Apple could prove professionalism of FCPX

Question

First off, I'm curious to know what the FCPX promo videos on Apple's website were edited on:
http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/
I have a sneaking suspicion that it was edited on FCP7 and audio-sweetened outside of FCP.
But the real way Apple could prove the professionalism of FCPX, would be to edit a national broadcast commercial with it. My hunch would be that Apple would never do this with the current FCPX since there's no way to output OMF's, which are crucial to the professional post-production workflow in broadcast commercial production. And any Sound Engineer will state that FCPX's audio tools are not professional enough to conduct a final sound mix. (Can you even input a mixing board into FCPX??)
Matter of fact, Apple probably still shoots their national commercials on 35mm film - since 35mm film is still a professional industry standard and is difficult to beat with HD cameras since 35mm film is a chemical process that isn't limited by the aspect ratio of pixels that digital HD cameras are limited by.
And for final color grading, I'd be curious to see if Apple would be willing to color correct using FCPX's color correction tools. For the most part, Apple's TV commercials are probably color graded on high-end professional Flames and Infernos, which would require the export of EDL's or outputting to tape to transfer to a color correction suite. Why tape? Because professional post-production facilities are critical about retaining the highest quality possible. Although there are Uncompressed 4:4:4codecs out there, sometimes transferring to tape helps retain higher quality and is a quicker way to transport files rather than dedicating TBs worth of an Uncompressed 4:4:4 codec onto an external harddrive. Also, the moment film dailies are digitized, there is an immediate quality loss because digitizing takes and reduces the chemical processing of film, and confines it to a digital pixel-to-pixel ratio.
At any rate, it would be an interesting challenge to see if Apple would be willing to edit an entire national TV commercial in FCPX. With the discontinuation of the entire FCP 3 Studio and releasing FCPX with claims that it is professional, Apple is essentially saying that FCPX is the replacement for the entire FCP 3 Studio, and thereby, is claiming that entire professional project can be edited, color corrected, and sound mixed within FCPX.
This is a bold statement, and I'd be interested to see Apple try with the current version of FCPX, what normally requires entire post-production facilities and an army of post-production specialists. But if it can be done, then that most definitely puts FCPX on a whole new orbit and with a national TV commercial on it's reel, I'm sure more professionals would re-consider ditching the FCP pipeline.
FCP -- RIP 2011

Answer 1

stevo_chang wrote:
Maybe Creative Cow's podcast stating that the BBC is dropping FCP and looking to secure 20,000 seats for Premiere CS5.5 based on the release of FCPX could be assuaged if Apple could show how FCPX could be incorporated into a professional post-production workflow.
I honestly do not think they care... in the least. They are looking to the future, and this is not really a dig on Apple, just business for PROFIT.
Now with FCPX you basically have a iMovie on steroids (again not a dig just fire up iMovie and tell be it is not about the same at the core of editing) and believe it or not if your shots are pretty clean with good audio you can do some pretty good editing with just iMovie. But when people wanted a second video track they were moving on. I have worked for years with iMovie and the iMovie community when we "lost one" it was generally to Final Cut Express and there is a HUGE learning curve.   The new Final Cut X takes this out of the equation.
So what? You lose what 100,000 people that were paying something like $1,000 a pop for FCS?  Compared to picking up millions that can do "pro" work for a mere $300.  Easy math if you are in business to make money.
We went tough this with iMovie 8 and people left in droves or went back to imovie 6.  There are TONS of people that still use iMovie 6 to this DAY.  Heck Apple put it online so people would shut-up about it.
Down the road in a year or two the Pros that stayed will be singing the praises of FCP XI and there will be 100,000 people with a bad taste in their mouth.  I am just glad I did not spend too much time learning Color or Soundtrack or have a video business that expects me to make a decision to stay or go.