Reality TV Producer Bunim/Murray Drops Final Cut For Avid

This should really surprise no one. The quote, "Their commitment to the needs of their professional customers, like us, is clear." should sting. Apple, Inc's entire direction is away from the professional consumer who helped build their success in the first place (killing Xserve, the FCP debacle, nebulous MacPro future, Lion!). You've made your choice, Apple. Now sleep in the bed you've made.

This should really surprise no one. The quote, "Their commitment to the needs of their professional customers, like us, is clear." should sting. Apple, Inc's entire direction is away from the professional consumer who helped build their success in the first place (killing Xserve, the FCP debacle, nebulous MacPro future, Lion!). You've made your choice, Apple. Now sleep in the bed you've made.

Spot on. IMO the last 18 months has shown that Apple no longer have a long term commitment to the Mac past consumer use.

^ agreed Kabeyun...
Apple was always the professionals choice for hardware/software in the video and audio industry, now they are geared towards phones and Ipads.. O well..

Wait - they edit reality TV? Could have fooled me.

Hopefully Peter Steinauer is using this and other examples as bulletin board material to motivate the designers and programmers to get their **** together. If FCPX2 doesn't come out within the next year and address almost all the complaints from professionals, they can kiss the pro video and film market goodbye for the foreseeable future.

Companies and editors are not going to stay on FCP7 for another few years waiting for FCPX to be brought back up to standard. Many of them will likely switch to Avid or Premiere as well as replacing their machines with Windows PCs. Once this happens, it will be another 3-5 years before they would even consider switching back to FCPX, and many wouldn't do so just because of this previous headache and lost trust in Apple.

What really bothers me about this is that Apple has many editors and creative professionals who have had their back and have been pushing for them for years within companies. They have had to fight long and hard to get managers and others to justify spending more on Apple Hardware. Now they look bad, and will likely have a harder time being trusted when it comes to purchase decisions. I really feel sorry for anyone who had their news stations or other large scale companies fully invest in FCP Server to only have it be discontinued 2 years later.

I for one will not be sticking my neck out for Apple anymore in professional settings, as I've been burned by them enough to where it's making me look bad. I have begun advising clients and others to switch to Avid or Premiere if they are going to upgrade their systems. As someone who has been a long time supporter of Apple since the early 90's using Adobe products and then onto FCP and Logic, it's sad to see the company that helped inspire me into my current career begin to abandon my field and turn almost all of their focus on consumer goods.

This is no skin of Apple's......apple?

Actually, it is. You just can't see it happening because it's a trickle-down effect. The professionals are "influencers" and if Apple loses them, they'll be losing the inner foundation and core that saved them in the first place.

Read up. They STARTED reality tv.

Pretty sure that was a slam at reality TV, not Bunim/Murray. :rolleyes:

I hate reality TV and avoid watching it, but playing devil's advocate, I'd bet that such shows actually require the same if not more editing and re-work than more structured shows.

God, that is one ugly logo...

Yeah, this will only accelerate. I'm a senior editor at one of the three major networks, and we're all joking about Final Cut X. We'll probably just go back to Avid, though Premiere is interesting.

What's funny is that we just switched to FCP two years ago. Massive, network-wide, corporation-wide switch. Ours is one megacorporation that won't be buying Mac again anytime soon.

Pennywise and pound-foolish of Apple to alienate it's most ardent users, I think. But then again, I just bought a Macbook Pro, so what does that say ;)

If their workflow looks even half like what I think it does, I am surprised they held out so long.

The hint here is that its not just MC, but a full AVID solution. That means everything from PT edit bays to ISIS storage, MC editing, MAM management, DS ingest, AVID Motion CG, Symphony finishing, etc.

For the type of work they do, I would postulate that this really isn't an FCP vs AVID issue so much as an overall workflow issue.

Having very recently worked there on possibly one of the last shows to use FCP (and in an editorial support position) I can say that media management was a growing issue and their decision to move to Avid (IF it was mainly for the media management abilities) was absolutely the right move.

It bums me out because I love apple and my Mac Pro and want to see them do well, but even though I started on FCP, workin on Avid really was just so much nicer (though not interface wise! My, that's an ugly program).

And to the uninformed fellow above saying that Hollywood productions were going the way of the music industry, I'm afraid you're woefully misinformed on just what level of effort and expertise is required at so very many stages of the filmmaking progress to be anywhere close to correct. Feature films, and the industry around them, are not about to die. The means of distribution absolutely are! But that doesn't mean the experts are about to be replaced by the average person any time soon.

dennis