I received the following email today from someone who needs to remain anonymous. However, I trust them and their opinion and wanted to share their thoughts with you here as a way to continue our discussion.
While I don’t agree with all of this, it does spark an interesting chain of thought.
Larry
P.S. I did not write this, nor did I ask it to be written. I have obtained permission to share it with you.
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Apple says that FCP X is about the future of NLE. After thinking about it, I think they are right.
It’s not just about the GUI or features per se… but the fact that our culture is going mobile and our work along with it. A new generation is growing up and moving them from iMovie to FCPX will be easy. Also the new generation will invent their own workflows and their own content and their own way of doing things. Apple may have jumped the gun in a way that made it impossible for a percentage of the current editing community to go along, but those folks are not the future. Not in the same way a 16-year-old iMovie whiz is.
Look at the big picture. Sales of standard PCs have fallen while portable products have been flying off the shelves. This is no fad, it’s the future.
Watch as the system requirements for NLE on the Apple side look more and more lean. Apple owns both hardware and OS, my bet is that they will leverage that to guarantee they are ahead of the curve in performance requiring smaller and smaller hardware overhead. It’s in this way, as the new generation of editors comes up, FCP will take back it’s place as the de facto platform for any level of project. I’m absolutely convinced (as is Apple) that sooner than you think, a teenager today will be working on an episode of “Extreme _____ Makeover” using an iPad__ with lots of storage on board. I already saw someone using an iPad as a 2nd display for FCP X and how some functions were already touch screen enabled. Those pissed off edit suite owners may be pissed off at what Apple has done, but just wait till all those up-and-coming digital kids start to see those very expensive edit suites as dinosaur grave yards.
That’s where Apple is headed and a powerful, sleek FCP that uses iCloud technology along with all the other new technologies is where the future really is. Does anyone remember those $250,000 edit suites that got replaced by a $1,300.00 Final Cut Studio, back in the day? Well, Apple is doing it again with one major change, this time they are obsoleting themselves before someone else does.
It really is the future, or at least it’s headed in that direction.
109 Responses to The Future of Non-Linear Editing?
← Older Comments Newer Comments →-
Phil Davison says:
July 26, 2011 at 5:39 pm
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Leo Hans says:
July 26, 2011 at 6:15 pm
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Peter Tours says:
July 26, 2011 at 7:30 pm
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Caesar Darias says:
July 26, 2011 at 7:42 pm
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Leo Hans says:
July 26, 2011 at 8:33 pm
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Nivardo Cavalcante says:
July 26, 2011 at 10:02 pm
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Nivardo Cavalcante says:
July 26, 2011 at 10:09 pm
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Leo Hans says:
July 26, 2011 at 10:42 pm
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Nivardo Cavalcante says:
July 26, 2011 at 10:43 pm
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Leo Hans says:
July 26, 2011 at 11:48 pm
← Older Comments Newer Comments →I teach editing at university at a postgrad level. I took FCPX in on my laptop and demoed it for the students – kids in their early 20s. They liked some of the cool things, but were dismayed by the same problems everyone else has noted. They want to use professional software.
I seriously doubt that there is a huge market for a grown up iMovie. If there was Final Cut Express would have sold better than FCP, and in my experience most teenagers saved up for FCP because the Coen bothers used it. I seriously doubt that there is a huge market for a grown up iMovie – if you are working on home movies, then iMovie is great, but if you have ambitions that go higher you will either want the pro features that FCPX lacks, or at least you will believe you want them.
I don’t actually think that FCPX is really that much cheaper anyway – add in Colour and Motion, and then add in the promised more frequent upgrade cycle, and factor in that you don’t have Color and Soundtrack pro (and will need to replace them). And then add in that this approach seems to rely more on third party add ons.
@Nirvado
People are switching without any logical reason.
If they really want to keep their hardware, they have to wait for the proper drivers. Apple sold a lot, really a lot of FCPX copies, hardware vendors are going to develop their drivers for it. (and that statement that FCPX won’t be supporting more than 8 bits is crap. Why would Apple develop 4k ProRes 444 support if that is true?).
People are switching because they are afraid, they assume Apple doesn’t care pros just because they sell lots of iPhones, iPads, and iPods. Apple made a huge investment in rewriting FPC from the ground with motion render inside of it instead of just upgrading iMovie if they wanted just to attract the masses.
Nobody should switch because AVID or Adobe are selling their software with a lower price tag. One thousand bucks don’t worth nothing compared to their hardware investment.
There are blogs from facilities owners jumping into Adobe Premiere a week before FCPX was launched because they are disappointed with Apple. Seriously? How many suites they have? five? ten?
Do you really thing the top-top business are ten seats of FCP? If you have lot of seats (not five) you simply don’t jump onto anything before waiting to see how FCPX evolves at least in a couple of moths. If you have 5 seats you have to invest 5.000 $ in order to avoid what? Jumping a couple of months later if things doesn’t change? What would you loose? 2k in discounts for a software is going to be upgraded in five moths asking you to pay more than 2k to update your five seats? They are overreacting trying to get press about that.
How many facilities run FCP6 still? Or Avid MC 3.5 and didn’t upgraded to 5.5? Avid community avoids upgrades until a few months since released (the same as ProTools community). So, I don’t care of what desperate-without-a-reason people is doing.
I stay calm, learning FCPX while editing with FCP7 and Avid as always. Waiting to see what happens avoiding hormonal oriented decisions.
With all due respect to my FCP guru, I care not about the 16 year old iMovie whiz and a lot more about continuing my business without interruption.
Hans, are you saying that FCP X right now supports a camera like the Panasonic AG-HPX370? I can shoot video using AVC-Intra 100 at 10-bit, 4:2:2, 10-bit sampling and edit in X?
I ask for two reasons: First, I’m very interested in the upcoming release of the Panasonic AG-HPX250. Second, Apple’s list of supported cameras is very short.
http://help.apple.com/finalcutpro/cameras/en/index.html?
@Caesar
Not at all.
I you don’t Need to use fcpx right now.
The fact that it’s not ready yet for that doesn’t mean it will not be en a few months from now.
Until that you can still do the same as before fcxp released.
Why people see all in black or white?
@Leo
People are changing that Apple allowed them to look beyond their windows with a large patch from Apple that made you proud. But she was honored to meet these people like me. Regardless of the promises of Apple, I no longer believe in them, people may decide to change, not yet made up my mind, I’m still using FCP 7, but I know that FCP X does not suit me. Today my files have approximately 20TB native XDCAM material, RED, 5D, DVCProHD and do not need that each job has to start all the material duplicated in my suite. Adobe Premiere Pro is a great tool because I can work with all that stuff natively.
The breach of trust goes far beyond what works for whom. During the three years she lied about a new version of FCP, and what we receive on June 21 was a program that ignored our work, our customers, our investment in Apple Pro solutions. And I do not feel comfortable supporting a company like this. As someone said before, the Crystal of trust has been broken. The FCP X as told by Apple is a paradigm shift, but the paradigm that was broken was that of confidence. Today everything around him are promises that will come improvements in the near future, and so she said in 2009 when we promised an FCP 8, which could continue our projects, we wanted performance, bug fixes, hear what I asked. She chose to ignore us and impose a change that is not wanted, not now, maybe if we were not presented in an arrogant manner. Everyone has their own interest in FCP X, each offering their products to continue. When Apple invited Larry and the others it was extremely ardiloza, doing this would ensure that they would speak well about the program in their tutorials. In other words, teachers need to when it is released, because people felt that the program is difficult to use, but teaching them, we can handle their curiosity to learn.
Many will change, are changing.
Many of us respect Apple, and paid the price she was asking us, and we offer?
Did they all ask for the FCP X?
I know what I want, not Steve Jobs.
I do not remember anyone asking for refund of previous FCP.
Nirvado,
I respect your opinion, but I not agree with you.
There were a base of 2M users of FCP. Do you really think that 2M people thinks like you and people switching?
http://www.finalcutters.com/gallendar
For many of these FCP X will not do.
Nirvado, the bloggers are just a part of the editors, not everyone who posts on the web.