Apple Updates Final Cut Pro X, Motion and Compressor

Posted on by Larry

logo-Apple[ Updated April 24 with additional info on Compressor.]

This morning, Apple Inc. updated Final Cut Pro X, Motion and Compressor. The updates are free and available via the Mac App Store.

Apple gave me early access to the software, which allowed me to create new training for it, which I also released today: www.larryjordan.com/store/

Here’s an initial look at the new software. I’ll have much more to say about these new versions over time.

FINAL CUT PRO X (new version 10.2)

FCP-X-10.2-Title

Here are Apple’s Release Notes:

3D titles

Advanced effects

New Camera formats

Additional features

Final Cut Pro version 10.2 also addresses the following issues:

LARRY’S REACTIONS

FCPX_102

The new 3D titles are lovely and I really like the new Materials section, which allows you to specify what material and texture covers the six faces of a 3D character:

The 3D text effects, as implemented in Final Cut, are fun, fascinating and flexible. But they come into their true power when you use them in Motion. In fact, you’ll be seeing third-party 3D text effects from Ripple Training, FX Factory, and Motion VFX released in conjunction with this new upgrade.

The new masking tools are amazing – everything you want in a mask:

Other new effects that I really like include:

COMPRESSOR (new version 4.2)

Compressor_42

Here are Apple’s Release Notes.

New features

Compressor version 4.2 also addresses the following issues:

LARRY’S COMMENTS

The big news, from Apple’s point of view, is the direct support for creating iTunes Store Packages. (Keep in mind that even after the Store Package is created, you’ll still need to use a delivery partner- such as Juice Worldwide, Quiver Digital, Walla or Zoo Digital.) This means that filmmakers can use Compressor to prepare their films directly for sale within iTunes, while only needing a third-party to verify and deliver the Package to Apple.

From my point of view, though, the BIG news with this update is that compression is now GPU-accelerated and compressing H.264 files- even multi pass compression – is now hardware-accelerated. While I have not had time to do speed tests – but BELIEVE ME I’m planning on testing this as soon as I can – Apple’s notes indicate compression speeds could be up to 3.3 times faster than the current version.

This would be great news, because I now compress all my YouTube and MPEG-4 videos using Adobe Media Encoder because it is multiple times faster than Compressor. It will be fun doing some speed tests between these two apps in the near future to see how they compare for speed, image quality and file size.

MOTION (new version 5.2)

Motion_52

Here are Apple’s Release Notes:

Introducing 3D titles

New Camera formats

Additional features

Motion version 5.2 also includes the following:

LARRY’S COMMENTS

I haven’t had time to play with Motion, yet, except a little bit with the 3D Text. Here, Motion provides additional tools for animation, keyframing, lighting and position control far beyond what Final Cut itself provides.

The new masking tools are more flexible than those provided originally in Motion, and new generators are always welcome.

SUMMARY

The new features add a lot of power, flexibility, and sheer fun to all three applications. Even better, there is still lots more to discover, because Apple made both major and minor tweaks throughout the entire application, which I’m looking forward to showing you in my latest training, as well as upcoming webinars and articles.


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19 Responses to Apple Updates Final Cut Pro X, Motion and Compressor

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  1. ZONAINTIMA says:

    Hi, i am looking free 3D text effects for FINAL CUT X.
    Thanks.

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