Early this morning, Apple finally released Final Cut Pro X to the Mac App Store, along with Motion 5 and Compressor 4. The new apps are said to be vastly improved, with Final Cut Pro being the best upgrade to Final Cut yet.
This is certainly great news for those into video editing, and at the low prices of just $299 for FCPX (Mac App Store Link), and $49 for Motion 5 (Mac App Store Link) and Compressor 4 (Mac App Store Link), this is sure to encourage a lot of people to upgrade.
The new Final Cut Pro includes many new features and enhancements, including true 64-bit architecture, a new “Magnetic Timeline” to make editing easier, Content Auto-Analysis, the ability to render in the background without interrupting your work, and a new Compound Clips feature that lets editors combine a whole group of elements into a single clip.
There are also significant improvements in how Final Cut Pro X organizes media, support for many additional video formats, keywords can now be attached to footage for quick lookup later, new footage presets that can detect whether there are people (or multiple people) in a shot, the ability to directly recode a video to Blu-Ray, and much, much more. Motion 5 and Compressor 4 also feature Blu-Ray support, making me curious about the notion of a possible Apple Blu-Ray device (or blu-ray options in upcoming Mac Pros?) in the future.
The full press release follows:
Apple Revolutionizes Video Editing With Final Cut Pro X
CUPERTINO, California—June 21, 2011—Apple® today announced Final Cut Pro® X, a revolutionary new version of the world’s most popular Pro video editing software which completely reinvents video editing with a Magnetic Timeline that lets you edit on a flexible, trackless canvas; Content Auto-Analysis that categorizes your content upon import by shot type, media and people; and background rendering that allows you to work without interruption. Built on a modern 64-bit architecture, Final Cut Pro X is available from the Mac® App Store™ for $299.99.
“Final Cut Pro X is the biggest advance in Pro video editing since the original Final Cut Pro,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “We have shown it to many of the world’s best Pro editors, and their jaws have dropped.”
“I’m blown away by what Apple has done with Final Cut Pro,” said Angus Wall, Academy Award-winning film editor. “Final Cut Pro X is incredibly modern and fast, but most importantly it lets you focus on telling your story in the most creative way, while it actively manages all of the technical details.”
At the heart of Final Cut Pro X is the Magnetic Timeline, a trackless approach to editing your footage that lets you add and arrange clips wherever you want them, while other clips instantly slide out of the way. You can use Clip Connections to link primary story clips to other elements like titles and sound effects, so they stay in perfect sync when you move them. You can even combine related story elements into a Compound Clip that can be edited as a single clip. The groundbreaking new Auditions feature lets you swap between a collection of clips to instantly compare alternate takes.
Content Auto-Analysis scans your media on import and tags your content with useful information. Final Cut Pro X then uses that information to dynamically organize your clips into Smart Collections, so you can easily find the clips you want by close up, medium and wide shots as well as media type and the number of people in the shot. You can also tag parts of clips with Range-based keywords to add custom search criteria to your media.
Completely rebuilt from the ground up, Final Cut Pro X is a 64-bit app that takes full advantage of the latest Mac hardware and software so you never have to wait for the next edit, even if you’re working with 4K video. Final Cut Pro X uses multi-threaded processing and the GPU on your graphics card for blazing fast background rendering and superb real-time playback performance. Additionally, a ColorSync-managed color pipeline ensures color consistency from import to output.
Final Cut Pro X also includes powerful tools for audio editing and color correction, and is complemented by two companion apps, Motion 5 for professional motion graphics and Compressor 4 for advanced media encoding, available from the Mac App Store for $49.99 each.
Pricing & Availability
Final Cut Pro X is available today for $299.99 from the Mac App Store. Motion 5 and Compressor 4 are available today for $49.99 each from the Mac App Store. Full system requirements and more information on Final Cut Pro X can be found at www.apple.com/finalcutpro.Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced iPad 2 which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.
Once again, exciting news from Apple today! You can find more details over at Apple’s new Final Cut X site, and you can purchase Final Cut Pro X in the Mac App Store for $299.99 (Mac App Store Link), as well as Motion 5 (Mac App Store Link) and Compressor 4 (Mac App Store Link) for $49 each. The new Final Cut Pro X requires a minimum of 2GB of RAM, and OpenCL-capable video card (or Intel HD Graphics 3000 or later), 256MB of VRAM, and at least 2.4GB of free disk space (although in reality, much more disk space, since video takes up a TON of room).
Any MacTrast readers video editors? If so, are you planning on making the upgrade? Sound off in the comments!