Fcs3?
 

There, I've finally broken down and done it -- I've asked one of those questions for which no one has an definitive answer and one that annoys people when it's asked because no one knows for sure. My only defense is I can't help myself any longer. I've patiently been googling FCS3 for months with no recent predictions except a slight stir over Jobs not doing the key note speech next month.

So now as I struggle with FCS1 (having been with FCP since FCP1) and my outdated Mac system (old being top of the line G5 a little over two years ago), I'm looking to grasp at straws for any body's educated opinion on an update timeline. I have a project I'd love to finish out with a new computer and FCS3. In fact I'm planning it with the probable new capabilities in mind.

I don't even care if people lecture me over giving up and buying FCS2 and the current Mac now; just any discussion on FCP3 would be appreciated. I'm normally pretty frugal and practical and don't need the newest, biggest, best. Just this time. I feel a significant change coming and I want it all NOW :-)

A little help here?

Apple has never been a company to reveal its future plans or software road maps. That's sort of a guessing game you buy into when you get Final Cut Studio. That said, the company typically releases updates to FCS around the time of the NAB Show in April Las Vegas. That's generally your best bet for any potential major updates. You can look at the history of the releases here:

Final Cut Pro - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anything more specific than that info would be a violation of iron-clan NDAs that Apple uses and would wind anyone who leaked such info into deeply hot water. So that's generally why 'no one asks'- because no one tells.

Noah

My all and only advice is to wait until MacWorld Jan, 19.00 LA time and buy what will be on offer then hardwarewise.

You shouls be able to use your FCS1 with that new hardware.

Upgrade to FCS 3 as soon as it is in the shops.

Apple is phasing itself out of the chaos of announcing products at MacWorlds. Apple has finally discovered that doing this is very disruptive to it's stock price. It sounds like your lusting after a MacPro and FCS3. The current update cycle of MacPros is averages about every 7 or 8 months. Currently the last update was a year ago so new MacPros should not be purchased until an update is announced. In other words save your pennies.

FCP, on the other hand, is updated fairly regularly:

FCP4 introduced 4/2004
FCP5 introduced 5/2005
FCP Studio 3/2006
FCP Studio 2 4/2007

Studio 3 is over due and will probably be released late winter, early spring. I would wait until the release of FCP to consider any hardware updates. Ram will only get cheaper and worldwide economic conditions may force Apple to be more price conscious.

Thanks for the responses. I'm in a little more of a patient mood today. What you all suggest has pretty much been my plan -- wait it out and upgrade as I can. With updates and release dates for FCS3 and the high end Macs more or less up in the air right now, I'm just getting antsy. The traditional time tables for release help some. And perhaps the current economy will help drive prices down a bit tho I wouldn't bet on it with Apple. Like others, I just hope they won't forget about us in favor of the ever increasing "i"fill-in-the-blank consumer sales.

FCS/FCP is USUALLY closely tied to an OS release as well. Don't expect to see FCS3 until Snow Leopard has been in our hands for a month or more. As well, I'm expecting that the Pro Apps will try to leverage as much performance out of upgrades like the new Processor and Video chipsets we've heard so much speculation about. Again, just my "spidey-sense" but I PERSONALLY don't expect to see FCS3 until May or June.

Mac OS X Jaguar 10.2.0 8/2002

Mac OS X Panther 10.3.0 10/2003

FCP4 introduced 4/2004

Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.0 4/2005

FCP5 introduced 5/2005

FCP Studio 3/2006

FCP Studio 2 4/2007

Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.0 10/2007

Mac OS X Snow Leopard??? possibly spring of 2009

Releases of FCP usually coincide with "updates" to OS X and QuickTime. This is to insure compatibility with new software etc.

Denise,

As many on this forum can attest (myself included), it's never a good idea to make a major change to your OS, apps or anything core in mid-project. I can guarantee that migrating your FCS1 project into the new platform will create a major headache and cause a plethora of issues such as render files not migrating, sequences not displaying properly etc etc. The time wasted in troubleshooting those issues would be better suited completing the project and making a proper archive so that it's "migration ready" when it's done. Finish your current project first, then wait and see what FCS3 brings to the table.

Upgrading to a MacPro will make a night-and-day difference in the efficiency of your work (finish your project before you make a hardware change) but considering Apple's recent disappointments with the lack of software updates, hardware offerings and the roadmap Steve Jobs laid forward for what they *won't* be doing FCS3 might not get the major facelift and updates we've all been hoping for.

I'm in the same boat, waiting FCPS3 but I am a complete newcomer. The Mac platform is very attractive for the stability. However if it is that bad I may have to consider going the way of Adobe. What do you guys think? All I want is more plug in support and a stable OS.

Of all the desktop editors currently available for under $10k FCS2 is the most robust and stable and has the most 3rd-party support across the board. Adobe's offerings is a very close 2nd but so far 90% of the add-ons available for FCP are not yet available for Premiere, that will change in the years to come.

Sean: I think one of the first things you need to do is be honest with yourself.

- How much do I really know about editing/the computer platform?
A LOT of instability errors come from user error in setting stuff up and installing trials and 3rd party plug ins. A lot of issues surrounding reliability and real time playback and/or slow render times are user error driven.

- How am I going to use this computer?
Downloading every game and utility in sight, checking out "questionable" websites and other "high risk" activities are certain to stress out the reliability of your edit computer.

- DO you have adequate IT/edit support if things go bad?
If you and no one around you knows how to use a Mac, it may not be your best edit solution. If you start adding SATA cards and IO cards to your new desktop, you may increase the possibility of instability and you'd better have an expert you trust handy (even if just via e-mail).

I'm a 9.5 year FCP user and love it and have had stable systems for about 8 years now. Your mileage may vary.

I have it from a good source that Apple's next update, Snow Leopard, will be attempting to integrate FCP 2.0 much more powerfully with Multicore Macs, allowing for the playback and processing of much larger files.

Hi Robert. Thanks. I should have made myself more clear. I was actually just going to export the clips un-messed with but in order with handles to tape and re upload to the new computer with FCS3. I'll still be getting footage to finish this project for the next few months so at this point I'm just deciding what will be used and writing voiceover that fits.

I can wait 4-6 months. Just hoping it will be upgraded by that time. I also hope we won't be disappointed in the upgrades.

The only thing that can be said for certain, is that the current version gives you three things: Much more advanced options for editing and output, faster rendering (when using a MacPro) than FCS1 and; tech support from Apple. (Apple does not offer direct tech support for non-current versions of their software.)

Will FCS3 be better than the current version? No doubt, but to what extent and exactly what areas will be improved upon is 100% conjecture and guesswork.

Nobody outside Apple's wall of silence can say anything factual about what FCS3 will or won't be nor give the advice your hoping for because it is all speculation, rendering this discussion moot.

My advice: Get up on the current software and hardware and enjoy the added capabilities and speed. When FCS3 is released - like any other major update - it will be full of bugs, strange behavior and people whining things don't work right. I'd wait at least 2-4 months *after* FCS3 is released before jumping on-board. Unless you enjoy troubleshooting new problems.

Which is interesting. When I picked up FCS2, I was instantly "treated" to differences in workflow such as single clicks now sort of act like double clicks, copy and paste doesn't work the way it used to and FCP sometimes brings render files forward for non-existent transitions that require arduous workarounds, and audio files that are linked to video files now AUTOMATICALLY get a cross fade on them if I add a video cross dissolve. What a pain in the arse!

I think I'll be trying out FCS3 before buying to see if Apple has "improved" anything else that will cost me additional time in edit.

In all honesty, I'm really only concerned about DVDSP's new version. If it can't burn blu-ray, I will hand write a letter to apple showing my frustration ... that'll teach 'em!

Seriously, though, that's really THE update I care about.

Honestly, Apple should really focus on perfecting their product before an update. Fix Media Manger (Media Mangler), Fix that annoying 1 frame transition, Fix the media offline bug that hangs compressor every time (or give me a choice) - there are loads of documented errors that affect workflow and these errors detract from Apple's "just works" product image.
-C

They need to fix their Crossfade system when dealing with pure shades of grey. I recently did a whole series of crossfades between a 3D CGI sphere on an 18% grey background, and the fade quality was awful. Jumps in brightness and darkness at the head and tail of each fade. Had to do them in AE instead.

I think they meant "just about works".

There are a number of third party dissolves that fix this in a myriad of ways, though I'll often ramp down the transparency or nest a keyed animation to do the transition.

There's probably a reason rather than a bug - an RGB process applied to a YUV colour space, note I didn't say 'good reason'.

Lots of things are broken in FCP. Silly little things - it feels like an Italian motorcycle. There are lots of features that are missing in FCP that shouldn't be. Reliable media management, scrolling sequence window, and so on.

SoundTrack Pro still throws a nasty wobbly if you take a stereo source to mono then start applying effects. DVD Studio Pro is full of subclauses, riders and small print (have to check paths to see which DVD you're burning rather than 'assuming' it's the current project). LiveType's virtually nailed to its perch, Color is, frankly, scary and vicious for most FCP users. I won't moan about Motion...

But Snow Leopard is all about making Leopard work in the game changing manner that it was supposed to be (fixing all that nonsense with unrealised multicore benefits) rather than a shiny new operating system.

So Apple's probably doing the right thing in theory. But I don't want to pay (and probably pay nasally at that) for what amounts to a slew of bug fixes.

Footnote: I shouldn't complain. I have a notebook somewhere with all the cryptic, idiotic and all too regular error messages I encountered that made our old Avid suite grind to a halt - plus the selection of numbers to call (at great expense) - frequently in the middle of the night. This system was kept locked away from mere mortals and had a 'laying on of hands' twice a year, yet was as stable as a blancmange on acid.

Hence Apple's pseudo promise of "just (about) works" was good enough for me.

I, as many FCS users do, agree. I could sit all day discussing problems.. it's a great program, but I'd rather they pulled a Snow Leopard and fixed the back end, rather than add features. That said, it is missing features.

I wonder if they're moving the suite to Cocoa? It's clearly a Carbon-based app (been using it since version 1). With no MacWorld in the future, it sure does mean we're at Apple's whim on updates, when they announce and release. Snow Leopard is supposed to be soon, right.. so perhaps FCS3 will be as well.

For anyone's who's interested, here are my Final Cut Studio 3 predictions.

Here's a snippet:

I'm interested
 

Thanks. Very interesting predictions. I'm glad I've been with FCP since the beginning. I can't imagine trying to learn all that (you predict) at once now.

I too am eagerly awaiting the next release of Final Cut Studio. I'm also pretty familiar with the internals of OS X, the application platform, am a software developer, know Cocoa, go to WWDC regularly and am under NDA to Apple.

I won't comment on Chris's predictions for the program, because they are mostly about the features of the program, and I am not privy to that level of info (nor would I reveal it if I were).

I will say that I believe he's on the right track about there being a major overhaul. Apple is working on an overhaul of Quicktime called Quicktime X. It is a significant effort. Apple is also working on some very fundamental technologies in Snow Leopard that are directly relevant to Final Cut Studio. I'm being deliberately vague here-- as that's as close as I'll come to violating an NDA. The rest is public info-- Additionally, Apple has had some interesting success with the new UI of iMovie, and Apple is a company that hates to have products look stale-- just look at the changes in the Pro laptop line since 2001-- they started with "titanium" and while the machines are still grey, each one is fresh and the style changes on almost a yearly basis. I know, that may sound silly, but Apple is keen to have quality UI, and Final Cut is a product of the 1990s, and it is really starting to show its age. Final Cut is, also, a massive, professional level product and you can't just put a new UI on it in a short period of time.

You put this together and it points to Apple working on a fundamentally new Final Cut.

However, Apple is a careful company and this is a big product.

Thus we may get Snow Leopard, and then a new release of Final Cut that uses the new backend, and exploits the new OS capabilities, but hasn't really changed in usability. Performance might be the primary new feature.

I can say -- given all these facts and watching Apple for the past two decades-- that a major new Final Cut front end (on the level Chris describes) is in development now. I'd bet really good money on it. But that may not be the next release. That may be the spring 2010 release. It depends on how far along it is, and nobody knows that.

I disagree that they will call it "Extreme". That word is seems out of date, and they only used it on wireless adapters. If they don't call it Final Cut Studio 3, I think they will call it Final Cut Studio X. Or maybe we'll get 3 this year and X next year with the new UI.

At any rate, I expect we'll see Snow Leopard announced/shipping this summer at WWDC, and the next Final Cut in September or October.

I hate to say that-- because I want it now, and I would really like for it to be released in April or May. But that's my best guess.

Apple released new Mac Pros... WITHOUT Blu-ray burners

Apple - Mac Pro - The fastest and most powerful Mac ever.

I'm getting worried, because if they aren't putting them in, they probably aren't supporting BD authoring.

heath

Apple didn't give us BluRay in the "Year of HD"... or the year after that... or the year after that...
I give up.

FCS3 - Probably not worth the wait.
 

There is a list of "must have" updates that FCS2 would need to have before most of the current user base would consider dropping precious cash for a newer version and BR is just one of many. However when you look at recent decisions Apple has made it's almost as if they're priming us not to expect too much from future pro-software offerings.

Since Apple officially told the world they have "no plans to support BR in the near future..." then that means DVDSP4 would get... what exactly? HD-DVD is dead so there's no further development there. And there's not much else that can be done for DVD authoring other than to bring in some more features not currently offered or, to revamp the user interface. But that's a non-starter, the public is demanding HD not more SD-DVD's.

Final Cut totally needs a makeover; from media & render file management to more native file support the list of "I need this..." updates being requested (if not demanded) by the user-base is long. One would think that since Apple has abandoned BR (for now) that they'd refocus their efforts towards the core of FCS but there's nothing to indicate they are or would.

In fact when you consider what Apple chose to do with their hardware offerings recently - by making the laptops "pretty" and reducing their functionality (no FW400 and no removable batts in the 17" inch) and putting in a slightly faster CPU in the new towers (and removing FW400 there too) - nothing they are doing tells me that they are ramping up to support their pro users as we want to be. In fact it feels more like they're trying to get pro-users to get used to more consumer-grade hardware by concentrating more on aesthetics than utility.

Not to mention that in a time when the economy continues to sink lower daily, Apple's head of sales still has his head in "Apple-land" as prices continue to increase for their hardware.

My advice is this: If you're new to pro-video and you're on a tight budget want to purchase one of the best, all-around NLE's then FCS will suit you well. If you're a FCS2 user and are hoping that version 3 will be a glorious update, prepare to be disappointed. And if you're sick and tired of FCS "media mangler" and render-file handling and are hoping version 3 will fix it, forget about it and move over to Avid.

Please make FCP 6 allow you an option to automatically reset the scratch disk for each project!!

I use a load of different hard drives depending on whether I need to take my work around on a laptop etc and this would be SO helpful and so easy to implement!

Thought about it but AVID at the MC level only has 2 external I/O options, if I understand correctly and the only "flavours" of HD that Nitris wants to talk is HD-SDI. That's a deal breaker for me. If I could get AJA IO HD or Matrox MXO2 like interfaces with abundant IO options, I'd look far more seriously at Media Composer. Unless I'm wrong about IO options...

Mathieu,

I think it'll happen, and if it doesn't happen on that day, it will happen anytime before NAB. Apple is done with trade shows--they said as much before NAB 2008.

heath

Thanks to everyone who read my blog entry! It's very much appreciated!

That's some very interesting comments Liza!

And I'm with Mike - it would be fantastic if you could just point to a "Media Folder" when you launch a project, or at least have the option to enable this kind of workflow. I normally point my capture scratch, caches, etc. to a "Final Cut Workspace" folder, designated for that particular project. Works great!

Fwiw
 

But not at NAB 2009, of course.

heath

They could do it "outside" of NAB like they did 2 years ago. The used a hall at one of the casinos and filled it with about 5000 people. This would be much less expensive than having a booth on the Show floor. I wouldn't be surprised to see a "software event" at or around NAB.

Daniel Weber

Be prepared for a new FCP that uses the new Quicktime X, which is 64 bit. The big problem with FCP is that the Quicktime code is very old. It will take a complete rewrite of Quicktime before a new version of FCP will come out. I predict that this will take place in Snow Leopard, which is supposed to use more 64 bit code. Expect the new software to utilize the GPU's on the new graphic cards. The new FCP will also only run on Intel processors. All of this is just an educated guess on my part of course....

Daniel Weber

I think a big update is coming
 

Quicktime X is a playback only API derived from the iPhone. It's designed to be lightweight and evolve with new codecs quickly.

Legacy Quicktime 32-bit will still be there. After all you never know how many old QT files are on the web that need playback with the oldest of QT codecs.

What developers will do in Snow Leopard is utilize the 64-bit QTkit in Cocoa. Depending on what type of QT is needed the OS will either use legacy QT or QTX. That's what I'm getting from some reports for developers. This actually makes sense because as a developer I don't want to worry about what QT I need I want the OS to handle that.

As far as not expecting big updates for this revision of Final Cut. That just sounds pessimistic and devoid of rational thought.

Two years ago Final Cut Studio 2 was announced. The big features were Motion 3D support, Color and the open format timeline and ProRes 422. Final Cut Pro had few UI changes. What that told me was that Apple basically bolted on the new open timeline and added ProRes support and quashed some bugs but really didn't muck too much with the UI nor the guts of the application. Why?

Because they knew before anyone that they had decided to kill 64-bit Carbon and that Cocoa would be the sole framework for 64-bit applications. The future 64-bit apps must be in Cocoa. So they need to effectively target an OS that is going to deliver the necessary 64-bit support down to the kernel which happens to be Snow Leopard that will shipping this summer.

Apple are no fools. They aren't going to ship a major revision of Final Cut Studio 3 on a new major revision of the OS (Snow Leopard) so any thoughts of a fall delivery on Final Cut Studio are most likely folly. The ideal thing for Apple to do is deliver FCS3 running on Leopard . Leopard is stable and by the time FCS3 ships it will be on its 7th revision.

Then Apple can work out the bugs in Leopard while preparing to take advantage of the Snow Leopard features which won't happen en masse until April timeframe 2010. They'll get FCS3 working on SL before 04/2010 but what I'm saying is that Apple always waits until an OS version has been out and debugged a bit in the field and has enough users before they leverage the features (case in point iWork 08 worked on Leopard but iWork 09 really leverages the Leopard API to good effect).

If you look at today's Final Cut Studio it could be argued that it is leveraging 10.4 Tiger API for the most part. Leopard's only been shipping for less than two years and we haven't seen a huge revision to FCS in two years. Obviously this means that before you can claim that we aren't likely to see a difference in the new version one needs to understand at a basic level the differences between 10.4 API and 10.5.

The backbone of a media manager needs to be solid and fast persistent storage and metadata. Well those two areas got a big boost in the API revisions in the jump from 10.4 and 10.5. Spotlight technology improved drastically with the addition of extended attributes (metadata that other OS use) and Core Data (persistent storage).

Another biggie is Applescript. You as the end user don't have to care about writing scripts but they are the key to automating a lot of tasks that you would do within a NLE. With Leopard Apple created a scripting bridge that lets 3rd parties use Ruby or Python to control applescript apps. So far the developers I've chatted with say it's ok but Apple always improves stuff greatly in 2nd and 3rd generation version.

Chris that was a very entertaining read and I think you're going to have a pretty good hit rate once FCS3 hits. Clearly Apple put a lot of effort into ProRes and I can totally see them working developing a more unified timeline and "room" workflow for managing assets and working on projects.

Hasn't anyone wondered why it's Q1 09 and we're looking at the pending release of 3 Apple Pro app revisions.

1. Final Cut Studio (Almost 24 months since last major revision)
2. Logic Studio (18 months since last major revision)
3. Aperture ( 13 months since last major revision)

It looks like there's the potential for Apple syncing these apps up into a unified workflow much like they have the Media Browser in Apple and 3rd party apps I expect there to be a Pro Media Browser that drops in files from Logic or Aperture with ease.

HM

Good points. Thanks for clarifying a few things, like I said I was guessing and I am not a developer just a long time end user.

Let's hope that you are right.

Daniel Weber

It actually makes me feel good that Apple's taking QT and making it really efficient for playback.

Apple - Mac OS X Leopard - Snow Leopard

The words that are heartening to me:

"streamlined"
"optimized"
"efficient"

Thus far I've avoided attaching QT files in documents simply because on my Mac this action brings the exact opposite of the aformentioned attributes.

Fcs3
 

The main issue for me is the 2.5Gb of RAM limitation. With Snow Leopard this changes, so for me this would be the biggest improvement.

The one thing I'm almost expecting is to see Apple drop support for PowerPC (G5, G4) with some of the new pro apps, much like parts of Adobe CS4 don't work with PowerPC (like After Effects CS4).

Late April is the new rumored date, so let's see what happens.

Heath