More to Final Cut Pro X than 'Focus' - X features and high-end TV

I hope to not offend too many people, I feel I need to speak out.

Apple is not helping the cause, they are not doing any useful marketing of Pro Apps, be it Logic,FCP X, or even Photos. The "In Action" page is a joke, we wet our pants when the Focus article was published, it is a text based article, not 25 frames of video anywhere on the site..Why???

The previous version of Final Cut IN ACTION webpage, had a mix of both text articles and video, the BBC video was what convinced me to invest, I saw it IN ACTION.. read being used, I could see a use and being that I work in news production, I really felt an attraction, it was the video and the testimony in the video that convinced me, now in 2015 Apple and we the users, accept gratefully the text..It is in a word cowpat to accept this...

There is not more to FCP X than Focus, we are letting Apple deliver a substandard product, if Ford or GM produced a substandard product, the market would reject the product, which happens from time to time, a car is designed, marketed with video and text to highlight the good aspects of the car, yet the car is a complete flop.. The buyer is educated, wants value, yet we do not apply this standard to Apple Inc..

Soldered hardware, 13 inch "professional" grade laptops, no 17 inch laptops, now 1 port that has to be a joke, you have to be brain dead to see this new USB-C as a decent answer, it is not, it is an epic failure..What happened to the storm ports, Lightining and Thunderbolt??? Obsolete with in 60 months???

FCP X is a joke, it is not all that powerful, it relies on a loyal band of unpaid self marketers to promote the brand, Apple has not provided any feedback on to when we are going to be upgraded, the next upgrade 10.1.5 is months overdue, and we all say nothing about the number of days, in fact we laugh and joke about it, I have seen on twitter FCP.co making jokes about the upgrading..

Why does FCP X not play well with Logic? Why not recode Color to be 64bit? I know I will have loads of responses to this, the fact is Final Cut Studio 2 or 3 works under Mavericks, and I assume it will under Yosemite, so it cannot be that impossible to find a way to get it working natively on Mavericks or Yosemite.

There is no 17 inch laptop, no more than 16GB RAM for laptops, come on this is not kindergarten, we need professional grade tools, there is a place for the new 1 port Macbook, as well as for Airs, if the moniker PRO is to be used in the sense of professional then it needs to be so, 4 or more RAM slots, faster RAM, 16-32GB RAM, the logic board is so small now shoving more RAM is not an issue.

If you are serious about the craft of editing, and I assume most of us are, then we have more than one Apple device, from the iphone, to the ipads, to the Airs, to the Retina Macbook Pro's, to the trashcan Mac Pro...Not forgetting the imacs..

So we edit on the trash can, using the imac, then if we need to edit on the road, we use the Macbook Pro or the air, using proxy files, the problem with FCP X, is that is does not allow for resizing and saving of layout, the design of the interface is amateurish, scroll bars in the timeline window, unable to zoom into the clips in listview, having to figure out work arounds for simple tasks.

We all remain mute, I am it seems the only one being vocal about this, and I rack up bad karma for it, I don't care, I am that kid that said "Why is the Emperor naked?" Hate me, I care less, that is your issue.

I hold Apple to a high standard, and they, Apple, hold themselves to an incredibly low standard, is the new Macbook a great design, NO, the retina Macbook Pro is a horrible design.

The biggest problem I find with the slow uptake of Final Cut Pro X, is a result of the 10.0 disaster, that is what people remember, of the negative comments around the launch, the parady video of how bad X was, rightfully people rejected the 10.0 series, but Apple has not spend $1.00 on counteracting this with in your face marketing...

The impression I get is that FCP X, in fact Pro Apps as a whole is a problem child that is bratty and annoying, making demands that simply do no longer fit into the model of what Apple is becoming, all things to all people, in other words only make products for the 90% of the market, forgetting the loyal 10% that consider themselves professional.

This is an universal issue, Avid and Adobe have insane rental options, not helping, I have not seem much marketing about that, there are camps that are loyal to one brand or another, due to the costs of rental of Avid and Adobe, I am stuck with my copy of Final Cut Studio 2 and FCP X.

Without regular updates, users can rightfully feel that they are being abandoned by Apple, there is no 2 way feedback on suggestions, for example I feedback about the Garageband Store not being available, no reply, and I have seen no other complaints, does this mean users have just given up and just accept what comes...

We are now waiting for NAB, or WWDC, or 2016 or 2017 or who knows for the next update. How hard can it be to publish minor updates on a Friday, or a Monday, to plug the holes in the App??? There are really small issues that could be updated more frequently than once every 180 days..

In fact, why is Apple being so secret in regards pro apps? It makes no sense when the world and their cat knows what is upcoming in the OS, be it iOS or OSX, we know there is a new iOS due, we know almost everything about PHOTO, yet Apple does not publish a beta version of FCP X updates to test, to get feedback on, if this occurs, then it is to a limited few, who use FCP X in one way, not the way I would use it.. So my needs are not addressed...A beta version would help..

If you submit more than say 30 feedbacks in a month, then you should be considered a beta tester, with access to new modifications to test...

I am a loyal Apple FCP X, just someone tired of the way Apple treats loyal users..

there is an easy solution to your problem: buy a PC and use Premiere or Avid.

What's funny and not so great about the focus article, the editors say FCP X is faster than other NLE but it took 11 months to edit? Better explain why it took 11 months as apposed to maybe 3 months.

11 months for a Hollywood feature is short. Some take 2-3 years.

FCPX does play well with LPX.

The MBP with a T'bolt drive edits just fine, even 4K material, I do it weekly.

USB-C is a great solution to help make laptops smaller and lighter, to make them easier to travel with, which is the whole purpose of a laptop. Is the new MacBook a "pro" machine? Nope, consumer, and marketed as such. But what is wrong with a single USB-C port? Seriously, what?


If you honestly think FCPX is sub-standard, go use PPRo or MC, and after six months tell me they're not also sub-standard.

Let’s stick to the facts.

@wildgiles:

I agree that statement can be somewhat misleading. The actual editing/finishing was done in 6 weeks. Pre-cutting was done on location during the shoot, which was done over a period of 11 months with many intervals.

Just imagine you make a documentary that takes a year shooting in different places. You may log your footage after every shoot and you may start organizing and pre-cutting some parts of the story. Then a few weeks later you have another shooting period and you also do some pre-cutting of that. When all the footage is shot you assemble the pre-cuts to create the final edit. That does not mean your editing has taken a year.

- Ronny

Well ... speaking as someone who has only been working with FCP X for about a year and a half ... though I have over 40 years as a full time professional photojournalist and using Apple hardware and software in my daily tasks since 1992 ... I think I have a completely different view.

1. There is certainly more than one "In Action" story on the Apple FCP X section of Apple.com.

2. I have owned 17" laptops in the past ... for portable use working on location, I don't miss the additional space and weight one bit. Plus, I can just hear the uproar about what the price would be for a 17" Retina MBP would be like.

3. The new Macbook is not designed, marketed or intended to replace the Macbook Pro ... so it's limitations in a "pro" environment are inconsequential.

4. I am of the understanding that no amount of additional RAM is as valuable as throughput when it comes to video editing. I have three 15" Macbook Pro laptops ... believe it or not one of them is a 2007 model I recently swapped out the stock HD for a SSD and it does very well with FCP X with 1080p ... and it only has 4GB RAM! It is a great little location editing station. I have never used proxy files by the way ... I'm always on deadline and don't have the time to render them.

5. How can you claim in one statement that "FCP X is a joke" ... then close with how "loyal" you are to FCP X and Apple. Then you rant about how long we have been waiting for 10.1.5 ... as though Apple owes you this update. I don't get it.

Let's compare ... FCP X was offered for sale in June 2011 ... if someone purchased the app on that first day their total cost of use up to today your total investment would be $299. Plus the fact not one single user was forced to buy FCP X ... Apple has always offered a trial version. No one should be surprised about what the app is ... or is not.

Over that same period that FCP X has existed, using the most current version of Premier Pro would be a minimum cost of $900. Avid would set you back substantially more.

While I agree that Apple is not perfect, nor is FCP X all it could be ... we've come a long way since it's disastrous opening venture.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, though it would be nice to opinions based upon fairness of the issues.

There is indeed areas where Apple could improve it's hardware design and software feature sets. though, I would consider the glass well more than half full ... otherwise I would not have ventured forth ... I'd be using something else.

ronny courtens wrote: I agree that statement can be somewhat misleading. The actual editing/finishing was done in 6 weeks. Pre-cutting was done on location during the shoot, which was done over a period of 11 months with many intervals.

Just imagine you make a documentary that takes a year shooting in different places. You may log your footage after every shoot and you may start organizing and pre-cutting some parts of the story. Then a few weeks later you have another shooting period and you also do some pre-cutting of that. When all the footage is shot you assemble the pre-cuts to create the final edit. That does not mean your editing has taken a year.

- Ronny

Got it right on the spot!

Thanks for the clarification ronny, that make way for sense.

ronny courtens wrote: The actual editing/finishing was done in 6 weeks. Pre-cutting was done on location during the shoot, which was done over a period of 11 months with many intervals.

Ronny, I'm not sure this is completely correct. From what I understand from Jan and Mike, it took 11 months, but this time does overlap with the production. They shot for 61 days over a 3-month period and then moved back to the lot in LA. Typically a DGA director gets 10 weeks for his cut. So that's another 3 months. So 6 months from the start, you have a director's cut and then go into screenings, reviews and revisions for a few months. Then mixing and grading for the finish.

One thing that is different is that there wasn't a set point at which the film was "locked" before turning it over to sound post. As I understand it, that was also proceeding concurrently. Sound and picture edit was interactive between the teams. In other words the point at which you could call it "locked" was much closer to the time of the mix than the traditional structured schedule. (Although quite a few films go that way these days.)

The bottom line is that post (including the location overlap) really did take 11 months, but that's actually a short timeframe by Hollywood standards.

- Oliver

I can can confirm Oliver's statement (though I haven't been involved in feature film since 2 years)

But here's some some for msJustine (and the others who want to have fun) about Apple hardware.
This includes a nice and creative abuse of subtitles - and shows the power of those

- Andreas

Seems that this topic has changed into a generic Final Cut Pro X/Apple discussion.

To repeat my first post here, I'd love people to contribute news of TV and feature work cut in Final Cut Pro X. Then when people we'd like to invite to use Final Cut will see more examples of 'high-end' work than Focus and the ones listed on the Apple site.


@Alex4D