Hurry Up Apple
 

Hurry Up Apple, Adobe are about to release CS5 x64 and Mercury Playback Engine where are you guys DISAPPOINTING :(

Not Happy

Rob

We'll see. Alleged beta testers (or possible beta liars!) have posted that they were not impressed with some of the improvements in CS5 but nobody specifically mentioned Premier.

Adobe just has software to deal with.

Apple is software & hardware and they kept up pretty well, though the success of their iitems has certainly shifted a lot of their focus in the last few years.

Personally I'd like to see another company making comps for mac OS, as I think it would make them a better company. They don't have to work as hard for their customers loyalty - once your hooked... (sounds like a drug addiction).

I put off buying a MP in Dec ("put off, update imminent"). and I wasn't terribly excited about getting an 08 (because I felt it was a better value than the 09).

I have high hopes for the 10's though, but if they don't come out in the next 2 weeks, I HAVE to get a new comp, or at least find a good deal on CL.

So I do understand your "disappointment", though I do have a feeling that they are going to "come thru" for their pro customers this year. Like you, I do hope that it's soon.

Apples entire strategy has changed. They are lowering prices, expanding product lines and removing features of the lower end models.

I don't think we need more OSX based systems. The wider spread Apple gets, the less "exclusive" they are. A PC is a "houshold" name, whereas a Mac is more of a luxury.

Ummmm...I don't know exactly where I'm going with this. /end

JS

While those of us who are Mac-based feel your pain and disappointment I need to point out that Chris Hurd, the owner of this forum, didn't create DVinfo as a place to post rants or threads that have no real purpose. DVinfo's mission is quite simple: To provide a vehicle where useful and experienced information can be shared with those who either need help or advice.

If you really feel the need to simply vent without actually offering something productive or useful information then start up your own blog; it's free. However Chris's site isn't free for him, he pays for the bandwidth and gets sponsors to offset those costs. Keep that in mind for the future, and enjoy the site for all it's worth - it is by far the best resource on the planet for all things DV.

I don't think ANY real adobe beta testers are commenting because they are under NDA. so anyone who really knows can't say, and anyone talking really doesn't know... and in a couple of weeks you'll get to find out officially.

I've actually heard some grim news about the future of Final Cut Pro and the Mac Pro platform in general. Recently Apple laid off 40 employees from the FCP development team and rumor has it Apple's business strategy is getting an overhaul and focusing only on the things that actually make the company money, like iPods and iPhones, etc.

Apparently FCP and Mac Pro are an extremely low percent of company sales.

As a Mac and FCP enthusiast, I for one would be deeply saddened if Apple decided to shut down Final Cut Studio.

Jeff: discussion here:
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/area-51/...w-leopard.html

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/area-51/...live-well.html

AND you will notice the discussion is taking place in AREA 51...

The discussion of Apple shutting down FCP is a bit odd. It is the tool of choice for editing in this country and possibly around the world above and beyond any other software based editing software. It's a great promotion for Apple hardware as well.

The problem as I see it is the same for any other mature piece of software. Where do you go from here? Look at Photoshop, it has not changed much in basic function for years. Many people are only forced to upgrade when their new computer can't run the old version they've been using for years. Sure, a great new tool shows up once in a while, like the healing brush, but for the majority of users Photoshop was already "there" years ago. The same is true for FCP, pending a major revolution in editing concepts, it has been "there" for quite a while now. Yes improvements are needed but they are small to the majority of users. The job for us is to keep the pressure on Apple to keep working on the FCS package so they don't fall into the Quark pit where a program becomes crappy just because it owns such a large portion of the market and the developers get more interested in their million dollar vacation homes then their business.

With all due respect FCP has a lot of work to do. Not so much with the interface that like Premiere is fine so why change it. Where it needs work is in format support it barley does blu ray if your using AVCHD you still need to convert the footage. What I believe ( and this is just me) is that Apple has hit a wall with FCP and they needed to make a decision to continue developing or not. They didn't write DVDSP or Livetype so they may be hitting wall on integrating it with FCP. I think there forced into a rewrite. So I think one of 2 things are going to happen 1. FCP slowly drifts away with a small update here and there or 2. or Apple is working on something REALLY big that will change the whole suite.

Remember that FCP HEAVILY levers the power of QuickTime to achieve what it does. It has been that way since version 1.0.

This is also why there are a number of relatively low cost I/O and accelerator devices available for FCP because it doesn't use proprietary codecs (well, the ones it does use are coded into QuickTime) and AVID was still hardware accelerated, as was Media 100.

Can this be changed so that there is more camera native support? I don't know but HISTORICALLY this is not how FCP has been set up and remember that FCP was really the first software only solution to cut DV in real time (when FCP 1.0 was released, you could only preview DV in Premiere - you needed to render out a final project prior to going back to tape).

Perhaps in the move to 64 bit (which apparently requires a complete rewrite anyway), we will see some of what you are asking for. This of course is PURELY speculation on my part.

FCS is just a tool. If it dies, I will use what I have until it no longer meets my needs. When that happens I will get the tool that does meet those needs. Not good to get emotionally attached to tools IMHO.

Apple needs to wake up and support Blu-Ray quick smart
Spend money on licensing apple I'm sure you will make it back

When it comes to the "pro" offerings there's a ton of things Apple needs to wake up on, both in software and hardware. The list is long and is getting longer as time goes on.

However it's been painfully obvious for more than 5 years now that Apples'/Steve Jobs universe revolves around the "i" world. The 'net is all abuzz about the iPad and how iTunes is changing TV/movie content distribution. This is all general consumer related, not professional work. Jobs saved Apple from extinction with iTunes and the iPod and it's been "i'm an iGod" from Jobs ever since.

Nobody knows what Apple will bring to the table near-future but I can say for sure that as we beta testers are wrapping up our input for the CS5 suite Apple is way, way behind in several key areas.

If Apple doesn't play "catch-up" sometime this year in everything from hardware offerings to simple Blu-Ray playback for the general consumer it's my opinion that Apple will become the "i-center of gravity" to the consumer market and A/V pros will slowly migrate back to PC's to get work done. (the print/publishing market will always be strong in Mac's)

I need to ask a really dumb question here (and pardon my ignorance):

For those of you who are currently able to burn BD-Rs, whether on a Mac or PC, what is your rate of failure to play back? Are we at the same point in BD-R playback that we were in DVD-R playback 8 or so years ago (ie. 10% or more of discs didn't work, either due to media OR consumer units not recognizing them)?

Apple was late into the support of DVD burning compared to our more adventurous PC peers (as those of us with some grey hairs may remember) by about 2 years, give or take. Wondering if we are seeing a similar careful foray into a much larger (and UGLIER!) minefield here.

Am I frustrated by the lack of native APPLE support for BD-R? Yes. BUT if I was to start supplying BD-R's to clients who faced a high percentage chance of not being able to view them WHERE THEY EXPECT TO (ie. their set top box and/or game console), I believe I would hold off as a business model. I waited a LONG time for DVD to become a staple of my business model solely because the kinks weren't worked out yet. At this point, while I source 98% of my material in HD, I deliver mostly to SD DVD or HD online files and NOT consumer playback HD. Of course, I deliver exclusively in 16:9 excepting broadcast stuff which is still 4:3 SD in the market I still provide TV commercials for.

I remember when DVD-R's really started to make inroads - clients asked for them and you would go through your spiel about how they may not work in all their DVD players, ESPECIALLY the older ones. They would nod and say "sure, we understand" and then the phone calls would start a week later "so and so can't play back YOUR DVD in their player so it's obviously the DVD. Take it back and make them a new one"

GONG!

Not going there again ANY TIME SOON.

2 cents from a crusty "old" man of 38...

PS. YES, I want BluRay support from Apple but make it WORK, please.

Apple got their company back with the iera. My prediction is that they are going to put some of that profit back into the pro market, after all it is a major % of their image. Apple may be many things, but stupid, I don't think so.

All this talk and more importantly signs Apple isn't moving forward with Final Cut Studio (DVDSP, iDVD), I am genuinely scared about moving from Express 4 to a used copy of Pro 4 and then buying Studio 3, even though I am doing it for personal stuff (Transit POV's, BC Ferries, YouTube) and learning. Yes I agree with John Foster and "It's the technique, not the software that counts."

Meaning no disrespect but there AREN'T signs that Apple isn't moving forward with FCS or any other Pro Apps. As someone who has been following Apple and FCP/FCS VERY carefully for 11 or so years, I can tell you Apple is one of the most secretive companies I have ever seen. You really don't know that new hardware is going to drop until BANG there it is on the website. Software is nearly as secretive.

Anyone who says Apple isn't moving forward is SPECULATING and that doesn't help anyone. If the next version of FCS isn't 64 bit, one group will complain. To get 64 bit, it has already been said everything must be recoded from scratch. That can't be an easy task. FCP MUST be stable and if they ARE doing a ground up rewrite, that's a LOT of coding and FAR more troubleshooting and real world testing.

FCS right now is pretty darned complete from an editing standpoint AS LONG AS you realize that FCP isn't designed to edit every codec out there. If you're holding out on buying into the FCP family, do so because the current offerings don't have what YOU need.

FCP is a professional level, highly regarded and STABLE production tool. I don't know what else to say.

Technique also has a lot to do with having the hardware & software that you are familiar with, comfortable with and are used to dealing with it's inconsistencies.

Apple made a bundle on the iproducts, wouldn't you. I was told that a total rebuild of FCS (which is one of the things we are looking for) would mean typing in millions of lines of code, I don't know if this is true, but I get the idea.

The bottom line is that Apples pro market isn't dead yet. Wait till the next FCS, MP & MBP release before you "worry" too much.

With all the talk I've heard about Apple dropping the pro market, there has not been one single reason stated that suggest that doing so would be in Apples best interest, yet I can think of a lot of reasons that dropping the pro market would be disastrous for them.

I think you said it VERY well here. A large percentage of their IMAGE. Not their revenue though. And I do think the consumer side does "bank" on Apple's rep as a boutique choice for the creative professional.

Pro motivates consumer, consumer finances pro.

Yeah, Think about the % of Apple comps you see in movies compared to PC's.

As has been noted already, Apple's FCS suite is a stable and professional broadcast editing toolset. This latest ridiculous thread, like so many others, seems to be stumbling once again to the edge of the BluRay debate ie around whether or not Apple supports BluRay ... a pet peeve of a many for sure but of absolutely no consequence whatsoever to many others, and I think thats what the former genuinely don't get. Why on earth anyone assumes that if their particular pet peeve is not addressed then the whole Pro Apps division will collapse is quite bizarre.

Trevor ... you are "genuinely scared"? It may be time to get some fresh air.

Best
Andy

First, let's separate emotional folly from fact:

There's absolutely nothing to indicate Apple is dropping it's pro-app suite, not even close. The strongest and most genuine critique that can be made is that Apple lags behind it's competitors. But a lack of progress or even competitiveness doesn't equate to product dissolution.

Second, the BR debate and discontent always surfaces because it is in point of fact, one of only 2 features along with Flash that Steve Jobs has publicly denounced and refuses to adopt in the Apple platform. And whether or not it's significant to one person or region doesn't equate to global usage or preferences. BR is simply the most visible and discussed indicator of several things Apple doesn't do. But here's a real-world example of how and why BR get's pushed to the front of complaints of things Apple doesn't do:

Just this week I went to the new Apple Store at the Scottsdale Quarter, which is in a location specifically marketed towards the upscale clientele, people with *lots* of cash to burn. An obviously well-off gentleman walked in with his new 17" inch Macbook Pro he bought just two weeks ago. He specifically purchased it - the most expensive Mac laptop - solely so he and his grandson could share some Blu-Ray movies on a wide-screen while in their first class seats on the way to the UK for a family vacation. He even purchased a dual headset adapter so they could both hear the movie.

This kindly mannered gent was incredulous that his brand-new "state of the art" laptop could not play a BR movie and he wanted the Genius Bar to "fix it, something must be wrong that I can't play my movies...". When it was explained to him that he'd need to first use BootCamp and load Windows AND, on top of that either purchase an external BR player or, pay to have someone install a BR-capable internal drive well... you should have seen his face turn 2 shades of red. His response was twofold: He first said, "If I wanted a Windows machine I would have picked up the Sony I saw at Best Buy..." and, "...if this thing can't play Blu-Ray then give me my money back...".

Now if that's not compelling proof that the "market has spoken", I don't know what is.

Apple isn't dropping FCS or any other of it's pro-apps, the only questions that are valid are:

1. How much longer will Steve Jobs hold his "bag of hurt" stance on BR (or Flash for that matter) and,

2. When will FCS get it's much needed ramp-up to stay competitive?

Curious to find out where you think FCS is behind? At the price point, ASSUMING you don't need BD authoring, it's pretty much untouchable in terms of tools, at least as far as editing is concerned. If you're talking Adobe, I've managed 12 years without ever using After Effects or using AE developed material. Photoshop agreed is a great feather in the cap (and I own the increasingly outdated CS3 version because realistically, I don't need PS to do any more for me). If you're talking AVID, prepared to shell out a LOT more cash. And the rest are still playing catch up, at least for the type of work I do - short and long form industrial and broadcast.

Crusty, young man of 48 speaking here....

I get near zero requests for BluRay and almost all for DVD. Even when making screening copies of HD projects going to the big screen! The BluRay playback dilemma is, in my opinion, worse than DVD ever was. The BluRay player hardware is all over the place. The only BluRays that I've made that work near universally (and that's not for sure) had to be encoded at the lowest bit rate in Encore. Feh. It would be great if playback of recordable BluRay improves but the consumer acceptance of BluRay is not high enough for the manufacturers to standardize the offerings. The PS3 is really the most compatible player I've seen.

And there's still no real-time stand-alone BluRay recorder available in this country for professionals! I would take that over authoring software at this point.

I'm interested by the "new" JVC offering. I've asked my dealer to report on it once he's had a chance to "beat on it" a bit.

JVC Professional Features page

Thanks for the input, William.

All your points are great. Here are my observations from reading this forum and others, and watching product releases (yes I am a big Mac fan).

• DVD Studio Pro 4 has been out since 2005 (though can they improve it anymore as far as DVD authoring goes?)
• Shake. Apple stated publicly that a new product would come out in Mid 2008. Nothing came out in 2008 or 2009
• iDVD has also been dead for a few years. Very powerful, their still is room for improvement, while not taking anything away from DVDSP
• Final Cut Express hasn't been updated in almost 2 1/2 years (FCE 3-4 was a 2 year wait as well) though word is an April update
  Edit: ok so FCE 3 - 4 was almost 3 years (not including 3.5 in May 2006 FCE3 - January 2005, FCE4 November 2007).
• No native AVCHD editing (or playback). Maybe in Final cut Express 5, but nothing in FCS3? I did try clipwrap (trail) and even on my 2006 2.66GHZ Mac Pro 1900XT 3GB RAM is was sluggish in FCE4.

These are some of the things I have read and observed. Alex Lindsay of Pixel Corps also has mentioned will Apple turn DVDSP and iDVD into LP authoring app for the iTunes store, as well as for non store use (delivering a non DVD DVD looking project)? This would be a killer upgrade for iDVD 8 and DVSP5!

I could do my family videos from the 90's and from the HF-S10 my mom got last year and make some amazing containers for all the different videos for her future AppleTV (once it can not choke on HD as allot of people have stated)

I really don't understand all the complaints about BluRay and Flash. Flash is a buggy monster that has become far to dominant on the Internet. Apple publicly denounces it and voila, the whole Internet is moving to HTML 5. Wait for a year and flash for video is almost dead. All major video sites are moving to HTML 5 now... Vimeo, YouTube, Brightcove. First everyone was laughing about the iPad not having flash, and now it is out, every big publisher is building a website to serve rich media content to iPad owners... without flash.

And you can still create BluRay discs on a Mac from the FCP timeline and with Encore CS4. And when enough consumers ask for it, I am sture Steve will provide it.

I also think this discussion belongs in Area 51.

Sometimes I think I belong in Area 51 as well.

$2550? And no SDI or other standard HD input besides HDV over FireWire? Yeesh! I wonder how it handles files from the SDHC card.

Since CS5 hasn't yet been released I'm still under an NDA about specifics but suffice it to say that PP CS4 is *already* far ahead of FCP7 in many areas such as native codec handling, user interface and on the PC-side, hardware IO/acceleration options (see the Matrox add-ons). None of the *cool* stuff about PP has anything to do with BR, just everyday core work across the board that anyone from the one-man-shop to professional post houses can appreciate.

CS5 refines those areas and others and also adds even more compatibility along with some hardware-related core-work offloading (CPU/GPU crunching) that FCP simply can't match - currently. Since the PP beta is being ramped down for near-release fine-tuning I have absolutely no idea how many of the features we testers were working on will make it into the gold release.

On the same machine I was able to use the same assets and create an identical project type (format/codec/output type/quality) in half the time that FCP could. Not just because the software was more efficient but also the UI is more intuitive and easier to navigate. (Admittedly the UI ease of work is a *subjective* viewpoint not a scientific one.)

Adobe has been and is listening to it's users and rolling in the stuff people are asking for. Apple on the other hand for more than 3 years has arrogantly taken it's own path and decided on a "father knows best" approach to it's feature set and product offerings and the "mac children" are growing impatient with the daddy's snail pace of bringin' home the bacon. So to speak.

However, I want to reiterate what I said before and bring to light an aspect about business that nobody seems to have addressed about Apple's progress - or lack thereof - and it's global impact on the marketplace:

No matter what Apple decides to do with regard to updating their product offerings to the pro market, they *cannot* simply decide to dump the FC suite nor any other pro product. Why? Because hundreds of millions of dollars - if not over a billion collectively - has been invested by third party suppliers both in hardware and software across the board and the reach is international, not just in the USA.

If Apple announced today, tomorrow or 4 months from now to the world that the FCS is no longer being produced Apple would be swarmed by a flurry of lawsuits from their product partners for forcing an end to their product line. Keep in mind, there are several companies that exist *solely* to support the FC suite. If FC went away these companies would cease to exist. Apple may be blatantly arrogant in their choices but they're not fiscally stupid and a move like that would bankrupt the company, period.

So Apple may continue to lag behind *all* it's competitors, not just Adobe (it's rumored that Sony is ramping up Vegas to be a more head-to-head competitor to both PP and FCP) but kill off the pro-app offerings? Not anytime in the near future.

Despite all these efforts from Adobe, they still haven't managed to get anywhere near the FCP user base, however if Apple keep us waiting much longer then I expect that situation to start to change.

FWIW I think that if the new FCP arrives and it leverages 64 bit Snow Leopard and Open CL it will be well worth waiting for.

I agree; that's not a "pro" device at all. There is a professional, rack-mounted BR burner used for creating master copies for the glass-mastering process for replicators but it's a $10k+ device and last I heard (last winter) the unit was on limited production and demand is outstripping supply by a factor of 100-1 making for an almost 6-month back-order log. Rumor has it that by the time that company (produced in the EU) gets around to ramping up production Sony, Panny or even JVC will come to market with a lower-priced competitor, so if you're hot for a replication-standard burner wait until late summer and you *should* be getting your wish.

Actually that's hype and not reality. Up until my inside contact left Adobe for Dolby Labs 3 weeks ago their research showed that the new license installs for PP CS4 in 2009 did in fact outpace FCP by a small margin. But that is *only* Mac installs, when you consider that PP is cross-platfom and combine the PC and Mac userbase license counts in the past 3 years alone the actual PP installs has a footprint 5x or more larger than FCP.

We Mac users have a habit of thinking we rule the roost in pro A/V because of FCP's popularity and Apple's visible and glossy marketing but the fact is our PC counterparts outnumber us by a *huge* margin, both in one-man-band shops and pro post houses.

However I agree: If (big *if*) Apple comes to the table with an uber-advanced/updated FC suite then it'll be a whole new ballgame.

Time will tell - and it's worth waiting a few months before pulling out the wallet to find out.

I would doubt those figures personally

I'd agree that PPro may be gaining ground in one man band shops, but I don't know a single Pro post house that uses it.

Area 51
 

>... solely so he and his grandson could share some Blu-Ray movies on a wide-screen while in their first class seats on the way to the UK for a family vacation ... "compelling proof that the market has spoken".

I'll bet if he tells his grandson that he took back a state of the art Mac laptop because it didn't play BluRay then his grandson will wonder incredulously what the old fella's whole deal is and why on earth he didn't just watch one or two of his favorite movie downloads or something ... or indeed why he couldn't have just bought him the iPod or iPad that he'd really wanted all along anyway ;-)

Ok, lets assume that your compelling proof was meant in jest anyway, nonetheless your two questions remain.

1. How much longer will Steve Jobs hold his "bag of hurt" stance on BR (or Flash for that matter)

Well, as far as the broadcast television market is concerned, he can probably hold the stance forever without giving any real cause for concern. But I'd agree that BR support will likely come eventually, but that regardless of the demands of the few it'll take the demands of the many before Apple give it any priority ... and I personally don't see enough of the many being that bothered as yet, if ever.

2. When will FCS get it's much needed ramp-up to stay competitive?

Now that's a fair question, and I'm glad to see you separate it from the question of BluRay support. Yes, there are plenty of ways both big and small in which FCP / FCS could be improved, and any "improvement" obviously helps to maintain the suite. Sadly tho' I don't have a definitive answer as to exactly when any such changes will happen / should be expected any more than anyone else ... I wish did as I'm sure I could capitalize on such information! I do know for certain, as do you, that the Pro Apps product managers are already very well aware of the wants and needs of the full gamut of their users, after all, Apple have beta testers too, plus a very active community. But if and when the feedback they're receive, either solicited or otherwise, is acted upon .. who knows? The golden rule as ever is that those who know won't tell, and those who tell don't know.


Which leads us to core issue of this silly thread I think ... expectation. From my irritatingly uniformed perspective, it seems to me that a large part of the current issue with the ever present "woe is us" crowd is that at sometime prior to the last release a number of Final Cut pundits (those in the "tell but don't know" camp) mistakenly assumed / unilaterally decided that FCS "3" was going to be a full 64 bit Snow Leopard, and OpenCL ready rewrite and therefore some kind of NLE second coming. So certain were they of their predictions that they utterly convinced themselves (and many of the fanboys) along the way that this was in fact a foregone conclusion and all that remained to be seen was how incredible it was all going to be. And then of course it didn't happen did it? First of all the absolute fact that FCS 3 would NOT be released before Snow Leopard completely fell apart when it clearly was released well before the Snow Leopard update, and then the certain fact that the release of Snowy would magically unlock all sorts of amazing but hitherto hidden stuff didn't pan out for those pundits and fanboys either ... and whilst all that panned out months ago the seeds of discontent were sewn, not so much (or at least not solely) by Apple, but by those whose adamant but false predictions set up such a large number of product watchers and users for a fall. And what worries me is the alarming confidence with which oh so many posters continue to bandy about this fully rewritten "next" version. It never ends eh?


Just my 2c
Andy

Thanks for that well considered response Robert. My opinions follow:

1. Native codecs - personally, I don't want them. THAT aspect of FCP is what breaks every new iteration of FCP for SOMEONE. Support the Big Ten (or however many are decided to be the REAL industry representation) and FORCE everyone else to transcode to an intermediate and get rid of FCP bloat. Include an app to do exactly that and update the app.

2. Interface? Next to Media Composer, FCP is the most straight ahead interface I've seen. Quit mucking with it. It's clean and it works.
3. Hardware acceleration - IF you follow and buy in to my take on ProRes as a digital intermediate, we have acceleration available.

Couldn't disagree more IF it is more reliable than the Burn from an FCP Timeline option or some Toast runaround. To get proofs into the hands of industrial or corporate clients or for one-offs, it's a great first step for a certain market segment - MINE.

Would I love to see HD-SDI support? Absolutely but then all of a sudden people are going to ask for HDMI input and DVI input (and then ask why the colours aren't what they see on their computer screen) and SOMEONE will ask for USB2.0 input, all of which drive up costs. In fact, including HD-SDI would drive up the cost. Go the 70's and 80's Sony Broadcast route and require an auxiliary input card (actually, probably not cost effective as just manufacturing the card bay to accept the upgrade would probably add too much to the production cost of the base).

It's a stop gap but IF it is more reliable, it's a way to get BD's into the hands of our clients at a reasonable cost. I have a consumer DVD recorder around here that HAS A PLACE - Timecode window burns, archives of live events like conferences and conventions that don't want to pay for tape costs.

It may not have a place in your workflow but to suggest that it isn't a pro solution is short sighted.

PS. My UNDERSTANDING of the JVC device is that all discs MUST be burned from the internal hard drive so the Firewire becomes a data transfer point, and as such is completely in the realm of good sense. HD-SDI is a fantastic VIDEO transfer, not data.

25 years ago I was a pro photographer, I’d spend days doing pinregistered rubylith cut outs for layered photos which takes minutes now. I would have loved to have gotten into film back then, but the cost and the limited market made the prospects of being a filmmaker unapealing at best..

Now for around 10k I have almost no limitations as to what I can do for a fraction of the cost and even a smaller fraction of the time of 25 years ago.

Sure I have some issues with the limited opions that Apple offers, but having the ability to be a viable filmmaker for what even I consider to be peanuts, is IMO amazing.

Just putting things in perspective a bit, as we tend to think way too much of what we don't have and not marvel at what we do have. Personally, I'm thankful for all the innovation that we do have and the speed at which it's come about.

That being said, I do feel for the ones who's workflow needs the up to date technology. Hope you get what you need ASAP.

Huh? What? This thread is still going? Gee... I don't think I care anymore - I'm just soooo distracted by this "brazilian butt workout" informercial that all I can think about is, "I need some gigs like that!".

Gimme some lights, grips and sunny-faced beach babes with abs that could bounce a quarter and I'll cut it on anything. Heck I'll even cross over and do it on Vegas, I don't care!

No more talk, gimme stupid-consumer-driven cash-now gigs! Now, where's all my Pelican cases...?!! (*_^)

Not true...

Logic studio is part of Pro Apps. They recently did a free upgrade to bring it up to 64 bit. There was also an FCS update but I think that was mostly bug fixes.

Consider that FCP is an application written in the legacy Carbon API framework. It has to be rewritten into the current Cocoa API. This is not a trivial task. FCP is written in C. It must be re-written in the more object oriented version of C known as Objective C in order to bring it into the 64 bit Cocoa framework.

Not a trivial task...