I don't know how you misconstrue Professional Non-linear Editing tools being redesigned to find a broad sweet spot with pro tools are on their way out and thus Illustrator won't happen.
I presume he is referring to the title of the article, which states: "Apple scaling Final Cut Studio apps to fit prosumers"
Many of us would prefer to read: "Apple improving Final Cut Studio apps to cater to professional's needs"
I hope this isn't a dumbed down makeover... (as that's how I understood the article) I hope Apple further develop it for the better for the PROFESSIONALS not for the edit my kids' soccer videos kind of users (they have iMovie and FCE for them). I use Avid on my job in Air Force combat camera but use FCP on my side projects at home and I just love the entire FCP package. Being comfortable using a Mac adds to the reason why I'd prefer it over Avid, although Avid is still superior (only slightly for me) than FCP.
I also hope what they mean by makeover is to fix and improve the kinks on FCP since it's been gaining and really catching up on Avid.
Hoping for the best. Apple has never disappointed me before. I hope they don't with FCP.
The Final Cut Pro team has since been put back under the direction of Ubillos, according to information AppleInsider has obtained, with the aim of similarly improving Final Cut Studio and making it more appealing and useful to the needs of prosumers.
As long as they do the same thing with their hardware lineup.
I think it's a dangerous path to go down dumbing down professional-level software for consumers. They tried to do it with Shake and now it's just gone. They destroyed the industry standard compositing software because they wanted to make a motion graphics program.
The end result is a motion graphics program you can barely use to do any real work, in no way displaces AE as the industry standard and dropping Shake left loads of VFX pros having to shell out thousands for Nuke licenses. All for what reason exactly? Because Average Joe thinks a noodle can only come in a pot with Ramen written on it?
I get that simplicity has huge benefits for pros and consumers alike but Apple almost always remove the power tools too so I fear the worst for the future of Final Cut. If Apple turns it into a toy then pros will just drop it and go somewhere else and consumers will do the same because consumers aspire to be the pros and use what they use.
Quote:
Originally Posted by charlituna
on the professional side many of these folks would love to see all the individual apps rolled into essentially one master app with Shake bought back into the fold.
They just have to buy The Foundry, bundle Nuke, integrate it with Final Cut and bundle the plugins free and it would bring back Shake and significantly boos the FCS Suite. It sort of conflicts with Motion though. I feel that Motion and Final Cut should be integrated though.
I am not sure whether this is true or not, but I hope it is. Having Randy back would be great. Every user knows what needs to be done. We have asked for many of these things for years. 64-bit should be a must. Better integration is a must too. New real Data management please. As for the Prosumer - yes, if Apple is going to expand they need that segment too. I only hope it is soon. Several of the last updates have been very disappointing for the money. Hope it comes very soon.
I read somewhere, recently, that the major holdup to upgrading FCS to 64 bit is that not all of the QuickTime components [used by FCS] run in 64 bit.
I have FCS, FCE, and iMovie. I use FCS and iMovie 09... iMovie for quick turn-arounds like highlights of the grandkids's soccer games. FCS, including expensive plugins (rotoscoping, filters, text animation) for more demanding work.
My latest favorite is Motion-- for it's power, UI, and the nearly real-time rendering.
The way I read the article is that Apple is going to make:
-- a new version of selected components of FCS/FCE rewritten to streamline the flow and UI for prosumers
-- an upgrade and rewrite to 64 bit of FCS to add function and improve and UI workflow for the pros
In a future version of the iPad, I would like to input video cam footage into an app like Motion to do on-sight tele-strating and highlighting.
sounds more like they would rework imovie and i agree, it's a terrible program from a GUI standpoint, but there is no sense in "screwing" the pros by "crappifying" FCP . If FCE is too complicated for consumers, why would you "repackage" FCP as a replacement?
The other thing is that alienating pros would really take the shine off of the "Hip" Apple lifestyle. Apple's cool because artists use their computers and suits use PC's and Blackberry's. I wouldn't want to be the ad exec responsible for compensating for the serious loss in "creds" if "cool" people stopped using Macs for their art. maybe it doesn't matter to them, but I doubt it. Iprods really aren't that cool when you can only consume and not make.
OTOH you can get Avid pretty cheap these days, but still 5-10k for a cheap interface if I'm not mistaken.
In 2007, Final Cut Pro's original lead developer, Randy Ubillos, completely redesigned iMovie '08 to streamline and simplify the iLife title. The changes prompted criticism from existing iMovie users, as the new app didn't do everything the previous versions did. Last January, Apple released an enhanced iMovie '09 version that addressed many of those missing elements in the new app.
The new iMovie is terrible IMHO! While it does have some great features, overall it is much less intuitive. I am very experienced with computers including a few video editors, iMovie, FCP, Premier. This is the least intuitive I have come across. I really burns my @#* that I have to refer to the videos and documentation to figure out how things work. It took me 3 hours to figure out how to add a sound track. Even now when I drop it in I have to be careful that it gets inserted in the right place in the timeline, not in the background. Also, the timeline itself is small and a pain to use. NOT a happy camper here!
The problem is, they have a whole bunch of developers evaluating the product who have all been trained on it, not someone who is new to it and a more casual user. I used to love to do simple little videos on iMovie HD instead of firing up FCP. Now it is easier to use FCP than the new iMovie. And THAT is absurd!
Sorry for the rant guys - but this one drives me crazy - has become one of my pet peeves. (And you thought I was just another kool-aid fanboi!)
Depressed at the thought of "iMovie Pro" (dumbed down and Disney-fied). I actually think FCP is more intuitive than iMovie. If all you need is very basic editing, go for iMovie. If you need more but can't be bothered to make an effort to learn FCP Express, I don't know what to say.
Time for a Facebook Page - "Apple, don't ruin Final Cut Pro"?
As someone who works in FCS on a daily basis this is a good and bad thing for me to hear. That is, unless their plan is to dumb down FCP a bit, rebrand it as Final cut Prosumer and release it for say, $199 and then ALSO keep FCP as it is.. enhance it, make the UI better, and then release it as the new Final Cut studio for professionals. With them pioneering all that stuff with Final Cut Server and all so recently, i highly doubt they are just abandoning features and dumbing everything down for prosumers, but rather what they are probably doing (Hopefully) is just creating a FCS like suite for the pro apps. Maybe they'll make iLife extra simple (pad and basic macbook bound) and then Final Cut middle for most everyone.. and Final Cut Studio for everyone else.
on another slightly related rant, They still have a lot of work to do on FCS. Final cut, while trusty tried and true, is BUTT UGLY compared to everything else apple makes except for Color which is beyond fugly. BUT.. they better not upgrade it and make the UI heavily reliable on the GFx card like Motion is.. because i STILL have arability issues in motion on the latest hardware. I don't even like to use it anymore other than for the simplest things. Its laughable how in 2010 you have super archaic controls to animate text and elements inside of FInal Cut itself. And when you do its not gfx card accelerated in any way, so its choppy and clunky and poor. Soundtrack is decent looking, but it is of limited use for me in my workflow. After Effects is the gold standard of Motion whites it was, and hopefully one day will be (not).
I just think its high time to put some of these 64bit OpenCL grandcentral technologies to use... I mean, is there ANYTHING that these pro apps do now that they didn't do 4 years ago other than a few bells and whistles? Not really.
Personally, I would like to see iPad integration into the workflow. Imagine using gestures and/or a control surface to speed up and make more efficient FCS editing!
A lot of editors and filmmakers switched to Final Cut because it's cheaper. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH AN AVID SYSTEM COSTS? You got an editing software (almost up to par with Avid), color grading, motion graphics, audio editing, packaged together for a $1000, that is bargain dude.
Some of us want to get more into professional level video because we've outgrown iMovie or Final Cut Express but because we don't have the money to splash down on high end products any reduction in price will be welcome.
Not everyone works for high end video houses you know. Some of us have to scrimp and save to do this and not everyone wants to load themselves up with debt either.
how do we know that this isn't exactly what they are doing. creating a new FCE. or even dropping that program and revamping imovie to be the replacement. easier interface but more vavoom under the hood. better, more FCS like, tools, the ability to have plugins etc.
perhaps they will do this across the board with all of ilife. I know a lot of folks are surprised that iweb isn't all HTML5 friendly and figure that is the next step there. with perhaps better tools for adding code snippets and being able to make freeform sites and save them as your own template.
add more editing tools to iphoto etc.
I agree except for the last part about iPhoto. Apple already has a fantastic higher end version of iPhoto and that's Aperture.
Steve Jobs is being quite blunt these days, and I take his responses to these folks at face value, if indeed they are legitimate. "Prince McLean" is, I think, probably hugely misinterpreting what he MAY have picked up on, although even that much credit is probably overdue him.
The new iMovie is terrible IMHO! While it does have some great features, overall it is much less intuitive. I am very experienced with computers including a few video editors, iMovie, FCP, Premier. This is the least intuitive I have come across. I really burns my @#* that I have to refer to the videos and documentation to figure out how things work. It took me 3 hours to figure out how to add a sound track. Even now when I drop it in I have to be careful that it gets inserted in the right place in the timeline, not in the background. Also, the timeline itself is small and a pain to use. NOT a happy camper here!
The problem is, they have a whole bunch of developers evaluating the product who have all been trained on it, not someone who is new to it and a more casual user. I used to love to do simple little videos on iMovie HD instead of firing up FCP. Now it is easier to use FCP than the new iMovie. And THAT is absurd!
Sorry for the rant guys - but this one drives me crazy - has become one of my pet peeves. (And you thought I was just another kool-aid fanboi!)
Gotta disagree with you there. I never found the older versions of iMovie to be intuitive enough to keep my interest. When Apple redesigned the app, the new UI immediately made sense to me and I've edited numerous video clips with it. I can see that there's probably lots of room for more powerful features, but from a usability standpoint the new UI is what finally got me into casual video editing.
It took you 3 hours to figure out how to add a soundtrack? Really? Wow, I didn't think it was difficult to find a song in the media browser and drag & drop it directly into the timeline... Am I missing something here?
Perhaps iMovie's detractors are used to unintuitive procedures from other video editing software that lead them to overlook the most obvious ways to do things.
Comments
I don't know how you misconstrue Professional Non-linear Editing tools being redesigned to find a broad sweet spot with pro tools are on their way out and thus Illustrator won't happen.
I presume he is referring to the title of the article, which states: "Apple scaling Final Cut Studio apps to fit prosumers"
Many of us would prefer to read: "Apple improving Final Cut Studio apps to cater to professional's needs"
I also hope what they mean by makeover is to fix and improve the kinks on FCP since it's been gaining and really catching up on Avid.
Hoping for the best. Apple has never disappointed me before. I hope they don't with FCP.
The Final Cut Pro team has since been put back under the direction of Ubillos, according to information AppleInsider has obtained, with the aim of similarly improving Final Cut Studio and making it more appealing and useful to the needs of prosumers.
As long as they do the same thing with their hardware lineup.
I think it's a dangerous path to go down dumbing down professional-level software for consumers. They tried to do it with Shake and now it's just gone. They destroyed the industry standard compositing software because they wanted to make a motion graphics program.
The end result is a motion graphics program you can barely use to do any real work, in no way displaces AE as the industry standard and dropping Shake left loads of VFX pros having to shell out thousands for Nuke licenses. All for what reason exactly? Because Average Joe thinks a noodle can only come in a pot with Ramen written on it?
I get that simplicity has huge benefits for pros and consumers alike but Apple almost always remove the power tools too so I fear the worst for the future of Final Cut. If Apple turns it into a toy then pros will just drop it and go somewhere else and consumers will do the same because consumers aspire to be the pros and use what they use.
on the professional side many of these folks would love to see all the individual apps rolled into essentially one master app with Shake bought back into the fold.
They just have to buy The Foundry, bundle Nuke, integrate it with Final Cut and bundle the plugins free and it would bring back Shake and significantly boos the FCS Suite. It sort of conflicts with Motion though. I feel that Motion and Final Cut should be integrated though.
I have FCS, FCE, and iMovie. I use FCS and iMovie 09... iMovie for quick turn-arounds like highlights of the grandkids's soccer games. FCS, including expensive plugins (rotoscoping, filters, text animation) for more demanding work.
My latest favorite is Motion-- for it's power, UI, and the nearly real-time rendering.
The way I read the article is that Apple is going to make:
-- a new version of selected components of FCS/FCE rewritten to streamline the flow and UI for prosumers
-- an upgrade and rewrite to 64 bit of FCS to add function and improve and UI workflow for the pros
In a future version of the iPad, I would like to input video cam footage into an app like Motion to do on-sight tele-strating and highlighting.
.
The other thing is that alienating pros would really take the shine off of the "Hip" Apple lifestyle. Apple's cool because artists use their computers and suits use PC's and Blackberry's. I wouldn't want to be the ad exec responsible for compensating for the serious loss in "creds" if "cool" people stopped using Macs for their art. maybe it doesn't matter to them, but I doubt it. Iprods really aren't that cool when you can only consume and not make.
OTOH you can get Avid pretty cheap these days, but still 5-10k for a cheap interface if I'm not mistaken.
In 2007, Final Cut Pro's original lead developer, Randy Ubillos, completely redesigned iMovie '08 to streamline and simplify the iLife title. The changes prompted criticism from existing iMovie users, as the new app didn't do everything the previous versions did. Last January, Apple released an enhanced iMovie '09 version that addressed many of those missing elements in the new app.
The new iMovie is terrible IMHO! While it does have some great features, overall it is much less intuitive. I am very experienced with computers including a few video editors, iMovie, FCP, Premier. This is the least intuitive I have come across. I really burns my @#* that I have to refer to the videos and documentation to figure out how things work. It took me 3 hours to figure out how to add a sound track. Even now when I drop it in I have to be careful that it gets inserted in the right place in the timeline, not in the background. Also, the timeline itself is small and a pain to use. NOT a happy camper here!
The problem is, they have a whole bunch of developers evaluating the product who have all been trained on it, not someone who is new to it and a more casual user. I used to love to do simple little videos on iMovie HD instead of firing up FCP. Now it is easier to use FCP than the new iMovie. And THAT is absurd!
Sorry for the rant guys - but this one drives me crazy - has become one of my pet peeves. (And you thought I was just another kool-aid fanboi!)
Depressed at the thought of "iMovie Pro" (dumbed down and Disney-fied). I actually think FCP is more intuitive than iMovie. If all you need is very basic editing, go for iMovie. If you need more but can't be bothered to make an effort to learn FCP Express, I don't know what to say.
Time for a Facebook Page - "Apple, don't ruin Final Cut Pro"?
NOT a happy camper here!
Not to mention that it is IMPOSSIBLY slow on my G5 Mac Pro, on which FCP performs just fine!
Personally - I think the objective was to make it so bad that people would pay to upgrade to FC-express.
(FYI - my usage, i.e. bad experience, on it was on a new MBP)
http://twitpic.com/1p0ftb
Thanks for sharing dude.. I hope he meant what he said about the next update being a whopper!
http://twitpic.com/1p0ftb
As did I, He added that it'll be kickass.
http://i1.creativecow.net/u/16319/jobsemail.png
on another slightly related rant, They still have a lot of work to do on FCS. Final cut, while trusty tried and true, is BUTT UGLY compared to everything else apple makes except for Color which is beyond fugly. BUT.. they better not upgrade it and make the UI heavily reliable on the GFx card like Motion is.. because i STILL have arability issues in motion on the latest hardware. I don't even like to use it anymore other than for the simplest things. Its laughable how in 2010 you have super archaic controls to animate text and elements inside of FInal Cut itself. And when you do its not gfx card accelerated in any way, so its choppy and clunky and poor. Soundtrack is decent looking, but it is of limited use for me in my workflow. After Effects is the gold standard of Motion whites it was, and hopefully one day will be (not).
I just think its high time to put some of these 64bit OpenCL grandcentral technologies to use... I mean, is there ANYTHING that these pro apps do now that they didn't do 4 years ago other than a few bells and whistles? Not really.
Never going to happen... Pro level apps (for professionals) are on their way out it sounds...
Way to ace the reading comprehension exam, Sparky!
ARE YOU SERIOUS?
A lot of editors and filmmakers switched to Final Cut because it's cheaper. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH AN AVID SYSTEM COSTS? You got an editing software (almost up to par with Avid), color grading, motion graphics, audio editing, packaged together for a $1000, that is bargain dude.
Some of us want to get more into professional level video because we've outgrown iMovie or Final Cut Express but because we don't have the money to splash down on high end products any reduction in price will be welcome.
Not everyone works for high end video houses you know. Some of us have to scrimp and save to do this and not everyone wants to load themselves up with debt either.
how do we know that this isn't exactly what they are doing. creating a new FCE. or even dropping that program and revamping imovie to be the replacement. easier interface but more vavoom under the hood. better, more FCS like, tools, the ability to have plugins etc.
perhaps they will do this across the board with all of ilife. I know a lot of folks are surprised that iweb isn't all HTML5 friendly and figure that is the next step there. with perhaps better tools for adding code snippets and being able to make freeform sites and save them as your own template.
add more editing tools to iphoto etc.
I agree except for the last part about iPhoto. Apple already has a fantastic higher end version of iPhoto and that's Aperture.
The new iMovie is terrible IMHO! While it does have some great features, overall it is much less intuitive. I am very experienced with computers including a few video editors, iMovie, FCP, Premier. This is the least intuitive I have come across. I really burns my @#* that I have to refer to the videos and documentation to figure out how things work. It took me 3 hours to figure out how to add a sound track. Even now when I drop it in I have to be careful that it gets inserted in the right place in the timeline, not in the background. Also, the timeline itself is small and a pain to use. NOT a happy camper here!
The problem is, they have a whole bunch of developers evaluating the product who have all been trained on it, not someone who is new to it and a more casual user. I used to love to do simple little videos on iMovie HD instead of firing up FCP. Now it is easier to use FCP than the new iMovie. And THAT is absurd!
Sorry for the rant guys - but this one drives me crazy - has become one of my pet peeves. (And you thought I was just another kool-aid fanboi!)
Gotta disagree with you there. I never found the older versions of iMovie to be intuitive enough to keep my interest. When Apple redesigned the app, the new UI immediately made sense to me and I've edited numerous video clips with it. I can see that there's probably lots of room for more powerful features, but from a usability standpoint the new UI is what finally got me into casual video editing.
It took you 3 hours to figure out how to add a soundtrack? Really? Wow, I didn't think it was difficult to find a song in the media browser and drag & drop it directly into the timeline... Am I missing something here?
Perhaps iMovie's detractors are used to unintuitive procedures from other video editing software that lead them to overlook the most obvious ways to do things.