Clam Down...Apple says missing features coming soon.

"Apple knows what they are doing."

If you believe that statement then that means Apple does know what they are doing. Its called a middle finger to the Pro Editors. My hope is that they were ignorant to what they did and they plan on making it right.

Hahaa - don't engage NighNinjaPDX! He's just trolling!

FCPX = New Coke

Avid should declare victory and give all of their employees the day off like Pepsi did.

Avid can still afford employees?

You can still buy FCS 3 at B&H (and likely other vendors a s well) http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/639275-REG/Apple_MB642Z_A_Final_Cut_Studio _3.html

I don't believe that these features are merely missing, sadly. I believe that these features (with the exception of Multicam, which I can't imagine not being supported sooner or later) are indicative of a change in direction, away from an already crowded, competitive, and rapidly evolving market, and towards strengthening the Apple-centric universe of content delivery and consumption.

Look at what FCPX is - it's a wonderful tool for producing content for iOS devices and the web. Look at what FCPX isn't - compatible in any way, shape, or form with pre-existing workflows or SMPTE standards.

FCS 3 was a hodgepodge of different software designed by different companies, all relying on a 12-year old 32-bit framework for media management and convoluted procedures for roundtripping content amongst the applications. Likewise, the AV Foundation framework used in iOS, Lion, and, indeed, FCPX and QTX, and is hardware-optimized for very specific formats (in stark contrast to, say, Flash). And at the same time, Apple has very little incentive to drive content away from an iTunes-centric cycle of media consumption.

Apple is battling for web supremacy, now - with Google dropping H.264 support for Chrome, Apple refusing to add WebM support for Safari (*edit: it seems I'm mistaken here), and Adobe struggling to keep Flash alive in an HTML5 / iOS-compatible world... I mean, Apple is trying to do away with every sort of non-cloud-based format, be it a DVD for your software installation, a Blu-Ray for your Apple TV, a cd for your... anything, and, apparently, a tape to traffic your spot or submit your film. Apple wants your TV to come through the internet, your music on the cloud, your movies rentable on iTunes, and they want to endorse content that will drive their eco-system.

If Apple releases DVD Studio Pro 5, I'll eat my shoe. I'll be equally surprised if they don't EOL Color either, there's no use in continuing to support standards for an industry you're ultimately competing with. Avid, Blackmagic, Autodesk, Iridas, and so forth can concern themselves with that... if they'll even run on Lion.

And, to that end, why even make Mac Pros anymore? All they do is provide pesky choices. With an iMac and Thunderbolt, you have your display built right-in and your graphics card options quite limited - Apple can "automatically gamma correct" whatever they want, so long as it looks best on an Apple device.

I think it's pretty clear that Apple knew exactly what they were doing. Take the decision to eliminate Color and replace it with the inadequate and mostly automatic color correction tools in FCPX. While the FCPX tools may be a modest improvement on the 3-way color corrector in FCP 7, they do not come close to the toolset in Color. Apple acquired Color to compete with the color correction tools in Avid's products and apparently have simply decided they no longer want to compete in the pro video arena, since Avid still has those tools. The same is true of the audio tools in FCPX versus Soundtrack Pro, and they went even further and eliminated the ability to roundtrip to Logic Pro. I don' see any way these decisions could be an oversight. It appears to me that Apple simply does not want to keep paying the development costs for the Pro Apps, so they tried to slip in a juiced up version of iMovie hoping no one would care. I don't think that worked, if I may indulge in a little bit of understatement. Every day that Apple remains silent on it's plans (or lack thereof) to provide these tools in future updates convinces me that this is the case.

i've been censored when i asked people to rate FCPX (repost):

Strangely enough.... latest WebKit nightly builds now support WebM

Huh. I didn't know that.

Tear*

I fear that your statement is correct. Im giving it a month before I give my recommendations on upgrade/jump ship at my company. But if Apple does not Say/Do anything in a month. Then jump ship looks like the better option.

Don't get me wrong, the new FCPX is an awesome cutter, When I used it I loved it. But just cause the truck looks good does not mean its going to go on the long haul.

I feel we all should rate the software what we think it should get, but my bet would be that the pro's all give it one to two stars. People who don't need it for pro use will go for 4 to 5 stars. It edits very well, I must admit.

I agree... I just find it disingenious to call the product Final Cut Pro X.

Yep Neil,

They do it all the time. I've been kicked of several times now.

1984!

"disingenious" is a great way to say it.