That “X” is a Roman numeral ten as in OS X (yes that also was supposed to be read oh-es-ten in case you didn’t know). So what’s happening with Final Cut Pro, the leader in video editing second to none? It’s got an upgrade. And they dropped the price from US $1,000 to US $299. People are outraged. 

This is due to a certain Déjà vu: when iMovie got its last major upgrade it got a completely revamped UI and technically it went finally into the 21st century, but it also lost a lot of features. At first that is.

The iMovie case

I, too was upset. At first, that is. I was so entrenched in the “old” way of doing video editing that I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. At first, that is. And all the nice effects and transitions were reduced to a bare minimum. So, I felt this upgrade gave me the Emperor’s new clothes, nothing more.

I have been working in the video editing field for over 5 years and you acquire a lot of habits of doing things this or the other way. Apple completely did away with any “old” way. The new UI was a revelation, but it needed time to sink in. Since by the time the new iMovie came out I wasn’t making a living of video editing anymore (I was in an ad agency then with occasional mini video jobs), I didn’t invest any time to “learn” the new UI. So I left it sitting on my Mac’s hard disk and it got a few updates which I never bothered to really check out, but still applied—just in case.

And one day I sat down, because I wanted to edit a longish movie and my new Mac wouldn’t run the old iMovie app so I started with the new one, still didn’t get the new interface, switched over to Final Cut Express (I wasn’t a pro anymore, remember?) until I found everything so “pedestrian” so repetitive and inefficient that I gave iMovie a second chance. Except for massive subtitling I never looked back. And by the time I actually got to love iMovie it had also evolved enough to be more than capable. There were some features in there I’d have never dreamt of in such a low priced application. The upgrades that I applied over the months and years were considerable and massive.

Back to the present

Now people being outraged about Final Cut Pro X is that they get something less in regards to functionality, but let’s put this in perspective. You now get a fully 64-bit capable app that has based a lot of the new UI on the very advanced iMovie, you get if for 299 bucks, which was the price of Final Cut Express (the semi pro “castrated” version of Final Cut Pro), and it already is lightyears ahead of Final Cut Express. What’s to complain about?

Video editors nowadays invest a lot of money into some special hardware which they don’t get to replace as often as the software upgrades roll in, so many of them already are running considerably older versions of video editing software, just because the newer version don’t run on an OS that supports their older hardware or the new version of FCP might have issues with the hardware, too. They’ve never been outraged about hardware vendors not getting their stuff together to come out with timely firmware upgrades and drivers.

So just keep on using FCP 7. It works. It didn’t break over night. It’s still the best video editing app for pros out there. If you switch now to other NLE’s you gain nothing and loose all. Just give FCPX two years. Yes two. Maybe even just one. Apple will improve on it. They will add all the stuff back in for the pro’s to make this package a screaming success. They have just laid the foundation. A solid and sober one. No uneccessary features, just bare bones. But that’s what they’ve always done. OS X 10.0 was like this, but would you have switched to Windows, just because it was unpolished and unfinished? The first iPhone was like this, but would you have rather gotten a Nokia, just because it wasn’t all you dreamt of?

The real reason for the outrage

Envy. Pure and honest envy. They have seen iMovie, most of the editors probably dabbling their feet in it grudgingly admitted it was kinda cool and many probably muttered the one or the other “I wish I had this in Final Cut”. Now the 64-bit upgrade for FCP is out and they get all these iMovie UI goodness and then some, but it’s missing a few things that makes it impossible for some of them to use it fully in production just yet.

The people so outraged really want to use FCPX. They want it so terribly they can’t wait any longer, so they feel betrayed and are looking for some place to let off some steam “I’m going to switch to Avid” and other moot threads are shouted towards Cupertino. C’mon guys! You’ve done that, been there, even got the t-shirt. You are going down a long and dark alley of pain and despair if you switch now. Give Apple and Final Cut just one to two years and you will be happy. Until then keep on using FCP7 for production and FCPX will replace Final Cut Express on your home laptops until the day when it’ll be grown up and ready for business.

And more than that stop whining dammit. Nobody forces you to buy it and FCP7 still is an awesome package in itself.

Ah and one more thing…

Motion for 50 bucks? You’ve got to be frigging kidding me, what the hell are you complaining about?