New release

Apologies - I'm a newbe to FCP and currently use iMovie infrequently.

I'd quite like to buy FCP, but in no rush. Is there any sign on the horizon of a new release for me to wait before purchasing? I appreciate intermediate releases are provided, but I wondering if there were any rumours of a new product that would require re-purchasing.


Many thanks

No updates are charged for, they're all free. So it doesn't matter. And, no one has any clue when the next release is, not even Apple probably. There is a free 30 day trial version you can download. But just buy it, updates are free.

Many thanks. I understand updates would be free when available, but. I wasthinking in terms of replacement product (e.g. FCP ZZZ) that replaces FCP X.

No. Buy FCPX now and don't look back.

Apple has a 10 year development plan in place for FCP X. There won't be anything to replace it for some time.

Though at some point Apple is going to have to start charging something. I'm surprised the 10.0.6 wasn't 10.1 with some kind of price tag. Is there any mechanism in the App Store for upgrade pricing?

No, the App Store currently has no paid upgrade ability. Since there is no packaging, distribution, etc, costs, why would they need to charge for some future upgrade?

BenB wrote: No, the App Store currently has no paid upgrade ability. Since there is no packaging, distribution, etc, costs, why would they need to charge for some future upgrade?

Because at some point, everyone who wants to buy FCPX will have it, and without additional revenue from on-going sales, they'd kill the project.

"Because at some point, everyone who wants to buy FCPX will have it, and without additional revenue from on-going sales, they'd kill the project."

If this were true, that means Avid and Adobe should not be having any "new sales" at this time. But lots of people are buying new products every day, paying for training every day, which means pretty much all software has ongoing sales. Including FCP. Even FCP 7 had huge ongoing sales, although FCP had been around for many years.

I've worked for many software dev companies for many years as an IT engineer, and I can assure you, upgrades are NOT profit makers in any way, shape or form. Ongoing sales are.

Normally, for a software company, upgrades drive both new purchases and provide some defraying of development costs. It drives new purchases because it creates both buzz and the warm fuzzy feeling that the company cares about its customers and is actively improving its product. This creates customer loyalty, which in turn becomes about new licenses as well.

But in Apple's case, upgrades drive new hardware purchases because eventually, some of the upgrades involve the need to access fancy new hardware implementations like faster bus speeds or 64bit computing. ML has EOL'ed quite a few 5 year old computers (my MacPro 2,1 for example) because you'll be stuck on Lion forever now and all those fancy new features from ML and beyond are out of your reach.

BenB wrote: "Because at some point, everyone who wants to buy FCPX will have it, and without additional revenue from on-going sales, they'd kill the project."

If this were true, that means Avid and Adobe should not be having any "new sales" at this time. But lots of people are buying new products every day, paying for training every day, which means pretty much all software has ongoing sales. Including FCP. Even FCP 7 had huge ongoing sales, although FCP had been around for many years.

I've worked for many software dev companies for many years as an IT engineer, and I can assure you, upgrades are NOT profit makers in any way, shape or form. Ongoing sales are.

That's the whole point. They can't keep giving away stuff for free. They are going to have to start charging for these 'upgrades' at some point.

That's likely to be full price again .... which people will bitch and moan at, but that's the way it goes.

Avid and Adobe both have upgrade programs, even though they are both MUCH more expensive.

I would add, I don't have a problem paying full price again IF the upgrade is worth it, provided they don't also hike the price higher at the same time.

Software-only companies can't afford to have their primary products be loss-leaders and in general their business models depend on users paying as they go. Whether by purchase, subscription or maintenance model, software companies price their products according to their market segment (individuals, large institutions, pros, consumers), the application's uniqueness and the value it creates for the user.

When hardware companies also sell software that only works on their machines, then the pricing of the software (apart from the what the market will bear) is within a more complex eco-system of countervailing trade-offs. Apple decided that ML was better priced at $20 to give fewer people incentive to stay with older operating systems than to recoup their costs directly through license purchase. They may have priced FCPX at $300 with free upgrades to keep more people on Mac platforms.

They're all just making it up as they go along and seeing what works better.

As to the OP's question, there's no reason to assume that Apple is going to ditch a piece of software that is 1.5 years old and beginning to gain traction in favor of something "better".

Live in the here and now!

Undoubtably, there will be paid upgrade in the future. I cannot even fathom that FCPX's "10 year roadmap" is 10 years of free incremental upgrades to anyone who buys at $299.

Right now the stumbling block is the appStore.

Upgrade pricing would be a new feature (and one that Apple thus far hasn't shown much interest in), and so I think the EARLIEST timetable would be that it would be introduced to developers at WWDC in June, and implemented with both the OSX and iOS updates in the fall. So if a upgrade-price 10.1 was in the cards, it couldn't be until the Fall.

The only other option is a full $299 upgrade, which I also would have no problem paying for if the right set of features was put forth.

But while after 10.0.6 I was dubious about whether we could see another full year before a major (paid) update, I'm starting to think that 10.1 is a ways off right now. There are still some big areas for the software to improve. And if Apple keeps it free for now, they keep their customer base very happy and loyal.

While I'd never say never, I also can't see either a paid upgrade or paid new version in the near future. If FCPX is to sell hardware it has to be to be a bigger driver of computer purchases. One might expect FCPX sales are "brisk" right now because, at $300, it's a worthwhile cost to experiment with. There's still far too much resistance to it IMHO. If there's resistance to it, there may also be resistance to hardware purchases needed to run it. At the very least FCPX wont have a paid upgrade until sometime after the MacPro replacement comes out.

In the near future, a paid upgrade or purchase may result in a significant decline in use for those still in the "experimental" stage who bought after the 30 day trial period.

PaulG wrote "But in Apple's case, upgrades drive new hardware purchases because eventually, some of the upgrades involve the need to access fancy new hardware implementations like faster bus speeds or 64bit computing."

Coincidentally, Larry Jordan was tweeting about the idea of new Mac Pro's on the way...

www.larryjordan.biz/app_bin/wordpress/ar...ter&utm_medium=email

I and many others would be disappointed if we had to pay to get all the functionality that was taken away from version 7. When they've achieved parity, then ill be happy to pay for more features.

I'm curious, Seanus. What does that list look like today for you? What critical functionality is left to reintroduce?

Disproportionate Pictures wrote: What does that list look like today for you? What critical functionality is left to reintroduce?

Long form audio is still a major issue from multi cam. There are a couple of workarounds, but neither are perfect.

Expanding the audio from one cut (muting all others) then expanding to cover start to finish seems the popular method, but as soon as you want to cut a couple of seconds here and there to tighten up the edit you are screwed.

Copying all the audio to separate tracks is both messy and liable to getting audio out of sync.

Not having per-track metering is a pain too.

So, audio is still the big one for me.

I think the triumvirate of OS 10.9, MacPro Replacement, FCPX free update, will drive purchases. It's why I don't think they'll be any paid FCPX upgrade in the near future.

• 10.0.3, when FCPX added multicam they added Gang. I thought that Ganging would be a feature when they added the Dual Viewer.
• In 10.0.6 FCPX added the ability to have a separate Scope under each Viewer.. but no ganging.
• I suspect what Apple wants to do is give you Ganging with Dual active Scopes. Currently only one scope is active. In order to do that they must have the code and the hardware that can play two clips (possibly 1080 or larger given the sources) real time.
• I suspect the CPU/GPU resources would happen with the MacPro replacement.
• I also believe there's code in FCPX that allows AVFoundation in OSX 10.6.8 which doesn't have AVFoundation built into the OS. The next FCPX may drop that code.
* This will mean that people still using FCPX under 10.6.8 and quite possibly still using MacPro from 2006, 2007, maybe 2008, may decide to buy new systems. Those on capable systems but still using 10.6.8 will have to update the OS.

Basically the FCPX update around the time of 10.9 and/or MacPro replacement will be designed to purchase systems or, at the least, drive another round of OS updates. Charging for FCPX is not going to encourage that.

Disproportionate Pictures wrote: I'm curious, Seanus. What does that list look like today for you? What critical functionality is left to reintroduce?

Multiple scopes visibile for color grading would be another. Basically the ability to do shot to shot matching as well.
Better collaborative workflow for facilities.