Was FCPX launched 2 years too early?

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

No, not necessarily.

I think FCPX got interesting from 10.0.3 and it got *really* good from 10.0.6, when we started using it full scale on the company where I do freelance work.

Yes, 10.1 made media management better, and you could think that the whole Event/Projects structure was a stepping stone to the Libraries now. And maybe the Libraries are a stepping stone to a new next step? They needed to release FCPX to the public to be able to evolve, to get real-world insights, etcetera.

That being said, I do think that FCPX was released too early. 10.0.0 was a mess. It was unstable. It didn’t have roles. It didn’t have XML and no way to talk to 3rd party programs. No relink button. No way to just export a small part of your timeline. No RED RAW support. No paste attributes, etc.

That were all big features that came later. I think that if 10.0.3 was the first FCPX they released, it would have been a MUCH better response, and if 10.0.6 was the first, the complainers would have had a LOT less to complain about.

[Erik Lindahl]

Sounds like OSX-being released onto the world. That said, OSX saw a more rapid development AND Apple kept OS 9 + Classic alive for a long migration period.

[Richard Herd]

[Mark Dobson] “that we have all been participants in a huge BETA testing experiment”

I’ve been saying that since day 1. And we paid to beta test! X could not have gotten to it’s current incarnation in 2 years without the beta test program. In the brave new future, all software will be released early and then rented-out. 😉

[Walter Soyka]

[Richard Herd] “In the brave new future, all software will be released early and then rented-out. ;)”

And then by the time it’s good and mature, it’s due for a complete re-write, and the circle starts all over again!

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

[Steve Connor]

Of course it was sill beta! almost all V1 software is missing features and buggy, it is impossible to get software to any level of maturity without releasing it to the public.

Every single NLE out there has gone through the same process, they just weren’t under the same spotlight that FCPX is.

Steve Connor

There’s nothing we can’t argue about on the FCPX COW Forum

[Bret Williams]

Maybe the $299 price tag was like an early adopter Kickstarter price. Donate $299 and get an early version of the software today!

[Mark Dobson]

[Steve Connor] “Of course it was sill beta! almost all V1 software is missing features and buggy, it is impossible to get software to any level of maturity without releasing it to the public.”

I appreciate that FCPX 10.1 is a far superior product to 10.0.1 and that software has to mature through user feedback, however I have struggled to make sense of the weird Event / Project split and it is only now that we have a unified piece of software.

And this is built around a logical hierarchy Library – Event – Project – all held together in a neat understandable, transportable, shareable bundle.

All I really wanted from 10.1 was stability and this I feel has been achieved but it has been a very tough user experience to get here.

[Bret Williams]

FCP 1.x probably was too, but it was it’s own class. And it didn’t have a big brother to live up to. It’s competition was $50k plus turnkey Avids/Media 100s, etc. Sure it was missing features, but they were tiered features. IOW it had an appropriate feature set for the time. And an amazing feature set for the cost. It had RS-422 control, proper tape logging, edl support, and other necessary things of the time, but no multi cam, audio mixer and other higher end features that naturally came later as the software matured.

So to release a new version of software that didn’t even have the basics that it’s big brother did a decade prior, nor the features that had evolved over that decade was definitely doomed to piss people off.

It could have been argued that tape support wasn’t needed or EDLs were ancient, but to drop that and drop all the advances of the decade was a hard pill to swallow. Throw in some magnetic trackless timelines and it turned into a true fiasco. (I don’t know that I’ve ever said fiasco. But it seems to fit)

EDIT: So maybe it was launched 10 years too late! The price and feature set would have made perfect sense. DV only tape ingest. No pro features to deal with other apps. No audio mixer. No EDLs… but an advance decent stand alone editor stuck in ripple mode for the consumer at a very decent price of only $299. Wow, that actually makes sense.

[Bill Davis]

[Mark Dobson] “Having just completed 3 edits using 10.1 with, apart from a few minor hiccups, no problems at all I’m just wondering if the deeply flawed version of FCPX that was launched 2 and half years ago was released too soon?”

Again, this is a push poll.

It presumes that the only editorial style and needs worth considering are those of elite editors who had legitimate complaints about how the original X operated.

I’ll state it for the record. X was NEVER “deeply flawed” except in the minds of those who didn’t take the time to understand it.

It was wonderful for the vast majority of basic editors with the right gear and an open mind.

I was lucky. My laptop was the correct hardware at the time – leaving me to wonder why so many were having buggy crash fests while I was just having very occasional crashes that never lost me a keystroke – so were ignorable.

What ACTUALLY made X singular was the conceptual underpinnings that were there from day ONE – and are still there today.

; )

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[David Mathis]

When first seeing this post my initial answer was “yes” but that quickly changed after reading the comments.

I was one of those people who did not understand the new workflow or some of the features. The first version went against everything I learned from experience or from those that taught me.

Starting out with version 3 and working my way through 7 before this version came out was easy to understand. I came from an Avid background. I understood the project, sequence, clip relationship. A concept that would transfer from Avid to early version of Final Cut Pro and Premiere thrown in for good measure. You had tracks, you had bins, all the basic tools were there. You know what they were for and when to use them. Moving on to another NLE was nearly painless. A few things were different but the overall concept, not to mention the basic techniques were the same.

Then our friend X came out and things quickly changed. Everything we knew and learned was out the window, including the kitchen sink. We had to start most of the process over again. No more tracks, features were missing and everything was a big train wreck in the eyes of many. There was confusion, chaos and some anger. I kept thinking this same thought: What has Apple done to us? Later as updates became available and learning the new thought process I began to see the new version for what it really was. It became clear that, even though there was some confusion as to the workflow, that this version has potential. It could be the next great NLE once I understood where it was coming from. I am glad I finally learned to accept it for what it was and had great hope it would become something to look forward to working with. Had my mind not have changed I would have missed out on something great, something powerful.

I really do not think it was released to early. It was a new way of doing things, needed to be out there to be a competitor. Much progress has been made. Anytime some new software comes out there are going to be issues. As history has shown, things do get better.