Apple updates Final Cut Pro X with new workflow improvements and more

Final Cut Pro on MacBook
Final Cut Pro on MacBook (Image credit: iMore)

What you need to know

  • Apple today announced a new update to Final Cut Pro X.
  • This update adds new features for remote workflows and more.
  • The update is available for download now.

Apple today announced a new version of its Final Cut Pro X video editing software with a focus on improving workflows, particularly for those working remotely.

This new update, available for download from the App Store now, features enhancements for proxy workflows in particular.

Now, more than ever before, users are editing remotely across a wide range of locations. Today's update to Final Cut Pro includes major improvements to proxy workflows that make libraries more portable and streamline remote work with large, high-resolution files. For the first time within Final Cut Pro, video editors can create proxies in either ProRes Proxy or H.264 in dimensions as small as 12.5 percent of the original. They can also consolidate proxy media, images, and audio to an external or network-connected drive. A Final Cut Pro Library can even be relinked to proxies already created for added flexibility. Editors can now link to proxy media generated by third-party applications via XML. Examples include Frame.io, a cloud-based creative collaboration platform for review and approval, plus asset management tools like Keyflow Pro and PostLab. If proxy media is not available for some clips, users can adapt workflows to display either the original file or an optimized version.

Final Cut Pro Social Automation

Final Cut Pro Social Automation (Image credit: Apple)

Apple has even started to embrace the world of portrait video for use on social media. This new update has automated tools for cropping video, specifically for use on social platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter.

Today's update to Final Cut Pro makes the experience of delivering social media content easier than ever. Using machine learning, clips in a project can now be automatically analyzed for dominant motion and intelligently cropped with Smart Conform to convert them into square, vertical, or any other sized video — perfect for popular platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter. Transform Overscan reveals media outside the crop boundary when adjusting scale, rotation, and position, which allows storytellers to easily reposition the crop. Video editors can also add a Custom Overlay to guide them when placing text and graphics within a non-landscape frame.

Other improvements include more generic changes to editorial workflows as well as updates to both Motion and Compressor. Users can learn more about what Apple has made available in this update in the announcement post, with the update available now. This update is free to existing Final Cut Pro users with a $299.99 asking price for those who are yet to pick it up.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.