Notes from Apple’s Pro briefing on Final Cut Pro X in London – updated with clarifications

Looks like Apple’s softly softly actions to keep professionals onside are continuing.

Sam Johnson (of AMV LAB) was invited, amongst others, to an Apple briefing on Final Cut Pro X.

Here are is what Sam tweeted after the briefing. Follow him on Twitter where he posts as @aPostEngineer

1. FCP XML in/out is coming via 3rd party soon…no FCP 6/7 support project support coming ever it seems… 2. Ability to buy FCP7 licenses for enterprise deployments coming in the next few weeks… 3. FCPX EDL import/export coming soon… 4. FCPX AJA plugins coming soon for tape capture and layback…capture straight into FCPX bins. 5. XSAN support for FCPX coming in the next few weeks… 6. FCPX Broadcast video output via #Blackmagic & @AJAVideo coming soon… 7. Additional codec support for FCPX via 3rd Parties coming soon… 8. Customizable sequence TC in FCPX for master exports coming soon… 9. Some FCPX updates will be free some will cost…

He went on to answer some questions:

conigs Do they have any kind of timeframe for “soon”? Am I safe in guessing in 2011?

aPostEngineer within a few weeks for some updates i.e. XSAN up to a few months for 3rd party developers to get their heads around the API.

gigarafa what about the rest of the suite? Color, dvd studio etc?

aPostEngineer they have unfortunately reached their EOL and will not be developed any more..

They said that taking FCP7 off the shelf was the most complained thing… (Answering a message from @NMRUK)

Peter Wiggins of Idustrial Revolution was also there.

Compressor works in 64 bit but throttles down to 32 bit when using 32bit only codecs … A few DAM companies have been working closely with Apple and FCPX – Expect a range of asset management solutions from very cheap to expensive soon.

Peter has written more extensively about this briefing over at the fcp.co forum.

Thursday afternoon UPDATE from Sam Johnson’s tweets

Apple have contacted me in regards to my tweets…and wanted to make sure the facts are right… 2. Ability to buy ADDITIONAL FCP7 licenses for EXISTING volume licensed deployments is something Apple are only looking into at this stage. 4. FCPX AJA plugins coming soon for tape capture and layback…capture straight into FCPX events. Will not be a plugin but an AJA application.

Sam missed the first 10 minutes of the briefing, so might have been worried that Apple banned any reporting and he didn’t get the message, however I imagine Peter was there from the beginning, and he published late last night.

Apple may be irritated that Sam didn’t get the precise message about new FCP7 licenses, but that was at least 50% Apple’s responsibility. They chose the method for the release of this information.

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