This, btw, is the letter I sent to David Pogue:
Your article in the Times was aimed at the consumer, so I'll forgive your consumer bias. You're not an editor, nor do you play one on TV. I don't say that with disdain - professional editors are a minority.
However, as a member of that minority, I've cut award winning music videos, commercials, feature films, and documentaries, and I have to tell you - FCX is not a professional package. This is not bias against the user interface changes or having to learn a new system. It's about what Apple left behind in its pursuit of the prosumer market place.
All those feature films you listed that were cut in Final Cut Pro could never be edited with FCX. Why? Because feature films, like most high end productions, are a collaboration. I'm sure FCX has the potential to be a fine tool, however right now, it's a closed system. It may be fine as an end-to-end solution if you use DSLR or AVCHD (but not the RED Camera yet).
Most importantly, though, is that "closed system" part. It is a program unto itself. With no ability to import or export EDLs, XML, OMF, or even FCP's old projects, and no ability to map audio or video tracks, there's no way to collaborate with others.
I just finished a Scion commercial in Final Cut Pro 7 - I didn't do the effects, they were done on a Flame. Guess what I gave the EFx house? EDLS - of all my elements that made up each effects shot split onto separate video tracks so the effects artist could pull those same elements in at high resolution and spend hours carefully assembling each shot in high end effects software. (If you do not know, an EDL or Edit Decision List is 30 year old technology that essentially is a text file consisting of a structured list of timecodes detailing the timecode of the start and stop of each shot. It's old technology, but it's the glue that allows the many elements that make up an edit to be dealt with by a wide variety of systems).
And I split all my audio and output OMFs (industry standard audio interchange file) and gave them to the audio mixer who cleaned up the audio and added effects and did a 5.1 surround sound mix, etc...
And this was just for a 30 second commercial. None of this is possible with FCX. You cannot assign video or audio to specific tracks, you cannot export your audio elements. This is very basic stuff for the broadcast professional.
Right now FCX feels crippled - closed off from the rest of broadcast post. Maybe with time it will learn how to play well with others, but as of now I don't think it's a broadcast pro product. And while FCX is "learning" how to become a professional, Apple have pulled all the copies of Final Cut Studio from their stores, as if they're saying "I don't care what you need, you'll use what we want you to or leave".
Understandably, many working post production professionals feel angry and betrayed by Apple's actions. One had this to say:
Sorry if I'm a bit flippant, but I'm a little angry today because I, along with a sizable minority of other editors, have spent nearly a decade in this city championing FCP--which for many years was for me the best promo editing machine on the planet--against a solid majority of Avid editors (of, which, I was one). Today, I fear that argument is over. What I saw today was a slick little prosumer package, that I can't use in any meaningful way. Final Cut Pro 4.5 was far more useful to me than this thing is.
And, I don't think this is a case of.. "Oh, this is a version one; it will get better when they find out what people need." They've had plenty of time to find out what people need. I think they know exactly what they are doing and know exactly where they want to go. That is what is for me so disheartening.
I just thought you'd like to know how Final Cut X is viewed from the Pro community.
