Dear Apple,
As both a filmmaker and video educator I have a distinct perspective on the new version of Final Cut Pro X. In a nutshell, the new version is extremely dissatisfying and downright insulting.
As a high school video teacher, I've been slowly trying to switch my budget conscience school, to Final Cut Pro. We were fortunate enough to afford Final Cut Express, and I was slowly trying to turn over our older IBM G5s to Intel Macs which could finally run the latest Final Cut Pro software. However, after seeing the lack of professionally in the new version I'm sad to say I may have to abandon Final Cut altogether.
Now as a professional filmmaker, who has had and used Final Cut Pro since version 2, I cannot express enough how disappointed I am in version X. You have essentially locked me out of 10 years worth of older Final Cut projects, in order to supposedly usher in a new and revolutionary way to edit professionally. Not only that, but you fixed what was not broken. Final Cut 6 and 7 were amazing peaks in the softwares lifespan and now you've dumbed it down in order to get more entry level users and potentially higher profit margins.
This is completely unacceptable! I've invested literarily thousands of hard earned dollars into Final Cut, Apple computers, and all the third party accessories and software associated with Final Cut Pro all for it to essentially have gone down the drain. This is the thanks you give a loyal customer and promoter of your company and products?
I beg and urge you to see the errors of your decision and revert Final Cut Pro back to the previous architecture and design of version 6 or 7. If Coca-Cola can see the wisdom of returning "Coke" to "Classic Coca-Cola" after a resounding customer demand, I hope you can too.
I'm just a small fish in the large ocean of Final Cut Pro users, but in the interest and needs of my students and fellow filmmakers/professionals I hope that you will take my opinion and feedback seriously.
Thank you.
-Gustavo Guardado
Hi Gustavo,
ReplyDeleteAs a Hollywood broadcast telvision, feature film and commercial's professional for over thirty-years, I echo your complaints to the lack of foresight in the release of Final Cut Pro X. The general consensus is that this was a 'marketing division' decision, and had the User Community been advised it would have protested so loudly that the product might not have been released. To your point, yes they have abandoned all support for previous project and file formats for FCP X, but there is 'translation' software available that is 'supposed to' permit opening the projects in FCP X. My peers in Hollywood agree, FCP X is one big mess that caught everyone by surprise. My recommendation, stay with FCP 7.0. It is a rock solid application, and since you do not want all of the 'features' of FCP 7.0, you are missing nothing by not having the latest version. In any event I use Adobe Premiere / After Effects CS4 and they have not abandoned their user's as of today. Respectfully, Nicholas Chase - producer / director / writer / engineer - Nicholas Chase Productions - Golf Pro Video - Concord, CA USA