my heart is sinking reading this

[Pat Metal]

I am affraid of something… What if we can’t run FCP 7 in the next OS update???

[Peter Blumenstock]

I have to say I agree with Tom and criticism is well deserved here since the old FCP simply isn’t available for purchase anymore from Apple and it will slowly disappear from resellers, too.
So… what do I do if I need another license for a new edit suite in three month time? This is a very serious problem because for my particular workflow FCP X in its current state is 100 per cent unusable. It’s the usual way Apple handles these things and I am getting seriously annoyed and angry at their information and product policy. Don’t release it if it isn’t ready for primetime. How hard can it be to implement tape capture and output?

[Matt Callac]

[Tom Daigon] “And you’re here to represent the Fanboy Police ? ;-)”

No, but apparently you’re the designated adobe/avid fanboy.

I understand you don’t like FCPX and apparently don’t think it’s going to be “Pro Ready” anytime soon, I would just think as a forum leader you’d be more inclined to create discussions and keep order on the boards rather than run around convincing people to jump ship.

-mattyc

[Laura Scott]

“Release early, release often” is the current best practice followed in software. I hope that Apple will implement the features necessary for professional work sometime soon. (Hello, EDL, nice to see you, please do come in and make yourself at home!) Meanwhile I am going to sit tight and not make a panic jump to Adobe or Avid, as I’ve never used the former and the latter is just a tad pricey for my needs.

••• PINGV Creative

[Walter Soyka]

[Matt Callac] “Lets use the car analogy. Yes it doesn’t have wheels yet. It’s a simulator. They gave you a simulator to learn to drive the car, and you’re complaining that it doesn’t have wheels.”

Well — they’re selling the simulator. And they stopped selling actual cars. And we have no idea when they’re going to release the wheels to upgrade the simulator to an actual car.

Will FCPX ultimately be better than FCP? Probably — eventually. Is it better today? Not even close. FCPX is not currently a viable candidate for many professional workflows. This leaves four options:

• Continue using FCP7, and hope that the features you need make it to FCPX. You may ultimately have to choose between maintaining an old system just to run FCP7, and upgrading to FCPX to maintain compatibility with other software.
• Switch to Adobe (which works today).
• Switch to Avid (which works today).

Become platform agnostic, and bounce back and forth among FCP7, FCPX, Adobe, and Avid, depending on the needs of a particular project.

[Matt Callac] “They released this so when it does have all necessary features, you aren’t starting from scratch, you’ve got a solid base b/c you’ve had it for a few months.”

I disagree. They released it to start making money on it, and possibly to get a little paid beta testing. I don’t know how many busy, working editors are going to spend lots of time noodling with FCPX so they’ll be ready when (or if, for the cynical) FCPX catches up.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Tom Daigon]

I guess that is some of the benefits of NOT being a forum leader. I get to express my views 😉

Tom Daigon
Avid DS / FCP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com

[Mike Molenda]

[Walter Soyka] “Become platform agnostic, and bounce back and forth among FCP7, FCPX, Adobe, and Avid, depending on the needs of a particular project.
“

Spoken like a DP. Is it better to shoot film? Red MX? XDCAM? DVCPro? DSLR? That all depends on what you’re shooting. And a good DP would in theory be able to handle all of them.

It certainly isn’t unreasonable to drop the $300-400 on new as-is FCX software for short “quickie” projects (what I’ve seen makes me expect FCPX will be a wondrous time saver for these sorts of things) and rely on CS5 or old installs of FCP7 for the meatier stuff.

The workflows that make handling projects up to and including 4K in FCP7 are still there. Adobe’s subscription pricing lends itself perfectly to being a “when I need it” production suite. Because for bigger projects you’re factoring your equipment needs into your pricing anyway, right?

So all hope is not lost (if it ever was to begin with)!

[Herb Sevush]

compound clips, magnetic timeline (all things I and many, many others have been clamoring for for years)

Show me one post in the last 5 years that asked for anything like a magnetic timeline or compound clips.

There were many thing people were clamoring for and might get with X, but in order to get them you have to loose something else equally important.

This is not a PRO application, at this point. I’ll consider looking at X when it is. In the meantime if I need a 64 bit Pro NLE, I guess I’ll have to look elsewhere.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Scott Davis]

Do a search for synch or nesting and all the related problems with them. Magnetic timeline and compound clips are a means of addressing this. I don’t disagree with you over the mind-boggling lack of absolute bedrock requirements for working in broadcast at this time. I personally think it was a big misstep to release FCP X at this time without them. Not sure what the thinking on that is.

Scott Davis

[Gabe Thorburn]

I wanted to download the pro applications update 2010-2 (the update to 7.0.3) to have a back up, but when you click on the download button it re-directs you to the new FCP X page!