Why abandon FCP7 now?

[Gary Huff]

Because there’s the possibility that FCP7 will not be usable under Lion (“running” and actually being usable can be two entirely different ideas), and Apple may drop their MacPro line.

That’s why.

[Brian Langeman]

[Alexander Kallas] “Does FCP7 not fill your current requirements? And if FCPX had not appeared now would we have abandoned FCP7?”

No, it doesn’t. Adobe CS 5.5 is 64 bit and more advanced than FCP7. If a new FCP wasn’t released this year, then people probably would have switched too.

[Chris Kenny]

[Gary Huff] “Because there’s the possibility that FCP7 will not be usable under Lion (“running” and actually being usable can be two entirely different ideas), and Apple may drop their MacPro line.”

So, in other words, your answer is “unfounded paranoia about Apple’s future actions”.

—
Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.

You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.

[Mark Laslo]

I’m keeping FCP7 for my work machine, but I am in the market to buy a new personal editing machine. I was looking at a Mac Pro and the FCP studio package but after this “update” to FCP I have decided to save myself some serious cash and go with a custom built PC and Premiere Pro and save probably $1000 atleast. As a starting independent editor that is a significant price difference for increased functionality.

Also I think the reason most people are looking to switch, and I could be off base, is because people do not want to be working in an application that has no future. FCP 7 is a great application for today, but it still has some glaring bugs (scrubbing in L&T window) that we now know will never be fixed. Also as new formats get released unless there is 3rd party plugins created these formats will not work in FCP 7.

These may not be the reasons that the majority of people are switching over, but these are my reasons for sure.

[Martti Ekstrand]

FCP7 hasn’t filled my requirements of handling AVCHD files natively since it was released so I never bothered to upgrade but instead stayed with FCP6 waiting for FCP8 to add this feature. In hindsight I should have switched to PPro last year. Now I’m pondering if it’s any point to stay on Mac hardware at all since due to Apple not wanting to work with Nvidia and CUDA makes a Win7 station a better and less expensive alternative for working with the entire Adobe suite of video apps.

check out my shorts: https://vimeo.com/marttiekstrand

[Douglas K. dempsey]

Chris, you have said many smart things about using FCPX on this forum. But whenever you say things like “unfounded paranoia” it undercuts your credibility entirely.

All of us who fret have experienced exactly these issues: a stable app that suddenly goes south for an indeterminate amount of time, upon upgrade to a new OS. Or even the ProKit updates themselves creating issues.

If you want to look one issue up that affected many of us, it was ProKit 6.0.1 which apparently contained various fixes for Logic, but in the process wrecked Compressor for a bunch of us. After much fussing and wasting mornings reinstalling, we had to trash the update and restore an older ProKit Frameworks folder…and then wait for the better part of a year until a newer ProKit update was released.

So we are justifiably worried that Lion will require fixes and updates to various apps. The concern is: if FCP7 completely “gone” or will it be updated if necessary via the continuing ProKit packages that Software Update send to your machine when it recognizes Pro App installations?

That is hardly paranoia, and it is more than justified. It is called practical experience.

Doug D

[Chris Kenny]

[Douglas K. Dempsey] “So we are justifiably worried that Lion will require fixes and updates to various apps. The concern is: if FCP7 completely “gone” or will it be updated if necessary via the continuing ProKit packages that Software Update send to your machine when it recognizes Pro App installations?

That is hardly paranoia, and it is more than justified. It is called practical experience.”

Apple has explicitly said FCP 7 will work under Lion. To respond to that with something like “Sure, but maybe it’ll run really badly, plus they might cancel the Mac Pro” is, indeed, unfounded paranoia.

—
Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.

You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.

[Paul Jay]

Apple has officially stated that FCP 7 will run in Lion. Paranoia is a bitch

[Stephen Galinsky]

What do you mean “Apple doesn’t work to work with Nvidia”?

Apple already has to do far, far more work for Nvidia than they should. I’m no apologist, but c’mon.

—
Ed it.

[Alan Okey]

Some editors have expressed that their workflows have suffered due to FCP 7’s limitations, especially when working with newer file-based acquisition formats like XDCAM EX and h.264. Other NLEs have gained the ability to work with those formats natively without first requiring transcoding. The time savings of bypassing the transcoding process is crucial enough for some editors’ workflows that they need to investigate other NLE software in order to remain competitive. Some editors have been waiting for the release of FCP X in the hopes that it would also support native workflows. However, they may not have expected to lose current functionality when the new version of FCP was released. To those editors, the current lack of feature parity between FCP 7 and FCP X, combined with the new unfamiliar interface paradigm (project/event structure, magnetic timeline, new UI, etc.) has made FCP X a less attractive choice than switching to another NLE. Editors who have been waiting for a better tool are now faced with the choice to wait another year for FCP X to regain lost functionality (either through Apple software updates or third party extensions) or to move to another NLE that has a more traditional interface and feature parity with FCP 7 in addition to native workflow. FCP X may indeed reach a point where it will meet these editors’ needs, but many of them feel that they cannot afford to wait any longer and will see more immediate gains/improvements by switching to another NLE.

As for the Mac Pro desktop, it’s a good machine at a good price. At present, the Mac Pro is still the system of choice for Autodesk Smoke and DaVinci Resolve. It also can run Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premiere Pro. In short, the Mac Pro’s existence is not tied to the adoption of FCP X.

Similarly configured Xeon workstation-class machines form PC vendors are actually more expensive that the Mac Pro. However, Apple does not make a tower system with Core i7 CPUs. There is a hole in Apple’s product line between the iMac and the Mac Pro that is addressed by other PC vendors. For those who don’t need a Xeon-based workstation and aren’t limited to running their software on OS X, PC alternatives can be more cost effective.