FCPX 2013 - A speculative blog series.

Hey Everyone. Happy new year. Starting this week I'm going to be exorcising my own thoughts on FCPX in 2013. I have at least 4 more articles sketched out for this series, ranging from whether 2013 will be 10.0.XX year or a 10.1 year, to how some of FCPX's features might evolve over the year.

I could have kept refining this article for another week, I think it's still rambles. But if I didn't hit "publish" it would have just sat in my drafts box like the last two I started.

Please read and enjoy

FCPX 2013, PART 1 - A Look Back at 2012

Love it! Good work.

FCPX will have a lot coming out of the box in 2013!

Sorry for hijacking this thread but thought it might be good to keep all crazy ramblings in the one place.

Have been thinking a lot about the new Mac Pro and what it could be.
Then thinking about FCP X and its radical redesign and a comment from Michael Wohl at LAFCPUG.
He suggested that the developers insisted that FCPX MUST be able to run on one screen.

With everything that Apple has learned about touch. Could it be that the new Mac Pro will be a giant touch screen? Imagine it. A 27 - 30" touch surface that could also support two "viewing" monitors connected via Thunderbolt. A whole new slew of gestures to support editing, Colour correction etc.

Could this explain the delay in other Pro Apps like Logic Pro X and Aperture X? Was FCP X released too soon, with Apple making the mistake of bowing to pressure to update FCP 7 before they had the real hardware FCP X was designed to run on ready to go?

Apple do like to think different. Imagine how cool your clients would think FCP X was if they came into your edit suite with you cutting Minority Report style on a slightly tilted glass slate?

The same goes for photographers and Aperture X. If you've used iPhoto on the iPad you realize what a fantastically visceral experience it is compared to Aperture on the Mac.

Seanus wrote: … He suggested that the developers insisted that FCPX MUST be able to run on one screen.
… Could it be that the new Mac Pro will be a giant touch screen? …
Could this explain the delay in other Pro Apps like Logic Pro X and Aperture X?… .

one screen = another word for 'keep the interface simple'

single-screen-case device = how to maintain that in a professional surrounding?

delay … = the new GUI was presented/'field tested' four (!) years before FCPX reached the shelfs - as iMovie-b/v.08. So, FCPX had a loooong developing phase. If you like to do such a radical new design with e.g. Logic, I assume you need a few years too.

and next Logic's improvements will not be wooden strings as in Garageband ... :silly:

I'll be interested to see what you're thouhgts are in part 2. I really moved properly to FPCx in 10.0.6 after playing with it previously, doing the old try CS6 route but now I love using FCPX. It still has some major things needed.

The Media Management in terms of archiving projects with just the footage you used (not the whole 'clip' but the range with handles. The functions Clip Exporter gives added into the program so I can export clips from a project with handles would both be very very useful.

I suspect a big challenge the developers face with handles is that as part of management, the entire source clip's metadata may need to be managed into the section of the clips being used. That could be a bit more complex than simply chopping the file.

Part 2 should be up tomorrow. It focuses on the WHAT, WHEN, and HOW of FCPX updates for 2013. It's not a prediction (though I end with my own thoughts), but more a list of the possibilities Apple has to choose from, and why they might go any particular way.

After that, I'll be turning my attention to specific areas of improvement in the software.

FCPX 2013, PART 2

Grab a coffee or a drink and settle in while I pontificate on the possibilities for this year.

I seriously doubt 10.1 will be a paid update.

Back in a few years ago v4.5 was a free update to v4 users

Also, with the still sour opinions about X from some major players in the field, charging for the upgrade will only make matters worse

Thanks for a thoughtful post.

I think OS 10.9 is going to be part of the next major tremblers. The MacPro Replacement will be released either shortly before or after the OS.

Underpinnings of the OS will be critical for collaborative workflow. It will be the first OS FCP legacy won't run on, support OS 10.6.8 will drop with the release of FCPX post OS 10.9... likely related to the dropping of code that used AVFoundation in FCPX on 10.6.8. I also suspect we may see some more speed improvements in FCPX as it ties into hardware the MacPro replacement (2 16 lane GPUs possible for example).

Of course all that is debatable (it's a crystal ball after all) but my hunch there will be a period of weeks (8-12 week period) in which things will ratchet up dramatically.

With that my guess would be audio, roles and related will be major release 1 going into NAB and major release 2 with OS, MacPro Replacement will be collaborative workflow related.

I miss a few things you should think about in your considerations:

the consumer apps have a number-scheme based upon release-date (iMovie08, 09, 11) - just the INTERNAL vers. number counts steady (iM11 is vers 9)

the hardware has meanwhile no number-scheme at all (the new iPhone v5 is an 'iPhone') …

that, plus 'instant delivery' via AppStore makes it obsolete to apply version numbers!

the next upgrade (not update) will be named 'FCPX'.
(it will have an internal version number, plugin makers will love the confusion)

My assumption is, Apple 'expects' you to be up-to-date any time = no need for numbers. and, older Apple policy: updates are free, upgrades cost.-

Good post I agree with most of your speculation.

I'm sure it won't be a paid upgrade. Also there is no reason why Apple could choose to release versions 10.0.10, 10.0.11 and so on. They've done it before with the OS.

My guess is the next major developments for FCP X will come mainly from changes to the OS (Collaborative workflows) and other software (Logic Pro X, Motion X and Compressor X).

Where the Event - Project paradigm will be unified across all apps and the Cloud.

Part 1: "Released on November 16th 2012, FCPX 10.0.2 was in itself a minor maintenance release"

I assume there is a typo here

Part 2:
I agree pretty much. I would add that I would actually be willing to pay for the upgrade that brings true collaboration without having to copy around database files, and official ways to share / merge event media, preferably without a SAN!

I'm also desperately looking for more audio improvements. Having bus mastering with meters is critical. Only yesterday I was editing a muticam with 14 audio tracks and there's a 'bump' I can hear, but can't see on the wave forms. Normally you'd be able to see this on the meters, but alas we don't have them. While we can export to Audition or ProTools, it's messy and time consuming. Maybe if they can work some magic and have Logic parse the project and be able to use that as the mixing tool then we can all just get over it and carry on

And of course, full round tripping with Motion please!

Dave, correct me if I misunderstand, but we do have meters. You can make them big and fat, too. And we do have an audio bus, so to speak. It's called a Compound Clip, which works exactly like a mixer bus does. But I'd not look for too much audio, as FCP X is not a DAW. I would look for integration with Logic X, which from what I understand is not an "update" but a complete "rewrite" from scratch.

Just two off the top of my head thoughts:

The dev team has a list with hundreds of features to incorporate into FCP X. They have to give them priorities. Only so many can be done at one time. I'd not expect a single huge upgrade that adds tons of stuff at once. That actually goes against the App Store model. But user feedback does help drive those priorities.

FCP X is built on Apple's on "Core Data" database system. From what I'm told all Apple branded apps now are required to run on Core Data. That means easier integration between everything. And I do mean EVERYTHING Apple develops now. That means some apps need major rewrites from the ground up. Bear in mind that there is not a single piece of FCP 7 code or technology in FCP X. This means any new feature needs to be hashed out in terms of how it will be implemented and GUI issues, then written from scratch. Very time consuming.

pollux wrote: I seriously doubt 10.1 will be a paid update.

Back in a few years ago v4.5 was a free update to v4 users

Also, with the still sour opinions about X from some major players in the field, charging for the upgrade will only make matters worse

4 to 4.5 was the HD update, with only some addition workflow improvements.

Again, you can't think of 10.1 as an iterative update. 10.1 would be the equivalent of Final Cut 11. There will come a point where Apple will want to re-comoditize the FCP user base. And just like with legacy versions of FCP, they will need to present a spectrum of new features and upgrades which will make it worthwhile. They can't continue to upgrade FCPX for free ad infinitum. I think we still have a few more updates worth of free updates to go, but there will come a time when the software has to turn the bend.

To be blunt, Apple can't proceed with FCPX development worrying about whether they're going to piss off a certain group of people. Cause there is a group of people that will ALWAYS be pissed off at FCPX. Those people will say whatever the feature-set of 10.1 is, that it's what it should have been at 10.0.

As an FCPX user, if tomorrow Apple launched 10.1 with bus-based mixing, collaborative workflow, enhanced Roll support, dialogue transcription, or any of the other big features I mention, I'd pay $299 for it in a heartbeat!

Dave_EP wrote: Part 1: "Released on November 16th 2012, FCPX 10.0.2 was in itself a minor maintenance release"

I assume there is a typo here

Corrected. Thank you and Alex4D for that!

BenB wrote: Dave, correct me if I misunderstand, but we do have meters. You can make them big and fat, too. And we do have an audio bus, so to speak. It's called a Compound Clip, which works exactly like a mixer bus does. But I'd not look for too much audio, as FCP X is not a DAW. I would look for integration with Logic X, which from what I understand is not an "update" but a complete "rewrite" from scratch.

Hey Ben. The problem with compounding is that you loose secondary elements connection to the primary storyline. Also when you move into a compound clip to make adjustments, you can't see or hear anything from the main Project. I would love to see a collapsable/expandable Role group, so that you can zero in on parts of the mix, and keep your timeline less cluttered.

One of the major parts of my next article, ROLES, will be dealing with how that information will hopefully affect timeline organization, AND audio mixing.

I agree that FCPX isn't a DAW, and one of the more interesting questions is where Apple caps FCPX's audio functionality, and when it just makes more sense to move to ProTools/Logic.

As an Apple cert'd trainer since v.4, I can say there have always been a sizable customer base who've hated not just FCP, but Apple in general. I've stopped arguing with them long ago. I'm sure Apple couldn't care less about that segment, and are well aware of who they are. Apple is in fact listening and communicating with its user base more than ever.

And, to paraphrase the sneak peak clip of the new JOBS movie coming in April, "How does someone know what they want if they've never seen it?"

BenB wrote: Dave, correct me if I misunderstand, but we do have meters.

We do have meters, but only for the final stereo or 5.1 output. We don't have meters for each audio source. So, with (for example) 14 'tracks' of audio, you can't see small bumps and variations on a given 'track' in it's meter (which would be obvious) and while you can point to the waveforms it's often hard to see there too.

You could solo each track too, and use the meters for that track only, but isn't this just slowing us down all the time? Audio is by far FCPX's biggest weakness and I really hope they address it soon.

In both FCP7 and Premiere Pro you have meters for each source track. In Premiere Pro you can also add sub mix groups etc.

While you could say 'take all that to protools', that's no good if you need to make additional tweaks to the video later on. We can't always get picture lock prior to needing to sweeten audio.