When I first used Final Cut Pro in a video production class in 2005, I was blown away by its power and complexity. Now Apple seems to be blowing minds again the way they seem to to with every product with Final Cut Pro X.
“Final Cut Pro X is the biggest advance in Pro video editing since the original Final Cut Pro,” Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, said in a press release. “We have shown it to many of the world’s best Pro editors, and their jaws have dropped.”
One great feature is the magnetic timeline. If you drag a clip into the timeline, the other clips slide out of the way to let you drop the clip in. Another great feature in the new version is clip conections. You can connect audio and other clips to keep everything in sync as you drag sequences across the timeline. You won’t have to struggle to correct your out-of-sync clips because you were clumsly with your mouse ever again.
A lot of the tedium that comes with video editing is figuring out where the shot you want is. Final Cut Pro X can automatically tag your clips with things like shots with one person, two people, three people, etc., and close-ups, medium shots, and wide shots, for example. You can also tag clips with spefic items, like a character or actor’s name, or whether a clip is an interview, or B-roll, or anything you can think of.
The program also comes with a bunch of professional-quality video and audio effects and filters. Of course, if you’re a professional editor, you’ll want to use them judiciously.
Final Cut Pro X is available for $299 from the Mac App Store. Motion 5, a powerful motion graphics package, and Compressor, a video encoder, are both available for $49 each.
We previewed Final Cut Pro X in an earlier post. If you’re in a playful mood, check out the Playmobil Apple Store.
