Seriously, FCP X has a 30-day free trial... and it is quite powerful if you approach it without preconceived notions on how an NLE should work.
Good luck with that. Most of these guys aren't going to have an open mind until they are forced to because their competitors are cleaning their clocks using more modern tools.
Nothing new here. Those not ready for change or who don't want to change complain, and then either fade away or grudgingly adapt.
Apple doesn't have to kiss their butts. All Apple has to do is make compelling products that are heads and shoulders better than their competitors and thus by not using them you are at a distinct competitive disadvantage.
It's how the original FCP got entrenched, it's how the iPhone is penetrating business and even government far faster than I ever thought would be possible and it's how FCPX will eventually displace the existing players and force a major change in video. Especially with DSLR video taking off, tapeless workflow is the future, and FCPX is the only current app written from the ground up to embrace that paradigm.
At the end of the day, actions speak louder than words. Sure, there may be some short term flux, but in the long run I have no doubt Apple's strategy with FCPX will pay off. Now I'm not giving them a complete pass - I do think they bungled the message and made a huge mistake in withdrawing FCP7 sales way too soon - but those are temporary issues.
Ugh - stop writing on your walls then. The only thing certain is hyperbole and ignorance (again, correlate the Mac Pro releases with Intel product schedules for the Xeon chips used in the Pro)
Not sure what your point is. If I sold a software product, I'd want to make sure I was up to date on feedback about that product coming from a range of sources.
And you would end up with crapware with nonsensical "features" like most of the rest of the industry spews.
Quote:
Google, Bing, Yahoo queries would be one source for such feedback.
For those with no imagination or fortitude to establish a vision and execute against it.
Quote:
Customer surveys, media reports, Conan O'Brien videos poking fun of my product would also be another source.
For companies interested in delivering mediocre products, perhaps. Customer survey's might be the only halfway legitimate thing in your list, and Apple does incorporate feedback. Not always a fast or completely as I and many others would like, but they aren't totally deaf. But they aren't schizophrenic and scattershot like many of their competitors either chasing after every whim, and I value that more because overall it produces higher quality products.
Because for some things it still runs better than Lion, and has fewer bugs.
Fair enough - new software tends to have more bugs. Then again, I have had zero lockups, kernel panics, or programs that have unexpectedly quit since switching to Lion. No other version of Mac OSX can claim that for me. And I'm running a non-apple flashed video card on my Mac Pro!
Quote:
And there are a number of annoyances ("features" I guess) in Lion that can't be turned off.
Such as? I have found Lion to be purely additive. There isn't one new Lion feature that I will probably never use (like Launchpad) that is bothering me in the least.
Quote:
I'd also argue that iCloud is too buggy to bother with at this point.
Funny, it works just fine for me. Then again, I'm actually using it and not just reading about other people moaning about it on the internet
Apple's target market went from University/IT/Creative Pros to middle-to-upper class households that drink Keurig Coffee while they use iPads to read books on their IKEA couch, pondering which wine to have with their Chicken & Gnocchi soup for dinner tonight, as their MacBook Pro is downloading the latest iTunes Movie Rental over 50MB broadband in the living room of a $150K house or $2000/mo apartment in the city, while their Ugg boots dry nicely in the corner beside their North Face winter coat.
So obviously penned by a wanna-be "filmmaker" fanboy, working for Mickey-D while still living with mom and dad, longing for "the good old days" he never lived, and somehow deluded into believing a middle-class house anywhere costs $150K in 2011, or that an upscale apartment rents for $2K/month. Keep dreaming, sweetie. Your grimy-haired friends helping you make yet another poorly lit zombie thriller ain't getting picked up at Sundance, and it's not Apple's fault.
Here is a quote from Wikipedia about usage in 2007.
"According to a 2007 SCRI study, Final Cut Pro made up 49% of the US professional editing market, with Avid at 22%."
That was a pretty significant market penetration. I wonder how many of those are now using FCProX instead ... I seriously doubt many: I really hope Apple are looking into going back to 8 and finishing it for pros.
Well i have to say most of my clients who use FP7 will be moving to Avid, most are retraining right now.
Avid has a road map with no big surprises, Apple is going have to do more research on the pro side. FPX is great for the home user and student but years behind the pro market and if apple ends the pro line then I'll be supporting windows machines after 20 years as a Mac consultant.
Ha, explain to me what's "easy" about rewriting a complex video editor from scratch? When you think about it, wouldn't the "easy path" be to simply update FCP8?
For a company with 75 billion in cash...easy. Just give us pros some hope. FCP X is not it! It would not be the Easy path... Eliminating pro features was the easy path, and that is what they have done.
Seriously, there are some things you can do better/faster/easier in FCP X than any other way.
Consider filming a sports event, like a football game where you use several cameras to follow certain players... then, ingesting the film, highlighting the selected shot, and publishing an instant replay;
Here's a short video to illustrate what I mean:
This is my grandson (the goal keep) shot with a Panny AVCHD from about 50 yards away:
[/B]
Amazing how many people extolling the professional abilities of Final Cut Pro X cite a home movie to show it off. I rest my case. Yes, I'm old school and until FCP X can do a decent workflow without metadata-based workarounds for simple stuff like track patching and legacy project support, we're elsewhere.
I've never been an Adobe fan, we work mostly now in Avid, but Encore's as useful as DVD SP and can at least make a Blu-ray, Premiere can rewrap QTs to MXFs, useful all round. Still looking for the amazing thing FCP X can do... I'm sure we'll find it.
Ugh - stop writing on your walls then. The only thing certain is hyperbole and ignorance (again, correlate the Mac Pro releases with Intel product schedules for the Xeon chips used in the Pro)
Well, to be prudent, as professionals, we have to plan for contingencies. Since Apple doesn't offer any forward outlook we have to develop our own plan B. Based on their recent history of eliminating pro machines and applications I don't think a little skepticism is too unrealistic with regards to the future of the Mac Pro.
Apple always introduces new products with reduced functionality. Then listens what the audience needs, and slowly adds stuff. e.g iOS 1.0 did not have cut and paste. This is the only way you can develop an app from the ground up, removing clutter that has been there for ages.
Photoshop is still the best photo editor in my book (miles better than Pixelmator), but Adobe will never be able to have the courage and start over again. So eventually they lose by bolting on new features and do nothing more.
That being said I don't undertand the problem with FCPX. I use it professionally and I love it. Yes, we DO need the 2012 upgrade Apple promised. When this is delivered we have a video editor that almost does the same thing as FCP 7, but this time much faster and much better.
The real problem is Motion. That app is seriously lacking compared to After Effects. Here the "prosumer VS professional user" is much more apparent.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Filmantopia
Everyone keeps saying that Apple has made a shift from prosumer to consumer with this software... but I'm not convinced. I think that Apple has simply made an intelligent wager on this paradigm shift with FCPX which has, for the time being, reduced its feature set. However, over time when they regain these features they'll be 5 legs up on other pro editor apps, already prepared to interface with future hardware changes in the industry (such as touch screens).
And guess who controls the future of hardware in the industry.
Nothing so dramatic. I, like The Crazy One, believe that Microsoft "has no taste." Microsoft has thrown some pretty awful products into the market with little or no care, just to grab marketshare. Simply put, I hate using Windows, Office, and all the rest. I'm still forced to every day on the job. It's a horrible user experience. So, on the suggestion of none other than Bill Gates himself, who once said in an interview that Microsoft was not a monopoly because customers could CHOOSE to use their software or not, I made a choice about my own computers: to not use Microsoft technology. In other words, I followed Bill Gates' advice. He's right: they are not a monopoly. Apple makes the non-Microsoft choice tolerable, even gleefully enjoyable (and it sure beats the Linux user experience).
I have a Mac Pro and I still can't get decent third party graphics card support without hacking I'm far less concerned about them dropping the Pro and far more concerned that they seem to be loosing interest in releasing better graphics card choices
Thunderbolt can't replace a single 16 lane PCI express card slot - let alone two of 'em and three 4 lane slots. Thunderbolt is cool, but it can't touch the bandwidth available in the Mac Pro.
Will definitely agree with you here on this. It is a shame that we cannot upgrade our early 2008 Mac Pro graphics cards with something that is FULLY SUPPORTED. Also agree with you about Thunderbolt...it will definitely NOT be a replacement for PCIe. Rob at Barefeats ran some great benchmarks of the latest iMacs compared to mid range Mac Pros and found the iMac to be on par if not slightly faster. Emailing with him about this, his conclusion was that building a PC is about the same cost when you factor in the higher-res display of the iMac. IMO and to me what is more important though is that you lose the flexibility, the PCIe lanes and the multi-hard drive capability. Not to mention you are tied to the iMac display. I don't want a bunch of cables with external drive bays sitting around on a desk. I want to pump TB drives into a box and be done with it and be able to swap them in and out at will when projects demand it.
Frankly if so many media outlets are reporting on rumors and speculation about the EOL of Mac Pro, then it is very simple thing to do. Put out a simple one liner "this is categorically a false rumor".
Trust me, switching to an iMac is going to feel like a downgrade if we have to go that route next year. If Apple puts out an all new Mac Pro then I will eat crow and you all can say I told you so Blur! But usually where there is smoke, there is fire.
I know you guys think this is crazy, but we are almost at an upgrade cycle and 3 years is stretching it for our studio. Maybe you are not at an upgrade cycle yet but when that time comes and there is still no Mac Pro refresh and rumors are abound, let's see what you say then?
Well, to be prudent, as professionals, we have to plan for contingencies. Since Apple doesn't offer any forward outlook we have to develop our own plan B. Based on their recent history of eliminating pro machines and applications I don't think a little skepticism is too unrealistic with regards to the future of the Mac Pro.
Thank you mstone. This is exactly where I am coming from here. It is all about the studio upgrade cycle.
Actually, it's not. There was no "simply" - FCP7 is full of legacy code, and with the 64 bit push of Lion combined with all the cool technology like OpenCL that FCP7 didn't take advantage of, I can see where Apple rightly decided to "burn the house down" and start over.
The worst thing they did was drop sales of FCP7 - they should have kept it up until FCPX and the plugins caught up. But as for FCPX? In a couple of years these discussions are going to look pretty silly...
I absolutely agree. My response was more directed at the previous commenter who suggested that Apple chose the "easy path" by creating a brand new application better geared towards a majority of editors out there (some call them 'prosumers,' but I find that term degrading), instead of working to keep their existing interface and tools available for the higher-end customers. It's "easier" to create what some people call "iMovie Pro" than it is to rewrite a full-featured 64-bit video editor like Adobe and Avid did a few years ago.
I fully recognize that getting FCP into Cocoa would have required a rewrite not only of Final Cut Pro itself, but also every component it depends upon. Since Apple was faced with this reality, they decided to take this opportunity to retool and rethink what Final Cut itself is and how it fits into Apple's technology roadmap going into the next decade. The result is a very powerful foundation that definitely has a rocky start, but in a few years will be moot.
It's always good to be proficient in alternative applications, and you should definitely use the tool that works best for you - FCPX isn't that tool for some people right now, though you would do yourself a disservice if you completely passed and ignored it.
For a company with 75 billion in cash...easy. Just give us pros some hope. FCP X is not it! It would not be the Easy path... Eliminating pro features was the easy path, and that is what they have done.
Apple didn't "eliminate pro features," they rebuilt a new foundation for what they want their video editor to be. Any time you make a break from the past and start over like that, you're not going to be able to carry every feature over on day one. Sure, FCPX is 'incomplete' for some users and studios out there, especially those who rely on Final Cut Studio to power their business, but it isn't going to stay that way. Features will be added over time, prioritized by customer feedback and what makes sense along Apple's technology roadmap.
If you need something today that FCPX doesn't support, the answer is obvious - transition over to something else or continue to use the older version. FCP7 is still a powerful editor that works fine today, even on Lion. All of these systems, Adobe, Avid and yes, even Apple, will get better with time.
Apple didn't "eliminate pro features," they rebuilt a new foundation for what they want their video editor to be. Any time you make a break from the past and start over like that, you're not going to be able to carry every feature over on day one. Sure, FCPX is 'incomplete' for some users and studios out there, especially those who rely on Final Cut Studio to power their business, but it isn't going to stay that way. Features will be added over time, prioritized by customer feedback and what makes sense along Apple's technology roadmap.
If you need something today that FCPX doesn't support, the answer is obvious - transition over to something else or continue to use the older version. FCP7 is still a powerful editor that works fine today, even on Lion. All of these systems, Adobe, Avid and yes, even Apple, will get better with time.
I have switched. I'm using Premiere Pro for its native file capabilities (it will play almost anything) exporting to Media 100 Suite 2.1 as ProRes HQ for final edit. A program with a real multi-track timeline, complete XML, multi-cam, interoperability with other programs, RED RAW support, and STABILITY, etc, etc, I only use FCP to do bump records for masters from MacPro AJA LHi to my AJA ioHD because it is ProRes native and only works with FCP 7. FCPX is useless to me and many other pros at this point. And I speak as a former Apple Video VAR who has installed and supported over 100 NLE systems. No one here in Hawaii is switching to FCPX in a pro environment. I have 40 years of Pro video experience. From Sony Portapaks for broadcast to 40 foot trucks and $100,000 cameras for film-style. I'm not someone with a new camcorder. God help us if Apple ever quits supporting the MacPro. It will be a Windows world in post. UGH!
Comments
Seriously, FCP X has a 30-day free trial... and it is quite powerful if you approach it without preconceived notions on how an NLE should work.
Good luck with that. Most of these guys aren't going to have an open mind until they are forced to because their competitors are cleaning their clocks using more modern tools.
Nothing new here. Those not ready for change or who don't want to change complain, and then either fade away or grudgingly adapt.
Apple doesn't have to kiss their butts. All Apple has to do is make compelling products that are heads and shoulders better than their competitors and thus by not using them you are at a distinct competitive disadvantage.
It's how the original FCP got entrenched, it's how the iPhone is penetrating business and even government far faster than I ever thought would be possible and it's how FCPX will eventually displace the existing players and force a major change in video. Especially with DSLR video taking off, tapeless workflow is the future, and FCPX is the only current app written from the ground up to embrace that paradigm.
At the end of the day, actions speak louder than words. Sure, there may be some short term flux, but in the long run I have no doubt Apple's strategy with FCPX will pay off. Now I'm not giving them a complete pass - I do think they bungled the message and made a huge mistake in withdrawing FCP7 sales way too soon - but those are temporary issues.
Damn shame, but the writing is on the wall.
Ugh - stop writing on your walls then. The only thing certain is hyperbole and ignorance (again, correlate the Mac Pro releases with Intel product schedules for the Xeon chips used in the Pro)
The easy path would have been making a 64 bit FCP7
Really? How.
Seriously - provide more detail than "because I said show" to prove you really do understand that which you are intimating.
I dare you...
Ever thought of a better designed room
Then they wouldn't be able to complaing
or seeing an eye doctor?
More like therapist
Not sure what your point is. If I sold a software product, I'd want to make sure I was up to date on feedback about that product coming from a range of sources.
And you would end up with crapware with nonsensical "features" like most of the rest of the industry spews.
Google, Bing, Yahoo queries would be one source for such feedback.
For those with no imagination or fortitude to establish a vision and execute against it.
Customer surveys, media reports, Conan O'Brien videos poking fun of my product would also be another source.
For companies interested in delivering mediocre products, perhaps. Customer survey's might be the only halfway legitimate thing in your list, and Apple does incorporate feedback. Not always a fast or completely as I and many others would like, but they aren't totally deaf. But they aren't schizophrenic and scattershot like many of their competitors either chasing after every whim, and I value that more because overall it produces higher quality products.
Because for some things it still runs better than Lion, and has fewer bugs.
Fair enough - new software tends to have more bugs. Then again, I have had zero lockups, kernel panics, or programs that have unexpectedly quit since switching to Lion. No other version of Mac OSX can claim that for me. And I'm running a non-apple flashed video card on my Mac Pro!
And there are a number of annoyances ("features" I guess) in Lion that can't be turned off.
Such as? I have found Lion to be purely additive. There isn't one new Lion feature that I will probably never use (like Launchpad) that is bothering me in the least.
I'd also argue that iCloud is too buggy to bother with at this point.
Funny, it works just fine for me. Then again, I'm actually using it and not just reading about other people moaning about it on the internet
Apple's target market went from University/IT/Creative Pros to middle-to-upper class households that drink Keurig Coffee while they use iPads to read books on their IKEA couch, pondering which wine to have with their Chicken & Gnocchi soup for dinner tonight, as their MacBook Pro is downloading the latest iTunes Movie Rental over 50MB broadband in the living room of a $150K house or $2000/mo apartment in the city, while their Ugg boots dry nicely in the corner beside their North Face winter coat.
So obviously penned by a wanna-be "filmmaker" fanboy, working for Mickey-D while still living with mom and dad, longing for "the good old days" he never lived, and somehow deluded into believing a middle-class house anywhere costs $150K in 2011, or that an upscale apartment rents for $2K/month. Keep dreaming, sweetie. Your grimy-haired friends helping you make yet another poorly lit zombie thriller ain't getting picked up at Sundance, and it's not Apple's fault.
Here is a quote from Wikipedia about usage in 2007.
"According to a 2007 SCRI study, Final Cut Pro made up 49% of the US professional editing market, with Avid at 22%."
That was a pretty significant market penetration. I wonder how many of those are now using FCProX instead ... I seriously doubt many: I really hope Apple are looking into going back to 8 and finishing it for pros.
Well i have to say most of my clients who use FP7 will be moving to Avid, most are retraining right now.
Avid has a road map with no big surprises, Apple is going have to do more research on the pro side. FPX is great for the home user and student but years behind the pro market and if apple ends the pro line then I'll be supporting windows machines after 20 years as a Mac consultant.
Ha, explain to me what's "easy" about rewriting a complex video editor from scratch? When you think about it, wouldn't the "easy path" be to simply update FCP8?
For a company with 75 billion in cash...easy. Just give us pros some hope. FCP X is not it! It would not be the Easy path... Eliminating pro features was the easy path, and that is what they have done.
Have you tried FCP X?
Seriously, there are some things you can do better/faster/easier in FCP X than any other way.
Consider filming a sports event, like a football game where you use several cameras to follow certain players... then, ingesting the film, highlighting the selected shot, and publishing an instant replay;
Here's a short video to illustrate what I mean:
This is my grandson (the goal keep) shot with a Panny AVCHD from about 50 yards away:
[/B]
Amazing how many people extolling the professional abilities of Final Cut Pro X cite a home movie to show it off. I rest my case. Yes, I'm old school and until FCP X can do a decent workflow without metadata-based workarounds for simple stuff like track patching and legacy project support, we're elsewhere.
I've never been an Adobe fan, we work mostly now in Avid, but Encore's as useful as DVD SP and can at least make a Blu-ray, Premiere can rewrap QTs to MXFs, useful all round. Still looking for the amazing thing FCP X can do... I'm sure we'll find it.
Courage is what make me respect Apple, more than ITs products.
Courage IS SO undervalued in techWorld.
I beleive you ment to say, "iTS products."
Ugh - stop writing on your walls then. The only thing certain is hyperbole and ignorance (again, correlate the Mac Pro releases with Intel product schedules for the Xeon chips used in the Pro)
Well, to be prudent, as professionals, we have to plan for contingencies. Since Apple doesn't offer any forward outlook we have to develop our own plan B. Based on their recent history of eliminating pro machines and applications I don't think a little skepticism is too unrealistic with regards to the future of the Mac Pro.
Photoshop is still the best photo editor in my book (miles better than Pixelmator), but Adobe will never be able to have the courage and start over again. So eventually they lose by bolting on new features and do nothing more.
That being said I don't undertand the problem with FCPX. I use it professionally and I love it. Yes, we DO need the 2012 upgrade Apple promised. When this is delivered we have a video editor that almost does the same thing as FCP 7, but this time much faster and much better.
The real problem is Motion. That app is seriously lacking compared to After Effects. Here the "prosumer VS professional user" is much more apparent.
Everyone keeps saying that Apple has made a shift from prosumer to consumer with this software... but I'm not convinced. I think that Apple has simply made an intelligent wager on this paradigm shift with FCPX which has, for the time being, reduced its feature set. However, over time when they regain these features they'll be 5 legs up on other pro editor apps, already prepared to interface with future hardware changes in the industry (such as touch screens).
And guess who controls the future of hardware in the industry.
Nothing so dramatic. I, like The Crazy One, believe that Microsoft "has no taste." Microsoft has thrown some pretty awful products into the market with little or no care, just to grab marketshare. Simply put, I hate using Windows, Office, and all the rest. I'm still forced to every day on the job. It's a horrible user experience. So, on the suggestion of none other than Bill Gates himself, who once said in an interview that Microsoft was not a monopoly because customers could CHOOSE to use their software or not, I made a choice about my own computers: to not use Microsoft technology. In other words, I followed Bill Gates' advice. He's right: they are not a monopoly. Apple makes the non-Microsoft choice tolerable, even gleefully enjoyable (and it sure beats the Linux user experience).
How do you survive in this world?
I have a Mac Pro and I still can't get decent third party graphics card support without hacking
Thunderbolt can't replace a single 16 lane PCI express card slot - let alone two of 'em and three 4 lane slots. Thunderbolt is cool, but it can't touch the bandwidth available in the Mac Pro.
Will definitely agree with you here on this. It is a shame that we cannot upgrade our early 2008 Mac Pro graphics cards with something that is FULLY SUPPORTED. Also agree with you about Thunderbolt...it will definitely NOT be a replacement for PCIe. Rob at Barefeats ran some great benchmarks of the latest iMacs compared to mid range Mac Pros and found the iMac to be on par if not slightly faster. Emailing with him about this, his conclusion was that building a PC is about the same cost when you factor in the higher-res display of the iMac. IMO and to me what is more important though is that you lose the flexibility, the PCIe lanes and the multi-hard drive capability. Not to mention you are tied to the iMac display. I don't want a bunch of cables with external drive bays sitting around on a desk. I want to pump TB drives into a box and be done with it and be able to swap them in and out at will when projects demand it.
Frankly if so many media outlets are reporting on rumors and speculation about the EOL of Mac Pro, then it is very simple thing to do. Put out a simple one liner "this is categorically a false rumor".
Trust me, switching to an iMac is going to feel like a downgrade if we have to go that route next year. If Apple puts out an all new Mac Pro then I will eat crow and you all can say I told you so Blur! But usually where there is smoke, there is fire.
I know you guys think this is crazy, but we are almost at an upgrade cycle and 3 years is stretching it for our studio. Maybe you are not at an upgrade cycle yet but when that time comes and there is still no Mac Pro refresh and rumors are abound, let's see what you say then?
Well, to be prudent, as professionals, we have to plan for contingencies. Since Apple doesn't offer any forward outlook we have to develop our own plan B. Based on their recent history of eliminating pro machines and applications I don't think a little skepticism is too unrealistic with regards to the future of the Mac Pro.
Thank you mstone. This is exactly where I am coming from here. It is all about the studio upgrade cycle.
Actually, it's not. There was no "simply" - FCP7 is full of legacy code, and with the 64 bit push of Lion combined with all the cool technology like OpenCL that FCP7 didn't take advantage of, I can see where Apple rightly decided to "burn the house down" and start over.
The worst thing they did was drop sales of FCP7 - they should have kept it up until FCPX and the plugins caught up. But as for FCPX? In a couple of years these discussions are going to look pretty silly...
I absolutely agree. My response was more directed at the previous commenter who suggested that Apple chose the "easy path" by creating a brand new application better geared towards a majority of editors out there (some call them 'prosumers,' but I find that term degrading), instead of working to keep their existing interface and tools available for the higher-end customers. It's "easier" to create what some people call "iMovie Pro" than it is to rewrite a full-featured 64-bit video editor like Adobe and Avid did a few years ago.
I fully recognize that getting FCP into Cocoa would have required a rewrite not only of Final Cut Pro itself, but also every component it depends upon. Since Apple was faced with this reality, they decided to take this opportunity to retool and rethink what Final Cut itself is and how it fits into Apple's technology roadmap going into the next decade. The result is a very powerful foundation that definitely has a rocky start, but in a few years will be moot.
It's always good to be proficient in alternative applications, and you should definitely use the tool that works best for you - FCPX isn't that tool for some people right now, though you would do yourself a disservice if you completely passed and ignored it.
For a company with 75 billion in cash...easy. Just give us pros some hope. FCP X is not it! It would not be the Easy path... Eliminating pro features was the easy path, and that is what they have done.
Apple didn't "eliminate pro features," they rebuilt a new foundation for what they want their video editor to be. Any time you make a break from the past and start over like that, you're not going to be able to carry every feature over on day one. Sure, FCPX is 'incomplete' for some users and studios out there, especially those who rely on Final Cut Studio to power their business, but it isn't going to stay that way. Features will be added over time, prioritized by customer feedback and what makes sense along Apple's technology roadmap.
If you need something today that FCPX doesn't support, the answer is obvious - transition over to something else or continue to use the older version. FCP7 is still a powerful editor that works fine today, even on Lion. All of these systems, Adobe, Avid and yes, even Apple, will get better with time.
Apple didn't "eliminate pro features," they rebuilt a new foundation for what they want their video editor to be. Any time you make a break from the past and start over like that, you're not going to be able to carry every feature over on day one. Sure, FCPX is 'incomplete' for some users and studios out there, especially those who rely on Final Cut Studio to power their business, but it isn't going to stay that way. Features will be added over time, prioritized by customer feedback and what makes sense along Apple's technology roadmap.
If you need something today that FCPX doesn't support, the answer is obvious - transition over to something else or continue to use the older version. FCP7 is still a powerful editor that works fine today, even on Lion. All of these systems, Adobe, Avid and yes, even Apple, will get better with time.
I have switched. I'm using Premiere Pro for its native file capabilities (it will play almost anything) exporting to Media 100 Suite 2.1 as ProRes HQ for final edit. A program with a real multi-track timeline, complete XML, multi-cam, interoperability with other programs, RED RAW support, and STABILITY, etc, etc, I only use FCP to do bump records for masters from MacPro AJA LHi to my AJA ioHD because it is ProRes native and only works with FCP 7. FCPX is useless to me and many other pros at this point. And I speak as a former Apple Video VAR who has installed and supported over 100 NLE systems. No one here in Hawaii is switching to FCPX in a pro environment. I have 40 years of Pro video experience. From Sony Portapaks for broadcast to 40 foot trucks and $100,000 cameras for film-style. I'm not someone with a new camcorder. God help us if Apple ever quits supporting the MacPro. It will be a Windows world in post. UGH!
I pay whatever extra it costs to have a Microsoft-free computing experience
Just started reading this thread, but there's no denying this one.
Agree wholeheartedly Newton!