Before you get too comfy in your switch . . . .

[Craig Seeman]

[Eugene Lehnert] “But why did they release this version without basics everyday needs like XML, EDL, OMF and tape control support? “

Good question. They could have waited until they had more features developed. They could have allowed a longer transition time which actually had been their history in both OS9 to OSX and PPC to Intel transition.

Just speculation but I think there is a reason they pulled FCS so quickly an released a very incomplete FCPX and I don’t think they expected people to move from FCS to FCPX at this point. I’m guessing, only guessing, that in the game of “business” chess, the pawn is being sacrificed at this point for a motive not yet clear to us.

I will hold that this was done with significant forethought though. I also believe it’s more complex than simply dumping the “pros.”

I can speculate why this happened as it did and some of my other posts include some thoughts. For all we know it can be a deliberate “paid” beta so they can observe things that may impact some of their future decisions.

I’m just looking at pieces of the puzzle. I don’t have them connected yet.

I also don’t think all of Apple’s moves will be quick. I think we’re going to see some things that may play out over a year or two.

I can speculate that there seems to be underlying extensibility in FCPX, metadata, APIs that Apple needed to get out the door sooner rather than later to have impact on developers that might utilize that.

Another puzzle piece might be to push third party developers by pulling FCS from the market. I’m not sure of that at all. It’s one more thing to consider. Certainly some developers are working to support FCPX as part of their own business survival.

Again this may be another aspect of the dependencies that Apple has created on their technologies.

[Eugene Lehnert]

It does seem kind of crazy to abandon the pro market when they have something like this now:

https://store.apple.com/us/product/H5187VC/A/Thunderbolt?fnode=MTY1NDA0Nw&mco=MjMwMzE0OTI

You can edit uncompressed 2K on your laptop. And FCP X is 64-bit. It’s such overkill for the prosumer market.

I wish they just called this thing Final Cut X Express.

[Jeff Bernstein]

As one who helped create QuickTime in the early years, I can tell you that Avid and Adobe have well-placed fears of entrusting the core of their products to Apple. Believe me, Apple tried to do just that. There were many meetings. Ultimately, it was Apple who did not step up to the plate.

As a prime example, QuickTime on Windows is single-threaded whereas it is multi-threaded on the Mac. As a result, performance under QuickTime on Windows is hampered. This was by design to encourage development on Mac.

As Brandon pointed out, there has been a bug in a QuickTime API that helps bridge the 32-bit to 64-bit worlds. It affects ALL 64-bit apps that call on QuickTime, not just Adobe apps. If actions speak louder than words, and as we all know, Apple doesn’t like using words, Apple’s response has been effectively, “this is not important to us.” How else do you describe a known bug that has lasted nearly 2 years?

While AV Foundation represents the rewrite of QuickTime 64-bit, it is not a direct replacement. Moreover, the rewrite of QuickTime in whatever form and whatever name, has been mismanaged and not delivered in a timely fashion. Had it been in capable hands, it would have been delivered 2 years ago. Apple killing Carbon64, on the other hand, has a lot to do with this. But, that is a whole other post.

Many, if not all, of the entertainment powerhouses, have adopted a file-based workflow for this new world of digital delivery. As such, many have adopted QuickTime. But they have found, like many of you, that QuickTime is EOL’d. In addition, many attempted to get Apple to fix the various issues in QuickTime, such as Gamma, and also asked Apple to enhance QuickTime for today’s needs. Apple’s response… “We don’t care.”

As a result, Disney, along with SMPTE, have embarked on a replacement for QuickTime, yet it emulates many of the core features of QuickTime, but brings it to the next level. The key here is that industry begged Apple, Apple said no, then the industry said we better make sure this is an open standard so we don’t find ourselves in this position again.

Will software manufacturers embrace this new standard? It is too early to tell. The hope is that it will become an industry standard with support on as many OS platforms as possible.

[Craig Seeman]

[Herb Sevush] “It’s just that it has nothing to do with my decision making in the next year.”

It shouldn’t. Currently FCPX has severely limited use for many professional purposes. FCP7 is aged to say the least compared to some of the things Avid or Premiere are currently capable of.

[Herb Sevush] “If Apple takes over the world, I’ll deal with it. I just hope they implement a nice multi-cam feature when they do.”

I think as part of my perception that Apple is willing to “sacrifice the pawn” for a longer range outcome is that they think that most switchers are going to remain on Mac base Premiere and Avid for the time being.

The good thing is that switching NLEs is not longer the expense that it was 10 years ago, not that there aren’t many costs involved.

I really think FCPX is just a “learning tool” at this point anyway . . . for what will be a stronger feature set over time. Of course Avid and Adobe aren’t going to be standing still either. BTW that’s why I think AV Foundation may play a role in this. It may well be that Apple isn’t’ so concerned that Pros use FCPX so much as AV Foundation eventually becomes a reason people stick with Macs regardless of NLE. It may be that FCPX is just the “concept car” that the rest of the industry might pull the good things from. Apple benefits if it keeps you buying Macs.

[Bret Williams]

Their biggest piece of acquired code- iTunes!

[Craig Seeman]

[David Roth Weiss] “if it were any company in the world except Apple I doubt anyone would still be even remotely interested at this point without a clear message and path.”

But it is Apple and sometimes their odd paths work. That doesn’t mean this will. Jobs also brought us the Next computer. It’s just an interesting thing to observe.

I can’t connect at all the cause for the secretive nature Apple is about where they’re heading with this because some things seem to be beyond “competitive advantage” motives.

I do think Apple has ulterior motives though. I don’t mean to imply anything sinister. Probably more amoral than anything although we humans love to anthropomorphize things.

Good or bad, Apple has mindshare and the discourse in this forum shows that. I’m curious how Apple will use that mindshare as they leverage their technologies though.

[Craig Seeman]

[Eugene Lehnert] “I wish they just called this thing Final Cut X Express.”

It will be Pro, eventually, just not yet. Of course how the industry takes to it . . . in that possible future, remains to be seen. One could say that not only is FCPX missing things, it seems almost “uneven” as to what is and isn’t’ in the program at the moment. I think there’s a mix of priority and ease of implementation. Some “pro” features were easy to implement and some fundamental stuff was apparently not. That’s why I don’t think this is “Express” so much as a work in progress. In some sense that’s why some may say it’s even more “beta” than “1.0” because it seems the feature set itself isn’t complete on any level. For example, these days multicam is something that wedding videographers use as well as teens shooting their friend’s music video. It’s basically a bit of an immature hodgepodge. It’ll be interesting watching it grow up. It’ll take some time until the feature is even let alone “pro.” I think Apple’s long range plan is that it’ll be “pro.”

[Craig Seeman]

Thanks for that insight Jeff.

I do think there’s a battle in the works over this. I’m not sure where it’ll go. It might have some elements of the old Windows Media vs Quicktime vs MPEG implementation.

[Craig Seeman]

[Bret Williams] “Their biggest piece of acquired code- iTunes!”

And let’s see how that plays into all this. Note that while others are thinking of Apple being a “consumer” company, I’m postulating a “media” company. I think they are trying to extend their tendrils throughout the market, not just distribution, consumption. In fact it may be that in spite of FCS’s market share, Apple felt they needed to make a major shift in content creation (and ultimately not just the mid level consumer, my guess) and are in a position to take the short term hit as they make adjustments on that end of the business. I think they are looking at both vertical and horizontal market penetration.

[Rocco Rocco]

“It does seem kind of crazy to abandon the pro market when… ”

It’s obvious – they’re building 2K video cameras!