Cut it out
Just a few months after being shown off Final Cut Pro X is now available for purchase, with Apple once again claiming a revolution - this time apparently changing the way we edit video forever.
The latest release of Apple's video editing application is a ground-up rewrite, intended not only to offer performance improvements its predecessor - of which there are many - but also designed to streamline the editing process, with the goal of making Macs the system of choice for production work.
The UI has been reworked to make editing a much more streamlined process. Features such as the magnetic timeline, which has video clips snap together, and move out of the way as they are dragged around, and clip collections, which keep related groups of clips together, aim to make it much easier to keep workflow organised.
Imported videos can have some sophisticated content analysis applied, grouping clips based on content elements, from day or night shots, or the general colour scheme, to the number of people in the frame. Stealing a page from iMovie's handbook, Final Cut Pro X features an in-line editor, making it easy to dive in and select exactly the section of a particular clip that is wanted. Audio clips are kept in-line with their related video, and there are a number of audio editing capabilities, including audio effects, and volume levelling between clips.
Performance improvements include the move to a 64-bit architecture, the addition of GPU-accelerated rendering and the use of OS X's Grand Central Dispatch, which offers a performance boost on multi-core systems. Helping make Final Cut Pro X feel fast is background processing, which will render and transcode video in the background, while it is being edited, making it available to play as soon as possible. For large projects, distributed encoding enabled rendering work to be split among multiple Mac systems.
Depending on your perspective, its £179 asking price will either be a bridge too far from the family capable iMovie (bundled with new Macs) or an absolute steal considering how comprehensive and video editing suit is on offer for that money.
In related news, Apple has rolled out a small update to its Time Capsule backup device, which now offers a 2TB hard drive for £249 or a 3TB hard drive for a criminally expensive £399. Given that a 3TB hard drive will set you back around £100, it's a very expensive upgrade, but if you've more money than sense, you might just be tempted.
