Final Cut Pro X was met with huge disappointment, anger, frustration and endless rants from editors to film directors who felt Apple’s new software took a major step back.
Final Cut Pro X was released to cater to semi-professional content creators and consumers looking for an easy to use tool to edit their videos. It’s no secret that short films and viral videos have become a big thing, and it was inevitable that Apple would have to make a product for this gap in the market, but we didn’t expect to see such a radical change.
Editors who invested thousands in Final Cut Pro 7 and editing suites built on that framework were resoundingly furious. Would there be any support for Final Cut Studio in the future? Eventually Apple put back the old Final Cut Pro for sale, and would support it with the latest plugins, but what about the future of editing?
Some editors called Final Cut Pro X “Apple’s Windows Movie Maker” with more features but in the end, editors will have to either switch to AVID, grumble and moan with Final Cut Studio as it gets phased out in a few years, or buy a much cheaper (but far less professional looking) Final Cut Pro X.
Have you got Final Cut Pro X? What do you think of it’s features and usability? Did Apple make a mistake this year?
Ted B.
January 3, 2012
I am a professional Editor. I do a lot of reality shows, commercials, music programming, reels what have you. I bought the new FCP X for personal use. It was very buggy but the concepts were interesting. However FCP X is never going to be pro because no edit house I work at will go anywhere near it. Even FCP shops won’t touch it because they changed the media management so much.
The biggest signal that it is a failure is that the VP of Post for Bunim/Murray hasn’t integrated the new version. Real World was the first show to be all FCP and even that guy won’t go near X.
FCP X is fun if your doing a small personal project (nothing too important) otherwise I would stay away from it. You won’t be hired to work as an FCP X editor.
Ken
January 3, 2012
I used Final Cut pro X for 2 months before deciding to purchase Premiere Pro. The transition for me was easer going back to Premiere Pro even not using it for 10 years because of the muscle memory than it was upgrading to Final Cut X. I found that the color grading and sound sweetening was weak in Final Cut X also and I still believe it’s a failure on Apple’s fault. They really messed up a good program, but I’m very happy to be using Adobe again.