It’s the day video editors have been waiting for since Apple made Final Cut Pro X ($300) official at a special NAB Users Group event in April: the completely rebuilt 64-bit editing package has just hit the Mac App Store. And surprise: the company also released brand new Motion 5 ($50) and Compressor 4 ($50) updates as companions. Details are after the break.
Final Cut Pro X represents a complete rethinking of the way video editing tools work—and should work—incorporating both long-awaited raw speed enhancements, and brand-new features that were unexpected. The key feature Apple’s focusing upon in Final Cut Pro X is the “Magnetic Timeline,” a non-destructive editing canvas that makes it easier to splice in video and audio content, letting clips easily slide in and out of positions as you move other pieces around. Final Cut Pro X also includes audio editing and color correction tools. Compressor 4 is a separate application that handles encoding into and out of multiple video source formats, and can distribute encoding across multiple cores and machines. Motion 5 handles titles, transitions, and special effects in 2-D and 3-D, including a new 64-bit architecture that properly takes advantage of the CPUs in recent Macs.