“More than a year has passed since Final Cut Pro’s last release and we’ve seen two reported Steve Jobs emails talking up a product that many thought Apple had given up on (‘Stay tuned and buckle up.’ and ‘Next release will be awesome.’) but no product itself,” Alexia Tsotsis reports for TechCrunch. “This might change soon however, as we’re hearing that the highly anticipated revamped release of Final Cut Pro is imminent.”
“According our very own people familiar with the matter, a small group of video editors were on the Apple campus recently in order to preview the new version of video editing software, which is in the same space as Avid and Adobe Premier,” Tsotsis reports. “Apparently Apple is still putting the finishing touches on “the biggest overhaul to Final Cut Pro since the original version was created over 10 years ago” and wanted pro user feedback.”
Tsotsis reports, “Early reports from people who have demo’d the new Final Cut Pro (FCP 8?) say that the changes are ‘dramatic and ambitious…'”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Sarah” for the heads up.]
Maybe….
Just maybe…
Full Blu-Ray authoring will finally come??
Not likely. Physical optical media is on it’s way out. Adding Blu-Ray authoring would be skating to where the puck is now, rather than where it is going… this is not Apple’s M.O.
Spectacular? Really?
It takes a year of solid effort to roll out an update to the FCP suite and suddenly Apple’s going to release a from-the-ground-up makeover? How long has this been in the works?
I wonder what these changes mean for iMovie? We all know the man who made FCP what it is today, is the same guy who “modernized” iMovie 6 and created quite a stink.
I’m glad to see the 64-bit upgrade, finally. FCP coupled with a fast RAID using “Thunderbolt”, could be a Macintosh dream machine.
“dramatic and ambitious…” might mean, “they paid us a ton of cash so what we can’t say is that it looks like imovie on steroids now!”
Hope the guy who “improved” iMovie isn’t the same one leading the charge on updating FC Studio
Randy Ubillos single-handedly changed iMovie interface and, according to the uneducated masses out there, finally made video editing a reasonable proposition. Original iMovie was, for most people outside of video industry, an unintuitive and frustrating process. I was very incredulous when I heard from some friends how they just LOVED iMovie 08. Having worked on the traditional, timeline-based UI, it was a major shock when the redesign came. Apparently, though, since the new iMovie, the percentage of ordinary people who actually USE it has gone through the roof.
Go, figure!
Spectacular?
I wonder if Elaine tried to see it in the shower….
Oh, they’re real. And they’re spectacular!
Yes, the gentleman in charge of iMovie is the same one entrusted with Final Cut. When they talk of redesigning the interface we (longtime FC users) all cringe. If it aint broke don’t fix it!!! We all want the 64 bit update which will mean no rendering until export, but the FC interface is perfect the way it is. Wish I was more elated at this news, but I’m not. Change, just for the sake of it, is not ALWAYS good. The PRO part of FC is what we editors demand and why we use and defend FC so vehemently. I fear the “dumbing down” to iMovie levels for the sake of possible converts will cheapen the product and reputation Apple has worked so hard to achieve. Until it’s release we shall hold our collective breaths and hope for the best.
What about Final Cut express? Any word on this less expensive version??
And what about Final Cut Extreme, rumored to cost $20,000
YES!
Please… unlimited access to ram (more than 2.5GB)… and background rendering.
Perhaps a trip to NAB is due this year?
Well, you can certainly go to NAB, but Apple hasn’t been there for at least the last 3 years. So, if you’re going to check out FCS4, you might just be disappointed.
Yeah… shame about Apple not being at NAB… but their stuff is there EVERYWHERE anyway.
(Except the Sony and AVID booths. 😉
Finally! Hopefully, what we’re waiting for since years!
Will it Shake?
Hey, sounds like a few of you are still longing for the floppy drive here. Saying that FCPs interface cannot be improved upon and that iMovie 08 was not a HUGE step in the right direction (at least where non professionals are concerned) just shows a classic example of someone being outside their comfort zone. “Please, please don’t change anything, now that I finally (almost) learned to master it… No matter how illogical and unintuitive it is”
FCP is still unnecessarily complicated to use and an (additional) file browsing layer like in iMovie and other true inventions will open up doors to what was previously not doable.
It is funny how the “professionals” always seem to be the ones SO afraid of evolution…
Sorry to burst your bubble here, but FCP is not that complicated in its current iteration. It may be beyond your level of comprehension, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the world finds it so.
The biggest issue with making radical navigational and operation overhauls to something like this is that professionals work on tight deadlines and really don’t have the time to dedicate to learning a whole new way of doing things. It throws a huge wrench in the pipeline and if such change is implemented, the rate of adoption amongst pro users will be very very slow.
Not so. Many of the things performed in FCP can and WILL be achieved in a much easier way. Like in ALL applications before this, we have become more powerful not because applications have become harder, but easier to use. FCP is no exception here. I use FCP for a living (have been since version 1), and i WILL make time for learning the next thing… and the next. anyone remember the early CD burning applications? You had to read a manual to do so – every time you wanted to burn a disk. FCP is full of things to make waaaay better.
The winner of the game is not the one who knows the most, but the one who is the fastest learner – or in this case – willing to learn at all.
BS. if you want to stay competitive in your field, you will at some point have to learn new stuff. There’s always someone waiting in the wings, ready to take your gig because you refuse to change with the times. In that respect, if a new version of FCP ends up taking the market by storm, you. BETTER learn to use it, or you just might be out of a job.
Well, it’s safe to say this ‘rumor’ has just graduated to ‘reality’…
Well-known Final Cut guru Larry Jordan has verified that he was one of the small group of video-editing pros invited to preview the new Final Cut, and he says,
“I’ve seen the new version of Final Cut Pro…and it’s a jaw-dropper.”
http://www.larryjordan.biz/app_bin/wordpress/archives/1365
He’s under NDA, so he can’t give specific details, but he HAS verified it exists and he seems very excited about it – saying,
“Tell your friends… its gonna be a great year.”
and simply…
“Believe.”
Looks like things are going to get very interesting.
I for one am actually excited by this. I have been using FCP since version 1, and love it. I agree that FCP does not need to be dumbed-down, but it would be nice to have more of the dumbed-down options available.
I had never used iMovie until I was recently asked to do video tutorial series about it. Once I started using it, I loved it! I love the animated maps, the storyboarding, the nice lower third options. These would all be great additions. Most pros and pro projects won’t use these, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be there.
Also, adding in more exporting options direct to YT, Vimeo, Blip, etc. would be nice, as well as better BlueRay output, and better integration with Motion.
Exactly!
I might be fully RDF’ed, but I am not about to tolerate people badmouthing Ubillos. The man is a genius and probably had ten times as much sex as you cellar-dwellers. But, to soothe your feverish foreheads, no — Final Cut will not lose its precious timeline.
So, you gauge a man’s worth by the quantity of sex he has? Tells us all we need to know about you.
My partial personal wish list for this release:
64-bit support
Scratch disk settings saved on a per-project basis
The ability to color-label clips in the timeline without having to make sub-clips
Playing nicer with Spaces and Exposé
I don’t think it’s going to be a truly revolutionary redesign until it becomes touch-based. When we can edit by dragging clips with our fingers on a pivoting iMac screen or large trackpad and perform slide edits via pinch/zoom gestures, then we’re really talking about major interface changes, and would, in effect, be taking editing full circle back to it’s more hands-on roots.
Who says we can’t???