FCP Cafe is a community for professional Final Cut Pro editors and developers.

This website has been thrown together by Chris Hocking at LateNite.

Producer's Best Friend v1.4.72 is out now.

It contains:

• Support for version 1.13 XML from Final Cut Pro 11
• Bug fix for creating thumbnail images

You can download on the Mac App Store.

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In very sad news, the post production community recently found out via Rohan’s brother in-law that Motion guru Rohan Marks has unexpectedly past away.

Whilst I knew of Rohan and his amazing work in the Motion and Final Cut Pro community, I didn't know him personally, however Bret Williams of BretFX has shared these thoughts:

😢 It is with great sadness that I share with the group that our resident Motion guru Rohan Marks passed away last week. According to his sister he was "lost suddenly and too soon." Rohan was an amazing soul and a mentor to us all here. Rohan was one of the nicest guys I've ever known. We had become good friends over the last few years, chatting frequently about Motion and life in general.
Spreading the word about Motion, and helping people learn Motion was one of his passions. He even recently went so far as to say to me that "Motion literally changed my life. For the best." He was proud of the work he did as one of Stupid Raisins creatives and more recently you could find his own solutions on FxFactory as "ROWIE" and his tutorials on his YouTube channel.
Please keep Rohan's family and friends in your thoughts and prayers. Rest in peace Rohan. You will be sorely missed. 💔

From all reports, he was a very loving, helpful, and talented person - and will be very much missed by everyone in the Motion and Final Cut Pro community.

<!-- Insert giant virtual hug to everyone who knew and loved Rohan. xx -->

BRAW Toolbox v1.4.1 (71) is out now.

It includes the following improvements:

• Updated from Blackmagic RAW SDK v4.3 to v4.3.1.
• Updated from FxPlug v4.3 to v4.3.1.
• Improved Blackmagic RAW SDK stability with simultaneous decodes.

Whilst Apple did announce at the 2024 Final Cut Pro Creative Summit that Final Cut Pro 11 now supports the new macOS system-wide MediaExtension Framework, and that Blackmagic will at some point release a Blackmagic RAW Media Extension - there is currently no time frame, so we have no idea if this is coming in days, weeks, or months.

In 2023 Apple announced a new framework called MediaExtension, that provides a means for developers to create format readers and video decoders for media that the system doesn’t natively support - such as Blackmagic RAW and Nikon NRAW.

This was supposed to come in macOS Sonoma, but they silently killed it - only for it to reappear in this years WWDC for macOS Sequoia.

Whilst it's been out for a while, the documentation is insanely complicated and limited and the only person I know who's done ANYTHING with it so far is the incredible Anton Marini, who's been building an ffmpeg Media Extension over on GitHub here.

I originally started playing with and testing MediaExtension's both back in 2023, and during the macOS Sequoia beta's, but never made much progress, as Final Cut Pro 10.8.1 didn't support Media Extensions anyway.

However, given there's no certainty as to when Blackmagic will release a Blackmagic RAW Media Extension, we're going to go back and see if we can bring a Blackmagic RAW Media Extension to market sooner rather than later.

Apple announced 3rd party Motion Templates were "coming soon" to iPad at launch, and that functionality is still not out - so we don't really want to waste time waiting for something that could be a year away.

We'll continue to keep you posted on our progress on FCP Cafe.

You can learn more and download BRAW Toolbox on the BRAW Toolbox website.

Capacitor v1.1.0 (5) is out now.

It includes added support for Final Cut Pro 11 and FCPXML v1.13.

You can learn more and download Capacitor on the Capacitor website.

Builder NLE v4.2.10 is out now.

It includes the following changes:

• Critical bug fix to read and process "Final Cut Pro Document" binary files exported from Final Cut Pro
• Bug fix for keyboard commands invoked from the People or Keywords field
• New feature: ignore hidden clips when importing an event from Final Cut Pro 11

You can download on the Mac App Store.

EDL-X v2.13 is out now.

It adds support for FCPXML version v1.12 and v1.13.

You can download on the Mac App Store.

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Transfer Toolbox v1.3.0 is out now for free!

Transfer your Final Cut Pro 11.0 (for Mac) Libraries to Final Cut Pro 2.1 (for iPad) Projects!

You can learn more on the Transfer Toolbox website.

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We've just added an absolutely epic new case study to FCP Cafe!

Our friends at Orange Studios recently collaborated with Nike to do an incredible large format installation for the Olympic Games - all cut in Final Cut Pro.

You can read all about it on our Nike Case Study page.

Unfortunately in Final Cut Pro 11, Magnetic Masks don't work with Send to Compressor.

This has been reported to Apple.

You can follow along via our FCP Cafe bug report.

In more positive news, German keys incorrectly shown in Command Editor is now fixed in Final Cut Pro 11! 🥳

Thanks Apple and the Final Cut Pro team!

This was heavily documented in our FCP Cafe Bug Tracker.

Dylan John has posted a video on YouTube titled, FCP 11! What's HOT and What’s NOT in the New Update.

You can watch it on YouTube:

He also has another video title, 3 Creative Ways to Use the New Magnetic Mask in Final Cut Pro.

You can watch it on YouTube:

Captionator for Final Cut v2.1.2 is out now!

It has a new more accurate Whisper Engine and fixes for Final Cut Pro 11 export.

You can download on the Mac App Store.

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Today marks the third and final day of the Final Cut Pro Creative Summit - and what an incredible week it's been!

One of the questions I've been asked a lot over the last few days is... "is Final Cut Pro 11 actually a big release"?

And from my perspective, looking under the hood, I think it absolutely is.

Whilst, as predicted, the headline features were already pre-announced (i.e. Spatial Video, Magnetic Mask and Transcribe to Captions), and compared to DaVinci Resolve, the list of improvements and bug fixes was somewhat small, under the hood there's some big changes to Final Cut Pro 11.

For the first time ever, Final Cut Pro is actually sandboxed... well, kinda.

Sandboxing on a Mac is a security mechanism designed to restrict what software can access and do on the system.

Essentially, it creates a controlled environment — a "sandbox" — where applications can run without affecting the broader system or accessing sensitive user data.

This approach minimises the risk of malware, data leaks, and other security breaches by isolating applications and tightly controlling their permissions.

Apple began enforcing sandboxing for all new apps and updates on the Mac App Store on 1st June 2012 - from this date forward any app submitted to the Mac App Store had to use sandboxing to comply with Apple’s security requirements.

Apple sent an email to developers explaining...

If you have an existing app on the Mac App Store that is not sandboxed, you may still submit bug fix updates after June 1.

But for whatever reason, Final Cut Pro never got sandboxing... until now:

However, I say "kinda", because they're kinda cheating as there's a special temporary exception (com.apple.security.temporary-exception.files.absolute-path.read-write) that allows them read/write access to the system drive - effectively breaking the sandbox.

So, even though TECHNICALLY Final Cut Pro is now sandboxed, it can still read and write any files on your drive, so nothing really changes.

But despite this, this marks a big change to the inner workings of Final Cut Pro.

Another thing that seems to have changed is that more and more of the Final Cut Pro code now looks like it's written in Swift, compared to the older Objective-C.

It seems to me that Apple is slowly modernising the code for the iPad, and then bringing across these shared Frameworks to the Mac.

Despite looking very similar on the surface, I actually think there's a lot more differences under the hood between Final Cut Pro 10.8.1 and Final Cut Pro 11.

Before I get into today's Summit news, I will also mention that the amazing Alex "4D" Gollner has released a new free plugin called Alex4D Transform.

It's an effect that can move in 3D space, rotate in 3 dimensions and scale a clip with on-screen controls.

You can download it on Alex's website.

The first session today was called Making Media Accessible for All, featuring Accessibility Lead at Apple Studios Tatiana Lee and director Ashley Eakin.

It was a great session, and they talked about Ashley's work on Best Foot Forward on Apple+ - you can watch a trailer below:

I've previously produced a short film (for ABC TV) called The Legend of Burnout Barry with our director and two lead actors in wheelchairs, so I found this session extremely interesting and useful.

Next up, I headed into the Cinema Therapy Case Study session.

Now, I've know Bradley Olsen & Alan Seawright for years - they once "kidnapped" me in their car in Las Vegas, many moons ago.

Our company, LateNite, bought a Lumaforge Jellyfish when Alan was still working at Lumaforge.

We've caught up at NAB, LumaForge's Faster Together Event, and last years Final Cut Pro Creative Summit - they're great guys, that I communicate with online.

But I had absolutely no idea that their web show, Cinema Therapy was so... well, massive!

Cinema Therapy currently has 1.72M subscribers and 305 videos on YouTube.

This was an incredible session, also featuring editor Trevor Horton and producer Corinne Demyanovich.

The slide show was incredible slick and professional, and the content was so great - it was probably one of my favourite session at the Summit.

You can watch a trailer for their show below:

Here's a look at some of their slides:

I really loved this session, and I can't wait to catch up on all 305 episodes of their show!

Next up, in typical Sam Mestman style, we had an absolutely epic presentation.

Previously Sam founded FCPWORKS and Lumaforge (who were acquired by OWC), runs We Make Movies and also works for Hedge on PostLab.

He is now the Present of Amove, and in this demonstration, he explained how Amove's offerings create an entire post production ecosystem, along with Hedge's Tools, Jumper and Freque.

Sam demonstrated Amove's functionality, Justin La Vallee demonstrated Freque, Jeff Greenberg demonstrated Jumper.

There was also a demonstration of how this all ties together in a real world production environment.

You can check out some of the slides here (apologies for the quality, I was quite far back in the room):

If you haven't yet checked out Amove, Freque or Jumper - you absolutely should.

Next up, it was lunch time - and again, lunch was super yummy!

After lunch, Wes Plate was up.

Whilst this is the first time I've actually met Wes in person, I've communicated with him online for years, so I feel like I know him really well - he's such a fantastic guy.

I've been using Automatic Duck products (a company Wes and his father Harry runs) for decades - they've solved so many workflow problems across to many applications.

Wes did a great demonstration of all his existing apps:

Then he dropped a bombshell...

You can learn more about Multicam Flattener on the Automatic Duck website.

I've been very fortunate to be a very early beta tester of Multicam Flattener, and it does exactly what it says on the label - it works great.

However, as discussed in yesterday's post, there are now limitations with the new Magnetic Mask, as this information isn't contained within FCPXML, so that's just something to be aware of.

Multicam Flattener will be released soon after some further/wider beta testing, so join the Automatic Duck mailing list to stay updated.

And then... it was my turn. I was a very last minute addition to the running list - basically filling in for someone else, but I jumped at the opportunity.

My session was a Q&A session hosted by the incredible Nick Harauz from Boris FX.

I talked about my production company, LateNite, my software, Jumper and all kinds of other tangents.

I had a lot of fun, and thanks to everyone for their questions and engagement! Feel free to leave comments below if you want to ask my anything else!

Unfortunately I missed the next two sessions, Create Magic in Motion with Mark Spencer and 3D, Spatial and Immersive Video with Iain Anderson - as I was chatting with people in the foyer after my talk.

Again, it's those discussions you have in the hallways that make in-person events so valuable.

Next up we had the amazing Tyler Stalman do a session discussing Shot on iPhone, Edited in Final Cut Pro.

Tyler's YouTube channel has 483K subscribers and 276 videos.

Tyler is such a lovely guy, but also a true professional and an exceptional public speaker.

If you're not already following Tyler on YouTube, you absolutely should be.

Then finally, the big session of the day... Dialogue with Apple: Q&A.

There was a great energy in the room, and lots of excitement. It was fun, it was open, there were laughs. Nothing was under NDA.

There was a lot of questions that were pre-submitted that the Apple team tried to best to answer, and there were also questions from the audience.

I asked a question, that went something along the lines of...

Thank you so much for allowing the Fitness+ team to come and showcase everything - it was seriously awesome to hear all the technical details of what they're doing - it was mind blowing of the scale and frequency that they're making things. One of the most interesting and curious things I noticed is that, despite the fact you showed us all their insanely cool camera robots, one of the key features the Fitness+ team highlighted in their presentation was the fact that they use Final Cut Pro's stabalisation. But they also told us that they do everything as a Multicam? So if they're constantly using stabalisation in Multicam clips, and they told us they're running the stock-standard version of Final Cut Pro, this means they're constantly going inside the Multicam clip, making cuts and stabalising inside the Multicam. If I was making that much content every day, it would drive me crazy! Given this, how much collaboration is there between the Fitness+ team and the FCP team.

And the answer was basically that the Final Cut Pro team work insanely closely with the Fitness+ team across all manner of things - including many months of prep work to get the presentation prepared that we saw yesterday. There was no specific mention on synchronisation in their answers.

Over all though, the general mode and vibe was a happy one. Apple is listening. The team behind the tools we love are human. Apparently one of the crew that helped setup the demo room at Apple Park is an insanely good music video creator. The Final Cut Pro team literally "share a wall" with the Logic Pro team.

With the end of that session, we had a wrap on the Final Cut Pro Creative Summit 2024!

Thanks to EVERYONE who reached out to me over the last week, chatted in the hallways, bought me a coffee or a beer and sent me DMs and messages!

HUGE THANKS to EVERYONE who's downloaded a free trial or bought Jumper, or has purchased my applications - this is what has allowed me to fly all the way from Melbourne, Australia to hang out with you all!

I really hope these FCP Cafe articles have been interesting and helpful! If you liked this coverage, please let Apple and FMC know, so they might help me come back in future years!

Onwards & Upwards!

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Today was the second day of the 2024 Final Cut Pro Creative Summit, and it was super fun and informative.

But before we get into the news from today, just to touch on some things from yesterday...

First up, Matthew O'Brien has released a new video on YouTube talking about Final Cut Pro 11:

Yesterday, I mentioned that I saw something I wasn't allowed to talk about, but today it's out and I can finally talk about it!

As part of my Apple Vision Pro Demo at Apple Park I was very lucky to watch a sneak peak of The Weeknd: Open Hearts on Apple Vision Pro.

It's a new immersive music experience that features Canadian singer-songwriter The Weeknd, filmed in ultra-high resolution 180-degree Apple Immersive Video with Spatial Audio.

You can watch a trailer here:

It's insane. It was such an amazing experience on Apple Vision Pro.

The most amazing part is that there's a section in the music video, where there's a lot of smoke from smoke machines.

As someone who worked in live productions and concert lighting for many years, I've worked with smoke machines a LOT.

When watching this music video in Apple Vision Pro, I could literally TASTE the smoke machines.

My brain was apparently so convinced that what I was seeing was real, that it somehow triggered some prior memories and made me taste and feel something, that wasn't actually real.

This is super interesting, and it's really something you need to watch on Apple Vision Pro to experience.

The music video is amazing - it has some incredible visual effects, and the fact you can look around the frame is pretty amazing - the 2D trailer above really doesn't do it justice.

If you get a chance to experience this epic music video in Apple Vision Pro, please do. You can watch it for free through the Apple TV app on Apple Vision Pro.

In other news, Metaburner v1.1.1 is out now with support for Final Cut Pro 11. You can download it now on FxFactory.

If you don't know what Metaburner is, you can read about it on a previous FCP Cafe news post.

One interesting thing about the new Magnetic Mask in Final Cut Pro is that it saves all the analyse data in a folder called VideoSegmentationFiles within the Final Cut Pro Library bundle.

You can't move it outside the bundle - it needs to live inside the Library bundle (unlike other cache files). This is super interesting, and may present some challenges with collaborative workflows (i.e. with Postlab).

Magnetic Mask data is also not transferred with FCPXML - so if you export a project/timeline containing a clip with a Magnetic Mask, then re-import the FCPXML, the mask won't correctly come across - in fact, you'll just get an empty effect:

This could also prove to be a pain if you use FCPXML round-tripping in your workflow.

Ok, back to the Summit... here was the day two schedule:

First up, we all had the incredible Michael Cioni from Strada perform his presentation, Bet on the Future, bet on Yourself.

I've talked about Michael a lot on FCP Cafe over the years - I'm a MASSIVE fan. He's insanely smart, and such an incredible public speaker. I would, and have literally flown across the world to hear him speak.

I've seen him give presentations at Light Iron in LA for the feature film Focus back in 2015.

I've seen him talk at the Lumaforge Faster Together Stage at NAB back in 2019. I've seen him talk at the Frame.io NAB booth.

Michael is so eloquent, passionate and prepared. He knows everything he's talking about back to front. He's a true filmmaker, who walks the talk.

The Strada crew had some serious cameras recording the presentation so hopefully we'll see it on the Strada YouTube channel soon!

In the meantime, here's some photos from the epic presentation:

Michael's presentation was really awesome, I think everyone walked out of the room, excited, energised, and ready for action.

After Michael's session, unfortunately I missed the other sessions before lunch, as I was busy in the corridors and hotel foyer chatting with Final Cut Professionals.

This is the real power and benefit of the Final Cut Pro Creative Summit - the sessions are great, but some of the best moments are the random conversations you have with people in-between sessions.

Lunch was supplied by the conference and it was really great - a proper hot meal, that was delicious! Thanks FMC!

After lunch everyone went back into the main conference room for Shamir Allibhai (of Simon Says fame), talking about his new startup, Eddie AI.

You can watch the video he opened with below on YouTube:

Eddie AI is basically ChatGPT for your footage. You can literally upload media from multiple cameras, and seperate audio, and automagically in the cloud, it will sync the cameras and audio and prepare it from a large language model (LLM, like ChatGPT).

You can then "chat" to your footage, and get Eddie AI to create edits and selects for you.

You can watch these edits in your browser, but also export these edits as videos and exchange formats, such as FCPXML for Final Cut Pro.

You can sign up to test it out on their website.

Next up, I attended Jeff Greenberg's session on AI Tools to Enhance Your Workflow.

Jeff is an industry legend, and was one of the original founders of the FCP Creative Summit with Sam Mestman.

He opened with a AI-generated song about the Final Cut Pro Creative Summit - it took some people in the audience a few minutes to realise what they were actually listening to!

Jeff will eventually post his presentation on his website, however in the mean time, here's a look at some of his slides:

If you haven't already heard about Jumper, this is a project I've personally helped out with, and you can read more about it on a previous FCP Cafe news post.

It's pretty awesome, and I'll be talking about it more in my session tomorrow.

After Jeff, I went into the amazing Jenn Jager's presentation talking about Masking and Tracking Secrets in Final Cut Pro - mainly focussing on the Magnetic Mask.

This was a fantastic session, with lots of audience interaction and questions.

One cool tip that came from the session is you can hold down SHIFT and move your mouse to adjust the brush size when working with the Magnetic Mask in Final Cut Pro.

You can watch one of Jenn's awesome YouTube videos explaining the Magnetic Mask below:

After Jenn, I attended Daniel Cohn's epic presentation on Movie Magic in Motion.

Daniel is a true indie filmmaker, and absolute Apple Motion guru - and can do some absolutely incredible things with that tool.

He showed off some insanely complex Motion projects. You can check out some of his amazing work on his website.

Finally, we had a very special presentation from Apple's Fitness+ team.

This was incredibly special, as it wasn't under NDA, and whilst there was no Q&A session, they shared a lot of stats and information.

Here's some of the slides:

The below photo only contains ten percent of the team that work on Apple Fitness+:

This was an INSANELY interesting session, and it's so nice to see Apple using, and promoting their own software at such an epic scale!

It's also super interesting what they're doing with FCPXML and custom Motion Templates to get on-set metadata into Final Cut Pro and back out again.

They didn't get into the technical details, but they did mention they use the stock-standard Mac App Store version of Final Cut Pro, so we can only assume they use custom Share Destinations to export their ProRes masters ALONG with FCPXML containing all the additional metadata.

One interesting thing to ponder though is... does the Fitness app on iPhone, iPhone and Apple TV actually run the Motion Engine under the hood for doing the personalised animation, or are they generating something similar using Swift/SwiftUI?

After the Apple presentation it was then the Networking Expo Night - which again, had absolutely awesome food and a free drink.

Overall, day two of the Final Cut Pro Creative Summit has proven to be just as fun and exciting as day one. I can't wait to see what's in-store for the third and final day tomorrow!

I'll be personally presenting at 2pm.

Onwards & Upwards!

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Today was the first day of the 2024 Final Cut Pro Creative Summit, and what a fun and exciting day it was!

But before we get into that... Some backstory...

I jumped on a plane from Melbourne, Australia on Monday afternoon, and arrived in San Francisco on Monday morning - yes, I travelled back in time.

The flight was great. Watching Civil War may not have been the smartest move, but it's a great movie (I also LOVED Devs), and I quickly followed it up with Ghostbusters: Afterlife for good measure.

I took an Uber from the airport to the Juniper Hotel, and once it eventually stopped raining, I spent the entire day just walking around Cupertino, adventuring around the outskirts of Apple's Infinite Loop Campus and Apple Park.

I had no idea just how many Apple buildings are in Cupertino (in addition to the Infinite Loop Campus & Apple Park) - there's literally hundreds of them! I now have many, many photos of me with signs of Apple buildings.

I ended up having lunch at the Apple Park Visitors Centre, and dinner at BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse, right next to Infinite Loop.

Before dinner, I made the foolish mistake of buying milk, orange juice and cereal from Whole Foods - which was insanely expensive, not realising that Target over here also sells food!

On the positive side, everything I bought from Whole Foods is apparently, healthy, ethical and organic - so that's a win.

By the end of Monday, I had done a lot of kilometres around Cupertino, and I was totally exhausted, and thankfully got a really good night's sleep - so I was in the timezone.

On Tuesday, people started to arrive for the conference, so I got to hang out with a bunch of old friends from the Final Cut Pro Community.

I had lunch with the amazing Bradley Olsen (who created the Off The Tracks documentary) and the insanely intelligent Gabriel Spaulding, and then we all went out for coffee with a much bigger group of Final Cut Pro gurus, as more people started to arrive at the Juniper.

Literally the best part of the Final Cut Pro Creative Summit is catching up with old friends, and meeting new people. There's so many incredible smart people in attendance, from all over the world.

I had dinner at the Juniper with a large group of awesome Final Cut Pro gurus, including Philip Hodgetts & Dr Gregory Clarke (from Intelligent Assistance), Iain Anderson (who literally wrote the book on Final Cut Pro), Bret Williams of BretFX and many others.

And then it was Wednesday...

The day started in the Juniper foyer, where we all got to catch up around the coffee stations.

I don't believe FMC has yet released any official numbers yet, but based on the amount of badges on the table, I think it probably slightly bigger attendance than last year.

The first and only session of the day at the Juniper was the always awesome and always charming Nick Harauz from Boris FX welcoming everyone to the conference, explaining what laid in-store for the next three days, and introducing everyone that's speaking at the conference (myself included).

One super interesting and exciting fact is that when Nick asked the audience how many first timers were attending, a huge portion of the room raised their hands. So whilst I saw a lot of people I met last year at the conference, it's awesome to see heaps of new faces!

It's always super cool to see FCP Cafe featured on the presentations - with our awesome icon designed by the incredible Matthew Skiles.

After the session wrapped, Iain Anderson and Mitchell Harris were already doing impromptu demo's of their own personal Vision Pro's for those that were keen!

Then it was time for lunch, and I got to hang out with my panelist buddy from last year, the awesome Jenn Jager (and her lovely husband), Bret Williams, a new friend, Stanislaw Luberda (who's done some absolutely awesome Motion tutorials!) and some others for some really great food!

But before we knew it, it was time to jump on the bus to Apple Park...

Unlike last year, this year, the main presentation took place at Apple Developer Center (Tantau 14) - right next to Apple Park and the Apple Park Visitors Centre.

The Developer Center has a very slick and high-tech theatre, which we all eventually entered into to watch Apple announce what they've been working on.

Like last year, we weren't allowed to take any photos or videos of the actual presentation - but I can tell you it was insanely slick and well produced.

For those that have watched lots of Apple Keynote and WWDC presentations, this was absolutely on par - high production quality, well rehearsed, no technical issues.

First up we got some insanely cool demonstrations of Logic Pro for Mac 11.1 and Logic Pro for iPad 2.1.

Apple explains in their press release:

Logic Pro for Mac and iPad supercharge songwriting, beat-making, producing, and mixing, and are an excellent companion for Final Cut Pro editors. Today, that experience gets even better with the new Quantec Room Simulator plug-in, which allows users to tap into the legendary sound of the most acoustically accurate reverb ever created, built using the original schematics, algorithms, and code from Quantec founder and inventor Wolfgang Buchleitner. Users can select the vintage Quantec QRS to add natural acoustic space to music while preserving sonic character, or the modern Quantec Yardstick for improved clarity and detail. The Quantec QRS technology is a great tool for video editors who want to add natural-sounding spaces to dialog, foley, and music.

“The Quantec Room Simulator has been a key element to my sound for many years, appearing on records like Passion and Us. I also used it to build harmonic drones to start my live set, which then evolved into songs like ‘Across the River,’” said musician Peter Gabriel. “It’s wonderful that Apple is bringing the Quantec QRS back to life as a plug-in for Logic users around the world.”

The Logic Pro demo's were awesome. As someone who actually knows what an Quantec QRS and Yardstick are (Wolfgang Buchleitner used to hand-build them himself with his wife in the last decade before he sadly passed away!) - I was pretty blown away by what Apple have done, acquiring the technology and turning it into a digital product with the same "heart" as the original analogue (in the case of the QRS) and digital (in the case of the Yardstick) products.

Logic Pro is an amazing piece of software, and it was great to see Apple promoting it, not just for music creation, but also in video production!

Next up we had a demonstration of Final Cut Pro for iPad 2.1 and Final Cut Camera.

Ever since the release of Final Cut Pro for iPad, they've been promoting "Third-party content" as "Coming Soon" - it even still says that on the website:

Alas, it still seems third party Motion Templates are still in the works.

I was kinda hoping that we might see Motion for iPad released this year, so that Motion designers could build Motion Templates for iPad on the iPad, but it wasn't meant to be.

We did however get some big feature updates. To quote the release notes...

Final Cut Pro for iPad 2.1 includes the following features and enhancements:

• Automatically improve the color, color balance, contrast, and brightness of video or still images using the new Enhance Light and Color effect, powered by machine learning.
• Add personalized Live Drawing animations to your video with new watercolor, crayon, fountain pen, and monoline inks.
• Highlight visuals with new Reframe effects, add video overlays with Modular transitions, and polish your content with even more color grading presets and soundtracks.
• Edit high-frame-rate media with timeline support for 90, 100, and 120 fps settings.
• Experience instant haptic feedback as you edit and navigate your projects using Apple Pencil Pro.
• Increase efficiency with new keyboard shortcuts for common tasks in the browser and timeline.
• Dynamically adjust the size and position of the viewer in Picture in Picture mode.

Improvements and bug fixes:

• Expand or minimize clip height in the timeline with a vertical pinch to zoom gesture.
• Double-tap to reset white balance, manual focus, and exposure settings to default values in pro camera mode.
• Fixes an issue that caused the front-facing camera to sometimes display the incorrect lens selection in pro camera mode.
• Fixes an issue that could cause a browser clip to temporarily disappear when tapped.
• Improves reliability when opening and closing the Keywords list with Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard.
• Fixes an issue that prevented nudging audio clips at subframe levels with the jog wheel.
• Improves reliability when nudging primary storyline clips with the jog wheel in Position mode.
• Improves reliability when nudging and trimming timeline clips with keyboard shortcuts.
• Fixes an issue that sometimes prevented selecting timeline clips after deleting a connected clip.
• Fixes an issue where replacing one soundtrack with another in the timeline did not match the original’s duration.
• Fixes an issue that caused a soundtrack trimmed during playback to not update to the correct duration.
• Fixes an issue that caused certain log clips to not fully display their color profile information in the inspector.
• Fixes an issue that caused the transition name to not appear or update in the inspector.
• Improves reliability when enabling and disabling onscreen controls for shape masks.
• Includes stability and performance improvements.

Live Multicam improvements and bug fixes:

• Improves Live Multicam device discovery, connection, media transfer, and stability.
• Improves Live Multicam clip syncing.
• Fixes an issue that caused Live Multicam device previews to sometimes shift color after the first recording.
• Fixes an issue that caused low storage alerts to sometimes appear incorrectly during recording.
• Fixes an issue that caused an incorrect ISO value to sometimes appear in a connected device’s exposure settings.
• Fixes an issue that could cause Live Multicam settings to not update Final Cut Camera settings correctly.

New keyboard shortcuts:

• Render Timeline: Control-Shift-R
• Select All (Browser): Command-A
• Deselect All (Browser): Shift-Command-A
• Zoom In (Browser): Command-Plus Sign (+)
• Zoom Out (Browser): Command-Minus Sign (-)

Then on the Final Cut Camera 1.1 side we get (again, quoting from the release notes):

• Preview your Log video in SDR or HDR with the vibrancy of the original scene by enabling the Apple Log LUT while recording. (Requires iPhone 15 Pro or later.)
• Record in Log and HEVC for increased flexibility and dynamic range combined with smaller file sizes. (Requires iPhone 15 Pro or later.)
• Precisely compose your video using the level with tilt and roll indicators or crosshairs for overhead shots.
• Capture high-quality 4K footage at up to 120 fps with iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max.

Improvements and bug fixes:

• Double-tap to reset white balance, manual focus, and exposure settings to default values.
• Expands ISO ranges to include additional values.
• Fixes an issue that caused the 4:3 aspect ratio guide to be displayed incorrectly in portrait orientation.
• Fixes an issue that could cause the camera preview to lag.
• Fixes an issue that caused the camera preview to briefly blur when switching between automatic and manual settings.
• Fixes an issue that interrupted recording when quickly opening the media browser after tapping the Record button.
• Fixes an issue that prevented the media browser from closing when quickly tapping to return to the camera view.
• Fixes an issue that prevented using Forget This Device if a device was not in discoverable range for Live Multicam.
• Improves reliability with media transfers to Final Cut Pro for iPad.
• Improves reliability when changing device orientation.
• Includes stability and performance improvements.

I was actually pleasantly surprised how big an applause we got from the room when they announced recording Log in HEVC - this seems to be something that a lot of people were desperate for, which is awesome!

Before we get into Final Cut Pro, let's have quick look at Apple Motion.

Motion 5.9 includes the following enhancements and bug fixes:

• Install third-party Media Extensions to support playback and compositing of more video formats (requires macOS Sequoia or later).
• Adds a tooltip that describes rasterization for parameters in the Inspector.
• Improves results when resetting the Stroke filter.
• Improves the appearance of behavior curve animations in the Keyframe Editor.
• Fixes an issue that caused ripple delete to not work properly.
• Fixes an issue that caused particles or replicators to erroneously be created from audio files.
• Fixes an issue that caused the Analyze button to not work properly when using a point tracker.
• Improves stability for third-party plug-ins that perform analysis.
• Improves stability when previewing multiple 3D text styles.
• Improves stability when importing an invalid EXR file.

Given there's really only bug fixes and improvements in this release, it may still be true that the Motion team is very busy working on how to bring Motion Templates to iPad - maybe that's a next year thing?

For those developers following along, along with Motion 5.9 we also got FxPlug 4.3.1.

The FxPlug 4.3.1 SDK includes the following:

• Improved overall stability.
• Added support for Metal API validation.
• Fixed an issue that caused multiple parameters to be created with the same ID (which I think is something I ran into with Metaburner!)
• Updated the descriptions that the example plugins display in the inspector in Motion.
• Metal API validation can be used when debugging plugins.

You can download the latest FxPlug update on the Apple Developers site.

Whilst there was also a Workflow Extensions SDK 1.0.3 update, it doesn't seem to have any actual release notes apart from the point:

• A Workflow Extension built with this version of SDK is compatible with Final Cut Pro 10.4.9 or later running on macOS 11 or later on Intel hardware. It will be compatible with Final Cut Pro 10.5 or later running on macOS 11 or later on Apple Silicon systems.

...and with that, we move into Final Cut Pro.

The presentation opened with this epic video, edited by the incredible Thomas Grove Carter (you can read about Thomas on FCP Cafe here):

It was funny, as soon as I saw this video, I instantly thought it might have been Thomas who cut it, and soon discovered after that he did - it's fricken awesome.

Tyler Stalman has also just released a video where he talks with Thomas about Final Cut Pro 11:

I'm a MASSIVE fan of Tyler, and an even bigger fan of Thomas - so this is definitely a video worth watching!

And whilst we're sharing links...

You can read Iain Anderson's thoughts about Final Cut Pro 11 on ProVideo Coalition.

You can also read Scott Simmons thoughts about Final Cut Pro 11 on ProVideo Coalition.

Of course, Mark & Steve at Ripple Training have already covered the update - check out their Final Cut Pro 11 - NEW FEATURES IN-DEPTH video on YouTube:

As has the incredible Jenn Jager in her Final Cut Pro Update | THIS IS THE BIG ONE! video on YouTube:

Dylan Bates (The Final Cut Bro) has also released a video on YouTube:

Again, quoting the release notes...

Final Cut Pro 11.0 includes the following enhancements:

• Expand your creative freedom with the revolutionary AI-powered Magnetic Mask, and isolate people, objects, and shapes in any footage without a green screen or time-consuming manual rotoscoping (a Mac with Apple silicon recommended).
• Use Transcribe to Captions to automatically create captions from spoken audio in the timeline with a powerful AI language model built for speed and accuracy (Mac with Apple silicon and macOS Sequoia or later required).
• Import and edit spatial video clips from Apple Vision Pro or iPhone 15 Pro or later; add titles, color correction, and effects; and share captivating spatial projects that can be viewed on Apple Vision Pro (Mac with Apple silicon required).
• Edit in the timeline at 90, 100, and 120 fps.
• Reduce clutter in the browser by automatically hiding original clips when creating synced clips or multicam clips.
• Speed up your creative flow with new Picture in Picture and Callout effects.
• Create interesting visual reveals with new Modular transitions.
• Use Vertical Zoom to Fit to scale clip heights to fit in the timeline.
• Change the order of vertically stacked clips with a new keyboard shortcut.
• Quickly navigate clips in list view and edit clip text with a new keyboard shortcut.
• Increase efficiency with additional new keyboard shortcuts including Rename Clip, Show/Hide Audio Lanes, Expand/Collapse Subroles, Play Half Speed Forward/Reverse, Consolidate Motion Content, Paste Timecode, and Show Horizon.
• Install third-party Media Extensions to support playback and editing of more video formats (macOS Sequoia or later required).

Additional support and bug fixes:

• Improves performance in timelines that contain a high number of markers.
• Fixes an issue that caused the alert badge on an event to not disappear after all missing media was relinked.
• Fixes an issue that caused the Clouds generator to be partially transparent.
• Fixes an issue that caused the Collapse to Connected Storyline command to trim audio if the audio was leading video.
• Adds support for exporting uncompressed or ProRes MXF video with 32 kHz audio.
• Adds support for exporting directly to the Photos library.
• Updates FCPXML to version 1.13.

Obviously the big feature is the AI-powered Magnetic Mask and the first question everyone seems to ask is... "does this replace mRotoAI"?

And the answer is... it really depends? What Apple has put into Final Cut Pro is insanely fast and powerful - in a lot of cases, one click will get you something awesome:

Whereas with this same shot, mRotoAI struggles with the hair, however you get a LOT more controls and fine tuning:

I think for most users, people will be happy to avoid the MotionVFX subscription and just go with the build-in tool, however for power users, having mRotoAI in your toolbox will continue to be very handy.

It's also worth noting that mRotoAI comes with a heap of Expansions - so it's more than just a one-click tool.

Then we have Transcribe to Captions which is awesome - but I don't think it's actually what most people want?

Whilst having Final Cut Pro do automatic captions is awesome and amazing, I think most people were expecting automated titles, like CapCut, Caption Pop AI (discussed on FCP Cafe here) and mCaptions (discussed on FCP Cafe here).

Thankfully we now have captionTranslator (discussed on FCP Cafe here) and captionAnimator (discussed on FCP Cafe here).

Editing spatial video clips in Final Cut Pro is kinda cool... but the fact we can't plug in a Vision Pro into our MacBook Pro, like we could previously do with a Vive headset, seems like a step back, especially given there's still a Output to VR Headset option in the Final Cut Pro Window menubar?

Really though my favourite features are:

• Reduce clutter in the browser by automatically hiding original clips when creating synced clips or multicam clips.
• Use Vertical Zoom to Fit to scale clip heights to fit in the timeline.
• Change the order of vertically stacked clips with a new keyboard shortcut.
• Quickly navigate clips in list view and edit clip text with a new keyboard shortcut.
• Increase efficiency with additional new keyboard shortcuts including Rename Clip, Show/Hide Audio Lanes, Expand/Collapse Subroles, Play Half Speed Forward/Reverse, Consolidate Motion Content, Paste Timecode, and Show Horizon.

Whilst it seems like such a minor thing, the addition of a default shortcut key for Paste Timecode is absolutely MASSIVE for CommandPost and Jumper users! THANK YOU FINAL CUT PRO TEAM!

This is something I've personally requested, and I'm so excited and happy to see it's been actioned!

Why? Because we use the Paste Timecode shortcut key to programatically move the playhead in CommandPost and Jumper, as there's no other API or method to do it. This is great!

We've had the ability to trigger Show Horizon and Rename Clip in CommandPost for a few years now, so it's nice to see Apple has been listening to CommandPost users and have added this natively!

Of course, the main thing that MANY people came up to me about after the presentation was the fact that Blackmagic RAW is FINALLY coming natively to Final Cut Pro via Media Extensions.

In 2023 Apple announced a new framework called MediaExtension, that provides a means for developers to create format readers and video decoders for media that the system doesn’t natively support - such as Blackmagic RAW and Nikon NRAW.

This was supposed to come in macOS Sonoma, but they silently killed it - only for it to reappear in this years WWDC for macOS Sequoia.

Whilst it's been out for a while, the documentation is insanely complicated and limited and the only person I know who's done ANYTHING with it so far is the incredible Anton Marini, who's been building an ffmpeg Media Extension over on GitHub here.

However today Apple confirmed that Blackmagic RAW will come to Final Cut Pro via Media Extensions... at some point in the future. We're currently not sure if this is days, weeks or months.

Now of course... this means that the shelf life of my own BRAW Toolbox is very limited, haha. However, I always knew this was coming.

I originally only created BRAW Toolbox, because I had clients that would hand over 2-4TB of BRAW footage, and I didn't want to waste time/hard drive space converting them to ProRes, or even worse, have to jump into DaVinci Resolve or Premiere - so I built BRAW Toolbox.

Over three thousand people have used BRAW Toolbox on all kinds of jobs - it's been used successfully on feature films, television shows and high-end television commercials!

This was my first ever paid Mac application, so I'm insanely proud of it. It was also the first ever FxPlug4 extension to ever make it to the Mac App Store - pretty crazy for someone who considers themselves a filmmaker, not a developer!

I've always wanted to port BRAW Toolbox over to Media Extensions, but sadly the Media Extensions API is really hard to work with - and my attempts to contact Apple Developer Support were unsuccessful.

I think really, Apple always intended for camera manufacturers to make Media Extensions - not filmmakers from Melbourne, Australia.

We currently don't know when Blackmagic will release their Media Extension, and we don't really know how it'll work exactly.

Apple have released some documentation:

...and it does look like you will be able to edit RAW properties - but probably not be able to key-frame parameters like you can currently do in BRAW Toolbox.

BRAW Toolbox does use the official Blackmagic RAW SDK, so all the colour science and image pipeline is exactly the same as what you see in DaVinci Resolve.

However, now that Blackmagic have access to Media Extensions, they'll be able to do things far better than what I could do with BRAW Toolbox in terms of performance, due to the fact that I was basically "tricking" Final Cut Pro into using an "effect" to draw BRAW frames.

In theory, assuming Blackmagic want to allow it - we should see a big speed improvement between BRAW Toolbox and Blackmagic's Media Extension when it comes to exporting and rendering.

Hopefully now that Apple has basically opens the doors to ANYONE being able to build a Media Extension, this will open the doors to lots of other codecs - such as native Nikon NRAW, and maybe even the re-emergence of the good olde Perian tools!

One of the most exciting things for me though, was Bill Davis mentioning FCP Cafe in the keynote! Woohoo!

He showcased Knut Hake & Sam Pluemacher's amazing Notion Database of Final Cut Pro Projects from around the world. If you haven't checked it out, you definitely should!

I really wish I was able to take a photo of this moment, as it was super special - thank you Knut & Sam for all the incredible work you put into the Final Cut Pro community!

With this update, we also see a jump from FCPXML v1.12 to v1.13.

For those developers following along, the additions are:

<!ATTLIST format heroEye CDATA #IMPLIED>			<!-- ("left" | "right") -->

<!ATTLIST asset heroEyeOverride CDATA #IMPLIED>		<!-- ("left" | "right") -->

<!ELEMENT adjust-stereo-3D (param*)>
<!ATTLIST adjust-stereo-3D enabled (0 | 1) "1">
<!ATTLIST adjust-stereo-3D convergence CDATA "0">
<!ATTLIST adjust-stereo-3D autoScale (0 | 1) "1">
<!ATTLIST adjust-stereo-3D swapEyes (0 | 1) "0">
<!ATTLIST adjust-stereo-3D depth CDATA "0">

<!-- The 'intrinsic-params' entities declare intrinsic video and audio adjustments. -->
<!ENTITY % intrinsic-params-video "(object-tracker?, adjust-crop?, adjust-corners?, adjust-conform?, adjust-transform?, adjust-blend?, adjust-stabilization?, adjust-rollingShutter?, adjust-360-transform?, adjust-reorient?, adjust-orientation?, adjust-cinematic?, adjust-colorConform?, adjust-stereo-3D?)">

<!-- The live drawing intrinsic params are a subset of intrinsic-params-video. -->
<!ENTITY % intrinsic-params-live-drawing "adjust-crop?, adjust-corners?, adjust-conform?, adjust-transform?, adjust-blend?, adjust-360-transform?, adjust-colorConform?, adjust-stereo-3D?">

<!ENTITY % marker_item "(marker | chapter-marker | rating | keyword | analysis-marker | hidden-clip-marker)">

<!-- A 'conform-rate' defines how the clip's frame rate should be conformed to the sequence frame rate -->
<!ATTLIST conform-rate srcFrameRate (23.98 | 24 | 25 | 29.97 | 30 | 60 | 47.95 | 48 | 50 | 59.94 | 90 | 100 | 119.88 | 120) #IMPLIED>

<!ELEMENT hidden-clip-marker EMPTY>

The awesome Steffan Andrews has already added 90fps support to TimecodeKit!

Good news for Jumper users - Final Cut Pro 11 already works great with Jumper!

If you're not already aware of Jumper, please read our previous news post.

CommandPost however will most likely need some tweaks to support FCPXML v1.13, which I'll try and get to ASAP.

After the Apple presentations, it was time to leave the Apple Developer Center and head over to Apple Park.

This time, unlike last year, we were actually allowed to take photos on the outside of Apple Park (just not inside)!

We all walked around to the same room that we went to last year for the demo, to have some snacks, then check out the latest Apple Hardware and Final Cut Pro 11 demonstrations.

There was definitely a massive positive and happy buzz in the room!

Unlike last year, Apple also ran some private/invite only demo's of the latest improvements to Apple Vision Pro - and I was lucky enough to be selected to attend the very last session.

I've had the pleasure of previously testing out Iain Anderson's Vision Pro at Sydney airport a few months ago, when we were randomly passing at the same time - however for this session I had two dedicated Apple staff making sure that the Vision Pro was set up perfectly for my head and eyes, and explaining how everything works.

We got to watch a whole bunch of immersive content in the Photos app and via the Vimeo app and work with immersive content with Final Cut Pro through the Vision Pro and a MacBook Pro.

I also got to see some stuff I'm not allowed to yet talk about - but I will say the demo was absolutely amazing, and just so much fun.

HUGE shout out to our "minder" John on the Keynote team, who had to stick around for a few hours to look after a small group of us as the rest of the conference jumped on buses.

We even got to have dinner at Apple Park - which was pretty special in itself.

Overall, it was a pretty magical day - and I'm HUGELY thankful and appreciative to the entire Apple team who allowed us to come back to Apple Park again this year. It was so much fun!

And this is only day one of the conference. Tomorrow we get to hear the keynote talk from the one and only Michael Cioni from Strada, which will be SUPER exciting!

Onwards & Upwards!

Arctic 24.3 is out now!

It includes support for Final Cut Pro 11, and has a spiffy new UI!

You can download and learn more here.

Discuss this news item

Metaburner v1.1.0 is out now on FxFactory!

For those that have been following along, Metaburner has proven to be one of the most challenging and complicated things I've ever built.

The idea is simple - we just want to be able to "burn in" metadata from a Final Cut Pro project, simple, right?

Whilst it didn't take me very long to throw together a proof-of-concept, getting it to work well proved to be incredibly complicated.

Metaburner v1.0.0 (Build 1) hit Apple's TestFlight on 16th December 2023.

Thanks to the feedback and support of some of the best minds in the Final Cut Pro community, we iterated fast and pushed out quite a few updates improving things.

By 8th January 2024, Metaburner v1.0.0 (25) hit FxFactory, our first product to be sold outside the Mac App Store.

All our initial paid apps, such as BRAW Toolbox, Gyroflow Toolbox, Marker Toolbox, Recall Toolbox and Fast Collections were all released on the Apple Mac Store.

So, why FxFactory? FxFactory has a number of benefits for us:

• FxFactory is a highly curated store focussed on editing professionals with a huge catalog of amazing products
• FxFactory offers free trials and watermarked versions
• FxFactory doesn't require Apps to be sandboxed
• FxFactory offers developers advice and code-level technical support/guidance
• FxFactory helps with user technical support
• FxFactory helps with marketing and promotion
• FxFactory has a number of technologies built into their software platform to make sure Motion Templates are updated correctly
• The FxFactory team are super smart and super lovely - you have direct contact with their developers/engineers

On 24th January 2024 we released Metaburner v1.0.7 (35) on FxFactory - but then there was radio silence... except if you're in the Final Cut Pro Discord group.

After pushing out v1.0.7 we decided to go back to the drawing board on a lot of things.

Whilst Metaburner was working fine in a lot of cases - for example, if you just have standard clips on a timeline - it wasn't working in more complex cases, such as re-timed Multicam Clips containing Sync Clips.

I enlisted the help of my long-time friend and collaborator David Peterson to do some paid full-time work on FCPXMLKit - our own Swift-based FCPXML engine that's doing a lot of the magic behind-the-scenes.

David also wrote Capacitor (which allows you to easily convert between FCPXML versions) as a test case for FCPXMLKit.

Things that we thought would be simple, turned out to be days and weeks of work.

I knew that Metaburner was never going to make any money, and investing so much time and money into the project was kinda insane - but I also knew that this kind of tool was so important to editors working in long-form - it's just something that NEEDED to exist.

FCPXML is insanely complex - and even though I work with it all the time, even I have trouble explaining it in some cases.

After months of work, lots of maths (I'm terrible at maths), lots of experimentation, we FINALLY got FCPXMLKit to a point where it was working great in most cases.

But we also hit some performance issues - Metaburner was working, but it was slow.

Again, after months or work, emailing every Swift/FCPXML genius I know, and lots of swearing... EVENTUALLY I was able to get performance to a good state too.

It's not the most zippy of applications - but at the same time, it actually performs pretty fast compared to Final Cut Pro's own exporting of FCPXML on large libraries!

So whilst things have been fairly quiet publicly, we did 14 private beta builds of Metaburner v1.1.0 - and there was a lot of Discord discussion happening!

I'm am HUGELY thankful to everyone who's been testing and putting Metaburner through it's paces.

HUGE THANK YOU to Matthieu Laclau, Sam Pluemacher, Knut Hake, Robin Moran, Florian Duffe, Tyler Nelson, Marcos Castiel, Geoffrey Orthwein, Josh Beal, Alex '4D' Gollner and Vigneswaran Rajkumar!

Also, an absolutely MASSIVE THANK YOU to the incredible Steffan Andrews - who is probably on-par with Intelligent Assistance's Dr Gregory Clarke, as the worlds best FCPXML expert.

We've using Steffan's TimecodeKit under the hood, and have also had some fantastic video calls with him regarding his DAWFileKit, which is absolutely amazing if you're a Swift Developer working with FCPXML.

So whilst I originally hoped to have Metaburner done and dusted by January 2024, it's taken until November to finally get it to a point where I'm mostly happy.

Sadly, I'll never make back the money I invested in Metaburner and FCPXMLKit - however hopefully this tool will make it heaps easier for editors to cut long-form projects in Final Cut Pro.

I learnt a HUGE amount for taking on this insane project, and we'll also be able to use FCPXMLKit for lots of other things in the future.

You can download a free trial of Metaburner on FxFactory.

Jumper v2024.11.12 is out now!

It includes the following improvements:

🆕 Important Changes:

• We've removed silence checks from the speech processing pipeline (for now, since it causes issues in some cases).
• If you have very long silent audio/video files, simply don't check the speech processing in the Media panel for these clips.

🐞 Bug Fixes:

• Fixed issues with .mxf files having malformed timecode values.
• Error-safe parsing of .caf audio file metadata.
• We no longer ignore an audio file if there is some issue parsing the audio channel count.

You can download and learn more here.

evrExpanse v5.1.0 is out now!

It has the following improvements:

• Significant performance boost when exporting metadata, up to 4x faster on Apple Silicon and 8x faster on Intel Macs, plus optimized Finder Tags extraction.
• Improved precision in extracting gamma curve metadata from Sony Alpha cameras.
• Fix Gamma Notes and Color Space metadata acquisition when Sony Alpha cameras get GPS coordinates from mobile device.

You can learn more here.

Discuss this news item

Greetings from Cupertino!

After a very nice long plane flight from Melbourne, Australia I'm now in the USA ready to cover the Final Cut Pro Creative Summit this week!

I'll be post daily wrap-ups from the three day conference, and covering any Apple and third party announcements.

I'm fairly confident we'll see updates to Final Cut Pro for Mac, Compressor and Motion.

I'm very confident we'll see some cool stuff from third parties, based on the speaker list.

I have absolutely no idea what's coming for Final Cut Pro on iPad or if the Apple Vision Pro will make an appearance.

Apple has been promising third party Motion Templates for Final Cut Pro on the iPad since launch - the website still says "coming soon".

We know that with Transfer Toolbox you can bring Mac Motion Templates to iPad in MOST cases.

I wonder if we'll see Motion for iPad released, along with a whole heap of Motion Templates from MotionVFX?

I do know there's quite a few people from MotionVFX coming to the conference this year.

We also know that Spatial Video is coming to Final Cut Pro - does this mean we'll be able to hook up a Vision Pro to Final Cut Pro?

Only a few days to go, and all will be revealed!

Marker Data v1.1.0 (2) is out now!

Marker Data is now exclusively build and optimised for Apple Silicon only.

🔨 Improvements:

• Application bundle size has been reduced
• User can now Assign Shortcut to Configurations
• Codebase updates for better compatibility with Xcode 16
• Updated Notion Module CSV2Notion Neo to v1.3.3
• Updated Airtable Module Airlift to v1.1.4

🐞 Bug Fix:

• Fixed a critical bug in the Notion module that prevented Marker Data's Data Set uploads when Notion Database URL is not provided

You can download and learn more here.

Xsend Motion v1.2.2 is out now!

It now supports Custom LUT effects!

You can download and learn more on FxFactory.

Discuss this news item

Jumper v2024.11.09 is out now!

It has the following bug fixes:

• Fixed slow search responses when working with footage on shared storage, such as a NAS or SAN. Thanks for reporting Siim!
• Jumper now ignores non-media files from FCPXML.
• Reduced verbose error logging output for offline files.

You can download and learn more here.

MotionVFX has released a bunch of updates to their products:

• mCallouts Simple v3.0.2: Tracking engine update
• mMessage v3.0.2: Tracking engine update
• mCallouts Simple 2 v3.0.2: Tracking engine update
• mPointer v3.0.2: Tracking engine update
• mFreezeFrame Movie v2.0.5: Stability update
• mMessage 2 v3.0.2: Tracking engine update
• mHUD 3 v3.0.2: Tracking engine

You can download the latest updates using mInstaller.

They are also offering 30% off on their site using the promo code: BW30

You can learn more here.

Discuss this news item

The incredible Knut Hake and Sam Pluemacher have put together a database of projects cut on Final Cut Pro!

It's on Notion and it's easily searchable by:

• Type of show
• Region
• Distributor
• Country
• Editor

You can also submit your own projects to be included.

You can check it out here.

captionTranslator by Intelligent Assistance is out now on the Mac App Store!

The price is USD$29.99 until 31st December where it'll increase to USD$34.99.

Free translation on your Mac. No Internet required.

It uses Apple's Translation Framework.

Translate Captions to additional language captions in Final Cut Pro.

It supports:

• Arabic
• Chinese (Mandarin - China mainland)
• Chinese (Mandarin - Taiwan)
• Dutch
• English (UK)
• English (US)
• French
• German
• Hindi
• Indonesian
• Italian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Polish
• Portuguese
• Russian
• Spanish
• Thai
• Turkish
• Ukrainian
• Vietnamese

The interface is very basic:

Simply drag and drop your project/timeline into the Workflow Extension window above and press Go.

The first time you run it, you'll most likely need to download language files from Apple

Our initial tests show that it's not always perfect in every language:

It seems to default to English if it has trouble translating, which seems like a good workaround.

However, I tried the exact timeline again a few minutes later and got better results:

I think maybe the models hadn't completely downloaded in the background yet, so this is something to keep in mind.

You can read the manual here.

You can buy now on the Mac App Store here.

captionAnimator v1.0.3 is out now!

It now supports Compound Clips with Captions.

You can download on the Mac App Store here.

Frame.io v2.7.2 is out now!

It contains bug fixes and performance improvements.

You can download on the Mac App Store here.

Discuss this news item

Introducing Jumper by Witchcraft Software in Sweden. 🇸🇪

A powerful AI search engine for your footage.

No clouds. No uploads. All on device.

Please watch this launch video on YouTube:

You can also watch a detailed tutorial video here.

I’m very biased, but it’s amazing. I basically describe it as Spotlight for your NLE.

You should stop reading this and go download it now from here.

Let me explain...

Now, firstly, this isn’t a LateNite project - this isn’t my (Chris Hocking’s) baby.

Jumper is the brainchild of YouTube and BadAss FX creator Arthur Moore.

But before I get into that, let’s jump back to 1st February 2023.

On Richard Taylor’s FCPRadio Episode 134 podcast, Iain Anderson explained:

I'm really excited by what's happening with the AI stuff, with stuff like Whisper...
But the problem with captions in Final Cut is they only go on a project...
I want them on clips as well, to make them searchable to a time so that you could search for a phrase you know somebody said and instantly find it in your rushes.
You could do that today, I'm sure with Lumberjack... but I think there's room for Apple to add a whole lot more AI smarts...
So the auto-tagging, you know, Apple should do that. Apple should be able to find where there's water in a shot, where there's a cat in a shot, where the shot is mostly red.
It should be able to detect all of that and just do it for you on the fly.

I was on that podcast, and what Iain asked for isn’t something new or groundbreaking - every video editor I know wants to be able to just search for "guy wearing green t-shirt" in their NLE and it gets found.

Over the years I’ve reached out to countless companies and developers to try and convince them to build something exactly like this - but never really got any bites. Machine Learning and AI is really hard - and I was already personally juggling so many things, I didn’t want to start learning machine learning myself, so I never even attempted to add any ML or AI features to CommandPost or standalone apps - I left that for people like the amazing Alex Raccuglia.

Avid’s had ScriptSync and script-based editing for decades. Resolve’s got face recognition. Final Cut Pro’s had the ability to "analyse video" for a decade - with options to automatically balance colour and find people. Ulti.Media has Transcriber and FCP Video Tag. Kino AI got people very excited for a few months (and I offered many times to help them get Kino AI working with Final Cut Pro!), until they decided to concentrate on Enterprise customers rather than freelance video editors. Strada is working on some incredible stuff - but it’s all cloud based - which is not an option for a lot of people due to privacy, but also slow internet (like we do in parts of Australia). There’s all this tech around, with so many options and possibilities - but there’s still no easy way to just search for "guy wearing green t-shirt" locally on your Mac... well, until now.

I first discovered Arthur Moore back in June 2019 when he posted an incredible video about using the Loupedeck+ with CommandPost in Final Cut Pro:

This wasn’t sponsored, he never contacted me in advance, and I had no idea he was doing it until I saw it shared online. I was absolutely blown away by the quality of the video, and how exciting it was. I was so humbled and amazed that someone was willing to do such an incredible video showcasing my silly little free and open source application - especially as I consider myself a filmmaker, not a programmer or developer.

Then a few months later in September 2019, Arthur did another video about CommandPost:

Again, I was simply blown away by the quality of his videos, and basically just really happy that people were getting something out of CommandPost - because it originally just started out as a way to make the playhead more visible for Scott Simmons!

Jump forward to December 2019, and Arthur sent me an audio message asking for help building an installer for his BadAss Fx apps.

Whilst this was something I was super interested in helping with (and eventually years later, I ended up helping BretFX bring their apps to the Mac App Store), alas, this never happened, as I went down the giant rabbit hole of adding Loupedeck CT support to CommandPost, with Arthur beta testing it.

This was a pretty massive job, as the Loupedeck CT hardware is insanely powerful - with knobs, touch screen buttons, physical buttons, LED buttons, vibration, an internal hard drive, etc. By February 2020 though we had a pretty reliable beta, thanks to Arthur’s feedback and testing.

Finally in January 2021, a massive CommandPost v1.1.0 update was released to the world with Loupedeck (original), Loupedeck CT, Loupedeck Live, TourBox, Stream Deck XL and Stream Deck Mini support. It was such a popular release that Loupedeck actually reached out to me to start building an official Loupedeck plugin for CommandPost (i.e. within their official Loupedeck app).

For the next few years, I didn’t really hear much from Arthur - but as a video editor, I continued to use BadAss FX on hundreds of projects. Then in March 2024, he reached out again:

Hey Chris! I'm developing something really cool with my friend. It's a local running AI that helps users search for footage. We got pretty far with Premiere and we are starting to move to Final Cut soon. I wonder if you would be interested in looking at what we have done and maybe joining us?

The timing couldn’t have been worse - at the start of this year I was totally burnt out, exhausted and overwhelmed. I declined the offer, but said I’m happy to offer help and advice as needed, as I do for lots of people and companies in the Final Cut Pro space (hence this website).

A few months later in June 2024, Arthur sent me a tutorial video for what they’d built in Adobe Premiere - it was super cool, but to build something like that in Final Cut Pro would be a big challenge, as unlike Premiere, Final Cut Pro has no official API for doing the stuff they needed to do... without CommandPost at least.

I was already juggling all my own apps on the Mac App Store, Arctic for Hedge, this website, two kids and a film and television production company, so I didn’t really want to take on yet another crazy project - however, I agreed to help offer advice, we set up a Slack for Jumper... and before long, I got fully roped in.

Jump forward to November 2024 - and after 4 months or so of some crazy hours in-between other jobs and commitments, as well as lots of long and sometimes loud discussions, we have something that’s pretty incredible.

There’s basically four core team members in Team Sweden, and then I’m helping out from Melbourne, Australia - so timezones have been fun. Arthur and I are the crazy Final Cut Pro editors, and then Max and two of his best mates are the coding geniuses behind the scenes - who don’t actually have any background in film & television, or post production. It’s been super interesting and collaborative, getting feedback from people who have never even opened Final Cut Pro before, and don’t have decades of background (and baggage) when talking about fun things like Drop Frame Timecode, FCPXML DTDs, etc.

But at it's heart, Jumper really is a tool by video editors, for video editors. Arthur, myself and a giant team of amazing early beta testers have pushed hard to make the tool the most useful it can be in real-world scenarios for video editors. We’ve battle tested it on real jobs, with real deadlines and real pressure - sometimes it failed miserably, so we went back to the drawing board, iterated and improved.

Going back to March 2024, my original advice was to do everything with FCPXML, however for various reasons, the first betas of Jumper for Final Cut Pro were reading the Library files at the file system level - which worked great... until you have to support Multicam & Synchronised Clips. Jump forward to today, and Jumper now have exceptional support for Multicam & Synchronised Clips thanks to the feedback of beta testers and the Jumper community. It really has been a team effort by some incredible supporters, including some amazing business mentors and advisors in Sweden, and Australia.

Whilst this site, and my interests, mainly lie in the Final Cut Pro universe - Jumper is not just for Final Cut Pro editors - it originally all started in Adobe Premiere, and Witchcraft plan to release for DaVinci Resolve and Avid Media Composer soon. They are also working on Jumper Enterprise, which allows you to analyse all your footage on a local server, and then have unlimited clients all access that data over your existing shared storage and network - it’s super exciting.

The thing I love most about Jumper really is that it’s just like Spotlight for your NLE. I was editing a fast turnaround corporate job earlier in the year, and I had a client over my shoulder saying things like "find the footage of the guy with a purple shirt and a funny hat" - Jumper could just find that shot instantly, and the client was pretty blown away. You don't even have to get the spelling correct.

Whilst there’ll be some video editors that use Jumper all the time (i.e. documentary, nature, sports, etc), for others in the scripted world (i.e. scripted film & television), it may be less frequently used, because assistant editors will have already logged and organised the footage by scene, for example. However, just being able to open the Jumper Workflow Extension and instantly find ANYTHING in your Library is pretty insane. It’s a very handy tool to have in your toolbox - and I say this as someone who has built a lot of toolboxes over the years!

Whilst I have no ownership in Witchcraft (the newly formed company behind Jumper), and it’s not my baby - I’m super proud of Jumper, and all the work that myself and Team Sweden has put into it. It’s entirely possible that Apple, Blackmagic or Adobe will Sherlock it at some point in the future - but for now, it’s the only tool on the market that can do what it does... all locally, all on device.

I’m very glad Arthur took me along for the ride!

You can buy and learn more here.

Onwards & Upwards!

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Well, I didn't have this on my 2024 Bingo Card!

The Pixelmator Team plans to join Apple.

They write on their blog:

We’ve been inspired by Apple since day one, crafting our products with the same razor-sharp focus on design, ease of use, and performance. And looking back, it’s crazy what a small group of dedicated people have been able to achieve over the years from all the way in Vilnius, Lithuania. Now, we’ll have the ability to reach an even wider audience and make an even bigger impact on the lives of creative people around the world.

What to expect Pixelmator has signed an agreement to be acquired by Apple, subject to regulatory approval. There will be no material changes to the Pixelmator Pro, Pixelmator for iOS, and Photomator apps at this time. Stay tuned for exciting updates to come.

Thank you We want to give a big thanks to our amazing users for your support over the past 17 years. Your feedback has played a huge role in shaping our apps into what they are today. As we step into this exciting new chapter, we can’t wait to share what’s next.

Well, this is big.

My GUESS is they want the engineering talent to help improve Photos on Mac and more importantly iPhone & iPad.

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Dylan Bates (aka The Final Cut Bro) is having a 24 hour sale!

Get 31% off for the next 24 hours only!

Use the discount code: Boo31

You can learn more here.

captionAnimator v1.0.2 is out now with the following improvements:

• New feature: for projects with captions in multiple languages, use the Language popup menu to choose which caption language is used to make titles
• Bug fix for detecting titles with custom roles applied

You can download on the Mac App Store here.

Pinch and a punch for the first day of the month! Woohoo!

EasyEase on FxFactory brings easing of keyframes directly into your editing workflow, allowing you to apply custom easing functions to the position, scale, and rotation of your clips and elements.

Unlike other plugins, which animate simply from point A to B without keyframes and offer limited easing options, EasyEase supports full keyframing of its parameters. This means you can create complex animations with multiple keyframes, adjusting the speed by changing the distance between them.

EasyEase provides a wide range of easing functions, including unique options like Back Ease In & Out, Back Ease Out, Ease In, Ease Out, Quadratic Ease Out and more.

By exposing and mimicking the Position, Scale, and Rotation parameters and applying these cool animation easing effects, it brings functionality to Final Cut Pro that hasn't been there before.

You can learn more and download here.

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Waltzing With Brando will premiere at the Torino Film Festival!

Cut in Final Cut Pro X by the incredible and magical Michael Yanovich, ACE.

You can read more here.

finalcutgod has released a new YouTube video talking about captions in Final Cut Pro:

Caption Pop AI by StupidRaisins is out now for USD$34 for a limited time!

The website says:

Introducing Caption Pop AI – the fastest way to make captions right inside Final Cut Pro! Forget about exporting to CapCut or waiting on other slow, clunky software. With Caption Pop AI, you can automatically create captions in just 3 easy steps: analyze your video’s audio, customize your captions, and drop them onto your video. Done!

Whether you're editing YouTube content, social media clips, or Caption Pop AI demos, Caption Pop AI delivers professional results in record time. Customize the look, enjoy accurate AI transcriptions, and work in 17 languages – all without leaving Final Cut Pro.

Get Caption Pop AI today and keep your workflow smooth and speedy!

You can watch an intro video on YouTube here:

You can download and learn more here.

What I didn't realise until now is that StupidRaisins has basically built their own versions of FxFactory - their own app, with their own marketplace - very impressive!

I've already downloaded Caption Pop AI and taken it for a quick test drive...

My first comment is I fricken LOVE the Stupid Raisins DMG!

My second comment, is their developers clearly haven't read my FCP Cafe documentation about why you should use greyscale icons for Workflow Extensions!

They also haven't set the minimum sizes correctly for their Workflow Extension:

Unlike MotionVFX's mCaptionsAI it seems like Caption Pop AI only support importing audio files:

After dragging in a WAV or AIFF you can select local or cloud processing and the model you want to use:

If you selected local, it then downloads the model:

It then processes the audio content:

Once complete, you have a lot of controls to play with:

To send back to Final Cut Pro, it's a bit more clunky than MotionVFX's mCaptionsAI - if you press Open in FCP, it will basically send a FCPXML across - prompting you to select a Library in which you want to import the FCPXML.

It then brings in a new Project with just the titles, so you need to copy and paste back into your original project/timeline:

Overall it does a pretty good job, using the recent Mac mini Announcement video as a test:

There is some maths errors/funkiness with timings, for example:

Overall though, it seems like a very useful tool to have in your toolbox, especially if you don't want to pay MotionVFX a subscription.

It'll be super interesting to see how well Apple's new caption tool compares to OpenAI's Whisper, which is what all these tools use.

It seems like Caption Pop AI is using whisper.cpp under the hood.

It stores all the models, temporary audio files, and FCPXML exports in '~/Library/Containers/com.urlaunched.StupidRaisins.StupidRaisins/Data/Library/Application Support/com.urlaunched.StupidRaisins.StupidRaisins:

If the Apple speech-to-text model is better than Whisper (which is unlikely), then I'd imagine a lot of these developers will start offering a FCPXML import option.

I think though, really the main benefit Apple has is that they can do the timing and handle timecode much better than Whisper can currently do - this might be the biggest selling point for Apple's tool.

Overall, it's great to see another non-subscription tool on the market!

Audio Design Desk v2.1.3 is out now!

It includes the following changes:

• Track automation wasn't blocking mouse events on regions beneath, so it made it impossible to drag automation points
• More region mouse event improvements and fixes
• Improvements and fixes to Audio Unit manager UI for enabling and disabling Audio Units
• Epidemic login button would be disabled if you canceled out of the web login forcing an ADD restart to reenable it
• Audio tables wasn't updating with correct count after searching
• Dragging multiple files from the library tables would result in overlapped regions in the timeline. Now, they will stack by default on new tracks, but you can hold the shift key to have them placed sequentially in a row
• Misc UI fixes

You can download and learn more here.

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In their Mac mini Announcement Apple has leaked some features in the upcoming Final Cut Pro v11 update!

To be fair, I don't know for a FACT that it's Final Cut Pro v11 - but I think it's fairly safe to assume.

We already knew from WWDC that:

Spatial Videos can then be edited in Final Cut Pro for Mac, and shared and viewed in the new Vimeo app for VisionOS. This new professional workflow will be available this fall.

...so we knew that Spatial Video features were already on the cards, but we got some new surprises in the Mac mini video:

Specifically two new machine learning features:

• Magnetic Mask
• Transcribe to Captions

These are both features that I've been predicting and hoping for, for a long time.

In terms of Magnetic Mask, we can assume this is object-based masking - i.e. being able to easily "cut out" a person without the need for a green screen.

Meta/Facebook has been doing amazing work in this area, with Segment Anything Model 2.

It would be super interesting if Apple's actually using SAM2!

Blackmagic and Adobe already have their own solutions for this.

In terms of Transcribe to Captions, again this is something that's been lacking in Final Cut Pro, that other NLEs have.

It'll be super interesting to see the implementation though.

My initial thought is that people don't actually want captions on their timeline - they actually want titles.

It's currently unknown if there's any way to easily convert these newly generated captions to titles without third party tools.

However, by bringing Apple-level transcription to Final Cut Pro, even if it is limited to captions in the timeline, this opens up HUGE possibilities to third party developers like myself.

Interestingly, Intelligent Assistance, who have a close working relationship with Apple, have just announced captionAnimator.

captionAnimator converts Final Cut Pro Captions to "burned in" Titles, with Style captionAnimator uses one, or more, FCP Titles as a template to convert Closed Captions to open (regular) Titles. You can use any built-in Title (static or animated), or those from third party designers, or your own custom title created in Motion, as a template to convert, and optionally, animate your Captions into Titles.

You can learn more here.

You can watch a video explaining captionAnimator here:

It's safe to assume that Intelligent Assistance is on the Final Cut Pro beta (being close partners and collaborators with Apple), and maybe even Apple hinted at them to build this tool to solve workflow issues for this upcoming release.

Unfortunately, we don't personally get access to any early betas or pre-releases, so it's always a bit of a mad rush to fix CommandPost, BRAW Toolbox, Marker Toolbox, etc when a new update comes out.

Another thing that people want is ability to search their footage for dialogue - but if these transcriptions are only happening in the timeline, again, this doesn't seem like it'll be possible out of the box (although we do know of some people working on this issue, which I hope to share more about soon!).

In the next update, we'll be able to make tools that take the transcribed metadata from FCPXML and do awesome things with it - I'm specifically thinking about the Titles to Keywords Toolbox in CommandPost for example.

Either way, this just makes the upcoming Final Cut Pro Creative Summit even more exciting, so if you haven't already booked - do it!

You can get 15% off your Final Cut Pro Creative Summit ticket here.

Onwards & Upwards!

Audio Design Desk v2.1.2 is out now!

It includes the following changes:

• Dragging the region selection rect in the timeline might not select a regions under it as expected.
• Improves resizing regions in the timeline, especially when they are very small. Much easier to grab now.
• Issue where recently added regions would ignore mouse events in the timeline.
• Timeline zoom sliders might not respond to mouse movement or clicks immediatel.
• Region selection UI when dragging regions was positioned too high.
• More accurate track selection when dragging regions between tracks or beneath them.

You can download and learn more here.

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DAWBridge v1.0.7 is out now with the following changes:

• Updates to the underlying MIDI Timecode system, various bug fixes

You can download on the Mac App Store here.

PostWatch v4.2 is out now!

It includes the following changes:

• Important update for Apple Silicon Macs: An issue was discovered in the detection of the System Screensaver and Display Sleep that affects the PostWatch Screensaver. Now works correctly on Intel and Apple Silicon.
• Fixed: The PostWatch Screensaver was running on older macOS’s (Catalina) when it shouldn’t and was actually blocking the watching of Notifications.
• New: Optimization Utility has been completely redesigned with enhanced navigation and improved error reporting.
• New: The optional Notification Sleep Test has also been redesigned with an easier to use interface.
• Improved: Error logs now expanded with better information details.
• Includes many small fixes and stability improvements.

You can download and learn more here.

MotionVFX mCaptionsAI v1.0.1 is out now!

There's no release notes as far as I can tell, but I do know it improves captions for Chinese!

You can learn more here.

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MASSIVE congratulations to editor Dinda Amanda, as The Shadow Strays makes it to 2nd spot on Netflix's Global Top 10 Charts!

Dinda cut The Shadow Strays in Final Cut Pro X.

Amazing work!

An an unexpected nice surprise the new iPad Mini is actually compatible with Final Cut Pro for iPad!

The App Store listing has been updated to note:

• Skim your footage without ever touching the screen with Apple Pencil hover - Requires iPad models with M2 chip or later
• Create stunning videos with an HDR workflow on the Liquid Retina XDR or Ultra Retina XDR display Requires iPad Pro (M4 chip) or iPad Pro 12.9-inch (5th generation or later)
• Easily record in a range of video resolutions, frame rates, and formats including ProRes - Requires iPad Pro (M4 chip), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (6th generation or later), or iPad Pro 11-inch (4th generation or later)
• Send your project to Final Cut Pro for Mac for additional tools including Object Tracker, advanced color correction, and third-party content - Requires Final Cut Pro 10.8 or later
• Import projects created in iMovie for iOS to take advantage of the advanced editing tools in Final Cut Pro for iPad - Requires iMovie for iOS 3.0 or later

You can download Final Cut Pro for iPad here.

Audio Design Desk v2.1 is out now!

This is a major update to Audio Design Desk with lots of improvements:

• Minimum required version is now macOS 11.
• New Epidemic extension to get audio suggestions for video stills or return similar audio.
• New timeline undo system
• Improved stability loading 3rd party Audio Units
• Improves dragging effects in Audio Unit list, responsive layout
• Timestretch rendering is much faster
• Many speed improvements for various multi-threaded processes
• Many performance optimizations when dealing with large amounts of files
• Better handling of canceling processes
• Improvements to ADD Tags batch processing
• Improved search speed
• Many UI updates and improvements
• Media Bridge: Allow web pages to upload files
• Most timeline actions like replace, project load, region creation, etc have been refactored to be faster.
• Much improved metadata guessing via audio analysis (in macOS 12+)
• New status notification system which now allows cancellation in important cases
• Optimize Trigger presets, doesn't block now on updates, will refresh presets menu dynamically on Home location change
• Return known values for loudness analysis
• System will better handle invalid files in sound packs
• Tables: search, sort and general performance improvements
• Updated Media Bridge with bug fixes and improvements

Bug Fixes:

• Advanced search options for user triggers is persistent
• Allow send to trigger button to work in sound pack playlist view in user triggers manager
• Allow spot mode drag out of playlists
• Element detector send to trigger
• Hang on updating tables with large amounts of files
• Hang that occurred when opening the metadata editor
• Hide library panel is expanding metadata panel, but only timeline should resize on show/hide view events
• Improvements in Sound Pack indexing and parsing
• Key commands in some playlist views
• Loading missing regions in projects without audio
• Login fixes
• Many fixes to Stacks editor
• Master volume value in projects
• Potential crash that could happen on opening files with invalid markers in them * Rendering in timeline, and loading projects with renders in place
• Search is clearing current search criteria if there are no results
• Stacks/Editor key commands when in a detached window
• User Preferences being saved correctly
• Resolve and Premiere extensions (edited)

You can download and learn more here.

Colourlab Ai 3 Pro is out now!

This is a major update!

Gen3.2 Color Matching Engine: Colourlab AI 3.2 Pro introduces the first neural engine to work natively in ACES. It’s a multi-modal engine, supporting multiple types of image analysis for optimal color matching results. Trained on over 10 million custom-developed images, it automates color management without relying on metadata—purely analyzing the content of your image. The new auto-balance feature is just the beginning.

Native Integration with DaVinci Resolve, Nuke, and Baselight: Colourlab AI Pro now works natively inside these platforms. No more sending sequences in and out—just drag and drop the plugin onto your clip to access the full functionality previously available only through the desktop application.

Floating License, Server-Based: With this release, Colourlab AI Pro can now operate as a server-based application. One system in your facility can handle all the color matching, allowing all other systems to connect and use the same smart color metadata for perfect results.

Real-Time Performance: Colourlab AI Pro works in real time, supporting 4K and even 8K workflows, depending on the power of your system. The AI processing happens entirely on your device—no cloud, no extra costs—ensuring faster and more efficient work.

Flexible Color Management: You’re no longer limited to ARRI Log C. Colourlab AI Pro works seamlessly in ACES, DaVinci Wide Gamut, and virtually any color space you prefer. The new Colourlab AI OFX plugin supports all imaginable color spaces, giving you maximum flexibility.

Reference Sharing: Just like its desktop counterpart, Colourlab AI Pro allows you to share reference looks and images across projects effortlessly.

You can learn more here.

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MotionVFX mRotoAI v1.1 is out now!

It's now up to 25% faster!

You can watch a short video on YouTube demonstrating here.

You can learn more here.

MotionVFX mFlare 2 v3.1.5 is out now!

It now supports for high resolutions - up to 16k.

You can learn more here.

Alex Raccuglia has released a new video on YouTube titled:

Unlocking "Success": How My Apps BeatMark 2 & Pro Transformed Editing for Filmmakers! (😳)

You can watch on YouTube here.

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BRAW Toolbox v1.4.0 (70) is out now!

It has the following changes:

🔨 Improvements:

• Added support for Fujifilm X-M5 Blackmagic RAW clips.
• Added support for Panasonic S5D Blackmagic RAW clips.
• Updated from Blackmagic RAW SDK v4.2 to v4.3.

🐞 Bug Fix:

• Fixed a bug when using macOS Sequoia where the hero BRAW Toolbox application would fail to set the correct folders when trying to grant sandbox permissions when first setting up BRAW Toolbox. For example, it would default to the user's "Documents" folders, rather than the user's "Movies" folder and the user's "ProApps" folder. Thanks for reporting Karl Winegardner, Robbie Myers, Jens Pluimes & Edwin van W!
• Re-designed how we render error messages in Final Cut Pro using Core Image and Metal. Hopefully this will fix random crashes some users are seeing on older versions of Final Cut Pro running on older Intel machines.

You can download and learn more here.

Gyroflow Toolbox v1.2.0 (21) is out now!

It has the following changes:

🔨 Improvements:

• We've updated to the latest Gyroflow Core Renderer. HUGE thank you to the amazing AdrianEddy for all his ongoing help, assistance, genius and support!
• 4606 lens profiles have been added from the hero Gyroflow project. Thanks to EVERYONE who has submitted lens profiles and another HUGE thank you to AdrianEddy for all the work that goes into managing them.

🐞 Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug when using macOS Sequoia where the hero Gyroflow Toolbox application would fail to set the correct folders when trying to grant sandbox permissions when first setting up Gyroflow Toolbox. For example, it would default to the user's "Documents" folders, rather than the user's "Movies" folder. Thanks for reporting Roman Gaufman!
• Re-designed how we render error messages in Final Cut Pro using Core Image and Metal. Hopefully this will fix random crashes some users are seeing on older versions of Final Cut Pro running on older Intel machines.

You can download and learn more here.

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The trailer for Steven C Miller's upcoming Werewolves movie is out now, cut in Final Cut Pro!

You can watch the trailer here.

MotionVFX's mRotoAl v1.1.1 is out now with the following changes:

• Improved tracking speed and overall stability
• Fixed support for FCP 10.7 and below

You can learn more here.

XtoCC v1.2.46 it out now with the following fix:

• Bug fix for detecting the DTD version in FCPXML

You can download on the Mac App Store here.

Larry Jordan has a heap of amazing interviews from NAB Show New York 2024.

You can check them out here.

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For those that missed it live, you can now watch Jenn Jager's live stream talking about the Final Cut Pro Creative Summit on YouTube below:

Jenn Jager, Final Cut Pro Guru Mark Spencer from Ripple Training, Writer/Director and Squirrel Me Bad creator Daniel Cohn, Director of Product Marketing for Continuum at Boris FX Nick Harauzand, and myself (Chris Hocking) chatted about all things related to the upcoming Final Cut Pro Creative Summit!

Enjoy! If you have any questions that weren't answered, feel free to ask them in the comments below!

evrExpanse 5 is out now!

After months of development, this major release brings a host of new features, including:

• 3D LUT Application: Easily burn LUTs into transcoded files for enhanced color grading.
• Enhanced Final Cut Pro Integration: Leverage metadata with Smart Collections, improved searchability, and automatic metadata porting.
• Plus, enjoy up to 10% faster transcoding!

You can find the full release notes here.

You can download and learn more here.

SendToX v1.2.6 is out now!

It contains a critical bug fix for translated XML that fails DTD validation in certain titles created in Premiere Pro.

You can download on the Mac App Store here.

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The MKBHD team (aka Marques Brownlee's YouTube team) gives a full masterclass on how they make high quality video.

Why is this relevant? They cut in Final Cut Pro - woohoo!

It's a really awesome video - and Mariah Zenk gives some amazing insight into how and why she cuts things together. She's awesome.

What I find most interesting is the lack of emoji's in the Library!

All the event names and underscores just make me feel like a technician - not an artist.

I'm personally a BIG fan of using emoji's - it makes Final Cut Pro more colourful and fun:

You can watch the editing section on YouTube here:

Thanks for sharing JonnyLewisFilms!

I've just linked straight to the editing section above, but it's totally worth watching the whole thing - especially the audio section, which is super fun and interesting.

Although I am very surprised they're using Sennheiser MKH 416 Shotgun Microphones for their interior shoots, as opposed to a hyper-cardioid microphone, like a Schoeps CMC641, Sennheiser MKH 8050 or a Audio Technica AT4053B (this video is worth a watch for anyone interesting in learning more!).

I'm also surprised how far away they're positioned the microphone - generally you want the microphone to be as close as possible to the talent, ideally no more than a foot away.

Here's some screenshots from the video:

I LOVE that the MKBHD is so open and happy to share all this amazing insight! Great work team!

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We have another amazing developer case study online by the incredible Alex Raccuglia!

You can read all about Transcriber AI Metadata here.

Mike Greaney's short film Holy Nountain has taken out Best Tall Short at Nouns Fest in LA!

MASSIVE congratulations Mike!

The sound design was handled by LateNite - edited and mixed in Final Cut Pro by Kevin Luk & myself (Chris Hocking).

You can read more on Animation Magazine.

You can watch a trailer for the short film here:

You can find out more about Nouns Fest here.

Let's talk the future of editing!

Join the amazing Jenn Jager, Final Cut Pro Guru Mark Spencer from Ripple Training, Writer/Director and Squirrel Me Bad creator Daniel Cohn, Director of Product Marketing for Continuum at Boris FX Nick Harauzand, and myself (Chris Hocking) chat about all things related to the upcoming Final Cut Pro Creative Summit!

You can watch on YouTube Live here:

Dylan Bates (The Final Cut Bro) has released an update to his Pro Zooms plugin.

He explains:

I have added a zoom offset slider, which will now let you adjust the size of the zoom, without using the on screen controls. This is definitely a hacked together solution, but I was getting tired of waiting for an update from Apple to completely resolve this issue.

Just know, if you use the zoom offset slider, the on screen controls will no longer accurately show exactly what you will be zooming into.

If you were having no issues with Pro Zooms in the past, there is no need to update. This is only to help the few that can't seem to adjust the controls for whatever reason.

You can learn more here.

iodyne has just released a major firmware update to their Pro Data hardware.

Our second major firmware update of the year, Pro Data 1.5 has been released for all existing customers. Were very excited about the Multi-Reader Sharing feature which many of you, particularly in post, have been anticipating.

You can read more here.

Color Finale v2.10.1 is out now!

It contains the following bug fixes and improvements:

• Resolved a color discrepancy issue with the published mask Cutout Mode in HDR projects.
• No longer offering the Adjustment Layer Motion Template installation. Please use your own template.
• Enabled new film emulation tools to function within HDR video workflows.
• Updated the Color Finale app interface to include license information and an option to deactivate the application directly from the computer.

You can learn more here.

Captionator for Final Cut v2.1.0 is out now!

Whisper Turbo now runs substantially faster and more accurately. Choose the Whisper Large v3 Turbo model.

Plenty of new changes:

• Rewritten text editor for editing captions
• Total removal of CoreML
• Addition of Largev3-Turbo (A Much faster model)
• Set a default framerate if Final Cut doesn't produce one
• Multi-threading for even faster transcription
• Many fixes for the custom motion templates
• Validated downloader to ensure all model downloads are not corrupt

You can download on the Mac App Store here.

Worx4 X v1.3.11 is out now with added support for FCPXML v1.12.

You can download on the Mac App Store here

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November is RAPIDLY approaching, and if you haven't already considered going to the FCP Creative Summit you DEFINITELY should.

I'll be there!

You can read why Iain Anderson thinks you should come here.

You can get 15% off here:

There's some great speakers in the mix, but probably most exciting:

Fitness+ How We Use Final Cut Pro
Speaker: Apple Fitness+ Team

Last year at the Summit Apple told us:

One interesting point to note is that even though the Scary Fast event wasn't cut in Final Cut Pro (yes, it was cut in Premiere) - everything for Apple Fitness+ is - over 4,700 videos, 15 hours every week, all cut in Final Cut Pro using ProRes. Apple is eating their own dog food, at a major scale. Also, all the WWDC talks this year were cut in Final Cut Pro.

They also hinted that they were doing some special/funky metadata stuff for Fitness+ but didn't go into any deep details - so HOPEFULLY we learn more this year.

There will be LOTS of new tech discussed at the event.

MotionVFX has just released a tonne of new products, which I'm sure everyone will be talking about.

Wes Plate from Automatic Duck will be presenting - so we can all safely assume he'll announce something amazing (I wonder if you can guess what it is!).

Of course, Michael Cioni from Strada will be doing a keynote talk, Bet on the Future, bet on Yourself. Michael is one of the best public speakers in our industry, so his talks are always amazing.

I'm also currently helping Arthur Moore of BadAss FX fame on a secret project, that will HOPEFULLY be out by the Summit too!

So come along - it'll be awesome.

Yesterday MotionVFX released DesignStudio, mExtension and mCaptions.

But before I rant, watch Jenn Jager's amazing video on YouTube reviewing DesignStudio:

We're MASSIVE fans of MotionVFX. NOT including their subscriptions I've spent over AUD$7,596.53 on MotionVFX products.

The MotionVFX team are next-level talented, and create absolutely beautiful products that no other company can compete with.

That said... for us at least, yesterday's launch really didn't go that well.

We couldn't even pay the very expensive USD$682.82 cost because "something went wrong":

We tried multiple credit cards from multiple banks.

With MotionVFX being based in Poland, and LateNite being based in Melbourne, Australia, getting through to live chat support took a while.

Eventually they tweaked the error message, but alas, it still wasn't working for us:

To be fair... we think this was most likely an issue on Paddle's end - the payment provider that MotionVFX uses, however, as someone who knows the backend of Paddle quite well, I found it pretty disappointing that MotionVFX support couldn't just manually upgrade my subscription - as I was already paying for CineStudio 2D + 3D, so they already had my credit card details.

MotionVFX's live chat support staff were super lovely and human, which is always nice. But there was no special treatment here - no offer of a discount, no offer to some how fast track things. I basically just had to keep trying until it worked.

This kinda sucks - as MotionVFX have such a big team - I would expect better support, where they just do whatever it takes to get me up and running.

Eventually, after about the 100 time of trying to submit, I got a SMS from my bank about unusual activity on my credit card, which I accepted, and then, thankfully, I tried buying the Ultimate Plan, and it worked, woohoo! I have no idea why I didn't get this SMS on the first attempt, or the next 99 attempts, but it must have been a bug somewhere in the Paddle flow.

In addition to the existing mInstaller, we now have mExtensionInstaller:

I'm not really sure why they didn't just put this in mInstaller - it kinda makes no sense, but anyway...

First up I tried mExtension.

It's a Workflow Extension that contains:

• Addons
• Backgrounds
• Camera Movements
• Compositing Elements
• Effects
• Infographics
• Intros
• Overlay Effects
• Placeholders
• Social Media
• Transitions

Once you find something you like you can simply drag it to your timeline, and like magic, it just works.

There's a HEAP of stuff - and as you'd expect with MotionVFX, the design work is AMAZING.

My only complaint is that this Workflow Extension just seems to be a fancy webview - so it's loading off the Internet, and it's SLOW - at least in Australia.

There doesn't seem to be any local caching or persistence - it requires an active Internet connection and doesn't really alert you to if you're offline - it just kinda... stalls.

When you download an item, it just gets added to your regular Motion Templates folder, so in future you can just access directly from Final Cut Pro:

There is a daily limit on how many things you can download:

Overall, it seems like a really solid product, with lots of great templates - and having it directly in Final Cut Pro is amazing. I'm really surprised it took them this long to build a Workflow Extension to be honest!

Next up... we have mCaptions.

Here's the official tutorial featuring the amazing George Edmondson:

Confusingly... mCaptions doesn't create Captions - it creates Titles.

Ironically... whilst we're very confident that we'll see automatic captions support in Final Cut Pro 11 at the Final Cut Pro Creative Summit, we're less confident about automatic titles.

My GUESS is that Apple and MotionVFX have probably already discussed this, and my GUESS it that mCaptions won't compete with Apple's native captions support.

HOWEVER, once we have native caption support in Final Cut Pro, we could use that metadata to generate our own titles, so that's only matter a time before a third party developer solves this once FCP11 is out in the wild - it could even potentially be a CommandPost Toolbox.

But for now... we have mCaptions.

Like Ulti.Media Transcriber and Builder NLE it's using OpenAI's Whisper under the hood.

In this case mCaptions is using Whisper.cpp's Large V3 model.

Our first test was with some Strada test clips (that have been provided to Strada beta testers), in Mandarin, and it failed miserably.

Next we tried some other Strada test clips, but they had multiple audio channels, and mCaptions wouldn't even import them:

It would be great if mCaptions was smart enough to read the enabled channels from the FCPXML and only use the enabled channels for transcription. Maybe in a future update.

It also can't import SOME video files, which is a shame. There's no error message though, so it's hard to know what works and what does without just trying.

So basically, currently it seems mCaptions is basically limited to mono or stereo AIFFs or WAVs.

Next up we tried a 02:27:46:40 long audio clip (a podcast ripped from YouTube).

Sadly, it doesn't seem to push CPUs and GPUs as much as you'd hope (compared to WhisperKit in MacWhisper for example):

It writes verbose error logs in /private/tmp/logError.txt and /private/tmp/log.txt so you can see what it's kinda doing under-the-hood.

After 10 minutes I was only up to 11%, so I basically gave up transcoding this 2.5 hour clip. For reference, MacWhisper can do the same clip in under 5 minutes.

Next up we tried a 4 minute H264 - a pitch video that we did internally, which is mostly dialogue (all English) but with some subtle music underneath.

That seemed to work MUCH better, and was pretty fast to process:

Overall though, I'm not sure that mCaptions is any better than Ulti.Media Transcriber, and definitely has far less options and control - although having it as a Workflow Extension in Final Cut Pro does save a lot of mouse clicks!

Having said that... it does have a very unique feature not found in other tools (so far)... word-by-word animation is amazing, and something I've already used on an actual job. When it works (i.e. clean English), it works amazingly well.

I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on MotionVFX's latest offerings!

Thanks team!

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Builder NLE v2.4.9 it out now with the following bug fix:

• Critical bug fix for adding new multicam clips to an existing event

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MotionVFX is working on something new, and something really cool, most likely called mExtension.

We can only ASSUME that it's a new Workflow Extension based off their videos...

It looks like it has:

• Addons
• Backgrounds
• Camera Movements
• Compositing Elements
• Effects
• Infographics
• Intros
• Overlay Effects
• Placeholders
• Social Media
• Transitions

To be honest, we're surprised it's taken them this long to build a Workflow Extension, as normally MotionVFX are first to market when it comes to Final Cut Pro tech.

Their first hint was:

A new era of creativity is on the horizon... ✨

Their second hint was:

Something big is coming... 👀

Their third hint was:

Final Cut Pro is about to get bigger! 💣

And their latest hint is:

Open endless opportunities in Final Cut Pro ♾️ #videoediting

You can see some screenshots of the above videos here:

It's yet to be seen if this will be subscription or if it just has access to your existing MotionVFX purchases.

We're excited.

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The draft program for the 2024 Final Cut Pro Creative Summit is now live!

You can view it here.

There's some great speakers in the mix, but probably most exciting:

Fitness+ How We Use Final Cut Pro
Speaker: Apple Fitness+ Team

We can't wait! Hopefully see you there!

You can learn more here.

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If you're a developer who works with Final Cut Pro Workflow Extensions, you may have noticed that things break when you upgrade to macOS Sequoia 15.0 and Xcode 16.0. Doh!

Thankfully the fix is fairly simple once you know the trick...

If you're seeing this:

Simply change this:

To this:

This is because in Xcode 16.0, a clang fix was made that now requires a space after the entry linker option -e to disambiguate this option from other options that start with the letter e.

To fix the error, you simply need to separate out the -e from _ProExtensionMain in the Other Linker Flags build setting.

As of today, the Workflow Extensions SDK hasn't been updated, but hopefully we'll see this fixed in the Xcode template soon.

Thanks to Phil in the CocoaHeads community for helping me work this out!

It's nearly your last chance to get 30% off the amazing Apple Motion Masterclass by Dylan Bates (aka The Final Cut Bro)!

Simply use the promo code MotionTime30. Offer end 20th September.

It's time to stop ignoring Apple Motion and make it a part of your daily editing life.

This course will take you from knowing absolutely nothing about Motion, to knowing how to create advanced templates, graphics and VFX with over 7.5 hours of high quality videos. Plus there's even more on the way!

This course is 100% satisfaction guaranteed! Not happy with it? Let me know and I will offer a full refund.

You can buy now here.

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macOS Sequoia 15.0 is out now!

So far there's very little to no reports of any issues with Final Cut Pro, so we think it's safe to upgrade - but of course, make backups and tread with care!

You can keep track of our latest recommendations on our Upgrade Guide.

BretFX has released Speech Bubble 2 on the Mac App Store and on the BretFX website.

You can learn more here.

You can download on the Mac App Store here.

Creator's Best Friend v1.3.1 is out now with a new app icon!

It also now has a "Keep on Top" checkbox to control floating of the app window.

You can download on the Mac App Store here.

Frame.io v2.7.1 is out now!

It includes the following improvements:

• Support for uploading media to V4 accounts
• Watch Folders now work with V4 accounts
• Full support for Final Cut Pro 10.8
• Bug fixes and performance improvements

We're big Frame.io users here, and we're also on the V4 beta, so HUGE thank you to the Frame.io team for all their Final Cut Pro improvements!!

You can download on the Mac App Store here.

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X2Pro5 v5.0.42 is out now with the following fixes:

• Preventing crash during WAV parsing
• Maintaining access rights for locations
• Correct pass-through of track names and timecodes for certain source file types

You can download on the Mac App Store here.

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The amazing Dylan Bates (aka The Final Cut Bro) has released an Apple Motion Masterclass.

Use the promo code MotionTime30 to get 30% off.

It's time to stop ignoring Apple Motion and make it a part of your daily editing life.

This course will take you from knowing absolutely nothing about Motion, to knowing how to create advanced templates, graphics and VFX with over 7.5 hours of high quality videos. Plus there's even more on the way!

This course is 100% satisfaction guaranteed! Not happy with it? Let me know and I will offer a full refund.

You can buy now here.

evrExpanse v4.6.0 is out now!

Use the promo code EVRE460INTRO to get 30% off until 22nd September.

This release includes:

• UPDATE: New Process Selection Interface: Users now select between the main processes: Metadata Export, Transcode, and Offload directly from the main process window, streamlining the workflow and reducing confusion.
• UPDATE: Transcoding Mode Moved: The Transcoding Mode selection has been moved to the Transcode Settings, providing a cleaner and more intuitive user experience when setting transcoding preferences.
• UPDATE: Renaming of Passthrough Mode: The "Passthrough" transcoding mode has been renamed to "Rewrap" for better clarity.
• UPDATE: Minor UI/UX Enhancements: Various small improvements have been made to alert messages and pop-up windows for a more polished and user-friendly experience.
• NEW: Demo License Activation: Starting with this release, the Demo license must be activated to use evrExpanse.

You can learn more here.

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