Apple hasn't posted any official acknowledgement of last night's demonstrations of Final Cut Pro X on their website, and so everyone on the internet is speculating based on lists of features rather than seeing the presentation. Until Apple gets official with any such announcement, then, the next best thing to an official video is an unofficial (kind of shaky) video of the presentation. In my liveblog of the event I noted, "editors are crazy," and you'll see that to be the case based on the overenthusiastic reactions here:
Thanks to machineurs for filming the presentation.
One thing to note: While the the $299 pricing is far lower than, say Adobe Premiere CS5.5's $799 retail price, it's not quite as groundbreaking if you assume (as I do) that Apple is simply breaking out the components of Final Cut Studio into an a la carte sales model through the App Store. Final Cut Studio 2 sold for $999, and if you divide that by three or four apps the $299 pricing makes sense -- assuming Motion, Soundtrack Pro, and Color (if it still exists) round out the suite, with DVD Studio Pro getting dumped in Apple's physical media-free future. Also, given we've skipped Final Cut Pro 8 and FCP 9, one might assume that they're treating it as an entirely new application without any upgrade pricing. And, as with the original launch of Final Cut Pro, the software exists partially to sell Apple hardware (and other products), and thus Apple can price such a program lower than a company like Adobe, whose entire business model is software. Interestingly enough, the $299 price point also discourages piracy -- which is the main reason I think Adobe has rolled out a new monthly pricing option with CS5.5. How many editors out there are working on pirated software? A hell of a lot. Both companies are trying to change that.
Much more to come about FCP X -- hopefully of the more official variety -- before its June 9th launch.
