[Gary Huff]

[Walter Soyka]FCPX needs more data about the edit that is available in the FCP7 timeline in order to make the magnetic timeline work. If FCPX were to open an FCP7 timeline, it would have to lose storylines, clip connections, and trackless magic.

What is this mysterious data that FCPX would need? What about an FCP7 timeline would cause an import into FCPX to lose all of these above? Will you care to elaborate?

[Gary Huff]

[Chris Upchurch]I think the “It’s impossible” vs. “Apple just didn’t want to” debate misses the point. Apple has a notorious perfectionist streak.

Apple’s “perfectionist streak” is merely an urban myth. FCPX being a point in that example.

[Gary Huff]

[Walter Soyka]I think the problem with converting an FCP7 timeline to FCPX is guessing the editor’s intent (which FCPX gleans as you construct the edit) from the legacy timeline alone.

Despite the fancy bells and whistles with FCPX’s timeline, it’s still, as Chris said:

It is still in-points, out-points, timecode, etc

That would be like Apple releasing a new version of Pages and that it couldn’t import documents from Pages ’09 because the new Pages uses auto correct.

[Gary Huff]

[Andree Franks]And I am referring to the previous post with my sarcasm, well I am telling I could not do my job with Avid, I had to use something in the lines of Maya or Cinema 4D.
Do you get where I am going with this?

I do get what you are trying to say, and it’s completely weird.

[Gary Huff]

[Walter Soyka]What if a facility wanted to add an Adobe license, but they were still running CS4? Can they call Adobe and order one, or will Adobe only sell them a new license for CS5.5 and a pile of upgrades for the other workstations?

I don’t know if you can call Adobe up and order a license for an older copy, but I just checked on Google and CS4 versions are available from a wide variety of legitimate sources (including Wal-Mart).

Additionally, CS4 versions of Premiere and After Effects were bundled with Master Collection CS5 (not sure about the other collections) in case you needed backward compatibility with plugins or wanted some of the new CS5 versions while still working in a 32-bit environment.

Plus, you can always open older projects in CS5/5.5.

[Gary Huff]

[Leo Hans]So, now everyone is adding editing suits to their facilities? That’s an evolving market!

What are you saying?

[Gary Huff]

[Andree Franks]Not really a “Pro” or professional is someone that makes money “Cash” “bling bling” with what they do. 🙂
But again you have you volunteers hmmm might havebto rethink that one.

Why would having volunteers require you to re-think that? If your editing experience consists solely of volunteer jobs, then you are not a pro, in my opinion.

If your primary (or a significant source of) income is derived from editing, then you are a pro, regardless of how often you volunteer your time.

[Gary Huff]

[Andree Franks]So you have some inside knowledge or programming. Know how that this can be done?

I used to be a programmer (BASIC, C++, PHP) so I know what is and what isn’t possible in a general sense. This is far from being impossible.

I don’t! But your statement clearly states that it is possible to import Final Cut Pro 7 and lower into Final Cut Pro X but the Final Cut Pro team was to lazy to provide there customers with this option?

They weren’t “lazy.” It wouldn’t be easy, and it is a huge pain to import something and translate into such a paradigm shift, but Apple could have done it if they wanted to. They had the resources to contribute to such a function, they just didn’t want to.

[Gary Huff]

[Bill Davis]You can’t open “legacy” projects in FCP-X because the underlying database structure is COMPLETELY different.

This statement is completely ignorant of the software coding process. You can’t open legacy FCP6/7 projects in FCPX because Apple didn’t want to spend time developing that. Period. No matter whatever fancy doodads you put in the UI, the end result is still clips, transitions, effects, ect. and there is no technical reason why there cannot be a FCP project import feature.

[Gary Huff]

[Steve Conner]No David my issue with you is that you launched into a personal and professional attack on someone who had simply voiced an opinion as it happens I don’t agree with his original point, but he’s allowed to make it.

Then why is David not allowed to make his point when Geoff’s was also a personal attack?