“The release of Final Cut Pro X
on the Mac App Store on Tuesday also marked the end of Apple’s Final Cut Express and Final Cut Server products, as well as the Final Cut Studio suite,” Neil Hughes reports for AppleInsider.
Advertisement: Students, parents and Faculty save up to $200 on a new Mac.
“A person familiar with Apple’s retail operations informed AppleInsider that the internal release of Final Cut Pro X
on Tuesday was also coupled with an “end of life” announcement for Final Cut Express and Final Cut Server. It was said that as of June 21, Express and Server — along with Final Cut Studio — are no more,” Hughes reports. “As part of its transition away from boxed retail software, Final Cut Pro X
is only available on the Mac App Store.”
Hughes reports, “In addition to Final Cut Pro X, Tuesday also saw the release of Motion 5 and Compressor 4 on the Mac App Store. Selling for $49.99 each via the digital download destination, the applications are apparently no longer part of a now-defunct Final Cut Studio bundle.”
Read more in the full article here.
Related article:
Apple revolutionizes video editing with Final Cut Pro X – June 21, 2011
The first cut is the deepest…
And this comes as a surprise?
Distraction? Eliminated. Elite programmers please report back to war room world domination.
Adobe, here’s a bone—corporate Hollywood accounts, enjoy the 200 sales.
FC Server will be back and even better than before.
glad we dumped final cut last year.
Uhm, why? So, you could go back to iMovie?
Two years ago I chose FCE over FC because I didn’t need all the bells/whistles, yet needed something more than iMovie, especially in the area of sound, titles, transitions and editing. So, now I essentially need to pay $300 to upgrade from FCE if I want 64bit processing and full featured bells/whistles.
Lastest iMovie is lacking. Latest FC is still over-the-top. I guess that leaves me in “upgrade limbo”. 🙁
Nope not limbo, you’re just in the ‘Mama Bear’ position for video software updates!
Yeah, who needs final cut server? Pros don’t need to collaborate…
I was told that FCP S3 would continue to be available to professional editors who need features such as Multicam, track-level audio editing, XML & OMF IO, etc…
As awesome as FCP X is, it is NOT ready to replace the existing software suite. Apple should continue to sell FCP S3 until such time that FCP X has these essential professional features.
@tilted:
I totally agree!
Mr. Pogue did a nice review, well worth the read:
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/technology/personaltech/23pogue.html
Pogues review is pretty lame and NOT written from Pros point of view!
Missing pieces that pros need: No import of FCP7 projects, no viewer window, no custom layouts, no external monitoring, buggy, no multi-cam (pros use more than ONE camera), little support for tape (Pros Still use tape), little in Blu-ray support (pros need to deliver in HD on Disc), NO saving projects by user, NO OMPL export, NO EDL import and export, no plugin support for current plugins pros have $$ invested, XML openness is gone, Final Cut Server (along with Xserve and Xsan) is gone, cannot import Adobe Photoshop in layers anymore, no easy way to import or export from Pro Tools, etc.
Final Cut Studio is discontinued leaving pros that NEED these features stuck with no where to go but …. to AVID or Adobe!
It WAS Final Cut PRO, now it is just Apple’s “FINAL” CUT!
I am not an Apple hater, I am an Apple Consultant!
I am in total disbelief how lame this is! My advice to my customers is stay away for now. If not fixed, more to Avid for pro use. Many of the newer features are cool, but not as useful to pros as you may think, especially the way the cut out very needed features!
Thankyou for underlining what I’ve heard over and over again from friends and colleagues over the last couple of days. I guess that many pros aren’t too surprised though. I mean, the writing was on the wall after Apple killed Tremors and EOLed Shake; a product used by basically everyone in highend post pro compositing: Apple doesn’t care about cutting edge – they’re all about the one-button crowd. It’s really sad, because the have so much talent and potential.
i don’t think that’s a fair take, in fact I think you have it backwards.
If you’re a video editor, and an industry professional, you are chained to a legacy system of hardware and procedures. Also compared to other media professionals (photography, print, art design, audio) video editors are more often unionized, and rather than solely delivering an end to end product, they are one of sometimes hundreds in a chain of bureaucracy. In other words, entrenched. This means for everything new, it has to fit into their world and their workflow before they will accept. They are ultimately not interested in cutting edge, but preserving their way of doing things, and their place on the totem pole.
The reason video editors exist is because editing is too time consuming for the person making the art to do themselves. Of course there are a few exceptions, but Apple isn’t concerned with editors’ workflows, they are looking at the problem from a different angle. There’s no question that pro video editing software and associated peripherals both hard and soft, are at the dog end of the software world. It looks like crap, it works like crap, it’s convoluted, beyond fragmented, and impossible to organize your work without excessive manueverings.
I’d argue that the whims of editors comfortable in their chairs, has vastly contributed to the problem. In a better system, the person directing or shooting video should have more control, and ultimately shouldn’t video editing software do to editors what ATM did to bank clerks? Or advanced industrial machinery did for child labor?
I’m hoping FCP X makes for better video, rather than more comfortable specialized video editors. I think considering the schlocky state of TV and film media, and it’s declining audience, is a further argument against making the ‘industry’ happy. Let’s see if someone hungrier can find smarter ways to eat their lunch.
Your take on this is quite odd. Whatever!
But let me try to explain something to you. Pros make living editing and workflow is everything. No one is against better ideas and products, but there is no denying the missing pieces PROS need to use this!
Take a look at the reviews in the Mac App store. They are probably the lowest of any Apple software product!
Wow…that was…the most inaccurate, biased, ignorant and self-aggrandizing postings I’ve ever read.
I create media. I do so for art, as well as commerce. I’ve been a Producer, I’ve been a Director, I’ve been a DP, I’ve been a Cameraman, I’ve been an Editor. I can honestly say that you have zero conception of what an Editor does, nor an Editor’s place within the creative team of a film, show, clip, sketch, whatever. Your argument about how the director or dp should be the one who edits – with an automated system that makes creative decisions for them of course, also shows your ignorance not only of the process, but of the people involved.
You have a very narrow and biased view of ‘how the world works’. For your sake, and others around you, please seek out knowledge with an open mind and empathy. It will be better for everybody.
“…self-aggrandizing posting”. Please forgive the extra ‘s’.
Yet the new FCP X is perfectly fine to work with for some Oscar-winning editors — so it is not that bad, if you are starting new edition of new film: you have twelve hours of raw video and you make two hour long film out of it. No XML or most of stuff you mentioned actually necessary to do that.
Better review from a pro:
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/fcp_x_first_look_martin.html
So what happens to the other apps in the FC Studio Suite?? Soundtrack, DVD Studio Pro and Colour?? Do these still work with the new FCP, Motion and Compressor? $300 seems like a decent deal for the three new apps considering what the price was before for the Suite.
Some of us have waited a very long time for significant updates to FCP – and now this?! Yikes! Is Apple even wanting to stay in the Pro Video market? In all seriousness I’d like a direct answer to that question because we’ve got some serious decisions to make. To reiterate: By now FCP is in a relatively arcane state and this update was a very long time in coming for those of us making a living with this tool. And now to get all excited about a product that’s going to be more like iMovie…? Again, Yikes!
Premiere is looking better all of the time with one caveat – their history of uninterrupted support for professional video editing on the Mac doesn’t exist. It’s been a long time since I actually felt excited about a new video package, and I was excited about FCP X – so excited in fact that I started a P.O. to upgrade all of our editors – I’ve pulled the plug indefinitely and am very seriously considering moving to Premiere – while it’s there for the Mac.
I’ve been a Mac user since the beginning of Mac time and I’ve noticed a few things, here’s one: When Apple wants to do something they can get it just so totally right – but when their hearts are not fully into something it’s too often mediocre and at best all flash with no substance. What’s it gonna be Apple? Are we getting serious about FCP or is it just gonna fade into another iMovie-iDVD-iMi-Madré irrelevance?
Dare I say XSAN…!? Dare I say Xserve…!? Wow… This is painful.
I was excited and wanting to upgrade. After seeing this, I gave up that idea and had to advise 5 of my customers to forget about it.
With that being said… my copy of FCS 3 is for sale.
Could be another shoe to drop. Has anyone tested FCP X on Lion with iCloud? Apple is well known for hiding features in it’s software & I’m sure no pros will be adopting FCP X this week.
As to others bitching, my FCS still runs just fine & imagine it will until other SW is released.
My biggest concern now is how will Final Cut Studio 3 work on Lion! Or IF!
I am not a video professional so I come to the table with clean hands.
I referred the release announcement to a friend who lives in a different language environment (German). Thinking he would be pleased. He is a pro and a long-time FCP user. He was even consulted by Apple during its original development because he had much to contribute. His comments:
As a gimmick-immune man, I immediately recognized – after reading
the press-release – the X-version is now just a silly fun-toy. In Germany
with the world’s most critical users (Apple’s video-product-manager
says that personally to me) there are catastrophic reactions because
of this “downgraded” software-launch.
I hope he’s wrong.
And so ends Apple’s dominance in the professional editing world.
FCPX should have been named “iMovie Pro”, or “Rough Cut Semi-pro”.
Too soon to say if this is the end or a beginning. The transition from Final Cut Pro to Final Cut X could definitely have been handled better but a new take on editing video was arguably necessary. Many people making videos today are not video editors in the traditional sense just as citizen journalists and bloggers are not journalists in the traditional sense. Perhaps for this influx of amateur videographers, Final Cut X will be a better match than prior versions of Final Cut or competing software. For them, the more than they can do from within Final Cut, the better. As for the rest of us, Avid and Premiere still around or we could keep using Final Cut Pro until Final Cut X has matured a bit.
This is not cool. Final Cut X system requirements prevent many older Intel Macs from running it. The prior versions of Final Cut should have been left on sale, at least to order online, for those of us who cannot use X.
Here’s an analogy to help non-editors understand what has happened.
Let’s say the new iPhone 5 comes out with perfect call clarity, never drops a call, will work at twice the distance from a cell tower than any other phone… and has a couple new snazzy apps.
However, over half of your favorite apps will no longer work on iPhone 5. Your contact list cannot be imported. When you do manually re-enter contacts, you can’t put in as much information. They’ve eliminated the camera, GPS, and several other features. For some reason, it won’t even call all the area codes. It does seem to cost less, but needed stuff you’ve gotten used to is either gone… seemingly for good… or works totally different.
Apple says this will be eventually worked out… but, you can no longer buy any earlier iPhones that have the capabilities you need. But hey… it’s now easier for more people to use, it costs less, and your calls sound better.
How many iPhone users/buyers would be happy with that?
@rbdvideo – that is a great analogy and I completely see you logic. And I agree with you.
However, that is exactly what just happened with the switch to Lion. Some of my programs work, some don’t until re-written and some will never work.
And it’s happened before Lion as well. Though I am currently on a Mac Intel, my previous G5 tower is forever stuck in Leopard, meaning CS5 won’t work on it because Adobe says it requires Intel.
My point is, whether hardware or software, at some date, you WILL be outdated if you don’t keep up. I’m not saying it’s right, and I’m not saying it’s wrong. It just is.
Heck, I still have my Mac Plus running. I can type a letter on it and make crude (today’s standards) animations, but I can’t even connect to the internet as I don’t have a landline anymore. How I wish it had a color screen.