Final Cut Pro X for news shooters: You say you want a revolution?

DSLR News Shooter by James Bayliss-Smith

Final Cut Pro X for news shooters: You say you want a revolution? (Or, how I learnt to stop worrying and love the X)

To say that Final Cut Pro X – Apple’s long awaited update to Final Cut Pro 7 – caused a bit of a stir when it was released is a massive understatement. Loyal Apple editors had been brimming over with excitement after the company previewed FCP X on the sidelines of NAB at the Final Cut Pro User Groups Supermeet exactly a year ago.

I too was excited; the presentation really opened my eyes to the potential for this software to speed up my workflow. I loved the ‘magnetic timeline’ and I was particularly impressed with the way it handled large amounts of footage with powerful organisational tools using embedded metadata to identify footage with an unlimited number of keywords. I immediately saw the potential for incorporating it into my editing workflow, especially with regard to media management, and looked forward to getting my hands on a copy.

A full two months passed before Apple released it and the blogosphere was awash with excitement about how this software would revolutionise editing. But once it was released it caused uproar. Apple had removed (or more accurately hadn’t yet written in) several key ‘professional’ features of the software. This rendered the software useless for many more complex broadcast projects, especially projects that needed to be exported for finishing in a professional audio studio or a colour grading facility. The release was heavily criticized by video editors and resulted in several spoof videos. read more...