Apple stopped supporting previous versions of FCP as of yesterday, and FCS 3 is no longer available. Also, if any of the production houses that use FCP upgrade to OS Lion next month, they won't be able to load their previous FCP projects at all. Man, that's cold. I feel bad for those guys.

I bought the Larry Jordan tutorials for FCP X and you're right... it does look very Vegas-like. I see some Edius stuff in there, too. There's actually some very cool features. I think I'll buy it and play with it.

I love my MacBook Pro but I'm sure glad I sold my copy of FCS3 a few months ago. Maybe I'll sell Premiere, now. I'm not crazy about it, either.

I wonder if Apple's going to go the same route with print media publishers.

Apple has no problem cutting off old products, or even markets, if they believe that it is in their best long term strategic interest. Apple controls markets by selling at a low cost at high volume thus making it difficult for others to compete i.e. the iPad.

Expect to see iCloud competing with YouTube showing all the Hi Def footage done in FCP X and streamed on an Apple TV. Scarey.

Larry

The thing I find most alarming and sad is with all of the hundreds of negative forum posts, reviews and blog articles I've had he chance to either read or skim through, they all refer to Premiere Pro or Avid as their only other alternatives. I saw a few references to Edius as a choice but NOT ONE for Vegas. How sad. I've been a Vegas user since V3 and added Final Cut last year because of 2 very large clients that required me to learn it for their projects.

Learning Final Cut was a huge step backward to me, hearkening back to the days of Premiere 6.5 about 10 years ago. All of the lightning fast usability of Vegas is simply not there. I still use Vegas exclusively, except for the work I do with the aforementioned clients.

I realize Mac people only mention PPro or Avid because there are Mac versions of those suites available. Too bad. The Mac editors I've shown Vegas to have simply been amazed at the speed and ease of getting work done and depth of features at our fingertips vs "conforming" to "established" editing methods or constantly invoking other stand alone (integrated) programs like Compressor, Motion and Color to do many of the things we do every day with Vegas.

So along came FCPX and I bought it to see if it was more flexible than FCP7. It is. But like the many detractors of the program have said, it's not ready for professional use just yet. I do believe they're on the right track though and yes, there are even a few features that have a Vegas "feel" to them. Where Apple takes this product is anyone's guess right now.

Time will tell I guess.

Mike

"If I were a Final Cut editor who invested many years of time and money I would be really **** right now. Can't even bring in a previous Final Cut project—that's crazy! "

I believe this is hardly a surprise to those in Hollywood. An interview a couple of years back with some pro Hollywood editors indicated a fair bit of distrust with Apple. They were quoted as saying "Apple is a gadget company and not a software company" so it would be no surprise if Apple pulled the plug on FCP.

On the other side of the coin.... I don't think Apple cares about Hollywood or the prestige that goes with it. It's not where the money is. Hollywood is a very small crowd relative to the rest of the potential customer base out there. They're also a very demanding bunch. If I was in Apple's shoes I would tell Hollywood to stuff it too.

"It's got my attention. Sony better watch out with this one."

SCS ought to take advantage of the lynch mob forming in the FCP forums.

Over my recommendations against it, a local station just recently bought four Mac Pros and FCP. "Because it's the industry standard". They already had one and between FCP and Avid (they dumped their Avid system about a year earlier), they have quite a library of old programs that they can't edit any more.

THANK YOU APPLE - I will now enjoy a steady stream of income pulling clips from their library.

While FCP-X is not able to support 3rd party hardware or EDLS or old FCP projects, everything I've heard/read suggests that you *will* be able to use FCP7 on Lion, also they will be adding support for 3rd party hardware and plug-ins as well as EDL import/export (the 3 top things that everyone will who has a lot of money invested will want to see happen).

I have the CS5.5 suite from Adobe, and I'm gritting my teeth and bearing it as I try to learn Premiere, but I really do miss the instantaneous nature of Vegas as I fiddle about in it. I can see that unless Vegas Pro just ends up tanking I'm probably never going to want to go over to another editor. That being said, I'm considering buying an EFi-X and running a dual boot copy of OSX on my current PC. (certainly cheaper than buying a full macpro for $2500.00, and it's not an illegal use of the software since you buy a full license copy of snowleapord and install it.

Dave

I can't understand the fuss over FCP, or anything else Mac based.
If that is your choice of platform and application, fair enough.

Its not Vegas or Edius (my NLEs of choice)

"The Fuss" generally comes from an application or platform being better in certain ways than whatever someone's current choice is. Like for example the new automated features in the media management system in the new FCP.

I did think it was funny though, when watching the FCP preview back in March? that about half of the features I kept thinking, Vegas does that, Vegas has that, Vegas did that for the last 5 versions, etc. The same thing happened with WWDC when about half the wow features seemed to already exist on other platforms. This seems to be the year of Apple playing catch up.

As far as the Apple forums being ablaze with complaints from FCP users, although some of the backward compatibility issues are a real problem, I suspect that some of those guys over there are just whiners that don't want to learn a new, probably better, way of doing things.

Apple is obviously pricing FCP, Motion, and other recent software very low to get as many people to upgrade as possible. Same thing with OSX v6 and v7. They want as many people to update to the newest platform as possible because a lot of the features with cloud computing hinge on having others there with you. Likewise I'm sure they want as many newbie FCP users as they can get to create competition for those old dogs not wanting to learn new tricks.

It's pretty funny to read Vegas editors talking about jumping ship to FCP X when all the FCP 7 editors are talking about jumping ship to Adobe and Avid. ;-)

If you want a good laugh, read the Apple FCPX - Final Cut Pro X forum on the COW. Man those Mac users are really mad and for good reason. Apple just shifted their whole focus to the consumer market and left the Pro's with no professional features or upgrade path.

It's a shame SCS doesn't port port Vegas Pro to the Mac. I watched those videos and, in fact, I've been in demonstrations of Vegas that VASST has given where FCP editors were in the audience and they were floored 5 years ago at what Vegas can do. As we've all pointed out in this thread, most the the new features in FCP X were in Vegas Video 3 and were a yawn to watch. It almost felt like the audience was filled with cave men and the presenter was lighting matches on stage and they were amazed at how he could summon fire at will. lol. (...although I'm sure there's an app for that.)

SCS could make a killing by porting Vegas Pro to the Mac because it now has way more pro features than FCP X with all the nice editing features. It's a missed opportunity but I realize that it's no small task.

~jr

Right On JR. You hit the nail on the head!

Mike

Absolutly JR, however porting Vegas to the Mac would be near impossible to do due to the amount of internals in Windows it relies on to operate, like DirectX for example. But how cool would it be to join the ranks of Adobe and have a cross platform version of Vegas! I wish it could be done. But can't see it.
Paul

My favorite statement that I've read thus far re: FCPX

"We aren't angry because we FEAR change. We LIKE good change, but not all change is good. Re-inventing the wheel to make it square is not an improvement. We are angry because Apple is being arrogant and presumptuous. We are angry because Apple is not merely abandoning us, they are actually attacking us with their irresponsible choices.

Franky, I think it is capitulation to suggest otherwise.

Professor, Producer, Editor
and former Apple Employee"

This is one LONG thread already, and I'll have to go through it later. but till then I'll weigh in with my 0.2 cents (might not even be worth that much :)

The gist of it all, and the feel I get from reading the FCPX pages at Apple.com, is that it really is an iMovie Pro, or as some seem to have started calling it FCP Xpress.

What really surprises be about Apples handling of this is that they are telling their FCP users that they are working on adding this or that feature in an update, and at the same time expect professionals to just sit back and wait. I thought Apple had better Customer/PR relations that that.

I do like what I'm seeing happening in the Sony camp though, where the "Studio" versions are about .5 release ahead of the Pro timewise, where they just updated the Studio version to 11, seemingly using these to test some of the concepts and possible future code, even if they are packing it up a bit weirdly at times, before adding this to the Pro release.

Well for me, there's only so much pity to go around. I mean, Apple was always about being different for difference's sake. Many folks staked their reputations on it, foolishly assuming different equates to better, crowing about how 'professional' their editor was.

Apple had their fingers in a lot of pies, media being one of the bigger ones. However, that never made them better. Apple's emphasis was/is in keeping people attached to to its platform (and no different than Microsoft's stategy). Sorry Tinseltown, but you don't rate. There's tons of slobbering goobers just waiting to be fleeced.

Bad things happen to foolish people.

"There's tons of slobbering goobers just waiting to be fleeced."

What dialect is that?

American slang.

musicvid

I have no idea, but I really want to know, along with a translation :)

Sure - "there are scores of unsophisticates attendant upon being relieved of their coin"

But you knew that. :)

The new FCPX will NOT open any projects created with ANY previous versions of FCP. That seems suicidal.

Too young to have seen "Mayberry"?

I am willing to bet a small chunk of change that little old Stevie Jobs will be doing a "Just one more thing....." sooner or later.

He will announce how FCPX can use old FCP projects and other stuff the Mac whiners want.

The "professional" Final Cut whiners will wet their pants and continue to prostrate themselves before the alter of Mac. ;-)

lol@nedski, I think you're right, I've never had an iPhone but I remember everyone who had one getting all excited when Apple announced that after the two or more years it had been on the market they were adding the ability to "copy/paste". All I could think of was "Holy crap, you guys didn't have that yet?", my HTC had copy/paste way before that.

- Ray
Underground Planet