On Monday, Apple upgraded its professional video suite, Final Cut Pro, and two of its supporting programs, Motion and Compressor. Final Cut is now up to version 10.2, which features better 3D title support, more camera formats, the ability to view more scopes simultaneously, and improved masking. Motion, now at version 5.2, also includes more options for 3D titles, with more third-party options coming soon. Compressor 4.2 gets a general speed bump, and improves its ability to make a movie sale package for iTunes.
“The updated Final Cut Pro X, Motion and Compressor make it even easier to edit, title and package everything from short videos to feature-length films,” said Apple SVP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller. “From Hollywood blockbuster directors to first time movie makers, Final Cut Pro X is changing the way we edit movies today.” The company has again showcased the Will Smith film Focus, which was edited entirely on Final Cut Pro X, as an example of the new 3D titling and effects features.
The new Final Cut Pro version features templates for developing 3D titles using simple drag-and-drop. Background materials, lighting, text styles, and edges are all customizable, and users can convert existing 2D titles to 3D if desired. The updated also now natively supports Panasonic AVC-Ultra, Sony XAVC-S, RED camera RAW files and other new video formats, leveraging the GPU of whatever Mac system is used to speed up rendering and transcoding.
The program also now allowed editors to view up to four video scopes at the same time, and offers improved Shape masking for both color grading and effects that can be saved as presets. The update, like those for Motion and Compressor, is free to existing users. It is now available in the Mac App Store at a cost of $300 for new users.
The latest versions of Motion and Compressor are also now available, with each costing $50 for new users. Motion shares FCPX’s expanded support for 3D titles, now letting users created multi-layered scenes that feature more realistic shadow and reflections in 3D titles on backgrounds and other objects, as well utilizing multiple virtual lights and cameras to create dynamic titles. The library for 3D titles is also about to expand thanks to third-party partners, who will offer new templates and abilities for 3D templates on top of the 12 new generator effects, improved keyframing and improved masking and shape creation found in the 5.2 update.
Compressor 4.2 gains improved GPU rendering when using Send to Compressor, allowing for notable improvements in encoding. In addition, the program makes better use of GPU rendering when working with hardware-accelerated multi-pass H.264 on higher-end systems, such as the latest Mac Pro. The biggest change in 4.2 is the ability to create an iTunes Store Package for submission to iTunes, including the movie, trailer, subtitles, and closed captions all included.
Filmmakers will be able to zoom inside the Viewer to watch content with true pixel accuracy, preview closed captions and subtitles, display and assign channels to QuickTime audio tracks prior to processing, and enjoy automatic bit-rate calculation for MPEG-4 and H.264 QuickTime movie settings. There is also now an optional matrix stereo down-mix when processing surround sound for QuickTime output, and CABAC entropy mode for multi-pass encoding.
