Apple's Richard Townhill discusses the latest FCP X release

Post by Randi Altman

CUPERTINO, CA — The newest iteration of the 64-bit FCP X was made available Tuesday as a free and full 30-day trial version featuring a number of, well let’s call them “requests,” from the professional community. Some of those included XML support, XSAN support, and something new called Roles. Another big “request” was multicam editing, and that is coming in early 2012, along with broadcast video monitoring.

Apple, for its part, wants it known that they are interested in providing a tool for the pro community and feel this 10.1 release starts to do just that. “We are excited to be able to prove to the professionals that we are listening to them and they are important to us,” says Richard Townhill. “We really are committed to this marketplace, and we really want the professional customer to continue to use Final Cut Pro as they’ve always done.”

With Final Cut Pro X, “we did something we thought was a real revolution in terms of professional video editing. At that time we said we were going to take feedback from our professional users and issue updates. Here we are less than three months later and we are making good those promises,” he continues.

Will it be enough for the Final Cut Pro 7 users who felt abandoned by Apple back in June? Will the video editor who left a profanity-laced rant on my voicemail be sated? That is still yet to be seen, but if Twitter is any indication, there are hopeful users willing to give it a second look, but then again there are others who point to what’s missing — in addition to the not-yet ready multicam and video monitoring, there is the inability to open layered Photoshop files in FCP X (for that you would need to use Motion first and bring it back into the NLE.).

So why change something that was so beloved in the first place and release it without so many absolutely necessary tools for pros?

They say, “in order to take full advantage of the Mac hardware, we needed to completely re-write Final Cut.” And they are readily admitting it’s a completely different way of looking at editing. They also readily admit that they are relying on third parties to help fill gaps in their post production workflow, and promise more to come in a timely manner. read more...