Final Cut Pro 10 is a disgrace to editing in fact it’s now positively dangerous, I decided after leaving it for a week or so to watch some more of my Ripple Training video and have a positive look at FCP-10.

It did not take long to shake me to the core, this software is a joke, I have used non linear edit suites for about 15 years starting with an Apple Turbo Cube, Digisuite with Speed Razor then Premiere 6.5 onto Premiere Pro. I joined FCP at version 5 and still use version 7.03.

The first major flaw is this mini cine reel, I accidentally clicked on it and it brought up a new project, wiping away my 2 hours of editing I had been working on…this is unreal I searched for an hour to retrieve my edit to no avail…to all intent purposes it was gone, then came the second more serious part of this joke software.

The second clanger came when I was playing about with a duff take and I erased it from the timeline to discover that you also erase it from the bin as well…this defeats the concept of non destructive editing.

Now I know this software is not FCP-7 with bells added but my experiment proved one thing that Apple have lost the plot when it comes to non destructive editing.

I decided to use this software as I would FCP7 or Premiere Pro 5.5 and it not only failed badly but is NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE and is POSITIVELY DANGEROUS in its present state. I also had to buy a program called CLIP WRAP which is excellent I may add in order to get my 1080 50p NX70 footage into FCP-10 (PS. It also gets the 1080 50p footage into Final Cut Express).

It’s a shame that Apple have got this so wrong in fact what we now have is a direct response to the DSLR mass marketplace, solid state editing at the cost of professionalism. (PS. This is not a cheap knock at the DSLR rather Apple trying to worm their way into an ever-increasing marketplace).

I do realise that I have “NOT” understood the concept of this software and it works lightyears away from what I have been used to but even after reading your comments I do feel Apple have re-invented the wheel for the sake of it and added a lot of unnecessary confusion and bad feeling that could so easily have been avoided.

While editing an update for one of my major clients I have discovered that Motion 5 is at present useless. I started to notice the program becoming sluggish and the beach ball of death coming on with the simplest of tasks, then it happened I was converting a PDF file into a JPEG and using the 3D mode to track the words on the page Motion 5 quit, I tried it twice more then gave up.

I am now back with Motion 4 and it works flawlessly…how can Apple bring out a new version of a program and get it so wrong ? I use Motion all the time and was getting the hang of 5 but this serious bug has taken the wind out of my sails. FCPX and Motion 5 are not fit for purpose, Apple should be ashamed of themselves bringing out such buggy unfinished software.

Both Adobe and Avid are hunting out disgruntled FCP users by giving us up to 50% off their software, Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 is got to be worth thinking about, I used Premiere Pro back in its infancy versions 1 and 1.5 and I loved it, Encore is a great solution for authoring DVDs and sending the DVD screen straight to Photoshop.

Avid is not my cup of tea, its been too pricy for to long, has problems with simple codecs like Sony’s SxSªand has had a succession of editors jumping from Avid to FCP 7 over the last two years so all in all I think Avid have missed the boat.

SxSª : This is based on a friend who shoots onto a Nanoflash and gives an Avid editor SxS, MP4 file and the computer does not recognise MP4, I do appreciate this is probably an earlier version of the software or the drivers are not up to date.

Ok so I was slack today and did not look out for Lion as I have done for the last week but as they say a watched kettle never boils.

 As you can see I am downloading this onto my iMac as I type so I can give you the low  down tomorrow evening.

I am not prepared or stupid enough to install this beast onto my MacPro as I have a  working FCP-7.0.3 and do not under any circumstances want to break it.

That is my main tip even if you are running FCP-10 do not download Lion as there has  never been an operating system to date that has not broken FCP in the past with various  bugs.

It seems to take an age to download the screen capture you see here was started at 8pm  this evening and it’s now 11.30pm !

Not sure how it will effect FC Express but thats a gamble I am willing to take if all else fails I still have the option to download FCP-10 onto the iMac but that would be a pig not to mention the £200.

Shocking NEWS from the Final Cut community is Apples underhand price hike from £179 to £199 in the space of two weeks ! Not only has this Janet and John editing system been reviled by professional editors around the planet, but the first time in Apples history that they have had such negative press around one product.

I am speechless as to Apples marketing ploy on this one when Adobe are now offering a massive 50% discount on their excellent 5.5 Production suite. You have no option but to buy Premiere if you want to produce Blu-ray DVDs as Encore to my knowledge is the only Mac platform DVD authoring software available today.

FCPX should be 50% less in my opinion as it has left out at least 50% of it’s previous incarnation including the ability to produce multi-cam editing. Some twat is dicking around with Apple and it’s reputation, I only hope Steve Jobb’s gets out his sick bed and kicks someones ass…sooner rather than later.

If we are going to see FCP-8 this is the web site that will have the first sniffing. It was very stupid of Apple to wax on about iMovie soon to be available for iPad 2 and not even mention Final Cut.

Once again Apple prove to their loyal FCP users that we are not even worth a mention even by the so called father of FCP, Randy Ubllios, who could have given us some hope of seeing FCP-8 at NAB 2011.

It is rumoured that it’s not only Steve Jobbs that’s sick but Apple as a company are looking at abandoning Xsan and Final Cut Server, this will be a substantial blow to Final Cut Users as most pro houses including the BBC use Xserve in a daily basis.

THE STORY as reported by MAC RUMOURS

“Apple’s early November announcement that it will discontinue its Xserve line of rackmountable servers at the end of this month has caused turmoil among the product’s fans, while Steve Jobs has suggested that poor sales were the reason for the decision. But in a follow-up report today, Hardmac claims that the Xserve discontinuation may only be the beginning of a move by Apple to pare down its storage- and server-focused offerings.

According to our sources, the discontinuation of the Xserve by Apple would be only the beginning of an overhaul, which would lead to the disappearance of some professional-orented activities.
Xsan and Final Cut server could be among the programs being discontinued, as Apple’s management would be wondering whether to continue to develop and support them in the future.

Looking even further down the line, the report claims that Apple could opt to do away with its Mac OS X Server releases entirely, although the company is still expected to release a server version of Mac OS X Lion later this year.”

Once again we are hearing nothing but negativity all based round Final Cut Pro…will we ever see a 64bit version ? I think the tide has turned for FCP and too many people are now abandoning Final Cut in favour of Premiere Pro.

I must admit that so far I have stuck with FCP-7 but things are now in place within my own edit suite to allow a smooth transition across to Premiere Pro if needs must !

Take a good look at these power connectors and hope you are not working with the round version above. I gave my son my older G4 Power Book and today his power supply has packed in…can I get a new one let alone a second hand one. Apple should be ashamed of themselves by changing the power plug from the round version to the square four pin version leaving all the round pin users to drown in it’s obsolescence.

They are so proud of their “unique” look all the way through to the 24.5v power connector which lights up when plugged in, yet they care not a jot when they decide to re design such a crucial part of the design. My advice is buy a spare 5 pin power lead while you can if you intend using your MAC long after the power supply has been re designed !

You have been warned, yesterday I installed iOS 4.2.1 into my iPad and caused FOUR hours worth of grief …DO NOT UPDATE TO iOS 4.2.1.

Apple have had a massive amount of complaints with people updating to what was 4.2 then became 4.2.1 so within a matter of hours Apple had changed the update themselves but I am not recommending you do so as it is clearly very buggy.

Apple have indeed lost the plot as today it has been reported to me that Final Cut Pro 8 has been further delayed till August 2011, this is a major blow if it is true for all FCP users as 64bit has been further shunted into the autumn of 2011. If this story is true I for one will be switching to Adobe CS5 before the end of this year as I can no longer afford to wait for Apple to come up with the goods.

Premiere Pro has come a long way in the last few years and Adobe has been adding many future proof features like a plug in for 3D called Cineform neo 3D HD that allows you to edit 3D footage straight from the timeline and view it in 3D. Another feature is 7 streams of HD if you use the nVidia’s CUDA technology and achieve real-time playback for Quicktime dSLR, and AVCHD footage.

Apple’s backward thinking has made Blu-ray an almost impossible route for them to go down, while Adobe has embraced Blu-ray and made it a seamless part of Encore their DVD authoring program.

While the switch will be a dear one it will take my 12 core MacPro up to a new level and utilise the 64 bit technology as it was intended by Apple in the first place. I am not looking forward to the learning curve but having come from Premiere Pro many years ago it shouldn’t be that bad.

One other reason for cutting Final Cut Studio is the now antiquated DVD Studio Pro 4 one of the best in it’s time now a sorry state of bugs that keeps me from even opening it up looking for ghost files that no longer exist.

I will remain a Motion fan as it’s just as easy to send footage to Motion as it would to After Effects.

It was not a coincidence that the BBC have chosen to go down the Adobe route when they already have editors using Final Cut Pro, thankfully for them Adobe brought Premiere back to the Mac so the switch over won’t be as bad other than installing new software.

One other thing that saddens me is the sneak peek of “Lion” the new so called OSX…lame is the word that springs to mind, I can’t see any feature that will set the heather alight unlike previous major upgrades…I think the writing is on the wall for Apple unless they seriously re invent themselves.

UPDATE : Since writing this I seem to have lost the plot as well thanks to J Ball for pointing out my spelling error, as of today I have now installed the nVidia Quadro FX4800 in my MacPro one further step in my own death nell for FCP !

FURTHER UPDATE : As of March 2011 it seems Apple are to bring us Final Cut Pro 8. The reason I did not make the move was for 2 reasons…Paul Joy found that his final output was compromised using Premiere Pro in other words the quality was not as good as Final Cut Pro, secondly if it ant broke don’t fix it.