Apple Debuts Final Cut Pro X At NAB

image courtesy Apple Inc.

So Apple debuted the latest upgrade to their pro film editing software Final Cut Pro.  It's new name, Final Cut Pro X (10).  I'm not quite sure why they went from the current Final Cut Pro Studio 7 clear up to 10, but stranger things have happened in the universe.

Looking at the two screen captures above iMovie 11 (the pumpkin) and Final Cut Pro X (the Audi), look quite similar.  I suppose its what's under the hood that counts.  I don't have time to tell you all the features so a few that I like (pulled from Larry Jordan's blog):

• 64-bit, which will allow the program the use of as much RAM as you give it.
• Background Rendering
• Sample rate precision in scrolling an audio clip
• Pitch corrected audio scrolling in slow motion
• Displaying waveforms at a size big enough to see what they look like
• Displaying audio levels within the waveform that are approaching clipping (as one engineer near me remarked, “And THAT took us a LONG while to figure out.”)
• Displaying audio peaks for the entire mix that are approaching clipping
• Improved audio cleanup controls, which can be applied or ignored by the user (these look to be borrowed from Soundtrack Pro)
• Adding fades with a keystroke, or by pulling in the top corners of a clip, with four different fade shapes, rather than the limit of two inside FCP 7; these, too, borrow interface ideas from Soundtrack Pro.
• FCP X now uses all the processors on your system, not just one and a half.
• It supports editing video image sizes from standard definition up to 4K.
• It uses fewer tools from the Tool palette (which is no longer there, by the way) by making the cursor smarter. WHERE you click something determines WHAT you can do with it.
• A lot of existing features are jazzed up (linking and grouping are replaced by the much more elegant Clip Connection and Compound Clips)
• While new features like the magnetic timeline, permanent audio sync and auto-metadata generation are flat-out stunning.

MacRumors reports that the version debuted today was "nowhere near the final version" and the sources say to expect much more to come.

RELEASE DATE: June 2011
PRICING: $299
AVAILABILITY: App Store (downloadable)

Larry Jordan Blog

For your viewing pleasure.  Thanks Emmanuel Pampuri.