Not so final
Responding to barrage of criticism, both constructive and simply angry, Apple has pushed out an FAQ page for it's recently-launched Final Cut Pro X, in an attempt to address the major concerns its customers have voiced.
Encouragingly, the majority of the queries do have fairly easy solutions, even if some of them require third party software to gain abilities offered by the previous top shelf version of Final Cut. Files from RED digital cameras, for instance, can't be imported directly, but can be converted to a compatible format; and the same is true of Sony XDCAM video.
A number of other features omitted from this release are promised in forthcoming updates. Multicam editing, is probably the most major lacking ability of the current version of Final cut Pro X; although there are some limited clip synchronisation features in the current release, they aren't ideally suited to multi-camera setups.
Not on the list of unneeded or sorely missing re-introductions (depending on your point of view) is tape editing. Apple advises the use of third part tools for tape-to-computer transfer, and vice versa. Apple's stance here is that Final Cut Pro X has been built to work with modern, digital, video files, and recommends that users of older media stick to Final Cut Pro 7 if they need its features.
This response from Apple doesn't address the concerns of many users who have migrated from Final Cut Pro 7 to Final Cut Pro X and found it lacking in a number of ways. The answer, rather, is to be stick with the old version until you can make a clean break. On that note, Apple is promising that the previous version of Final Cut (which does offer many of the features users are lamenting the lack of in the new program) will be supported on the forthcoming Lion upgrade to Mac OS.
Given the usual vociferous nature of Apple's customers, it's unlikely that this attempt to answer the common complaints and queries about Final Cut Pro X will do much to stifle disappointed buyers' (and would-be buyers') cries of frustration.
