I rather suspect that what on paper appeared to be a brilliant synergy between loyalty-free audio and video service with a video editing suite didn't translate well in reality. I suspect Artlist had no idea whatsoever how hard it was going to be to onboard and nurture a proper software development team. And I suspect that the venture capitalists funding Artlist saw money draining away as Artlist struggled with this, and eventually gave some sort of ultimatum.

When I first saw HitFilm, I can see the very equal to one major Compositor app with one interesting (yet also quite challenging that time) feature of tracking... and it's really interesting, and thankfully after several years, able to have it as VEGAS Effects, before Artlist cut it off, starting with the official forum's closure in the official site 😔, and sad to hear this day come.

Dear FXHome Development Team, if you can read this, then I want to say thank you for making this tool. I'm proud for using this HF/VE tool to create these:

If you creating a possible similar application in the future, looking forward to hear it !

Good Bye FXhome.

A very very dumb move indeed.

I remember mentioning the very day Artlist acquired FXHome that it was the end of FXHome. Artlist is a stock footage provider at heart, and has no business or true experience in Professional Compositing & Motion Graphics. The day they handed FXHome over to them, i knew this day would come.

This is however a very sad tale, because FXHome and Ignite Pro were really great gems, Especially being able to achieve After Effects like compositing tasks directly on the Vegas timeline.

I still have HFP 2021.3 installed on my computer, in addition to Ignite Pro 5. I remember when artlist purchased FXHome and all the hoopla about how wonderful and great everything will be. I told a friend of mine, this is the end of HF. They said wait to see what they have planned for Ignite Pro. I knew nothing, and that is exactly what it was. Nothing. Then the raid on the free version and users not being able to use their paid plugins with the new version. Then, the slow disappearance of all the faces that made the tutorials.

I don't know how much artlist paid for FXHome, or what they were thinking making wholesale changes that affected the user base, I am saddened by the demise of the software, and have zero love for artlist.

Yeah, I too would have loved for VEGAS to get the software AND programming engineers to further bolster Vegas Pro, but Vegas has their own issues too. Everyone who built Hitfilm are long gone...

@VEGASDerek Honestly, i very much doubt FXHome has anything major coming.... Something went dodgy behind closed doors, (in my opinion), why Hitfilm just got up and simply sold everything in the prime of their software development & success to Artlist, when Artlist shares nothing pertaining to Video Editing, Visual Effects nor Compositing.

When i see these things happening, i feel so good that i put my investment and workflow entirely in Vegas Pro over these past twenty years, and to this day, not an ounce of regret.

When I read on the Artlist website that there is a Artlist plugin for Adobe Premiere and AE to import material directly from Artlist,

So I wonder if Artlist was not asked by Adobe to buy the program and thus eliminate a growing competitor

@Wiew That was exactly what i was hinting at when i used the term dodgy.... Buying then eliminating the competition is a nasty approach some software companies adopt. Adobe is the king of such tactic.

A sick approach if that's true.

It seems to me more like a failed business diversification strategy. Management changed their minds on investing when they realized development actually takes resources, and they have competition, and pulled the plug. The sad thing is Artlist really didn't even try to do anything post-acquisition as they might have succeeded.

>So I wonder if Artlist was not asked by Adobe to buy the program
Why would Adobe get Artlist to do that rather than buying it themselves?

People seem quick to jump to conspiracy theories, when the simplest answer is that Artlist saw a synergy, an opportunity to become a one-stop shop for content creation, with HitFilm complementing their earlier acquisition of MotionArray. And then realised they'd bitten off more than they could chew, that setting up and maintaining an effective software division was more vastly more difficult (and, I suspect, costly) than they had expected.

It seemed that after the sale, the people behind FXHome slowly left the "stage" and moved on. Then the alienation of those that spent money for addons while having the free version, could no longer move to a later version of the software because they would lose their paid plugins. Nice. Then all the hype about what is going to be happening in the future.... nothing but getting you to subscribe and get into Artlist.

Artlist couldn't be that naive to think all they had to do was purchase FXHome (I wonder how much they paid for it) and their subscriptions would soar, and the money would roll in.

Why would Adobe get Artlist to buy FXHome and kill it? To not look like the "bad" guy. I don't know how long Artlist has had direct plugin access to Adobe software, but I would think that Artlist believes they will do ok having it in the huge Adobe community.

Conspiracy? We will never know. It's just sad to see Hitfilm disappear.

>To not look like the "bad" guy.
Not something that ever seems to have worried Adobe in the past

It seemed that after the sale, the people behind FXHome slowly left the "stage" and moved on.

That was not the impression I had as I worked closely with them for the first few years after the Artlist acquisition. When VEGAS Post ended earlier this year, we work working with the same people (both management and engineering, all the way up to FXhome founder Josh Davies) that I had been working with since...well...Sony days. The only change I saw was that their focus was on "other projects" which I have no insider knowledge of. In fact, they added a significant number of new staff members (especially engineers) after the Artlist acquisition.

And I highly doubt that Adobe pushed them to kill HitFilm. That is not consistent with how Adobe operates.

I do not know what is coming from that group, but I do believe they are working on something significant. (It is just a feeling...nothing more. They never said much to us about what they were working on, though they were extremely busy.)

To me it this has the same feel when Sony Creative Software killed VEGAS and deciding to create the Catalyst products. The problem we had was that Sony did not provide significant enough financial backing to allow us the time to complete the project into a fully featured application. As a result, a project that needed 3 years to complete had to be shipped in 18 months just so we could bring in revenues to continue operations (which it did not anyway).

My hope is that Artlist is giving the former FXhome group the time and financial resources to create something huge and really cool. And it may still be another year or two away from coming to fruition.

But I could be completely wrong.

@VEGASDerek we are all "guessing" based on what we've seen and and how we personally feel. The way they changed things (Artlist) alienated a lot of HF users. And in spite of the hoopla about new things coming to Ignite Pro, I just never believed it.

The move of FXHome people, at least the ones in the public "eye" was gradual. Javert Valbarr comes to mind most because of the tutorials.

They did say they were adding new staff members after the acquisition, but in the end, what were the results? Promises unfulfilled. Users complaining, closed user forum, and now, officially, FXHome is gone. I know I am probably wrong in my speculations (conspiracy theories), it just saddens me that something that allowed users to actually do so many great things is now gone. And while I am not privy on the sales (profitability) of Vegas Post, at least it did offer an alternative to AE or Fusion to anyone out there at a much lower cost.

I AM REALLY late to the party. Was eager to post this livestream that's coming up in a virtually a few hours (5PM GMT) - it may potentially feature some of the old fxhome staff.

Its Jay Hanes hosting it - so its usually a very solid panel. They will be discussing Hitfilm.

This is our very own Mike talking about.

>So I wonder if Artlist was not asked by Adobe to buy the program
Why would Adobe get Artlist to do that rather than buying it themselves?

People seem quick to jump to conspiracy theories, when the simplest answer is that Artlist saw a synergy, an opportunity to become a one-stop shop for content creation, with HitFilm complementing their earlier acquisition of MotionArray. And then realised they'd bitten off more than they could chew, that setting up and maintaining an effective software division was more vastly more difficult (and, I suspect, costly) than they had expected.

Tbh, the idea that Adobe would conspire to "kill a competitor" is a bit laughable.

Adobe doesn't rely on its creative suite anymore. It has Commerce and Marketing applications. Around 21 of them. Almost at an EPM scale.

@Reyfox

Results take time and patience. Having been involved in product resets at two previous companies and seeing both asuccess and a failure, I believe that we are seeing exactly that. I think the Artlist UK group potentially has the chance to majorly succeed here with whatever it is they are working on. Josh had mentioned to us several times some hints about a new project that they wanted to do and wanting to move away from HitFilm..and this was a few years before the Artlist acquisition. If I was to guess, the acquisition was done partially to help fund this dream project that they had. These things take time and I have seen success with a company that allowed us the time to actually release something solid and complete (it took almost 5 years)...and I've seen failure (Sony Catalyst) where the funding evaporated and corporate pressures to release in half the need time doomed the project and that entire team.

We will see...but my gut tells me that Artlist UK is going to announce something this year and that the retirement of HitFilm is the beginning of that process.

He explains the real reason why Hitfilm ended