I don't think many of you fully understand the consequences of this FCPX release. Whatever Apple's or your view of the future is for digital delivery, the reality is that at least 95% of professional work currently requires features which Apple has eliminated from FCPX. Professional editing is a service industry, we have to work with others and we have to deliver to clients in a format of their choosing, not ours. If I cannot deliver in a format my clients specify they will simply go elsewhere and find someone who can, there is no shortage of competition.
I hear many of you say "why are you complaining? FCP7 still works, keep using that until FCPX has the features you want, nothing has changed". Ufortunately, you are missing the bigger picture, the fact that professional video editing is a highly competitive industry and that FCP not the only game in town. FCP7 has been in serious need of an upgrade for several years, some of the new functionality you see in FCPX has been available in other professional NLE programs for quite a while. Many professional FCP7 users have been hanging on for more than two years on the promise that an update would come which would give them a competitive edge over users of other NLEs. A competitive edge essential to their survival in these difficult economic times. What they have got in FCPX has their competition openly laughing at them, quite a few professional FCP7 users feel humiliated, feel they have been betrayed by Apple and stabbed in the back in return for their loyalty.
So, many professional editors are faced with a dilema, FCPX doesn't have the tools and FCP7 is rapidly becoming uncompetitive. Furthermore, there is no word from Apple (just a lot of heresay) that the missing features will ever be implimented in FCPX. If the features are to be implimented, when? Will it be soon enough to enable professional editors to remain competitve. Apple has given the strongest of indications with FCPX that it is no longer interested in the relatively small professional market and has repositioned FCP (both in terms of price and functionality) for the masses. Many professionals therefore believe that to remain competitive they now have no choice but to dump FCP and move to Aviid or Adobe. And many are doing just that.
Many here (including a few professionals) look at FCPX and are either not affected by the missing functionality or are just inconvenienced by it. Apple's vision of the future makes a lot of sense, the bleating of so many professionals is becoming annoying but it doesn't directly affect you right? Wrong! You just don't realise what the consequences are because you don't have the experience of how the industry works:
Some of the hard work done by profesional editors in past years to make FCP a respected industry standard tool, will be undone by this release of FCPX. This own goal by Apple will reverberate around the industry for some time to come and of course AVID and Adobe's PR departments will take maximum advantage of it. Unless there is a very significant and quick fix, FCP could once again become a joke as far as the wider broadcast and film industries are concerned. These industries don't care what your or Apple's vision of the future is, they will just hear news of FCPX not working and see many professionals moving away from FCP, further enforcing the view that FCP is just a toy rather than a professional tool. Even if FCPX does one day have the functionality, that reality maybe irrelevant, it's the cients' perception of reality which is important. One day in the not too distant future you could be bidding for a contract and be told "You use FCPX? Sorry, we thought you were a professional editor, you know, an experienced AVID editor, thanks for biddiing though, don't call us, we'll call you".
Hopefully this vision will not come to pass but there are big powerful companies trying to make it happen and Apple, deliberately or not, seems to be helping them! If this vision does happen, everyone who ever tries to use FCP for any type of professional work will be affected.
