As has been rumored for some time, Apple has been working to update Final Cut Pro X, to version 10.1. While FCPX is has been a controversial software app since it’s inception, Apple has been working over the last two years to add incremental and needed features to the app.
Today, along with the next version of the Mac Pro, comes FCPX 10.1.
Final Cut Pro X is the video NLE that we use here at ckmmphotographic. It’s a great tool for video and I thought I’d bring up to date on why we’re excited about this new release.
Here are the areas that look promising to us…
- Faster performance. While we’ve not run any performance metrics, (there are much more capable sites who will be doing that), the software starts up faster and rendering in the background seems more behaved than in previous releases.
- Better media management. Apple has seriously overhauled the Projects and Events of previous versions, morphing into an all in one Library implementation, that offer better handling of storage and management of media. Plus the added bonus of snapshots and automated backups to make the creative process less of a struggle. Note that a conversion is required to move to the new format, and it is definitely a one way trip.
- Improved stabilization with additional options. This extends the stabilization capability s in Final Cut Pro to allow two different methods to be used to stabilize video. We run into this with our gopro Hero3s and handheld clips so this is one area we’ll dig into further.
- More consistent multicam clip handling, with the ability to detach audio from video for L and J cut editing, as well as making edits directly in the Timeline with multicam clips.
These are the ones that caught our eye, but there are many more improvements, so take a look at the release notes on the Apple website.
As always, follow Apple’s recommendations for backing up projects and events before running 10.1 and converting your projects.
We’ll dig into these further and update our impressions as we work on a few projects!