Anyone got a map?

[Mark Suszko]

I’m speaking as a former Discreet Edit*6 and Panasonic Postbox driver who’s had this happen twice.

I would say: pretend this week didn’t happen. What’s really changed? FCS 3 is still awesome. You might want to get a copy of x in the shop to start learning it/evaluating it, but really it’s not yet ready for prime time, for a lot of shops. FCS3 and FCP-7 are as good today as they were last week, and there is no reason to stop using them, the copies you have will continue to perform well.

The biggest issue is, you can’t get no mo’ new copies from Apple. Maybe you can get some off ebay or private sources holding onto existing stock, and I predict ebay prices for FCS3 in shrinkwrap, NIB, will soar by month’s end. Frankly, I don’t know what the licensing limits are on a copy of FCS3 today, and how many times you can install it, or how many seats one copy of the disks can serve. Maybe Apple no longer cares about enforcing that, if they are no longer supporting it. In which case, you have as many seats of FCS as you want, already.

FCS3 is stable and mature, and for what I need it to do, it will probably serve just fine for the next five years without another update. By then maybe FCPx will be really ready, and if not, Premiere surely will be. The third-party plug-ins and hardware made for FCS3 will still be available for some time, and the prices on those will inevitably drop over time. I don’t expect a lot more new development of FCS plug-ins though, except from people who do it for love. So if there are plug-ins you’ve always wanted, I would stock up on those while they are plentiful and their prices reduced.

I think if I were in your shoes, if you have enough copies of FCS3, I would see through the current upgrade you’re halfway thru doing, and plan to go thru a two year research and eval phase before making another jump. FCPx is a highly disruptive technology, in a business sense. Add to that the emergence of Thunderbolt interfaces and I can forsee a very large change in hardware configurations and workflows over the next couple of years as things shake out. Getting caught up in the “Must have the latest” wave right now could mean you will wind up buying a lot of things twice, or the wrong things, while waiting out the initial burst of migrations will let you count the arrows in the backs of the pioners and make more informed decisions on where to steer your wagon train.

[Peter Blumenstock]

I feel for you but, sounds as if this happened at the worst possible time for you, but, quite honestly, nobody here has an answer. Which is why everybody is so upset. We all got screwed and cheated. And I will take a big lesson away from this with regards to anything related to Apple both soft- and hardware wise.
My best suggestion is to try and get by for as long as you can, see what the other vendors like Adobe and Avid will do in the coming months. I’d be very surprised if there wasn’t major movement and appealing things coming from them to bring to their platform what is essentially the biggest nle user base on the planet that is currently without a home.

[Marvin Holdman]

Appreciate the response. My problem presently is the never ending parade of equipment vendors who will begin a very loud rant about what a debacle this release is and how our company needs to transition out of FCS3 as quickly as possible. I have a substantial amount of DPS Velocity projects that are completely dead and as such has costed us many production hours for re-editing. I fear the same for the FCS3 projects we are working on today. After 20+ years of doing this professionally, it seems the equipment vendors have landed on the model of perpetual change for the sake of new sales. I guess I’m more than a bit stung by the fact that this release gives my credibility a swift kick in the privates. After many months of saying, “Wait till the next version comes out, it’s going to be 64-bit and make our 12 core machines fly” I now have much egg on my face as we really can’t use this “great” new software and I really don’t see a timeline of when we will be able too.

We will, of course, continue working. The world has certainly not ended, but it is only a matter of time before FCS3 is completely broken and we will have to choose between remaining in legacy world or keeping up with technology. Trust me when I tell you that our company has MANY legacy systems in place and while they work, I think ultimately they cost us a great deal more to use in time and troubleshooting (which is a nightmare!). Sadly, that is the future I see for FCS3.

It certainly feels like we’re at a crossroads today. I haven’t started researching alternative roads, but it’s the first time in a few years that I have seriously contemplated it. Of course, we’ll “wait and see” for a bit, but that can only be for so long. Maybe in a year or two this will once again be the dominate program in the market, but I also know that Avid’s and Premiere’s will not sit still either. It’s coming down to which company is more likely to support you as you move forward and, sadly, Apple seems to be saying they are not interested in those of us who have spend years and money working with them. Really, I’m not upset that they are changing so radically, I’m upset because they really aren’t giving us ANY feedback on the concerns raised. Surely, they must have anticipated such reactions. Their lack of pre-emptive response for this leaves me wondering one of two things;

1. They REALLY didn’t think it would be that much of a problem. Very scary, if they are really that naive.

2. They REALLY don’t care. Even scarier as they seem so uninterested in a loyal customer base.

I am racking my brain trying to think of third possibility, but I can’t come up with it. Sad really, the rest of the folks at the company I work at use PC’s (religiously). You are right about one thing…. all I have at this point is denial, this week didn’t happen. What new release? I’m just having a supply problem with new copies of FCS3, that’s all.

Marvin Holdman
Production Manager
Tourist Network
8317 Front Beach Rd, Suite 23
Panama City Beach, Fl
phone 850-234-2773 ext. 128
cell 850-585-9667
skype username – vidmarv