What is it that will make FCP 7 unusable?

Allot of people are talking about switching over to something else but I have seen at least in LA allot of FCP based production companies still cranking forward their deliveries with FCP7. I do mostly Avid jobs but I do about two FCP jobs per year and was just wondering at what point will FCP 7 no longer be an option? I mean just because it is EOL doesn't mean it's suddenly unusable at this point in time. Allot of Avids are always a year or two behind the current version and deliveries are still made. Other than the fact that you cannot add seats, there is no support and you cannot open old projects, what will be the one thing technically that makes people say "we just cannot deliver with FCP7 anymore? Maybe by then the next installment of FCPX will have it's act together. Maybe FCP(eleven) will be usable before FCP7 is unusable? I guess all of this applies to people already running FCP7. Startups are screwed I assume.

> I mean just because it is EOL doesn't mean it's suddenly unusable at this point
> in time.

Correct. You can use an FCP7 station for three or four more years, even, as long as the OS and QuickTime versions (and whatever add-ons, such as video cards and other hardware) stay unchanged and the system doesn't require repairs. Lots of sound designers don't get the most updated version of Pro Tools, either, and many editors are still using FCP6 or even FCP5.


www.derekmok.com

If you keep the same hardware and operating system and don't need to support new codecs and camera technologies in the future, you could keep FCP 7 running forever.

However, if you know that FCP 7 will never be updated, it makes sense to familiarize yourself with competing products (which was always a good idea, even when we though FCP had a future) so that you can hit the ground running when you finally switch. I don't think a technical thing will eventually make people give up, I think people will become so proficient in Avid and Premiere over time that it will seem rather pointless to start new projects in Final Cut Pro 7.

My software:
Pro Maintenance Tools - Tools to keep Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro X, Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premiere Pro running smoothly and fix problems when they arise
Pro Media Tools - Edit QuickTime chapters and metadata, detect gamma shifts, edit markers, watch renders and more
More tools...

Given that FCP 7 is EOL, I find it pointless to start too many new projects in that app. As FCP X is not something we are going to move to, it makes sense to make a clean break as quickly as possible and get my editors up to speed on something else.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
biscardicreative.com

What Jon and Walter said. I work on FCP 6 and 7 and sometimes on Tiger. If someone shoots on the RED cameras, it has to go onto FCP 7 or at least get transcoded on a machine with FCP 7, because the current R3D installer is only compatible with FCS '09. With older softwares and platforms, the longer you have to run it, the more hoops you have to jump through to use new tools.



www.strypesinpost.com

Also, FCP 7 is never going to get any better. It's a dead product. That means you'll forever be transcoding and rendering much slower than other products that are still developing, like Premiere and Avid, and there will never be fixes for any of the current bugs or things we have to work around.

Also, no schools will be teaching it anymore, since it's already outdated, so a large proportion of the new editors coming into the workplace won't know how to use it.

But if you're a single unit who doesn't need speed or to interface with anything that will change in the future, you can safely stay with it. Many of us will be staying with it as long as possible, but switching is inevitable.

And yea, image sequences. FCP is pants with image sequences.



www.strypesinpost.com

But we all know to use Quicktime for Image Sequences right

Yea, with the exception of DPX, which requires GlueTools. Or if you follow the Apple documentation, use Color.



www.strypesinpost.com

Using Motion 4 to bring in image sequences right in Fcp7 is great.

Just "edit" one image (the first) ... in your timeline, (duration of the image sequence) it's just a placeholder

Send to Motion, drop image séquence in project, delete placeholder, save, done ! you are back in Fcp with your image séquence as a Motion project in the TL

some say : I have to transit through an other app ?

answer : when you bring an image sequence in... there is some motion graphic work most of the time anyway.