[Chris Kenny]

[Jonathan Dortch] “I’m sure we can add OMF/XML/EDL/tapping support via pluging, but fixing most of the “missing” features requires core level re-writes to the software.”

To be honest, some of the items on your list are things that aren’t really all that critical for pro-level software. As far as I know, Avid Media Composer, the supposed gold standard for “serious professional editing”, also doesn’t support arbitrary frame sizes. Others, like a command to join through edits or set in/out points on the timeline, are nearly trivial fixes, not fundamental rewrites.

[Jonathan Dortch] “Like the assumption that all “missing” pro features will be added, this is an assumption that Apple intends FCPX to match FCS3’s place in the market.”

Apple has already told Pogue, Studio Daily and a couple of others reliable sources that at least the most important pro features, like multicam, video output and some means of exporting sequence data, are coming back. That and the existence of several high-end features already in FCP X would seem to make a strong case against is being (exclusively) a prosumer app.

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[Chris Kenny]

[Herb Sevush] “I don’t know why you insist on trying to distort the obvious. You have a perfectly good argument to make – “FCPX is the wave of the future and in the next year or so will have a lot of the functionality of FCP7 – and if you don’t like it, piss off.” That’s Apples (unspoken) argument and it might even be true. But to repeat ad nauseum that FCPX had to be written this way, and that anyone who is thinking of migrating away from Apple is basically an idiot are statements totally without merit.”

Huh? I said myself it didn’t have to written this way. Apple did this because they think it’s better. They think it will get them more users in five years than implementing the standard generic muti-track timeline and bins approach. I think if they play their cards right, they might be correct.

My argument in this subthread is merely that even had Apple made FCP X more conventional, it still wouldn’t have been a drop-in replacement from day on, so a lot of the complaints to the effect that it’s not a drop-in replacement from day one are fundamentally unreasonable.

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[Chris Kenny]

[John-Michael Seng-Wheeler] “But that’s exactly what they have done.
They EOL’d FCP, added some features to iMovie, and then gave it the FCP name because it’s got marketing power. “

This is simply false. There are some UI similarities. But iMovie is not based on the same rendering engine or media framework as FCP X.

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[Chris Kenny]

[Ronald Lindeboom] “Seriously, Chris, did you listen to John Chay’s remarks before you replied?

It wasn’t the release of FCPX that caused the pros to lose hope and start looking elsewhere.

It was the killing of FCP7 and the removal of FCS3 from the Apple Store that fomented all this backlash.”

That’s inconsistant with a great deal of what has been posted, and doesn’t make a lot of sense. I mean, yes, Apple has made is harder to get an additional copy of FCS3, but it’s still easier to obtain a copy of FCS3 than to switch to another editing platform. Many of the people saying they’re switching are citing FCP X’s initial feature set and what they believe it implies about Apple’s priorities and future actions, not Apple’s discontinuation of FCS3.

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[Chris Kenny]

[Herb Sevush] “Again, and again, just because you say it, it doesn’t make it so. Explain to me just where AV Foundation made a “drop in replacement” impossible? Just saying, well it’s AV Foundation, doesn’t explain anything. I don’t see what the nature of the video file has to do with the design of the timeline. Does it contain video and audio. Can the tracks be separated and moved separately. So where’s the special magic?”

Even if attempts were made to make it slavishly similar, any ground-up rewrite would have had too many subtle inconsistencies — not to mention, as a new large codebase, too many bugs — for it to drop into established workflows without a bunch of testing and transition time.

As I’ve noted previously, many facilities are hesitant even to install non-rewrite updates for 12-18 months after release.

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[Chris Kenny]

[james carey] “wait, Apple Shake and Apple color external product – not sure what you mean?”

They were external acquisitions. Either of them would have required essentially a complete rewrite to become an ‘Apple’ product (with native user interface, using native technologies). And they may well have been purchased primarily for Apple to get talent, not because Apple was all that interested in being in the high-end compositing market or the color grading market.

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[Chris Kenny]

[Jonathan Dortch] “I’m still waiting for the official statement from Apple about updates, plugins, etc, but to my eyes, FCPX is written and designed for somebody other than a professional editor. There’s just too many inherent limitations on a core UI level, that were clear choices made by Apple and have NOTHING to do with a 1.0, for me to possibly think differently. “

The UI “limitations” are mostly subjective. There is very little that can be done in FCP 7 that fundamentally cannot be done in FCP X as a consequence of UI changes.

I don’t quite understand how you’ve managed to construct an elaborate argument that FCP X not being intended as a pro app makes no financial sense, but instead of causing you to switch to the position that FCP X is a pro app (that hasn’t yet had its full feature set implemented yet), you conclude Apple saw a prosumer video editing market here where there is none. Apple. The company that I think it’s safe to say after the iPhone and iPad, is better at matching products to markets than any other technology company in the world at the moment.

The explanation that fits all the available facts is that Apple shipped FCP X when they had something useful to prosumers, with the full intention of continuing to build on it until they had something useful to pros. This fits the feature set of the first release. It’s consistent with Apple’s past actions with respect to features in initial products. It explains Apple’s actions without assuming Apple doesn’t understand the needs of either the prosumer or pro markets. It makes sense of the fact that FCP X was introduced at a pro event, and is being offered as a successor to a pro app. And the only stupidity this explanation requires one to attribute attribute to the generally pretty well-run Apple is stupidity about communicating this approach to customers, which is fairly believable given Apple’s extreme culture of secrecy.

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[Chris Kenny]

[Herb Sevush] “Your basic argument is that Apple was re-writing the underlying architecture and everyone should have known that this would cause the program to drastically change.You keep repeating this over and over as if it were true. It isn’t. It wasn’t inevitable that an underlying structural change was going to lead to a total functional change.”

It was inevitably going to lead to an app that wasn’t going to be an immediate drop-in replacement. That’s significant, when you consider how much of the criticism of FCP X is reducible to “This isn’t an immediate drop-in replacement”.

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[Chris Kenny]

[Tim Vaughan] “By that logic, 2 lines up it says (void)importiMovieProject:(800)arg1. So they obviously haven’t figured out if they want it to be iMovie Pro or FCP.”

Importing iMovie projects is already enabled. People have been extensively citing this to claim it’s a not a pro app.

My guess is that iMovie importing is already enabled just because it’s easier to do.

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[Chris Kenny]

[Herb Sevush] “And every one would have been happy.”

Frankly, you’re crazy if you think that’s the case. People would still be seriously freaking out about even minor UI differences, about backwards compatibility not working perfectly (despite everyone now saying they’d be fine with that), and about missing features in the first release.

You’re right, though: if FCP X’s new approach to editing is beneficial, it’ll be successful, and if it’s not, it won’t. Apple was taking a risk there. I’m sure they knew they were taking a risk there.

[Herb Sevush] “And that time is probably more than you have been guessing. According to the latest accounts the version released is basically identical to the advanced versions seen by Phil Hodgetts and Larry Jordan last February. Despite private assurance from FCPX designers, they weren’t able to add any functionality in the last 4 months. “

I suspect the “basically identical” judgement is kind of fuzzy, and anyway we have no idea what functionality might have been implemented during that time period that just isn’t quite release-quality yet, so we haven’t seen yet.

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