[Steve King]

I had a talk with one of my favorite shooters this week. He also does a lot
of editing. I asked him if he had made the plunge to the new FCP. He's
been working with it for several months. His comments: Totally new
approach to editing, like starting with a completely new editing system. He
now prefers it to previous iteration by a lot. FCP has been adding back
through free updates some of the features that were left out of initial
release version. Evidently, FCP developers heard from their high-end
broadcast users and are responding. He shoots mostly with a Panasonice
HVX200 to P2 cards. Says he is now able to plug the cards into a reader and
play video directly from the cards, mark ins and outs, and transfer only
selected footage. Gone is the time consuming full transfer to FireStore
then full transfer to another drive in the edit suite. New FCP is much more
forgiving of different kinds of footage on the time line. He says he
regularly mixes 24P and 30P and HDV and full 1920 x 1080 footage from
previous shoots on the same time line in new projects. Background
coversions and preview now much easier-smoother. In general, after getting
over the shock of having to learn a new way of editing (mostly the GUI) he
really hates to go back to previous version, when updating older shows. FCP
has also lowered software cost substantially from $1200 down to either $300
or $400. He diod not upgrade his computer, still using a quad core G5. He
did have to add a new video card @ about $300. I've used this shooter many
times, but I edit with someone else. My regular editor has been reluctant
to change to new FCP, but now he's leaning strongly toward updating. I'd be
very interested in experiences of others who have tried the new FCP.

Steve King