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A ‘pro’ app with missing features
We’ll see where Apple goes in the future, but to me this looks a lot more like a pro app that was pushed out the door with features still missing than a consumer app. It has DPX/OpenEXR exporting, 4K support, and credible video scopes… these are not ‘consumer’ features. Plus, there’s the extensive metadata/tagging stuff, which seems designed for large, complex projects.
Why would Apple do this, instead of waiting and doing a more feature-complete release later? Well, the key to answering that question is to look at who this release is useful to: it’s seriously useful to anyone who does work in formats FCP 7 doesn’t support natively, and who doesn’t need offline/online editing. Among other folks, this includes most DSLR shooters, who are a pretty big market. Apple presumably figured it was worth getting something out there for these folks ASAP.
The real issue here is that Apple is sufficiently secretive about its decision making process that they’re probably not just going to come out and say this; they’re going to let people freak out for, probably, months, before missing features start quietly showing up in updates.
If this seems hard to swallow, consider that we’re talking about the same company that, in 2007, shipped a new smartphone platform that didn’t support third-party apps, copy and paste, and other features that people thought should be taken for granted, without so much as a word about future plans to fill in those gaps. People freaked out. But things turned out pretty well for the iPhone in the long run.
FCP X seems to provide a strong technical foundation, and some long overdue rethinking of the standard non-linear editing user interface conventions. Apple has a history of starting off with simplified products and building on them incrementally. Being annoyed by the fact that FCP X isn’t useful (to you) today is perfectly reasonable; personally I was hoping it would solve a couple of problems for us that it doesn’t solve yet. But writing off Apple in the pro video editing market is seriously premature.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve. -
15 Replies
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[Chris Kenny] “this looks a lot more like a pro app that was pushed out the door with features still missing than a consumer app.”
Yes, and I had said that the reason Apple didn’t show some things at the Sneak Peek was simply that those features weren’t ready yet.
[Chris Kenny] “Why would Apple do this, instead of waiting and doing a more feature-complete release later?”
Because without showing progress people would have simply abandoned ship, possibly moving to Windows Avid or Premiere systems (with CUDA). What they’ve done is released FCPX Training Edition so we have something to play with while they get the Pro features ready.
[Chris Kenny] “missing features start quietly showing up in updates.”
Actually FCPX has been very quiet. No Dog and Pony Media Event. No Splash Page on the Apple site. Not even one of the little boxes on the bottom of the page.
I think one big mistake is pulling FCS2009 from the online store because facilities can’t add working seats while they wait for the eventual Pro version of FCPX.
[Chris Kenny] “But writing off Apple in the pro video editing market is seriously premature.”
Very sensible thinking. I think by the end of the year will be seeing some useful updates.
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Seeing that 7 was a marginal (at best) upgrade, I’ve felt (for at least 2 years) that if apple didn’t hit it out of the park with their next release, I’d be jumping ship.
They’ve had enough time to write, re-write, re-rewrite a program.
They have the resources and capital to do it from the start.Seeing the demo @ NAB was the writing on the wall, hearing people gasp
for imovie functionality – not really understanding how FCS has been
lagging behind the entire industry.Now looking into the export features and seeing youtube, iCNNwhatever,
It’s obvious to me where the resources were spent. This is an upgrade over iMovie and nothing more.I can’t open a project that I was working on THIS MORNING to access
the speed upgrades of 64bit GCD. This is unacceptable in a “pro” app.There’s an import imovie project though, so I guess that might help some people….
Andrew Corneles – http://www.efponline.com – editorial and mograph
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[Andrew Corneles] “Now looking into the export features and seeing youtube, iCNNwhatever,
It’s obvious to me where the resources were spent.”That’s kind of a silly argument. All those web export formats are fairly trivial user interface code wrapping H.264 file exporting. That’s not “where the resources were spent” because it would have barely required any resources.
My guess is that by far the most time consuming element of this release was the underlying playback/rendering technology, which is, of course, all going to carry over into future releases that add more workflow features.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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The fact that theres a “import from iMovie” function shows where there head is……
IF YOU WANT TO BE COMPETITIVE SOFTWARE..and be taken seriously you cant have crappy consumer stuff like this in here.
just my 2 cents
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I agree…. this is like a beta version.
I am confident (hopeful?) that updates will come.
But right now, this sucker is very incomplete
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FCP X seems to provide a strong technical foundation, and some long overdue rethinking of the standard non-linear editing user interface conventions.
Who say’s it’s long overdue. I, for one, am quite happy with the NLE conventions that have been worked out over the past 15 years. So are most other pro editors. If people were clamoring for a different paradigm then Sony Vegas would have taken off years ago. This is just typical Apple arrogance – just more of the same style over substance crap that I’ve put up with for the past 6 years because, until now, FCP was the best bang for the buck. But this time they’ve reached new heights of “hip” – they’ve EOL’d the most popular NLE on the planet because they wanted to “rethink the standard conventions.”
I need a martini.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions -
[Herb Sevush] “This is just typical Apple arrogance – just more of the same style over substance crap”
That makes no sense. The new UI has substantial new functionality. It’s not ‘style over substance’.
The whole “I don’t want to learn something new” thing is expected, but having invested a bit of effort in the new UI this afternoon, there do seem to be some real improvements.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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If it has DPX exporting, does it mean it can also import and work with DPX?
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[Adam Claude Jones] “If it has DPX exporting, does it mean it can also import and work with DPX?”
There doesn’t appear to be any DPX importing at present.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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Surprise! Final Cut Studio 3 has the same sort of DPX support because Compressor can render to DPX.
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