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Final Cut Pro lead: FCP X is the 'beginning of a road'

updated 12:45 pm EDT, Sun June 26, 2011

Apple's Ubillos reassures video editors after FCPX

Apple's video editing software lead Randy Ubillos quietly addressed some of the fears of professional video editors following the rocky introduction of Final Cut Pro X. Shortly before the company's more technical help, Ubillos was adamant to a CreativeCow forum member that the feature set wasn't concrete. Alluding to an upgrade pattern similar to iMovie, he saw it as a foundation for a larger platform.

"Final Cut Pro X 1.0 is the beginning of a road, not the end," the executive said.

He added that the inability to port Final Cut Pro 7 projects stemmed from a lack of data and the development work that might have been involved in the conversion process. Links between connections in FCPX are built into the timeline, not the editor's head as in 7. Other posters saw FCP7 as having a fundamentally different approach to joining video clips.

No pressure existed to find a workaround for this, Ubillos explained, since he didn't expect video editors to risk losing work or slowing themselves down moving from 7 to X. "We never expected anyone to switch editing software in the middle of a project, so project migration was not a priority," he said.

The app has taken flak for dropping a number of features that some video editors consider crucial, such as multi-cam support, more independence over audio tracks, and numerous other features that can be necessary for some movies and TV shows. Apple allows FCPX to run without overwriting 7 but may leave some companies editing with the old version for months or more if they don't switch to a rival system like Adobe Premiere or Avid.

by MacNN Staff



  1. donmontalvo

    Joined: Dec 1969


    AVID, Premiere...

    ...some of our clients are asking us to help them road map the migration from FCP. I don't doubt the move to FCPx was the smart business move, since Apple is likely to make a lot more money off the amatures than the pros. But expect an exodus to AVID and Premiere, and the inevitable "light" versions of these apps for consumers.

    Apple may have shot themselves in the foot this time. May not feel it for a while, but it's done.

    Don Montalvo

  1. igroucho

    Joined: Dec 1969


    Time to move on

    from the old to the new.
    This v1 and all features will be added. You have to have a robust 64 bit core. The move was essentiell. This is just the beginning of something new and after all there is still FCP 7, so why the wining?

  1. aussiearn

    Joined: Dec 1969



    I agree with igroucho! People whining are just not not being very professional. As an editor I am using FCS3 for my mission critical work, and have begun a separate project in FCPX to bring myself up to speed. As more features are added I can see myself moving more and more over to FCPX. My initial experience has been really positive as I took the time to watch the videos at and got a great tip about gaps being clips from Also big thumbs up again to Ken Stone at who is a legend and gives a great tutorial.

  1. climacs

    Joined: Dec 1969


    just don't install FCPX on the same drive as


    It is strongly recommended that you install Final Cut Pro X, Motion 5, and Compressor 4 on a startup disk that does not have Final Cut Studio (2009) already installed.

  1. demani

    Joined: Dec 1969


    Uh because FCP 7 isn't available?

    Do you trust Apple to update FCP X the same way they updated QT X? Both were released to replace an older product and had less features than the older model. QT hasn't had a single update that added feature parity with QT 7. So I don't count on APple to do anything (hope maybe, but not count on).

    And the issue with importing FCP 7 projects is that we'd be able to bring data forward with us, rather than needing to keep old machines with old OSX around to keep running it (no guarantees that 10.8 in a 18 months won't kill FCP7 for good). Many editors go back to old projects (for example, cutting 60 second commercials down to 30 or 15 seconds, or doing a director's cut for retail release of a movie). It has plenty of use- and it may just end up being someone else who does it unfortunately.

  1. aussiearn

    Joined: Dec 1969


    Same drive

    I did, no problems at all.

  1. charlituna

    Joined: Dec 1969


    Non of this should be a shock

    They were clear when they previewed FCPX in April that this was a brand new software, bugs and missing features should be expected as it happens with new software from all companies all the time.

    They released it on MAS which is known to not be able to update pre MAS software.

    THey said after NAB that what was seen wasn't the final version and there was much more to come.

    And Randy is right. Pro editors don't change mid stream to an untested program. So the lack of importing at this moment isn't really that huge of a deal. Also, we tend to keep our disks so we can go back to all kinds of prior setups if needed. Especially these days when you can clone a frozen set up to a hard drive, flash drive or even SD card pretty easily.

    Comment buried. Show
  1. facebook_Clarence

    Via Facebook

    Joined: Jun 2011


    Beginning of a road:

    This road goes downhill.

  1. macentric

    Joined: Dec 1969


    This isn't the beginning of a new road...

    It is a fork in the road. You can choose to take the FCPX fork and continue with Apple or you can choose either the Avid or Adobe forks in the road. One way or another your old projects won't import and you have to retrain yourself or staff on a new product that may or may not work well with your workflow.

  1. DoctorGonzo

    Joined: Dec 1969


    We're on a road to nowhere...


    This. Is. Crazy.

    I can't tell you the number of times people in my office have to go back to projects that have already aired.

    That's like saying "We never expected anyone to switch word processing software in the middle of a book, so project migration was not a priority." The completely insane suggestion is that creative projects have a definite end, and never need to be revisited.

    It's like saying Xcode 5 won't open Xcode 4 projects, so Apple engineers should just rewrite OS X from the ground up for 10.8. I mean, they can just wrap up 10.7 on XCode 4 and move on, right?

    And we can't stick with FCP7 since Apple RECALLED the retail copies. And it won't be supported any further, and will inevitably break with an OS X update.

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