Gone are Log and Capture over anything except FireWire; Bins; many of the native codecs used for editing in the timeline; tabbed browsing of projects; panels; and software tools like DVD Studio Pro, Color, Soundtrack Pro, and Cinema Tools that were formerly part of the suite.

There are also extensive changes in the keyboard editing conventions. My inability to use some of the most common editing commands to insert and move media squandered a good deal of my previous editing speed and expertise. While you can still manually modify key sets, there are a few seemingly arbitrary changes.

For instance, Command-I has been used to import files across the platform, and in nearly all Mac apps, for decades. Yet with FCP X, Apple has decided to now employ this command for Import from Camera. This makes me unhappy for a couple of reasons.

Tapeless workflows, by their very nature, are designed to take the camera out of the mix. Why would someone go through the hassle of plugging in one or more cameras to transfer data when their SDHC card can be read directly from the SD slot on their laptop at three times the speed of a camera connection?

Apple appears to understand how data is actually handled. Even Camera Archives created by other software packages can be read by FCP X, allowing users conventional archive tools like Imagine Products ShotPut Pro.