Apple’s official FCP7 EOL

[Scott Witthaus]

[Oliver Peters] ” If you’ve abandoned FCP7 years ago, what’s the solution? Say “no”? Find a friend with FCP7? Something else?”

Exactly. “Mr/Ms Client, that project was done on a software that was committed to death 6 years ago. We can bring it back to life, but I will need to find a facility to bring it up to a modern NLE. Gonna take a little time and budget, but we will get it 90% there”.

Or, if its a regular client, you should be in front of them 5 years ago saying “we need to migrate this to …”

Sitting doing nothing is not an acceptable answer.

Scott Witthaus
Owner, 1708 Inc./Editorial
Managing Partner, Low Country Creative LLC
Professor, VCU Brandcenter

[Michael Gissing]

I still get docos cut on FCP7 for post. I still have my 2009 Mac Pro, Snow Leopard with Legend sitting in the corner in case I need to open a 7 project up. Thankfully I rarely need to but the software is very much alive in the world despite EOL.

All that said, I can’t blame Apple for developing an OS that dumps 32 bit software and I am glad Quicktime is all but dead. Apple has always cared less about backwards compatibility and so none of us should be surprised. However the notion that old projects have no value is part and parcel of a general attitude about archiving. Having worked on many programs over the years that source old films and TV footage, I can see that the last twenty years will provide a challenge when people are wanting to make films in the future that look for archive from this era.

[Robin S. kurz]

[Oliver Peters] “See this article:
https://www.provideocoalition.com/apple-please-create-xml-utility-provide-a...”

Oh right. It’s totally Apple’s fault and responsibility. Those jerks! [/s]

So… where was Adobe’s Freehand converter again?

I’m 100% with Scott on this one. And yeah, I would in fact say “Find someone else if you insist on it being done in/through 7 in spite of all the other far more viable options” if push came to shove. At least I for one am not that hard up for work. Others may be. In which case they can just do what Michael has. Simple enough.

I find the (original) title of this thread completely nonsensical and misleading btw. FCP 7 was officially EOLed over six years ago. That page does nothing but state the system requirements for the most current versions of the Pro Apps. FCP7 is just as dead or alive today as it was on June 27th 2011. Completely aside from the fact that I don’t see how anyone still stuck on 7 of all things could even give two hoots about their version of OS. Because if that is in fact an issue, then it’s purely self-made, plain and simple imho.

– RK

____________________________________________________
Deutsch? Hier gibt es ein umfassendes FCP X Training für dich!

[Steve Connor]

[Robin S. Kurz] “Completely aside from the fact that I don’t see how anyone still stuck on 7 of all things could even give two hoots about their version of OS. Because if that is in fact an issue, then it’s purely self-made, plain and simple imho.
“

Exactly!

[David Lawrence]

[Andy Field] “Apple – come on – just make a widget that opens FCP7 Project and creates a universal XML – can’t be that hard — Premiere Opens them without any translation”

I doubt Apple will make this but I’ll bet Philip and Greg at Intelligent Assistance could if there was enough of a demand.

https://www.intelligentassistance.com/index.html

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research

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[Walter Soyka]

[Robin S. Kurz] “Completely aside from the fact that I don’t see how anyone still stuck on 7 of all things could even give two hoots about their version of OS. Because if that is in fact an issue, then it’s purely self-made, plain and simple imho.”

I understand the plight that FCP7 users find themselves in. A new machine will not run the old OS, so if their older computer dies, they are out of luck.

In retrospect, best practice for closing out a job should have included exporting XML. But prior to the release of FCPX, .fcp files were forward-compatible, so I can understand why people were not kicking out XML on each job as a matter of course.

[Robin S. Kurz] “Oh right. It’s totally Apple’s fault and responsibility. Those jerks! [/s] So… where was Adobe’s Freehand converter again?”

I agree with you that it’s unreasonable to expect indefinite support from any developer for legacy software.

But on the other hand, Apple could have done something, anything, to ease the transition from FCP7 to FCPX.

Adobe managed the FreeHand/Illustrator transition by shipping a FreeHand importer with Illustrator from (IIRC) CS3 – CS5. That’s almost 5 years of FreeHand support. Of course it didn’t always work perfectly, but at least you got something. The other A’s (Autodesk and Avid) are luminaries in forward-compatibility. You can open decades-old archives and bins with today’s releases.

FCPX is exceptional in our industry, in many ways. One of them is its lack of any legacy support at all — but we are 6 years into FCPX, so this should take no one by surprise.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Doug Metz]

[Oliver Peters] “[Robin S. Kurz] “Seriously? If you still need that over six years later, spending a measly 10 bucks (for a far better translation btw) is somehow asking too much?”

I think you misunderstood the request. The issue is getting access into FCP projects if you don’t have FCP 7 running any longer. “

Exactly.

I’ve been using FCPX for new projects for 5+ years, and have migrated several projects from FCP 7 and PPro via XML when possible. However, I’ve got 10 prior years of FCP Legacy projects (hundreds of them, in fact) that *probably* won’t ever need to be opened again. Probably. Just in case, I keep a 2011 cheesegrater frozen at 10.9.x with the entire legacy suite. Had to crack open a 2004 event edit last week.

A simple converter/exporter for these old files would allow me to replace that old tower without worry. It just isn’t practical to go back and open all of those projects to export XML.

Doug Metz

[Bill Davis]

[David Lawrence] “[Andy Field] “Apple – come on – just make a widget that opens FCP7 Project and creates a universal XML – can’t be that hard — Premiere Opens them without any translation”

I doubt Apple will make this but I’ll bet Philip and Greg at Intelligent Assistance could if there was enough of a demand.
“

Seems to me that would require a virtualization of the Entire FCP Legacy code inside such a translator wouldn’t it? Cuz without that, how do you capture all the potential states of an edit FOR translation?

And if I’m conceptualizing this correctly (tho probably not, but it’s a fun thought exercise!) – what possible point would there be for Apple to make the source code for Legacy openly available like that? It’s got to have sub-routines buried in it that were sub-licensed or otherwise IP protected.

How do you handle paying the royalties on distributing the embedded IP?

Seems like one big rats nest to avoid.

Much easier just to move on.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Michael Gissing]

[Bill Davis]”Seems to me that would require a virtualization of the Entire FCP Legacy code inside such a translator wouldn’t it?”

No. Most translate software simply needs to map the information in one format to another format. I have AAT software that can translate a lot of audio transfer protocols like AES31, AAF, OMF and custom project formats like ProTools, Reaper, Sadie etc etc. So I can map a Sadie project to an OMF or AAF optimised for Fairlight. AAT is a small down loadable software package and the entire source code of each proprietary system is not needed. Just the ability to understand the project file’s structure and how to map that to a different project file structure like xml. It has nothing to do with sub licensing IP . Think of it more like a database format conversion.

Moving on is not an option for many so this tool may be viable.

[Simon Ubsdell]

Thank you so much for the recommendation of AATranslator, Michael.

https://www.aatranslator.com.au/

This is going to help a lot.

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki