Does FCP Target The Pro Market?

After reading the whole tread, I think there seems to be answers to two different questions. Is Apple producing products (both software and hardware) for Professionals and is FCPX a professional editing application. I think the bigger question is what do we call “professional”?

Anyone can go to B&H and Apple sites and purchase for under $25K a 4K production/Post Production setup. I remember owning a company and making the jump to HD and spending 2 million. I have said to people in the past, I can teach anyone the basics of how to edit. Hell you can read the online help pages to learn how to use the app. But it takes a certain kind of person to understand the tools and how to tell the story that needs telling. Dare I say professional?

‘simonpwood’ is right that a product was made with more than one specific market in mind. Was/is it the wedding videographer market that Ben mentioned? Hollywood creating films like Focus that was highlighted here on FCP.co? Companies that have their own production department for their corporate videos? Editors like myself that edit outdoor series like fishing and automotive shows? Look at Ford with the F150 - a purpose built vehicle that I see more of on the road driven by women taking kids to school than on a construction site or doing the hard work they were originally designed for (I work on a car show so I had to toss the the truck analogy in). BTW I am looking at buying a F150 myself so no attack on women or anyone buying a pick-up for any use other than construction.

I can honestly say I enjoy waking up every day coming to work and sitting down in the suite and start cutting away on FCPX, and when I am exporting or need a coffee break, coming here to FCP.co to see whats new in the world of FCPX!

Anyone who thinks FCPX isn't for professional use is more than welcome to pay my tax bills for me.

All those nowadays-daredevils in their wingsuits, on their bikes, riding watercanons - are they 'pro'?
Not to forget those -zillions of teachers, telling me how to be a magician, zombie, dancer - are they 'pro'?
Finally those rappers, philosophers, artists - are they 'pro'?

Mostly not :pinch:

But some yes.
And they have a tool at hand, which allows'em to share their story to the world.
To me.

I like that, not wasting a second to think "is that professional?" …

There is a caste of ol'men, debating that, origin "If anybody can handle it, it's not pro!"… yup, keep talking, you miss the presence! :lol:

Like in sport, a professional makes his/her living in the doing of the thing, an amateur does not...We use FCPX as a tool to generate income, the faster, cheaper, on budget and ON TIME we are determines how much we money we make..

Amateurs can afford to waste time, they do not have the same drive to deliver as the editing is a secondary source of income, we as professionals this is our income, we cannot afford delays..

So with this in mind, why are we allowing Apple to delay?? Of course Apple does not regard video editing a professional career, this is of course my opinion, based on what I read, and the evidence, actions or lack thereof speak volumes, I am sure if Apple was more open, and really they could be a tad more open, they are very very very open about upcoming updates in iOS and OSX beta testing, why not have an open beta testing FCPX project???

I would love to test new ideas, report back on issues, from a user point of view...I still am of the firm belief that Apple Inc is not in the near future going to target a tiny segment, but leave the focus as wide as possible, for the non professional to get access.

Maybe it is just me, but I regard what I do as an art, a craft, something that takes years to hone, to develop, knowing what buttons to press, that is easy, that is not art, that is simple mechanical learning, easy, the hard part is knowing what works in terms of visual/audio, creating the right look using color correcting, audio enhancements...that is the art of the professional...

Why has Apple not bought Avid, or Sony or maybe why not buy BlackMagicDesign? I am sure that this would not hurt Apple savings, Apple has so much money just waiting to be used, these companies and others in the market would show that Apple is taking a keen interest in the production and post production business.. Apple did spend a whack of cash on the company that produced Color before it was Color in Final Cut Studio 2..

If I am not mistaken, Apple recently did this with Logic Pro, bought some fancy pants company and included a synth in the recent update of Logic..As far as I can remember when was the last video post production company purchase included into Final Cut Pro X?

Dear MsJustine,

I personally think that your posts here are at the right forum:

Off Topic
The place for everything else. Funnier the better.

Your posts are far away from anything of the theme "Does FCP Target The Pro Market?". But as said this forum is "The place for everything else. Funnier the better."

I've serious doubts that you have read what Ronny, Ben and others said. In case you did you obviously didn't understand or maybe you've tried the satiric way. In latter case you should rebuild your pre-build phrases or find better combinations.

In case you don't want to use your fun approach (I personally do have serious doubts) you obviously never read the FCPX release notes.

There have been a lot of notes for the past releases which could make a real professional think "Hmmm" (in a positive way).

Just take the recent release notes.
One think was "Asset management systems can include a library backup file when sharing from Final Cut Pro"

A lot of real pro people thought - what could that mean for us?

One result was published at IBC from a very big, important and somehow major third party companies: Archiware.
Here a part of their press release:

"(Munich/Amsterdam, 28.08.2015) Archiware GmbH, manufacturer of data management software suite Archiware P5, is launching the P5 Archive App at IBC 2015. The P5 Archive App allows archiving and restore of files, folders and Final Cut Pro X projects directly from the Finder.

At IBC, the most important trade show for the broadcast and media industry in Europe, the Archiware product line P5 will be shown and supported by the largest number of partners ever. This year, 25 hardware and software companies make up the list of P5 compatible products - with NEC Corporation and NEXSAN by Imation joining the ever-growing partner network.

...

This add-on radically simplifies the Archiving process by allowing users to archive and restore files directly from Finder via the right-click context menu, without the need to open P5 Archive itself. Metadata can be added when archiving. All jobs are listed in a monitoring window for verification. Archived files and folders are represented by a link which displays metadata and previews on double-click. Final Cut Pro X projects are archived and restored including all media used in the project. The P5 Archive App will be available for Mac initially, with more platforms to follow in the future."

I think that's pretty clear and confirms what Ben's op and the other that.

FCPX is not really intended for a small group of pros but there are a lot of hooks for them to do big scale pro company work.
Probably Ronny as always know these little hooks - but why he should talk about. No real reason for him except he wants to take over Apple's marketing and loves to evangelize millions of using LTO tapes with FCPX.

- Andreas

Comparing relatively small software development businesses, to very large corporations such as Avid, BMD, Sony,isn't that just so cute, that someone thinks they're the same. And so entertaining to envision that Apple has a ton of "cash" in a big savings account, at the local bank. Got my day started off with a chuckle.

So, Apple is "targeting" the largest segment of the video post market, but still adding high end pro features. Seems like a smart move. Pros will pick up whatever works for them, and FCPX is being picked up by more and more pros.