This week, Apple sent notices to registered users of Final Cut Studio 3 (which includes Final Cut Pro 7, DVD Studio Pro, SoundTrack Pro and other apps) that it will not be supported – meaning the software won’t run – in the next version of the Mac operating system called “High Sierra.”
NOTE: You may not have gotten this notice if, like me, your email address changed after you initially registered the software.
Some websites trumpeted this as the “Death of Final Cut Pro 7.” But, truthfully, FCP 7 died five years ago; back when Final Cut Pro X was released. However, like all truly useful software, many of us have continued to use it long after its official demise.
Final Cut is what got me started in this business. First introduced in the Spring of 1999, I started using it in 2002 with version 1.2. That’s back when it was still called “Final Cut,” the “Pro” was added years later. Since that first release, Final Cut has gone through multiple changes with an entirely new industry springing up around it.
The world we work in today bears almost no resemblance to editing prior to 1990. Then, shooting video required cameras attached to technical support trucks, while editing required massive video tape machines costing a quarter-of-a-million dollars apiece. Film required shooting expensive film stock then using razor blades and glue to edit the finished product. Neither technology was cheap, easily accessible to beginners, or spontaneous.
The introduction of DV cameras and Final Cut changed the world – expanding video creation in areas that no one predicted. Video shooting and editing is now taught daily in elementary schools. Tens of thousands of college students are eagerly pursuing media careers. And the world has shifted from print to video – seemingly overnight.
Now the lack of support for Final Cut Studio doesn’t mean that any existing copies of the software will stop working. It just means that you won’t be able to upgrade to the latest version of the macOS and still run the software you love.
Specifically, you need to hang on to older hardware, running an older OS, for any editing for which you want to use FCP 7. This also rules out using more recent codecs or plug-ins.
On the plus side, there are plenty of alternatives to the program that started it all – Final Cut 7: there’s Apple Final Cut Pro X, Adobe Premiere Pro CC, Avid Media Composer and DaVinci Resolve; to name the four most popular professional programs. But there’s also iMovie and Clips, both of which run on your phone!
Take a minute to think about that: Over the last twenty years, video has moved from large mobile trucks to smaller DV cameras to cell phones. This doesn’t mean that professional tools have died, but, just as the consumer video market exploded with the advent of DV cameras, it has done so again with cell phone video. You only need to glance at any social media post to realize the impact video has on the everyday life of each of us today.
Still, this week seems a good time to reflect on the impact one software program has had on the lives of so many – from movie goers to film makers to the countless developers of utilities and plugins that supported it to… well, just about all of us.
When Final Cut was first released, Apple’s advertising slogan was “Think Different.” We did – and the world changed because of it. Final Cut is dead – yet Final Cut lives on; and video is more essential to our lives than ever before.
As always, I’m interested in your comments.
40 Responses to Apple Ends All Support for Final Cut Pro 7
← Older Comments Newer Comments →-
Dennis Csillag says:
August 28, 2017 at 5:43 am
-
Mark Suszko says:
August 28, 2017 at 6:10 am
-
Sharon says:
August 28, 2017 at 6:44 am
-
Larry says:
August 28, 2017 at 7:10 am
-
Larry says:
August 28, 2017 at 7:11 am
-
Justine-Paula Robilliard says:
August 28, 2017 at 7:23 am
-
Keith Woolford says:
August 28, 2017 at 8:03 am
-
Larry says:
August 28, 2017 at 8:07 am
-
Mike says:
August 28, 2017 at 8:56 am
-
Rick Garside says:
August 28, 2017 at 9:16 am
← Older Comments Newer Comments →Not to nitpick, but “Pro” was always part of the name at Apple. It was known as Final Cut only at Macromedia. 🙂
Larry, in my head, as I was reading your “In Memoriam” for FCP7, I could swear I heard Sarah Mclachlan’s “I Will Remember You” playing… 🙂
I like FCPX okay, but in some little ways, it still hasn’t caught up to things FCP7 did… I miss the audio rubber banding tool very much, for example. And like others have said, I keep an old system on the side, specifically to run DVDSP, so I don’t have to pay Adobe’s ransom, um, I mean, rent.
I have a specific question not addressed in your obit:Does this also mean Apple will delete their online supporting files and updaters used when loading FCS3 and FCP7 into, say, a freshly rebuilt old mac of the sort I’m using for DVDSP? Because that would be a drag.
“FCP7’s not dead: it just smells funny.”
Do you think Final Cut X is next to go?
Sharon:
Absolutely not.
Larry
Mark:
I don’t think any support files will be deleted.
Larry
It is indeed a sad day that a great app such as final cut studio has been deemed unsuitable for High Sierra. It is not iMovie and I really had hoped that Apple would be sensible and allow through the use of “sandboxing” 32bit pro apps in a 64bit operating system.
It is foolish to have have 2 full operating systems, the trouble that causes, the updating and so on…It really would not have been that hard to sandbox pro apps into 64bit, I would have paid for the app, no question, to run 2 operating systems is silly.
But what is more confusing is the decision to retard hardware when it comes to Final Cut Pro, both in the old and the new versions, with Studio you were limited to a fixed GB of RAM due to it being 32bit, now in 64bit Apple has reversed this trend by limiting upgrading post purchase of hardware.
Not everyone can afford at the time of purchase a BTO=build to Order-maximum hardware, you start small and over time, as funds come in, upgrade the RAM, that is what I did with my previous generation mac laptop, easy, buy the RAM, open the slot, install and yay…
Now I want to throw the laptop out the window..8GB is so not enough, I would pay to have the RAM installed, hell I would pay 4 times Apple TAX to have this done, even at 4x it would be a bargain. I know that the days of post purchase RAM and hard drive upgrades are long gone..
Why should it be??? Where is the outrage by the community???
So, will DVD Studio Pro definitely fall over when High Sierra arrives and what’s recommended to replace it?
Keith:
That’s what Apple indicates. And there is no direct replacement that I know of.
Larry
I miss working on FCP7/FCS3. My disappointment with FCPX runs deep, so Premiere Pro it is, and Avid when it has to be. Sometimes Lightworks gets a moment to shine every here and there, too. But FCP’s old incarnation is done, and it’s really time to move on – legacy projects needing recovery not withstanding.
DVDSP was great for its time, but Apple is done with physical distribution of media. They’re not going back, and any lamentation will be summarily ignored.
I have clients who still ask for SD DVD, but the number is dwindling. In many cases it’s those who don’t want to, or can’t, pay for something like Aspera Faspex. Sometimes it’s that they’re in locations where connectivity is inconsistent, or simply not fast. Or they don’t want to pay for 5th Kind, or MediaFly, or any of the long list of online services available that do video review. Security concerns aside, one could easily export a small frame size, low bit rate H264 and send it via Google Drive or Dropbox to serve the same function.
This should serve as a reminder that at some point we need to find our way out of our editing bays, break the chains of the old ways, and learn how others are solving these same challenges. We depend on our old workflows to inform the new, but we shouldn’t be artificially limited by them.
I am curious – this relates to those who have discussed using DVD Studio Pro on your El Capitan OS computers. I have DVDSP, and kept it on Mavericks, then tried using it recently and found that I could not select any colors under the button menu for highlight color, then select color and neutral color. (The drop down menu appears, but no colors are there) I assumed it was a bug using it with Mavericks because DVDSP was not meant beyond Lion. With that problem I could not use it on Mavericks. I ended up going back to a much older system I had on Lion and my button color selection allowed me to apply colors. Then I could create the DVD. Is this an unusual problem? Can anyone tell me what I need to do to use DVDSP on a newer system? (Pre Sierra, of course) Thanks, Rick