[Herb Sevush]

Joe –

I don’t see the revolution here. I don’t see the sea change. I see a slightly different NLE. This is not the same as going from film to tape, or from linear CMX style tape to NLE. This is like going from Avid to Sony Vegas. It might be a good design, it might suck, it’s probably in the middle. It’s just a pain in the ass to those of us who were happy with the system we had and were waiting for it to get spiffed up to 64 bit for speed. Since I have no reason to change editing styles, since FCPX lacks many of the features I need to do my work, I am disappointed that there won’t be a FCP 8.

The complaints about Apples handling of a business product, the lack of warning, the sudden removal of the Pro Ap upgrader are legitimate complaints. I am sure Apple execs are hearing this big time from some of the major studios and broadcasters that have just been shut out of an upgrade path.

While the FCPX introduction is not the end of this world, it’s also not the start of a brave new world. It is not clear that there is any paradigm shift going on in anyone’s mind but the creators of FCPX. And make no mistake, when it comes to professional business products, Apple has made tons of mistakes, their wreckage is all over the road.

The old line is that to make an omelet you have to break some eggs. So show me the omelet.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Chris –

Windows going from 6.1 to 7 was an actual upgrade to a product. The higher version number actually represented something. ( I don’t know anything about Solaris but I’m guessing the same holds true there.)

As for OS9 – “versions of Mac OS X prior to 10.5 include a compatibility layer called Classic, enabling users to run applications and hardware requiring Mac OS 9 from within Mac OS X.” Jeez, that sounds like an upgrade to me, all this programming to make sure previous legacy software can still work in a new environment. I wonder what company could have thought of that?

You have stated over and over again this is a brand new product and NOT an upgrade so that in this case going from version 7.0.3 to Version 10.0 is supposed to represent what – other than fraudulent marketing hype.

Can’t you even admit this – it doesn’t weaken your argument for FCPX’s future to at least acknowledge that the marketing behind this was totally out of line.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Chris –

There was a judgement call to make, they made it, and it’s not as obvious as you seem to think it is that they made the wrong long-term choice.

Finally you got it. They made a “choice.” Thank you. We are finally on the same page. I’ve never argued that they made a good or bad choice, I’ve only argued that they made a choice, and that choice tells you a lot about their values. We can infer what we want about what their highest values are, but we know that protecting the investment of long term FCP users wasn’t one of them

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Chris –

You keep on explaining FCPX’s limitations by saying it’s an “initial release” or it’s a “1.0 release.”

But it’s not. It’s a version TEN release and I know it’s so because Apple says so on all their packaging. Final Cut Pro Ten ( X = 10 in Roman numbers, in case you didn’t get that.) And for a version TEN release, this product has some problems.

Of course if it truly were an initial release, then Apple is marketing their product fraudulently, wouldn’t you say.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

I didn’t say it would be easy and I didn’t say it would be fast. What I didn’t say is that if a project manager at Apple had said that one of the “have to’s” for the new software was that it read old legacy projects, then it would have been part of the software. Period. To say other wise is to ignore the entire history of programming.

When Microsoft updates Windows one of the “have to’s” is that it be backward compatible with older versions. No matter what they do, that’s one of the givens. It probably makes things incredibly difficult for their programmers and contributes to the inefficiency of their code, but they do it, because they deal with big business as a client and they would get annihilated if they didn’t. Now your telling me that writing an NLE is harder than upgrading Windows? Microsoft can do it but Apple somehow can’t. I don’t think so. It simply wasn’t a “have to,” it was probably more of a “that would be nice to.”

And, like I said, the list of “have to’s” tells you everything you need to know about how they are targeting their software.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

If they thought it was important they would have worked it out. To say they couldn’t do it is ridiculous. To say they wouldn’t do it because it wasn’t worth their effort is another. The fact that that they didn’t believe it was worth doing tells you everything you need to know about how they want to position this product and what they think of their legacy users.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Nayeli –

Yours is the most reasonable, well thought out and articulated posting I have read.

Thank you.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

DRW –

You are so gosh darn diplomatic.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

So you basically don’t have any problem with the manufacturer of a massively popular program, a program that people make their livings with, suddenly and without an hours warning EOL’ing the program and stopping all support? This seems like reasonable behavior to you? If so than I’m glad I don’t have to do business with you.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions

[Herb Sevush]

Jerry –

The issue isn’t whether or not FCPX will be upgraded, of course it will. The issue is who is the target audience for those upgrades. FCPX might be the greatest single user NLE ever made – but that doesn’t help someone who needs a collaborative NLE.

The original post had to do with a small department in a news station wanting to port from Avid to FCP right now — so what’s your advice for him. Port the department to FCPX and then deliver your segments in 6 months to 2 years time when the FCPX is more fully featured. Or should they port to FCP7 and hope to buy enough licenses from various re-sellers around the country before they run out, only to find that Apple has discontinued the Pro Aps upgrader so that they are stuck with Ver 7.0 and can’t get to 7.0.3 which as you know fixes a whole lot of problems.

Or would you tell him not to even think about FCP right now because Apple doesn’t have a workable solution for him (and a lot of other editors) at this time.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions