FCP X The Future?
It’s been a long time coming, and there was some serious controversy about how it came about in the end but it has finally happened – Apple have announced and demonstrated their newest version of Final Cut Pro. There are some big changes, but is Apple right about the future of post-production, and by extension – production?
Rumours have been flying about FCP X since it was first revealed in February that a product had been shown to a select group of industry professionals. Much of the speculation was focused on the idea that Apple would make some pretty dramatic changes in the new application such as doing away with the standard Source/Record interface and dropping support for tape-based I/O. These sorts of changes have led many skeptics to pre-emptively dub the new release iMovie Pro.
So with all revealed it the FCPUG Supermeet in Las Vegas today, how does the early speculation pan out? The most undeniable fact is that it is different. In fact it is almost an entirely new application. It doesn’t look like the Final Cut Pro we know, and it doesn’t work like it either.
The big headline points are very good – it is now a native 64-bit app, rewritten from scratch to get the most from Apple’s newest hardware and software., taking advantage of Grand Central Dispatch to use all the available CPU cores. Also it seems that the Albatross that was Quicktime has been lifted from around the neck of FCP now, opening up the doors to supporting a much broader range of formats natively, from MXF to R3D RAW. With a new resolution independent timeline up to 4K and features like background rendering and ingest it’s also tuned for a quick editing experience with a little waiting around as possible.
Many of the new features could be summerised as “automation” – on ingest/import clips can be automatically colour corrected, have audio treatments applied and be analysed for stabilisation and rolling shutter correction – all non-destructively. Also clip audio can be analysed to allow automatic multicamera and dual-system sync.
Metadata is a key feature in the new application. Instead of traditional sub-clipping to break clips down into smaller parts it is now possible to add keywords to specific segments of a clip. FCP X will also examine clips and, using person-recognition, automatically record the number of people in a shot and the basic shot size (CU, MCU etc).
While this appears to be a new beginning for Final Cut Pro, it seems like it may be the end for the Final Cut Studio. Many of the core features of other Studio applications, such as Color, have been moved directly into the main FCP application and seem unlikely to continue on their own.
For professional users there is still a lot to consider – many features seem very attractive, but there are a lot of unknowns and possibly a pretty steep learning curve. It’s still unclear if the rumour of the death of tape from within FCP is true, but there was certainly no mention of it one way or the other. With only a prepared demo to show the features of the new FCP X it is difficult to know precisely how the new application will suit those working day-to-day in broadcast and professional post-production, there are certainly some features that could make life a little more difficult if they can’t be easily disabled or controlled.
Apple, as is their tradition, saved perhaps the most surprising and, for many, most exciting thing until last – the price. FCP X will be available from the Mac App Store in June 2011 for US$299!
Until the hands-on reviews and test start to come out it’s hard to make a professional judgement on how attractive the new software is, but one thing is for sure… The game has, again, been changed. With new and innovative features being rolled into FCP the demand for those technologies won’t go away and the pressure is on the competition to step up with some serious reinventions of their own. Adobe has just announced the Premiere Pro 5.5 with some basic upgrades, and Avid’s Media Composer 5.5 is also only recently to market, so it seems unlikely we’ll see 6.0 versions from either company for at least six-months by which time we’ll know for sure how FCP X has been received by working professionals.
(Feature image via Twitter from @Adamtheeditor/Adam Bedford)
That’s a pretty fair summation of the news so far. I can’t imagine professional editors tied to FCP would have much to worry about really. Apple aren’t likely to remove the perfectly good functionality of FCP 7 in FCP X. The core of FCP 7 still looks pretty intact to me, they didn’t announce anything to say otherwise. This is FCP accessed through a slicker UI handled by a faster 64 bit engine with additional native support and realtime, effects and editing with little to no rendering. sure there is a lot of options to automate some of the day to day processes we are used to handling manually, but I can’t see apple enforcing automation and taking away manual control. The automation and price opens FCP X up to a new market, that’s the clever thing apple have done I think.
Take photoshop as an example, it is an industry standard in just about every creative industry there is. I make a lot of money using it, but I can sit my 5 year old daughter on my knee and let her draw pictures on the wacom tablet and add auto effects to them. Does the fact that my 5 year old daughter can have fun on the same software I use for work make it less professional? I certainly don’t think so.
It’s interesting – the price point and feature set, if anything, indicate that Apple is not all that worried about the professional market.
For many broadcast editors and facilities the a $299 application is no more appealing than a $2999 one – the price isn’t a major deciding factor usually. Nothing we saw demonstrated today really had all that much applicability to professional editing. And none of the things that really matter to pros were mentioned – nothing about interchange (XML, AAF, OMF, EDL), nothing about tape I/O, nothing about improved network editing, or media management.
I think FCP X is decidely a high-end consumer product (which may have been true of earlier FCP versions too) – it’s unclear how relevant it will remain for professional (as in broadcast and film) editorial work.
It would make no difference to Apple’s bottom line if no film or TV show were ever edited on FCP again, they like to have a successful pro application, but it’s not actually important to them at a business level.
“For many broadcast editors and facilities the a $299 application is no more appealing than a $2999 one – the price isn’t a major deciding factor usually.”
Sure this may be true for large multi seat companies like TVNZ, but you’re totally unrealistic here.
Ignoring the possibility & panic that FCPX is a “kiddy-suite”, if it turns out to be like FCP 7 with steroids then the price would affect sales of other suites.
All companies these days care about price; if they didn’t then we wouldn’t ever be discussing 5Ds being used for primetime shows!
Producers are constantly looking to slash costs, and buy more for less.
So FCPX sounds like exactly that.
And I still think that thinking the “feature set” indicates it is aimed at pro-sumers is silly; no full feature set has been released.
I have read sources that have clearly said that FCPX will be able to run like FCP7, but it has add ons: http://www.larryjordan.biz/app_bin/wordpress/archives/1452
Today I am cutting on an Avid, two weeks from now I’ll be on FCP.
I could go either way, but find the competition refreshing.
I have the distinct feeling that Dylan you really dislike FCP?
Don’t get me wrong, price matters, but if you’re building an edit suite for broadcast or film work then the difference between $300, $1000 and $2500 isn’t going to be a big factor.
If, however, you’re someone with a fairly decent camera and want to have a well featured editing application that you can use for making personal videos and things for the web then $300 is basically an impulse purchase.
FCP X is a basically 1.0 version – while Apple has learned a lot since FCP 1.0 I’m not at all convinced that it will come out with everything straight off the bat that are needed for broadcast editorial work.
In Larry’s post he says that Apple wanted to make it clear that it was a pro app, which is why they chose to demo it at NAB, but I’m not convinced they mean pro the same way we do. The demo didn’t address ANY of the major concern of broadcast and film editors. If they were the audience Apple was demoing for, why not show, or at least mention, things like AAF/OMF support, XML workflow, EDL, tape-based I/O.
I don’t dislike FCP but I do find that, like all things Apple, the actual experience often doesn’t live up to the marketing hype. FCP 7 has a lot of great features, but it’s also got some really big weaknesses that have remained unaddressed (and glossed over) for many years.
I’ll work on Avid or FCP, but I’d pick Media Composer over FCP for almost any job.
FCPX will be on the market in June but has there been any feedback from professional editors that have beta tested this version? Lets how it performs in the real editing world.
Recently I view a number of clips from NAB of the FCPX launch:http://nofilmschool.com/2011/04/apples-final-cut-pro-interface-work-unofficial/
I was blown away by how many apple geeks cheered at almost every announcement. Apple are very good with their product launches. A few years ago I went along to a FCP Apple event here in gods own. Impressive presentation but the claim the FCP had 80% of the independent feature film market didn’t ring true. Far too much hype and spin.
Apple are in general media darlings are get an easy ride from the press, (Public Enemy said it well” Don’t, don’t believe the hype”).
Let me clarify that I am an editor and I own my own Avid and FCP editing setup. All my hardware excluding mass storage is Apple hardware, (Why because it’s good quality and think Apple is an innovative company).
I have been using FCP quite a bit due that I get compressor and DVD pro. With Avid I don’t get the equivalent unless I run windows, (boot camp). But I would never use FCP on long form projects due to the lack of media management.
Interesting that Apple has done a major rebuild of the FCP interface. The price point will definitely cause a shake down out in the market and be a cause for concern for Avid. I think Apples intended market for FCPX is not only industry professionals but the mass market. Picking up from my earlier statement “Apple are an nonnative company”.
They don’t build just a phone, or a computer or some software that has one purpose. Their products are multi dimensional. Hence they have a big picture philosophy. So where are they going with FCPX?
I must admit I do have quite a few issues with some of Apples business ethics. certain aspects are restrictive and unethical: I think Apple would like to ideally have a controlling interest in media in general. Music and media in general. Quite ironic where a few years back Microsoft got hammered for anticompetitive behavior. Now Apple could well be accused of the same thing.
What also of Lightworks that is now freeware and open source, (is this the future of software development)? Have many of you editors and production companies used this new release. How does it shape up? Yes you get the base LW and then you pay for various functionality. So how is the market reacting to LW?
Wow sounds like Apple is trying to catch up with the likes of Grass Valley and Edius…. good luck….
Not too sure what Edius has that might been seen as being caught up with here. I’ve got some great features but from my experience it’s nowhere near what FCP X looks to be.
Sony Vegas is an NLE to look to for some very interesting tools and techniques.
Check this out…
http://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/articles/474-slow-motion-at-1-using-optical-flow-in-fcpx