of post. The last thing picture editors want is their tool cluttered with high end compositing features, and the last thing anyone would use for basic cutting is Nuke.
Are you crazy?
Unless of course someone is waffling about it. Or being lazy.
Who buys orphaned hardware unless it's at a steep discount? Time for the clearance page isn't it?
Seeing as how netbooks came to exist because of Intel’s creation of the cheap and slow Atom CPU it’s a hard sell to say that a notebook with a fullsized keyboard C2D CPU that alone costs more than most “netbooks” is itself a netbook because of the display size is erroneous measure.
Yeah, I understand the differences, though the Air is after the crowd looking for extremely lightweight, portable computing. My point is more along the lines that Apple has a tendency to downplay existing ideas, then eventually find a way to make them work, minus the originally perceived sacrifices.