Final Cut Pro X Review: Growing Pains and an Unsatisfying Start

In April 2011, Apple first demoed the next version of its popular nonlinear video editing tool, Final Cut Pro. This new version, dubbed Final Cut Pro X, looked to be a major leap forward for the aging program, and when I gave my first impressions of the application, I was hopeful that the new interface also came with new features.

Apple unceremoniously dropped Final Cut into the Mac App Store to purchase on June 21, along with updated versions of its Compressor and Motion programs. The release of version X (pronounced 'ten', like the roman numeral and Apple's OS X) heralds the dissolution of Final Cut Studio, a $1000 bundle that was the only way to buy Final Cut previously. Now, Final Cut costs a mere $300, Motion and Compressor $50 each, and some of the other former bundled programs--including Color and Soundtrack Pro--are gone, possibly for good.

Unfortunately, the absence of the other applications is but one pain keenly felt with the release of Final Cut Pro X, hereafter referred to as FCP X. Calling it an upgrade doesn't seem to do the program justice--it really is an entirely new video editing program. But the problem is that the rehab of the program has come at the expense of many of its pro features. At the time of its first showing, some professional editors were afraid that the program was going to be "iMovie Pro" or "iMovie on steroids", killing its professional applications. That's not entirely true, but it does seem that the new version is simultaneously more powerful and less capable than its predecessor.

Let's start with the biggest changes. The old grey interface is gone, replaced with a sleek and sexy dark-themed palette. The old timeline is gone, and some functions, such as the playhead, have seen their functionality changed. Most of the timeline editing tools remain, but have either seen their abilities tweaked or rolled into a single tool. Aside from the new paint job, a lot of the basic interface is unchanged.

Underneath the basic facade, however, is a new paradigm of how editors treat their projects. In FCP 7, an editor logged, captured, or loaded up their tape or tapeless footage, modified their names and giving them labels for good or bad footage and takes. Then, they moved the assets and footage into custom bins for easier sorting, then dragged them down to the timeline or used a key command.

It is entirely fair to say that FCP X behaves more like iMovie than FCP 7 in that it now treats all projects like a library. All your footage is available for any project, but the rub is that a project can only contain one timeline sequence--if you want to make a copy of that sequence, that requires a new project. It's not any slower than the old way of doing things, but it's a shift in how you relate and load your media. Likewise, media connection is automatic, but that's a bit confusing for editors who are used to manually finding and connecting lost clips.

Rather than use folders or bins, Final Cut has left behind the old physical film editing metaphor and replaced it with keyword tagging. So much of logging is now automatic, and editors apply keywords to sort footage. Final Cut can also automatically great sorting methods based on the type of shot--wide, closeup, etc.--or by how many people are in the shot. The best change by far is that Final Cut can now transfer and analyze all this footage in the background, so editors don't have to wait for potentially hours before starting in on their editing. Ingest is by and large simpler, but this comes with a caveat--many old tape systems won't be supported. Tapeless is the future, but old studios may have to rely on old equipment that won't be supported. FCP X's staple of native codecs has not greatly increased either--you can't directly edit files for the RED line of cameras, for example, so as with previous versions editors need proxy files or work arounds.

Once actually editing, a lot of things are easier and more intuitive, once you get past unlearning old tricks. Audio is easier to sync, it's harder to mismatch or collide clips, and very complex edits can be turned into compound clips to clean up the timeline--a much more effective method than the old multiclip or nested sequence workarounds of yore. The playhead and scrubber are now separated, which takes getting used to and I'm not really sure if it's an improvement or not. There are no discretely labeled tracks for audio or video anymore, which seems like an oversight.

With the loss of Soundtrack Pro, Apple has inherited many of its features, including automatically analyzing audio for problems and easy cleanup methods. Its color abilities have also been expanded, with smart color-matching from clip-to-clip, something that used to take a few minutes in the best of circumstances.

Among the other nifty features is the fact that you can audition features, comparing different shots without actually making edits to the timeline. And rendering is no longer the massive hassle it used to be with background processes. That brings us to hands-down the best feature of FCP X--speed. It's written to leverage every scrap of computing power your computer is capable of, and it shows. It runs fast, and everything is snappy.

Now to the critical downsides. While some might argue tapes are meaningless now, and I would agree, other omissions are not so easy to ignore. EDL, OMF and XML import and export are missing, meaning that FCP X won't talk with third-party or even other Apple applications. With the loss of Color, this means that editors cannot migrate their color-corrected files back into FCP X. Also worrisome is the inability to send a signal to an external TV, also extremely important for judging color. This is perhaps the most critical issue with the new program--Apple has disrupted effective, greased workflows, with no easy alternatives. Editors make their living on this software, and won't bother upgrading if they cannot continue to reliably work on projects in a similar manner. Finally, FCP X can't open up projects from previous versions, effectively severing itself from its predecessor.

Unsurprisingly, the reviews of the new software have been deeply mixed (1), largely split down the novice editor/veteran editor gulf. John Gruber of the blog Daring Fireball made an apt analogy when he compared the 7 to X change as the editing equivalent of switching from OS 9 to OS X (2). Ultimately, I think rewriting FCP X from scratch was the right idea. Releasing it at a lower price-point was the right idea. But cutting important features at the same time wasn't. The transition from OS 9 to OS X was eased by the fact that you could dual-boot OS 9 and OS X, you could emulate OS 9 inside OS X with classic mode, and Apple did not stop supporting OS 9 until years after the first version of OS X shipped. In this case, Apple has dropped FCP 7 and jumped to the new version while it is still very much a 1.0 release, bugs and features missing and all. If Apple had instead announced that FCP X would be available as a free or cheap $50 beta (with a discount once the full version came out in three to six months), the backlash probably wouldn't have occurred. Alternatively, this version could have been touted as the update to Apple's former iMovie to FCP bridge, Final Cut Express; pros would have waited for a more advanced and polished version of the Express update.

It's been oft-repeated by FCP X defenders that many features are coming in the near future (3), but Apple's assurances aren't worth much when money is on the line. It seems unfair to charge full-price for a program that as of yet cannot support full-featured editing. Ultimately, I am confident that FCP X will be the best nonlinear editing tool out there in a year or so. But it's unfortunate that they couldn't make it such a tool right out the gate. Instead, they have spooked and alienated their core constituency, who must now warily eye Adobe Premiere or even Avid. Next time, Apple needs to communicate with its consumers better, or else it might lose the market it once dominated.

References
* (1) Chris Foresman (June 22, 2011). "Final Cut Express, Server going away as Apple improves Final Cut Pro X". Ars Technica. Retrieved June 25, 2011.
* (2) John Gruber (June 22, 2011). "The Final Cut Pro X Backlash". Daring Fireball. Retrieved June 24, 2011.
* (3) Philip Hodgetts (June 21, 2011). "My Impressions of Final Cut Pro X". PhilipHodgetts.com. Retrieved June 25, 2011.

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