Apple ships Final Cut Pro X, Color and Compressor


Apple Tuesday announced the new Final Cut Pro X. The new application features 64-bit architecture as a full rebuild of the Final Cut Pro. FCP offers a revamped interface and a number of enhancements such as color management based on Apple's ColorSync. FCP also takes full advantage of modern hardware and Mac OS X 10.6+ with 64-bit processing and Grand Central Dispatch. The software will take full advantage of multi-core machines, allowing new features such as background rendering.

Other new features include background ingesting, so users won't have to wait for an ingest to complete before working on projects. Also in-line features such as image stabilization on ingest. FCP also adds people detections and shot selection, which sounds like it will automatically catelog media for later selecting shots for wide/near and single and multiple people. Also new is Magnetic Timeline, compound clips and more. We look forward to the formal announcement on all the details, particularly with the larger Studio suite.

Final Cut Pro X is available for $299 and via the Mac App store. Apple is also selling companion Motion and Compressor apps for $49. This is a pretty remarkable price cut from the Final Cut Pro Studio, which retailed for $999. No word, however, on DVD Studio Pro, the suite's DVD authoring package. Also, Soundtrack Pro also seems to be missing, although some features may now be baked into FCP, similar to Color.

Final Cut Pro X