Does anybody have any scoop on the next version of FCP and when it will come out. I know a new version of OSX will be out the 1 quarter of 09. I assume FCP will be written with that in mind.

I wouldn't count on it anytime soon. Lots going on over at Apple. They have announced that this Jan. will be their last Mac World, same thing in Europe and Steve Jobs will not be presenting.
Plus, their stock is waaaay down below what I paid for it.
Steve

It would be nice to get a Final Cut Pro 7 Wish List going on right here in the forums, I'll gather my points I'd like to see in the next release. But ya, don't think we will see a new version for a bit.

The lafcpug.org website has had a long running wish list of features people would like to see. I would love for FCP to remember which hard drive a particular project was set to so I didn't have to go and re set the scratch discs all the time. And then it just creates new documents within the old. A real pain.

Final Cut Pro 7 Wishlist and Rants:

• You can't specify your scratch disks on a per project basis. This is really annoying. Scratch Disk settings in my mind's eye should follow the project.
• You lose the border filter if you crop a video clip or image.
• No true 3D playing field, yes we have motion, but for simple 3-D moves I'd love to not have to leave Final Cut Pro in order to do a simple 3-D PIP.
• No search field (aka spotlight) in the media, effects, and filter bins. This is long overdue and should be the de-facto standard
.
• Audio Mixer when doing a live mix get's bogged down and is less than realtime (depends on the system you are on)
• More flexibility in editing all types of codecs, like the Animation codec, and other odd codecs usually used for screen captures.
• The Motion Tab, when zooming in and out of keyframes, will sometimes generate a weird, improperly rendered user interface, it becomes all artifacty, and the beginning or end of the clip's grey area is indistinguishable.
• Motion Tab needs to be revamped and retooled to work like After Effects keyframes, I despise, and I mean literally can't stand the fact that I can't select multiple keyframes in the motions tab and move them all at once.
• Clip and drag or extend the length of multiple clips or contract them on the timeline all at the same time. As far as I know you can only extend or contract one clip at a time in the timeline.
• The Send to command is really neat and all, but I want some MAJOR INTEROPERABILITY like Adobe has put into it's CS4 Suite.
• Finally, give me background rendering like Avid's Liquid.

My Final Cut Studio 3 Wish list:

• Ability to color code video and audio track and leave notes.

• FCP to Color to FCP no longer creates additional video clips. ( I beat they have already created that)

• Add more filters to Motion such as a better lens flare filter. Page peel filter like in AE that can work with Alpha Channels. Why isn't the 3-way color corrector in Motion as well?

• The keying filter in FCP6 is good, but I would love to see a better one.

• Don't change the GUI. Every time a User Group starts a wish list someone wants the GUI to look different and have colorful buttons and crap like that. I don't want to re-learn the program. A.K.A. they have moved every thing around to make the interface "better" and now I have to re-learn where everything has been moved to. The interface shouldn't have a bunch of color. The reason COLOR's interface is black, is because your eyes will blend the color of the buttons with the color in the clip. Yes, I use a broadcast monitor, but I also look at my computer. Blah, Blah, Blah, I could go on forever. My solution. Make it so the user can customize the skin of the interface. If they want a glowing orange play button they can have it and I can continue to focus on just editing. Not shiny, colorful interfaces.

-Background Rndering
-Smoother Interoperability in the studio and with Shake
-Multiple Node rendering like in Compressor
-Better keyframing
-Avid Unity style asset management
-In-Line Notation

*more to come as I ponder

Okay, I would like to add some more:

• Motion needs a short cut key for the split feature

• AE 7 added a feature that made animated scaled text scale more realistically.

• Burn a real Blue Ray disc in the Studio bundle only.