By Brady Betzel
While Apple was busy releasing the new Mac Mini’s last month, they were also quietly prepping some new updates. Apple has releasing free updates to FCPX, Motion and Compressor.
CatDV inside of FCPX
The FCPX 10.4.4 update includes Workflow Extensions, batch sharing, Comparison Viewer, built-in video noise reduction, timecode window and more. The Workflow Extensions are sure to take the bulk of the update cake: At launch Apple has announced Shutterstock, Frame.io and CatDV will have extensions directly usable inside of FCPX instead of through a web browser. Frame.io looks to be the most interesting extension with realtime reflection of who is watching your video and at what timecode they are at, a.k.a, “Presence.”
Frame.io being rebuilt from the ground up using Swift will make its venture inside of FCPX extremely streamlined and fast. Notwithstanding Internet bandwidth, Frame.io inside of FCPX looks to be the go-to approval system that FCPX editors will use. I am not quite sure why Apple didn’t create their own approval and note-taking system, but they didn’t go wrong working with Frame.io. Since many editors use this as their main approval system, FCPX users will surely love this implementation directly inside of the app.
When doing color correction, it is essential to compare your current work with either other images or the source image, and luckily for FCPX colorists you can now do this with the all new Comparison Viewer. Essentially, the Comparison Viewer will allow you to compare anything to the clip you are color grading.
One feature of this that I really love is that you can have access to scopes on both the reference image and your working image. If you understand how scopes work, color matching via parade or waveforms can often be quicker than by eyeball match.
Frame.io inside of FCPX
Final Cut Pro 10.4.4 has a few other updates like Batch Share, which allows you to cue a bunch of exports or projects in one step, Timecode Window (which is a “why wasn’t this there already” feature) is essential when editing video footage, and video noise reduction has been added as a built-in feature with adjustable amounts and sharpness. There are a few other updates like Tiny Planet, which allows you to quickly make that spherical 360-degree video look, not really an important technical update but fun nonetheless.
Motion
With Version 5.4.2, Apple has put the advanced color correction toolset from FCPX directly inside of Motion. In addition, you can now add custom LUTs to your work. Apple has added the Tiny Planet effect as well as a Comic filter inside Motion. Those aren’t incredibly impressive, but the addition of the color correction toolkit is an essential addition to Motion and will provide a lot of use.
Compressor
Compressor 4.4.2 in my opinion is the sleeper update. Apple has finally updated Compressor to a 64-bit engine to take advantage of all of your memory, as well as improved overall performance with huge files. And it will still work with legacy 32-bit formats. Closed captions can now be burned into a video, including the SRT format. Compressor has also added automatic configuration to apply correct frame rate, field order and color space to your MXF and QuickTime outputs.
The FCPX, Motion and Compressor updates are available now for free if you have previously purchased the apps. If not FCPX retails for $299.99. Motion and Compressor are $49.99 each.
Brady Betzel is an Emmy-nominated online editor at Margarita Mix in Hollywood, working on Life Below Zero and Cutthroat Kitchen. You can email Brady at bradybetzel@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @allbetzroff.
