By SteveJack
I’ve often wondered if the outcry we hear about things like iPhone antennas comes from actual users or *gasp* from Apple’s competitors who would naturally benefit if the general public were sufficiently confused.
It’s not that difficult to place an idea into the media and then watch the echo chamber ratchet it up to ridiculous levels.
After the ludicrous “Antennagate” stories finally died down, I pulled my iPhone 4 out of my pocket and looked at it. What I saw was only the most reliable and receptive iPhone I’ve ever owned (and I’ve owned them all). As usual, a mountain was made out of a molehill.
So, I have to wonder where the “backlash” over Final Cut Pro X is coming from? Keep in mind that Final Cut Pro X carries an amazingly low $299 price, especially compared to competitor’s now quite old-fashioned-looking and performing offerings.
Advertisement: Students, parents and Faculty save up to $200 on a new Mac.
Is all the noise we’re hearing today really coming from Final Cut Pro users who still have their previous Final Cut version(s) and already know how to properly and rationally submit feedback to Apple?
Or is it coming from non-Final Cut Pro users who see the $299 writing on the wall and realize that they’ll soon very likely have to learn something dramatically new and different from outside their comfort zone? Apple’s previous Final Cut Pro versions have not stopped working, nor has Apple stopped work on FCP X – in fact, they’ve just started working with a paradigm-shifing, extremely strong and powerful foundation upon which to build. Have a minute of patience, please. I heard the same sort of whining when we went from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X and some had to be dragged kicking and screaming. People stopped crying over Mac OS 9 in short order, too.
Or who perhaps some editors feel a little bit threatened that “non-pro” users will be able to edit so well for so little? And/or perhaps it’s coming from Apple’s now price-demolished competition who simply cannot crunch their numbers and make them come out profitably if Apple is going to offer Final Cut Pro X for $299?
All it takes to give something a 1-star Mac App Store review is to purchase the app. If the Acme Editing and Overpriced Annual Service Contract Company felt threatened enough, I wonder how many copies and what kind of reviews they’d give to Final Cut Pro X? Gin up a bunch of them and the “news reports” about Final Cut Pro X would certainly mention how many one-star reviews it received, right? It might even make FCP’s Wikipedia entry (it has). So easy to do. Much easier than creating a compelling product at a ridiculously low price that offers professional-level editing tools to so many, that’s for sure.
I really have to wonder exactly who’s really “outraged” over Final Cut Pro X and why. I can’t prove anything, but I’ve seen enough in the past to have strong suspicions today.
SteveJack is a long-time Macintosh user, web designer, multimedia producer and a regular contributor to the MacDailyNews Opinion section. (He also has over 16 years of professional linear and non-linear editing experience. – MDN Ed., June 25, 11:15am EDT)
Related articles:
Conan blasts Apple’s new Final Cut Pro X (with video) – June 24, 2011
Answers to the unanswered questions about Apple’s new Final Cut Pro X – June 23, 2011
‘Professional’ video editors freak out over Final Cut Pro X – June 23, 2011
Apple revolutionizes video editing with Final Cut Pro X – June 21, 2011
In response to just continue to use FCP 7 – that’s not an option. Many large post facilities lease their equipment. For those of us who are pursuing a new lease in FY2011 FCP 7 is not sn option.
The biggest issue for large post facalities with FCP X is the file management issues. When your facility has multiple editors and rooms, and the rooms are shared a program like FCP X that does not support multiple users with shared storage is useless.
It is no coincidence that in the months building up to FCP X Apple dropped 3 key product lines for large post houses; Xserve, Xsan, and Finsl Cut Server.
Get over it people! Video postproduction services as a market are in terminal decline. Consolidation in the entertainment business where studios are moving more and more post-production in house.
• Decline in revenue last decade: -24.9 percent.
• Forecasted decline in revenue in the next decade: -10.7 percent.
• Forecasted decline in the number of establishments next decade: -37.8 percent.
In other words Apple sees the writing on the wall and is looking to expand the addressable market of Final Cut, read prosumer, rather than watch Final Cut sales decline along with the overall industry.
Those of you above and elsewhere that threaten to move to Avid or Premiere go for it I think Apple is VERY happy to let Adobe ONCE AGAIN become the leader in yet another industry in decline. Avid will be right up there with InDesign! Outstanding strategy there!
It seems those who love FCP X are the ones shooting their friends skateboarding, BMX on the weekends and posting them to you tube and thinking their film editors. Yes, you do some pretty cool things but it doesn’t make you a pro film editor. Apple, Canon, Nikon has made it easy for anyone to think they are professionals. The problem, the real professionals CANNOT use FCP X. Think of all the hollywood movies edited with Final Cut 7 ( Final Cut Studio 3), No Country for Old Men, True Grit, Curious Case of Benjamin Button to name of a few of many, NO WAY they are going to be editing in FCP X, because it’s NOT a professional editor. It has nothing to do with local TV, etc. Apple has shot themselves in the foot or perhaps they don’t care and are becoming to big and mainstream.
No the product is just a complete disappointment and a major step back from FCP7. That stated with a decision of learning this or making the transition to a new Pro editing platform, I installed Adobe Production Premium on Saturday and am moving away from Apple.
i actually like the look and feel of the 3GS better 🙁
I will only speak from a professional editing standpoint. We produce 10 – 28:30 programs per week reaching a worldwide audience of over 1 billion people. We use Final Cut ‘Pro’. We have 7 yrs worth of project files that will become useless were we to stay with Final Cut. Amature – I think not. Afraid of learning something new? I think not.
Believing in Apple any longer? I think not!
lol, a conspiracy theory! Great spin to a bad spin 😉
Sounds like the oilindustry bashing climate change or polution……
Offcourse the competition won’t shed a tear about the bad reviews, but this theory surely belongs to the religious fanatic fantasies…
Some people say: “it’s just version 1.0 so it makes sense it’s incomplete.”
This is ridiculous reasoning: did you ever get an UPgrade that offered far less possibilities? Even Microsoft doesn’t do that :-p (Although their Vista came close: more options, but less speed, lol.)
A 1.0 version can contain silly bugs and errors or miss a certain solution or outdated option, but this is just incomplete for serious pro-users.
I think it’s either a premature release or just a move to conquer the prosumer market (which is probably far greater than the pro market).
I work with both Final Cut and Premiere Pro and contrary to some beliefs: they don’t differ that much (Premiere is not a retarded version of FCP (anymore (5 years ago FCP had more options)), like some Apple-users seem to think, and FCP is not just for ‘fanboys’). At the moment possibilities (looking at FCP7) are mostly the same, but PPro CS5.5 is 64bit, can handle multiple cores, can use far more than 4GB, has native support for most codecs, works perfectly with After Effects, Photoshop, etc and let’s you import your FCP7 projects and keyboardshortcuts. In that regard FCP-users were looking forward to this new version: FCP7 can’t keep up with CS5.5 anymore. (Although most of them won’t be aware of it: they just see things getting slower as projects get bigger) And that’s why they are disappointed.
People claiming they ‘hate’ a certain program are primitives who still think on ‘tribe-level’. One should really try something to see how it works and decide which functions are useful and needed. Years ago I didn’t like Avid, because to me, it worked counter-intuitive, but I don’t hate it. Their last version is said to be more ‘drag and drop’ like FCP and Premiere. Maybe I would like it better now?
The differences between NLE’s are the user interface (learning curve), options (workflow needs) and the hardware/plugins it supports (investments): in the end it’s all cutting, pasting and grading.
All serious editing platforms should have (more or less) the same options and hardware support, so after the learning curve the output can be ‘the same’.
Let’s face it: at the moment FCPX lacks in hardware support and options and thus it can’t garantee the output pro users need.
To keep the FCP7-users on board Apple should get the pro-plugins ready real fast. It will be awkward to admit to uncle Joe he can edit and render faster than your expensive pro-system…
I don’t believe in ‘tribes’, I believe in the right tools for the job. One should look for what works best and how it connects to the workflow. (I have both FCP and Adobe-oriented clients and work on location a lot.)
At this moment I can imagine people are considering moving to another NLE. The key-question seems to be: Are you willing to wait for Apple’s next move or do you want to move on now?
Both ways could be dead-ends within 5 years… or both ways can lead to great productions…
Let me end with some comforting words to the people who think Apple is a divine brand, but got a bit disappointed:
Apple moves in mysterious ways 😉
Typical “Apple can do no wrong” fanboy, I’ve asked our jr editors to work through competing options and write up reports. Apple has shown it has no interest in the pro market and it’s time to move on. It’s clear iOS / Appstore is pretty much the only thing they care about now. Not bad for their business but bad for ours.
I’ve noticed the iOS/AppStore focus too, seems like Lion is just the iPod-ifying of OSX. Nothing wrong with the iPod, but I’m not going to be editing with it. Clearly they’re making moves based on the market interest in portable devices.
Final Cut X blows and is really just a rewrite/upgrade of iMovie,
– No one asked for an idiot proof magnetic timeline
– No one asked for the redesign of the entire interface
– No one asked for the removal of many professional features
– No one asked for constant background rendering
– No one asked for bells and whistles for the dumb masses
We just wanted a faster 64 bit version of Final Cut Pro that could utilize more ram and more processors.
My guess is Apple has abandoned the professional editors market and is happy pumping out awful programs for home videos and amatuer. They’re following the smell of money.
I think professionals will have to look towards Adobe Premiere, which is a bummer, but Apple has blown it!
There is a simple fact for so much backlash, the new program is not very good. When you introduce a program to a large group of Professional Editors for and it does not provide them with the tools they need then you are going to get some negative feedback. To suggest that other companies are putting negative feedback about the program is simply wrong, they don’t need to. If you have taken the time to learn the program which I have. You will quickly realize that it does not cut it as a professional editing tool. Do you really think that all the professional editors who have switched are doing it just for fun. Final Cut Studio 3 needed more speed and greater integration and users of the suite were keen and eager for Apple to provide that for them. Apple did not and that is why there is a backlash. If Apple had been open and honest about their intentions for Final Cut Pro X then all of this bad press would not have occurred. As for Apple’s competitors they don’t need to do anything Apple has done enough to make most professional editors switch.
Image if your beloved iPhone was redesigned and updated with the following features.
1. You could no longer store contacts
2. The keyboard would work but apple decided to rearrange the letters and omit a few that they figured you did not use very often.
3. You could only make calls to other iphones – they did announce that you might be able to make calls to other companies in the future but they were not sure when.
That is what Final Cut X is like.
IIi have been using Final Cut Pro since 3.0 was release many years ago. IIInitially it was OK, but not really a contender to AVID. But over the past 4 years or so it has matured into a very capable, maybe the best, editing system out there and at a very fair price. Besides working as an editor III have helped set up 2 middle sized post production facilities so I know what I am talking about.
Currently II work for a major international TV Station and our entire company, in every region of the world uses Final Cut Pro.
I have to admit that I am very disappointed with this latest release. it is clearly not a pro app, not by a long shot. It is impossible to use in o ur work flow and i doubt it ever will be possible. We have 35 edit suites working off one giant SAN server. Final Cut X would not work in that environment. And if you add the problems with OMF, external monitors etc Ii doubt it ever will.
And yes -people are pissed off. Our management is not happy at all. Changing from Final Cut to Premiere or Avid world wide will cost tens of millions of dollars and royally screw up a lot of other work flows.
Someone mentioned that you can just keep the old Final Cut and dont worry about it.
Well its not that easy. When Future MACs cant run the program anymore then what?
We have a year max to swap and it will be very painful. And expensive. We have to send a lot of people to training.
Just in our office, APPLE has managed to turn pretty much everyone here from MAC lovers into MAC haters. And I’m one of them.
i read once that Apple are “skating to where the puck will be”. while this explains why they appear to be heading off to an empty part of the playing field, communicating to team members is also a big part of game strategy.
Storytelling and content creation on a worthwhile scale is not a single user endeavour, Our entertainment culture has grown to rely on COLLABORATION among specialists.
Treating those specialists like they are buying a pound of suasages at the butchers by throwing out relationships built on trust of supply is about as big a mistake as releasing the puck mouse with the first iMacs. hehe maybe that’s whatbthe writer meant.
Be interesting to see how they get out of this marketing moebius strip they have created. Their ‘marketing cool’ is built on film students wanting to use what the storytellers at the top use. Throw away what the top relies on very quickly gets noticed by the wannabes at the bottom
As a professional editor with 16 years online experience, you should know that not a single U.S. network accepts file based deliveries at this time. Bravo, MTV, Spike, you name it, they all require tape masters. FCP X has no tape I/O ability. Tell me, how do I deliver a show finished in FCP X to a network?
Larry… don’t try to confuse SteveJack with facts. In his world, Apple made the product… therefore it must be perfect for professionals. Any tools left out must be because real professionals do not need them. Apple knows best… all hail Apple!
Yeah… I’m a media professional as well. We have an 8500 sq ft studio with three full-time edit bays. We produce several episodic shows for broadcast networks. I even invited SteveJack to come out and see our studios first-hand… and I’d show him why FCP X isn’t even remotely close to ready for a pro environment. He (laughingly) declined.
Oh… and Apple’s official response to the ‘issues’ hardly made us optimistic. The choices they used for their wording made us even more leery that they ever intend to address these issues with any real solutions.
What-a load of twittle-tattle! Your article seems to reflect exactly the same arrogance Apple sometimes displays to its customers. And why? because I am an editor with some years of experience under my belt, who knows if I do change to FCP X now, I am going to loose work. The programme is simply not ready to be taken seriously by many of us who happen to produce corporates, features or documentaries.
Unless Apple get’s their act together and starts listening for a change, me along with a battalion of people I know, will drift away to the competition (e.g. Premiere; Avid Media Composer). And why? Because to put it simply it provides us with access to options in an ever evolving world.
Don’t get me wrong. I have been an unconditional fan of Apple products for many years and no doubt Apple will soon wake up. I just hope it won’t be too late.
LightWorks is now FREE with all the features FCP eX, forgot to include, I don’t hear LightWorks having a backlash.
It’s that they turned an outdated, but awesome professional program intlo a consumer APP.
Never heard of LightWorks? Go watch Shutter Island or the Departed. (It’s legacy goes back to Pulp Fiction and Braveheart.)
Have you used FCP X? I have and it’s not just empty anger. The editing process SUCKS. Yeah I said it.
Everything slip sliding around. When I add things to the timeline they attach to other things in the TL and deleting one thing will delete everything it’s added to.
Keyframing effects is NOT POSSIBLE. You are stuck with Apple’s chosen effects. You can do some retiming in Motion but you have to port things back and forth.
Importing Motion SUCKS. You must make it a template (not flexible considering how many motion materials I need each project).
Saving sucks- I’m completely at the power of the computer. It could decide to not save anything for 5 minutes (I’ve had to redo over 10 minutes of work more than once)- autosave? It’s a lie.
Old Projects? Useless- you gotta start everything again. Imported footage? Only useful in FCP X- otherwise you’ve gotta reformat using Compressor (Droplets are notoriously unreliable).
New layout and ideas? It’s clearly focussed on the home user. How often does ANY editing require his/her family photos or their jogging mix in their iTunes library in a paid gig?
It’s cool- they’re clearly said they don’t give a damn about their professional base and that we should all shove off to Adobe, AVID, or whatever. They’ve taken a big step and destroyed their core business- clearly they are going for the majority of the population.
They’ve done this before- remember the confusion and disbelief when they refused to support Flash on their mobile phones (Flash was the most important web design tool used at the time)- Flash was used for EVERYTHING at the time.
I’m sad because 6 years of study has been for nothing- good thing I’ve got some Premier and After Effects (etc) to fall back on.
right.. and Sarah Palin is really smart.. it’s just the media that makes her look bad.