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FCP7, Why Release it Now?
These are just my thoughts, take them anyway you like.
1st, it is time, FCP upgrade cycle has been 2 years for the major releases, give or take a couple of months. There has been no delay IMO, it was right on schedule. But this time I think it HAD to come out before Snow Leopard, why, because it will not take full advantage of what SL has to offer, it will be behind as far as taking advantage of the new tech. I hope I’m wrong but I don’t think so. How long did it take FCP to become fully OS X compatible? Intel compatible? definitely not from day one or day two.
Why is this, well as a whole our industry fits into the “slow and steady” mindset more then the “cutting edge.” While we like the cutting edge, we need stability more. We lose a lot every time our systems crash. Of course in the end we want both but we are willing to wait (or understand we have to wait) a bit longer for the stability. We don’t normally do this waiting quietly but wait we do.
I do think we will see modest speed improvements fairly quickly just because the OS will be faster but real multi-core rendering for FCP, which we all want desperately, is going to be later, my bet April ’10 at the earliest (7.1?). We will also have to wait a bit if we are using Video cards, with QT getting a major upgrade it will take AJA, Matrox and Blackmagic awhile to get the new drivers out, but all these companies do a great job getting them out as soon as possible but once again, stable is what we have to have, it ALWAYS trumps quickness to be released.
Some times we wait only to get things that crash anyway but things seem to be better these days verse the old days. The first major releases of OS X were great but in a working environment it really didn’t get stable until 10.3, FCP updates have less (I said less) issues out of the gate since versions after 4.5. Still most heavy users wait until .1 updates before upgrading, why stability trumps any new features.
FWIW – Mike
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4 Replies
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Hey hey, don’t complain now, Apple has introduced the new iChat theater feature for OSX Leopard in Final Cut Pro 7. Oh, right, that’s a “killer feature” for yesterdays OS release…
I like you Michael feel pretty much the same. It’s sad but I think it’s the truth. I was hoping Final Cut Pro X (what ever they where to call it) would be a small, new, NLE revolution with the advent of MacOS Snow Leopard. They’d raise the bar of the studio-package, require Snow Leopard AND an Intel Machine but really give it a new face list in a wide area.
Then again, as you say, releasing the “next big thing” is a bit risky given Apple has done this in a past with the whole OSX and later Intel transitions. These went relatilvy to very painless for the end users even in critical environments. I would also think it would be easier for a developer to focus on a new minimum required system (i.e. require Snow Leopard and Intel but also give features accordingly).
If they do anything for FCP 7.5 they should do what they are doing for Snow Leopard: faster, fine tunned, stable and bug free. Make FCP feel like a modern, fresh application.
Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Communication
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Hi
While killing time waiting for my upgrade to clear customs I’ve been reading everything I could find, and came across this–https://images.apple.com/finalcutstudio/docs/Apple_ProRes_White_Paper_July_2009.pdf
it’s on page 17 of the pro res white paper.
It looks to me that Final Cut 7 will be multi processor aware as soon as Snow Leopard is installed.
My fingers are crossed.Terry
MAC Pro quad 2.66, 5GB, X1900XT, 23″ ACD, 10.5.6, Studio2 -6.0.5
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One wan always have hopes but that PDF is regarding a specific codec and not an application. But ProRes sounds like a very well thought through compressed codec. I also think it’s something Apple would really push if it was something that the Final Cut Studio applications took advantage of.
Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Communication
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I think it’s clear Apple wants to do that by making it available as a read codec on all platforms.
All the best,
Tom
Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop”
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