What is the difference between Final Cut Studio 2 and Final Cut X?

- No multicam

- No support for sharing projects.

- No support for reconnecting media.

- No way to save versions.

- No support for multiple timelines.

- No way to assign audio tracks.

- No way to output audio tracks to specific hardware.

- No custom frame sizes or rates.

- No support for RED digital cameras.

- No specified scratch disks.

- No AAF / OMF / XML / EDL.

- No support for Xsan.

- No support for pro hardware.

- No support for broadcast reference monitors.

- No way to open old projects.

- No support for control surfaces

- No Viewer window.

- No Ganging.

- No professional tape support - although that may be under Pro hardware.

- No offline/online workflow (i.e. FCX is not a "finishing" solution).

- No In/Out per clip retention.

- No ability to send a clip to Motion (i.e. no "round tripping"), so no easy way to use Motion's excellent compositing capabilities.

Color...DVD SP...Soundtrack pro are gone.

Pretty much everything is wrong.

Hi there,

huge subject to answer!

Theres many reasons why FCPX is not up to the mark for many pros, but taking the inevitable first release bugs, gremlins and Apples arrogance out of the equation and its a lot to do with the fact that you cannot integrate FCPX into a collaborative workflow. ie you cant pass on your cut from FCPX onto the sound or grade/online depts for further work in any easy way. There are some limited workarounds to this but the fact remains that for pros there are products (FCP7, Avid and premiere) that do this much better at the moment, so for those of us who make a living working together in a post environment FCPX does not come up to the mark. It may do in the future, who knows, but while there are better alternative tools to use, why use a bar of soap to hammer in a nail?

That is not to say you shouldnt learn to use FCPX of course. If you have no need of further post on your projects and are happy with the interface (you can get a rough idea of what its like by playing with imovie first before you invest), then go ahead, dive in! If you shoot exclusively on HDSLR and go straight to web its not a bad choice for example. I would suggest checking out `Adobe premiere as an alternative if you're not happy with what you see, they do a free 30day trial.

As you have noted, this subject has been covered extensively and the opinions expressed out there are pretty much all valid, its really up to you to work out what you want from an editing program and make your choice of software (and theres a lot of choice out there) based on your needs and platform preference.

cheers and have fun!

Andy

ps. Shanes response whilst I was typing gives a good summary!!

Message was edited by: andy chastney

Hi

personally Im still running Snow Leopard as I have no reason to go to Lion, but according to apple

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4769

FCP 7.0.3 is compatible, although there are some issues with installing I believe, worth checking thoroughly before you upgrade!

cheers

Andy

There are many one step work arounds for the things "not supported" directly in FCP X:

http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/faq/

FCS 2 does not work with Lion. It will not install. Unless you install Lion on top of your current OS.

And Ken, those work arounds work for some things, not for all. And I pretty much need all the things that are missing. FCX is not a good choice for many editing professionals.

It's because of the INSTALLER for FCS2...it's still a powerPC app that requires Rosetta, and Lion doesn't have Rosetta. Stick to Snow Leopard...no pressing need to go to Lion is there?

No, Apple doesn't fix old things like this. FCS2 is over 4 years old. They look ahead. And want you to buy an iPad.