What? At the recent meeting of the Los Angeles Final Cut Pro User Group, FCP guru Larry said exactly that on stage. The four videos after the break are well worth a watch if you are going to be buying FCPX next week.

There we were watching the videos when Larry came out and said that version 1.0 of Final Cut Pro X will not be ready for professional use. Wow what a statement, we were almost in tears! Our new baby is about to be born and you're already calling it ugly! Sure, any first version of software ships with the paint still wet, but why won't it be ready for professional use? Are features missing? Will it keep crashing? Will there be an update soon after launch?

Michael Horton at the top of video one says that no new information will be disclosed in the discussion. We disagree, Larry gives us a good insight into how Apple are targeting FCPX to users.

Well worth taking your time to watch. The comment from Larry about 'not being ready for professional use' and 'not ready for primetime' happen in the first two minutes of part three. Larry will be a guest speaker at the London SuperMeet on thursday June 23rd.

We think we should clarify a few things here as a couple of people have got a bit hot under the collar on Twitter. The headline is not our words, it is a direct quotation from Larry. It is not used out of context, in fact we think it is worse IN context.

"Whenever you've got something which is that big a re-write, stuff gets changed, stuff gets left out, stuff gets added later because they can't get it all re-written and I guarantee you that on day one when the dot zero release ships it will not be ready for professional use.
Apple has a very poor track record of perfect dot zero releases. So for those of you saying 'This is without a question the second coming, I'm going to bet the ranch, I'm buying this the day it's released and God help me I'm plunging forward whether it's ready or not.' I want your clients.
I think there is only one company on the planet that could rethink non-linear editing like this, I think it's Apple. It's not ready for prime time. First it's not ready because it isn't shipping, then when it is shipping it's time for us to experiment."

So please don't shoot the messenger. We are reserving our opinion until we actually have a copy and will probably use it on professional jobs but have copy of FCP7 handy.

***Update Larry has changed his opinion***
Larry has backtracked on his comments somewhat these paragraphs are taken from his blog "Wiping Egg off My Face"

"While I stand by most of my remarks, there was one unfortunate moment where I said, with a special dramatic emphasis for the crowd, that Final Cut Pro X was not ready for professional use.
I believed that then. I don’t believe it now.
When I made that presentation to the LAFCPUG, it was the week after NAB; a week after Apple presented the new version of Final Cut to the world. When I watched that presentation, I was watching it through the prism of my experience with Final Cut Pro 7 and all I knew about the application was what Apple showed on stage in their demo."

I think if we learn anything from this it is the fact that if we were under the NDA, then we wouldn't go round giving lectures on what to expect in software that the NDA covers. 

Part one

Part two

Part three

Part four

Phew we are still in shock!

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