TAO of Color Grading by Patrick Inhofer

There’s been much consternation over the past year about Apple’s commitment to Final Cut Studio – and what it means to post-production video. As someone who specializes in Final Cut Studio workflows, I’ve spent a lot of time pondering the state of Final Cut Studio and its commitment to me and my business.

Notwithstanding occasional proclamations of the upcoming Final Cut Pro 8's totally tremendous awesomeness and chocolate’y melt-in-your-mouth’ness – I’m going to discuss the one thing I know is absolutely true…

FCP’s past success has unshackled the post-production community’s need for FCP to be  successful in the future.

What do I mean? Come, walk with me . . .

Three Signs of Final Cut’s Waning Influence

Sign #1. NAB 2010: Avid and Adobe had landmark releases in 2010. These releases were significant enough to keep Avid competitve and tag Premiere Pro as being a viable FCP alternative.

• Avid finally broke away from its ‘film editorial’ heritage and incorporated the “cut, paste, swap” freedom that so many FCP editors value. And they did so without dumbing down Media Composer. Avid successfully walked a tightrope.

• Adobe has super-charged Premiere Pro (PP) targeting FCP’s reliance on Quicktime and ProRes’ “one codec to rule them all” attitude – which requires upfront transcoding (and downtime).

• Both Avid and PP outperform FCP’s mixed-format, mixed-framerate, timeline – Avid does it with superior quality, PP with superior performance and convenience. read more...