The Final Cut Pro X Backlash

Having been a professional editor for a number of years, I can say that many people in the industry were looking for ANY solution better than Avid. After a number of iterations, it finally looked like FCP could actually be that product.

Many of the smaller shops forming around that time jumped on board. Our (larger) shop decided that FCP wasn't quite ready for our workflow, so we did the sensible thing and installed dual-boot systems running Avid and FCP so editors could choose to experiment with FCP on smaller projects. All in all, FCP was open enough that you could easily design a workflow to suit your own needs.

The backlash in this case is somewhat warranted, in the sense that there are many shops that rely on FCP as the focal point in their workflow, and FCP X basically leaves them with no options to upgrade their systems any time soon.

I think what many of these editors fail to recall is that PRIOR to adopting FCP we basically fed ourselves using Avid systems that hadn't seen a major upgrade in years. With all the investment in proprietary equipment, it wasn't as if you could just upgrade whenever you felt like it. Nor would you necessarily want to. After all, large scale upgrades run the risk of bringing your business to a screeching halt if anything happens to be incompatible. In some ways, that was Avid's whole selling point- hardware & software compatibility(insert laughs here).

FCP X will likely be looked at in the future as yet another game changer in the world of NLEs. In the mean time, that means all the FCP shops out there are going to have to do the same thing they did before FCP, use what they have. As we used to say, somewhat tongue in cheek, "If it ain't broke, don't upgrade it."

Why not offer FC7 at a discounted price, or for free? Doing so would allow people with existing FC7 projects to move or expand their work to new machines, before they're ready to transition to FCX. It can't be that it would prevent or delay upgrades; FCX will be where the all the "sexy" new features go, so there should be plenty of incentive to eventually make the transition.

I could understand not offering such a discount only if there was solid backwards compatibility. So, could the form this release has taken be an indication that backwards compatibility is coming?