How long has FCPx been in development?

So one the eve of a new and "jaw dropping", "awesome" and "prepare to be stunned" release of Final Cut Pro/Studio what can we expect?

A sensible way of guessing would be to have a stab at trying to work out how long the new application has been in development. Let's look at the history,

Final Cut Studio 2 made a big splash at NAB 2007 primarily because Apple had the balls to release the suite with Color a full grading application formerly costing $25,000. I think this release was the last release where the majority of the Pro Apps team worked on the application suite. The inclusion of Color really drew the eyes away from an average release. Take away Color and FCS2 wouldn't have appeared so great.

In 2009 we had the FCS3 release which was well received mainly due to the knock down price of the upgrade but it has to be said it was a lack lustre release and included non of the performance that many of us were expecting. I fully expected OpenCL and many of the Snow Leopard technologies to be used but they were not.

Looking back at the releases since NAB 05 only really Final Cut Pro and Motion have seen substantial features added. SoundTrack Pro has been given a bit of love to stop it crashing so too Crapressor but poor old DVD Studio Pro has been dead in the water. Even as far back as NAB 05 Apple may have already been shifting the direction of FCS. Apple after all is well known for developing the next version of OS X while maintaining updates of the current version so it's not entirely implausible that they have taken this approach with the new version of FCS.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the new version will be have been in development as long as iMovie 08 probably meaning the 2006 time. So 2006 gives us 4.5 to 5 years of development and the last two years since FCS3 would've seen the full compliment of Pro Apps team working on this release.

4.5 years of development is certainly long enough to bring a new fully featured suite together so I am expecting "jaw dropping."

What have the developers of DVD Studio Pro been doing since NAB2005? Apart from minor bug fixes not a lot it seems. Despite the many and deafening calls for Bluray Studio Pro, Jobs has held firm with his distain for the format in particular the licensing buggeration factor. I am convinced the real surprise at the Supermeet demo will be in what replaces DVDSP. Whatever it is has potentially had 5 years of development and it could be huge. It absolutely won't include BR though! The puck has already passed BR and we're skating towards post disc based media delivery so set full steam ahead for a massive change in post production.

I'll be awake at 3am Wednesday morning here in the UK watching twitter for updates from the Supermeet.