Wednesday
Apr132011
Final Cut Pro X
Wednesday, April 13, 2011 at 6:42PM ;)
Apple took over the Final Cut Pro User Group Supermeet at NAB in Las Vegas last night to show a preview of the complete reboot of Final Cut Pro that Steve Jobs himself tersely teased a year ago.
Apple hasn’t realeased anything official for those who weren’t there, but these videos are OK. If you don’t want to watch the whole thing, FreshDV has excellent condensed coverage. And there are worthwhile write-ups from Larry Jordan (who was one of the few who saw this six weeks ago at Apple), Scott Simmons, and Walter Biscardi. UPDATE: And a first-the-bad-news impression by Mike Jones.
Reader Comments (14)
Being just a "preview" of the new Final Cut, and not an actual launch, leaves a ton of unanswered questions. But my first impression and biggest concern is similar to what happened when Quicktime Pro 7 changed to Quicktime X - they took AWAY features and polished up / streamlined the interface and called it an upgrade. No more manual export formats, etc. The "X" killed the "professional" part of the program.
I'm really hoping the same thing doesn't happen here.
With image stabilization and audio noise cleaning on import being touted (which admittedly are useful) - generally these are amateur concerns. Pros use tripods and capture clean audio. What about filters and third party cards and plug ins, and tape digitizing and tape mastering out, etc.?
Maybe it'll have all of FCP 7's CAPABILITIES, in addition to new ones. I really hope so... but like I said, a ton of unanswered questions.
My immediate concerns were the same as most people I saw tweeting about it: it looked, at first glance, like an upgrade of Express or iMovie with a Pro label, and the price was worrisome. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about less expensive quality, but the number "299" in my timeline was off-putting.
Then I watched those two videos. Now, I don't think this thing is the one-stop solution, but it's got some nice tricks that I could already see making my life easier in a few months when I sit down to work out the rough edit on my first feature. Yeah, I'll capture clean audio and control my shots, but the organization in and out of the timeline here looks like it will be mega helpful.
Will I grade my movie in FCPX? No. I'll take it to Colorista II or Apple Color itself. Will I do all my post sound in FCPX? No, but it'll help me get a lot done before I start polishing things up in other programs. Color Matching and the Audition clips features look downright fun, and Audition will be a great way to compare takes in a narrative piece.
It looks like an extremely powerful time saver, and I think that can be a real shot in the arm for indie productions, especially when coupled with Adobe's subscription options (I feel better, ethically, about factoring in a 4 month subscription for After Effects into my fundraising budget than buying it with raised funds when I know full well I'll have it forever after). For someone like me, my budgeting for fundraising and my budgeting for what I feel obligated to personally invest in my movie became a lot less of a burden all around. I hope FCPX isn't a streamlined, less powerful program, but if its just what was shown in those videos I'll gladly adopt it into my process.
And this is from a guy who was so frustrated with FCP as a suite that I was about to jump ship to another system entirely.
It appears quite evident that the route Apple has taken with Final Cut Pro Studio is exactly the same course they took with Logic. Both were based on inherited code (after an Apple take-over / buyout). Both were run under Apple for a number of years before being subjected to a complete overhaul.
And if Logic 8 (now version 9) is any example – the insurmountable 'pro' feel of past iterations will be gone (much to the dismay of long time power users!) but more importantly for Apple, new customers will happily afford the entry price, drop right into a familiar OS style interface, have all the difficult tasks transparently taken care-of for them without any appreciation of what's actually going on; thus selling more computers.
The long time die hards should still be able to tweak away to their hearts content – albeit under a new and slightly irksome toy-ish interface – I'm guessing (hoping) that everything will still be in there, just tucked away & a lot more streamlined.
FYI: I'm still using Logic 7 ... warts and all, none of the 'features' in Logic 8 made re-learing the interface & un-learning years of reflex keystrokes worth the jump!
On the fear of what the price means:
Fianl Cut Studio currently costs $999 for what... 5 pro level programs? Final Cut as packaged with Final Cut Studio *right now* costs $199. X costs about $100 more than the current pro level iteration.
Add in that they're really pushing downloads through the App store instead of physically shipping packaging and they're saving on packaging materials and all that jazz. I think we're so used to seeing the higher price of studio sets that we think $299 is cheaper than we've been paying for it when it isn't.
I think we need to wait and see how it actually works, but I'm pretty excited for this. Those scared/angry over the price come off as insecure to me.
I have come to rely on Final Cut pretty heavily in my business, so this scares me and excites me. The 64Bit and Multi-threading is very exciting, as is resolution Independence, but auto color correction, image stabilization and even the magnetic timeline kind of scare me really. Sounds like it will make a mess. I projects with so many graphics that I get up to 18-20 levels of video, with different types of things put specifically onto different levels for organization and this automatically making new tracks sounds like it will make a mess more than anything.
It is the details that I am not even hearing that scare me. I rely a lot on the viewer window, which seems to have changed completely. Can I still look at the waveform of a clip before i cut it in easily to get a clean cut as I edit?
Working on all the effects in the timeline might be nice, but is also weird to have it an always moving target, it was convenient to work on effects in the same place in the viewer, is that still possible?
Do the windows pull apart like they used to? I keep my bins on my second display, but it looks like the viewer and bin are combined, which doesn't seem convenient for huge projects. I wouldn't mind the combined bin, if I can have a separate viewer window as well.
How does FCP handle graphics? Hopefully better than the old version, but it was not mentioned.
If they lose editing to tape it loses a lot of it's usefulness as I often still have to deliver digitbetas or even HDCAM.
Just went through the 64 bit thing on After Effects, going to be expensive to have to update all of my plug ins again! Wish they would get some specs out to developers so they can start updating.
I have a feeling Color is gone, much like Shake before it. They took some of the technology and then killed it. It sucks as I have really grown to like it and would love a massive update to make it even more powerful, but I don't see it happening.
I am sure DVD studio is gone as well as Apple will never jump on the Blu-Ray band wagon even though I still often have to deliver discs.
I could give or take motion, as I mostly use AE, though I do like some of it's particle effects. And it looks like the main thing I use it for, re-timing clips is now in FCP properly.
Most the soundtrack features I would rather have rolled into FCP anyway, and it sounds like they are in some form, and hopefully so is retiming with pitch shifting. And control over the hum removal would be nice.
The other essential App is a truly 64 Bit Compressor (not using QMASTER).
The one thing no one seems to mention about the app store is that like iTunes you can authorize the apps to be on 5 computers, and a 5 license FCP for $299 is pretty cheap.
When they said they've changed the color management to a linear light paradigm managed with colorsync icc profiles all I could picture was Stu jumping up and down with joy :D
The improvements to the UI look very well thought out, the background rendering may prove to be a great thing, and the color matching tools may be prove to be a great time saver. The only thing that's unclear is the price point. At $299 and as an instant download it looks like the Studio (suite of apps) is gone and that round tripping for FX, sound, and compressing may be a thing of the past. The notable omission to the presentation for me was output to Blu Ray. I haven't sent a DVD to a client for approval for more than a year. They want Blu Ray so everything I do ends up going through Encore.
You half expect the crowd to start shouting "praise the lord" and "apple is great". I never realised level of faith in the apple congregation. Athough I guess they feel they are witnessing the resurrection of their video editing Messiah. It's a little scary for a CS5 using agnostic.
Hi there. Love ProLost.
My $.02
I love Final Cut Pro and have used it on many successful productions. However, I don't like what I see in this screenshot. What I don't like:
I don't like how audio appears to be embedded in the video clip, and is a different color than other audio tracks.
I don't like how insert and overwrite are no longer RED and YELLOW.
I don't like how the "show volume envelopes" button is no longer present on the bottom left.
Where are the audio & video track controls? (mute, solo, etc)
There is a lot missing from this screenshot. Wireframe mode, gang control, etc.
This looks like Final cut Pro Lite. I hate it.
The announcements of new features give me a raging soft on. Searching for media in 10 new ways is not useful to me. I'm organized.
I do not want FCP to auto-adjust audio on import.
I do not want FCP to auto-adjust/align/stabilize footage on import.
I do not need FCP to recognize faces.
Those features are good for my mom, but bad for me.
What I would like to hear:
- Bezier Matte Tool with deep effects integration and animated nodes -- no more sending things to After Effects just make a frickin' curved matte
- Apple Color integration into the FCP timeline -- no more round tripping
- SoundtrackPro integration into the timeline -- no more round tripping
-- No more round tripping.
- AU/RTAS Plugins (and Soundtrack Pro plugins) can use THEIR OWN GUI INTERFACES -- no more giant list of grey effects parameters. Like current color corrector, there would be numeric/visual toggle buttons.
- A Graphic/Parametric EQ as good as those found in AVID and ProTools
- A faster 1-point motion tracker to stabilize footage
- A better green/blue screen keyer -- e.g. Keylight built in
- Menu Item: CTRL +/- zooms in on current timeline indicator ALWAYS
I want FCP to be Smoke. It will be one day, why not start now? One editor to rule them all!
Motion, Soundtrack Pro, and Color should be integrated into the FCP interface. Compressor and DVD Studio Pro should be united into a one-stop Media Authoring application. Boom. Why doesn't Apple call me before making decisions?
PH
I think there is a lot of assuming going on regarding this preview. Obviously, we should all be wary about upgrading, especially if we're in the middle of a project. Apple isn't forcing anyone to stick with FCP, nor are they forcing you to use every single feature that was shown off in Vegas last week. I think we'll just have to wait and see what actually ships. Personally, I can't wait to see it. I wrote a lengthy post citing reasons why:
Final Cut Pro X: Initial Reaction
I completely agree with Peter Harkness!!!
I use Final Cut Pro since 1999 and I'm an Apple Certified Pro.
I dont need this new version at all. It could be fine for my nephews.
And.. how can we edit without a Viewer? Are we kidding Apple?
I was expecting a new solid 64bit built, with new interface and Color Grading integration (for the motion graphics there is After Effects, #1).
But not this toy, please!!
It does look much simpler to use than current / past versions of FCP. For me this is a really great thing. The historically complex nature and cost of these packages have been too long a barrier (or perhaps a shield?) for the status quo. With the cost of pro level equipment going exponentially downwards having a simpler, yet pro level software package to support this is a real step forward and one that brings welcome and continued disruption to an industry that has maintained closed doors on many levels for too long.
WOW WOW WOW! finally i can edit just like the pros do in Adobe Premiere! Thanks Apple!!
And there was me thinking apple were a bunch of half wits for canning SHAKE...they did have a long game afterall...