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?
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Larry says:
July 28, 2011 at 10:24 pm
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Leo Hans says:
July 28, 2011 at 10:43 pm
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Nivardo Cavalcante says:
July 28, 2011 at 10:47 pm
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Nivardo Cavalcante says:
July 28, 2011 at 11:01 pm
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Don B says:
July 29, 2011 at 12:04 am
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Marcus R. Moore says:
July 29, 2011 at 10:42 am
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nickeditor says:
July 29, 2011 at 6:30 pm
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nickeditor says:
July 29, 2011 at 6:38 pm
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Sean says:
July 29, 2011 at 6:49 pm
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Don B says:
July 29, 2011 at 11:52 pm
← Older Comments Newer Comments →Don:
I don’t totally agree with your last comment. As this post from a former FCP engineer at Apple shows, Apple creates software to sell hardware.
http://sachin.posterous.com/why-apple-built-final-cut-pro-x
So, my suspicion is that FCP will be tuned to work really well on a MacPro, rather than abandon the line. Just my two-cents.
larry
Larry,
Don’t forget Apple TV.
Apple may be thinking that Apple TV and alikes are the future of TV, not cable, not Sky/Direct TV.
Larry,
In a way, I agree with Don
FCP have to and the result, will be the last Mac Pro hardware to be upgraded, we see it and a total Apple disinterested in this segment. And no doubt she thinks of ending.
Steve wants to close the door with ending with Apple Computer. Leaving your legacy Apple Inc.
Where’s Randy Ubillos? Placed on a leash by Jobs?
Larry,
“Final Cut Pro 1.0 didn’t win over every Avid user, and Final Cut Pro X won’t win over every Final Cut Pro user. But they’ve laid the foundation for something incredible, and I can’t wait to see where it goes from here.”
– Does he still think the same way today?? When he posted in 06/30 he had no idea how poorly received the FCP X was.
“I worked on Final Cut Pro from 2002 to 2008. It was an amazing experience. The Final Cut Pro X project was just getting started when I left Apple. It was an ambitious and controversial move, but it made sense for Apple.”
– Wow.. 2008???? In 2011 this is what Apple releases?
Something I do not Sheir well.
If the timing is correct, iMovie 09 used part of the FCP X code ?
Larry,
I think that’s exactly my point. Apple *is* creating software to sell hardware. Mobile hardware. As they exit the pro software market how long will they want to sell Mac Pros? Also, Steve seems to be bent on making devices as thin and light as a piece of paper — the whole ‘zen’ thing. Everything they make these days is slimmed down to nothing. I’ll bet big, bulky Mac Pros just bug him to death 🙂
BTW – great respect and appreciation for your work over the years.
@ Don. I’m sorry, but I think that’s a spurious argument
The recent numbers indicate that Apple’s new MacBook Airs are increasingly their most popular product. People want light, unobtrusive computing. Especially when at it’s 3rd revision, the processing compromises that have to be made for this form factor are negligible for most people, and are way less than they were when the product was first announced. Much like how the use case gap has been narrowing between the MacPro and the iMac for the last few years.
If all you were doing is editing, from a processor perspective the need for a MacPro ended several years ago. It’s colourists, compositors and animators that still need the extra muscle that a 12-core mac pro with 64GB ram and a dedicated GPU can throw at a job. Expansion is the real advantage of a MacPro, and with thunderbolt available on every Mac by years end, you’d be able to be cutting R3D content off an 11″ Macbook air if you wanted to.
When you consider that my iPhone has more processing power than my G3 did less than 10 years ago, I think people need to stop leaning on old tropes that say that pro has to mean big and bulky.
No XML, no EDL’s, no Send to Soundtrack… ok! but, why not Send to Logic?
If the purpose of Apple is make a closed system Apple Logic can be a part of this, isn’t it?
Regards
Another question, why is the apple training & certification web down since 20th of july?
Regards
Awesome! Show after show filled with the same canned FX. Fact is, a laptop or even an ipad will eventually be able to edit pretty much anything by today’s standards. However, as desktops become more powerful, the real pros will continue to raise the bar. Remember when we used to wish for real time dissolves? Now we have real-time chroma keys! Faster computer=higher expectations. Apple has definitely dumbed down video editing for the masses but suggesting that our industry will be overrun by teenagers with ipads is pretty ridiculous.
Marcus,
I’m not sure “spurious” is the right word. The numbers don’t lie and the trends are clear. You even help make my point:
“with thunderbolt available on every Mac by years end, you’d be able to be cutting R3D content off an 11″ Macbook air if you wanted to.”
If that’s true, why offer Mac Pros at all? And would anyone argue that Steve’s design ethic is anything but smaller, lighter, simpler? And given Apple’s new mission as a consumer devices company …
Apple’s full product line will soon be completely consumer oriented. The word “Pro” in product names means absolutely nothing. You heard it here first 🙂