Re: Smoke is changing- into Final Cut Extreme

Respectfully, re comments here and elsewhere about what Autodesk did 10 years ago, that's irrelevant, SEVERAL lifetimes ago. Ten years ago, Adobe had dropped Mac support for Premiere Pro, something Avid never did. However, Avid had also not yet released the Adrenaline/Nitris DNA hardware line, since deceased. FCP was still a toddler.

Since that time, Media Composer AND SYMPHONY are available as shiny dual platform software-only products that support your AJA and BMD hardware better than FCP ever did. Macromedia bought Adobe...which I'm obviously teasing about, but is kind of true to describe just how vast the sea change is, and that Premiere is powerful and Mac-y enough to make its 4 years away from Mac utterly irrelevant.

Also in that time, one of FCPX's product managers was previously the product designer for Avid Symphony. Does FCPX remind anybody here of Symphony? Of course not, but it's also a reflection of just how drastic the changes have been at Avid, with 3 regime changes in the past 5 years alone.

I don't know about Autodesk, but I suspect that their trajectory is similar. I wouldn't be shocked if not one single manager from 10 years ago remained - certainly the case at Adobe and Avid. The most stable management team at all of the big 4 A's is FCP!

While I don't have anything to say about the Smoke announcement, I can tell you for a fact that they're swinging for the fences in ways you've never seen before. You'll decide for yourself if they've hit it out if the park or it dies on the warning track. But as you've heard from the people who've seen it, you WILL be talking about it.