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Cinema Tools for Final Cut Pro
batobin writes "Looks like Apple is expanding their grasp on the film editing industry with their new release of Cinema Tools for Final Cut Pro. It enables FCP 3 to better manage film and 24 fps high density video. The product is expected to ship in May."
It costs $2000 dollars to buy both packages. If you add the cost of a mac which is probably going to run for about $2000 ( if you don't have a mac that is) the price comes to about $4000. How many people can actually afford that?
Oh well, I'm just gonna stick to my PC.
And since they bought out Nothing Real, this doesn't actually come as a surprise.
Ordo Militum Unix.
Statements like that are what are wrong with us today.
When do you need to make cinema-quality video? I understand people wanting the cool technology, but at some point you have to be content. You have to accept that you can never have the newest/fastest/coolest/best thing for very long (unless you have a 7 figure disposable income).
People claim they can't live without Photoshop, and they actively obtain the newest version. But how many people stop to think "Gee, I've been using Photoshop for 8 years now, maybe I should save up and buy a copy."
I'm not a software purist, who has sent a check to every shareware developer whose program he has used more than twice. I won't say that I don't have any software I didn't pay for, (I use IE and Mozilla ;) but I have paid for software I considered worthwhile. That includes a legal copy of Photoshop.
The reality is that we end up spending money on the software we don't own and don't need. If you ever bought a bigger hard drive instead of deleting LightWave, 3D Studio Max, and Maya, you spent money on that software. If you really use the software regularly, for more than playing around, it's probably worth investing money in. If you use it for an occupation, you have probably considered the legal implications.
I won't waste my time telling people not to steal software. Just consider the makers. If nobody bought Photoshop, Adobe would give up on it. If you and 9 friends all use Photoshop frequently, get together and buy it. Is it what Adobe wants? No. Is it better for Adobe than getting a copy on KaZaA? Yes.
Just my opinion.
--
Freedom of information doesn't mean information should be free. Just because you can read the book doesn't mean you shouldn't pay for it.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
Well to be honest most people don't need this product, so trying to make a profit (or clear the dev costs) is going to need high prices. Heck, most people don't have DV cams, and most of the ones that do can get by with iMovie. Of the ones that can't get by with iMovie, most don't need more then what Final Cut Pro does. The few that do can afford $1000, right? And since there are only 300 or so people that need it, charging $30 won't make the dev costs back at all...
First we bitch at MS for making a 12G install of MS Office because it's too bloated, and now at Apple for producing a lean mean fighting machine?
Final Cut Pro is eating heavily into Avid's market share (as well as Media100's). I think I saw stats that claimed something like 30% of the market for FCP. That's without the new stuff. I have friends who've worked with both Avid and Media's stuff, and are now actively switching or planning to switch over to FCP. Of course, this is just anecdotal evidence, but it points to something I've been wondering about for awhile. namely, the democratization of film.
Apple gave us a set of tools in the 80's that democratized publishing. Took it out of the hands of those that could afford hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment and consumables, and required people who could learn to code, and made it so anyone with a few grand and no arcane technical skills could do it. Badly, of course, but neverthless....It demolished that industry. Then they democratized prepress, that industry is almost gone. (I know, I worked in both of those industries.) Now it's film. Jobs has said that movies are going to be the DTP of the 21st century (or words to that effect) I think he knows what he's doing. If you think of Hollywood as an association of typesetters in the mid-80's, you can see why they're fighting anything that lets people create/use media on computers. The train is coming. More and more independent films made, more ways of distributing new content than just showing in theatres, etc., etc.
Sam Goldwyn, we're coming for you...
There is a thin line between genius and insanity. I have erased that line. -- Oscar Levant
FCP is right up there with the other big applications for professional work..... FCP3 has made a lot of leaps, and FCP will only look nicer with the recent buy ups that Apple is making, plus that new 23" high resolution screen. i have a feeling they might acquire a few more companies before they slow down. i read somewhere last fall when most all computer makers were having bad financial times about Apples free cash. seems theuir pile of cash just sitting in the bank was many times that of IBM or any other computer maker. since everyone was hurting fromt he bad economic times (coupled with 9-11 fallout) it was a perfect time for Apple to pick up some technology. that was when the rumors were flying about Apple buying up SGI too.... I'm sure a lot of people will never ditch Avid, but FCP is making a lot of progress and for *most* users is totally valid for the project they are doing. with the recent push for it i can only see it getting better anyway, and competition just makes better products for the consumer in the end (till MS gets in the game).
anyway, the choice of editing applications, in many cases, is personal taste.... not unlike the ongoing war over Adobe or Quark for a layout application. though in that case i think Quark is dropping the ball on the Apple front by stalling their OS X ready version. Adobe has theirs, and it seems a lot of Quark Express diehards are taking it for a spin for that reason alone.
Suppose you are a student, or in education; you can get FCP 3 for a mere $300 and the Cinema tools for the same. That's $600 for a LOT of power. It is absolutely marvelous that apple values students enough to offer so much for so little, not even Micro$oft has such discounts as Apple when it comes to giving the ability to learn important software ($1,400 wow!). This is further demonstrated by their student developer plan. I'm glad someone thinks we're important.
First factor is the editor. Bar none, the job will go to top-notch talent. We fly out to LA just to get the best color correction people, even for a 3 hour transfer.
Second, and closely linked is the gear: good talent won't stay that far behind the technology curve. And for good reason: who will stay at the console waiting for your consumer-grade machines to render an effect 20 times slower than the pro job? No one, not even the clients.
Amazingly, third actually is the cost, just ahead of who owes who a blowjob in the industry.
Now back to gear, let's look seriously at what your 'G4 with FCP' will look like. You'll still need a terabyte or so of diskspace for video storage, so buy a NetApp or build your own disk array. You'll need some serious digitize cards to pull in video in realtime. You'll need production grade monitors to get good color, otherwise you'll spend days in transfer doing what you could have done in off-line. You'll need edit decks, most enjoy DigiBetas, but in your 'low-cost' example, 3/4"'s could suffice - you'll just be contracting to dub houses later. You'll want some effects boards to test concepts in semi-realtime; I suppose you could build a beowulf cluster to do that, and then write your own software....
Each of these adds up in time spent there, or time spent in finish, which, I might add, costs 10 times off-line in hourly costs. So when you say:
I point out that quality matters all the way through the process, or you'll pay for it all in the final edit. And the resulting cost will keep your clients from coming back. You don't know what you're talking about: edit shops like you describe open all the time, and they invariably go out of business.