Revolutionary Video Editing
Rebuilt from the ground up to meet the needs of today’s creative editors, Final Cut Pro breaks free from the restrictions of old-fashioned timeline tracks. A new, dynamic editing interface lets you experiment freely while working with extraordinary speed and precision
Magnetic Timeline
Suddenly, everything falls into place
With a visual simplicity that reveals powerful professional tools just when you need them, the Magnetic Timeline in Final Cut Pro offers an exceptionally fluid, flexible way to edit. Assemble shots with ease as clips “magnetically” close up to eliminate unwanted black gaps in the timeline. Similarly, clips move out of the way to avoid clip collisions and sync problems, so you can focus on creating your story. Interactive animations show you exactly what’s happening in the timeline as you work, so you can easily try out new ideas
Clip Connections
Keep it together
Clip Connections are an easy way to place clips such as B-roll, sound effects, and music in the timeline so that they all move together as you make changes — even in the most complex projects. Final Cut Pro automatically creates a Clip Connection when you drag a secondary element to the timeline.
Whether you’re doing a fast assembly or precise trimming, you can edit with confidence, knowing that Clip Connections keep everything together. It’s particularly easy to reorganize your story as you work, because you can move a section of your project in a single step. Clear visual connections make it easy to hand off a project to another editor or to resume editing at a later date
Compound Clips
Say goodbye to timeline clutter
With Compound Clips, you can group a complex set of elements and collapse them into a single clip. This removes clutter from the timeline and creates a simplified version of the segment that’s easy to move or duplicate. Reuse a Compound Clip in other projects — for example, for a unique sound design with layered sound effects. Or use a Compound Clip to add an effect to multiple shots with a click. Step into a Compound Clip or expand it at any time to make changes to individual elements
Inline Precision Editor
Perfect the pacing
Right in the timeline
The Magnetic Timeline improves on traditional ways of trimming, including ripple, roll, slip, and slide edits. If you need additional control, double-click an edit to open the Precision Editor and make trims directly in the timeline. The Precision Editor expands your view of the edit point so you can see both used and unused portions of your clips Then skim entire clips and adjust edit points with a click
Auditions
It’s never been easier to choose the perfect shot
With the unique Auditions feature, you can collect multiple alternative shots at a single location in the timeline and quickly cycle through them in context. Test different B-roll shots, different reads of the same lines, different color grades for the same shot, or different effects. Or use Auditions to create multiple versions of your project for different deliverables and venues. It’s easy to create an Audition — simply drag shots of any length to the same place in the timeline and choose “Add to Audition. As you try out different shots, the Magnetic Timeline keeps everything in sync
Powerful Media Organization
Today’s video editor has to deal with more formats and footage than ever before. Final Cut Pro X helps you handle it all with ease, offering dynamic new ways to organize your media and find just the clips you need
Content Auto-Analysis
Let your media organize itself
Final Cut Pro dramatically speeds up preparing your media by analyzing your source material in the background while you edit. Content Auto-Analysis scans your footage and creates metadata based on the way editors like to work — with range-based tags for media attributes, camera data, shot type, and whether the shot contains one person, two people, or a group. Use these tags to sort, filter, and search your clips
Set up Auto-Analysis to occur during import, or analyze clips later if you prefer. Content Auto-Analysis also performs processor-intensive analysis ahead of time for features such as image stabilization, corrections for rolling shutter distortion, color balance, and repairs for typical audio problems. Then you can use these features in real time as you edit
Range-Based Keywords
Sort, filter, and search
On your own terms
Make searches even more precise by creating your own keywords and assigning them to clip ranges. Effortless skimming and keyboard shortcuts let you work fast. The List view shows the metadata for a clip as you skim to add new keywords. Or use the Filmstrip view to see your footage instantly without sorting through obscure clip names
Use these range-based keywords in combination with rich metadata from Content Auto-Analysis to find any shot with a few keystrokes — a big improvement over old-fashioned static bins
Smart Collections
Search without a second thought
Set up Smart Collections to organize clips in a variety of ways without moving or copying files. Create a search using any combination of metadata and keywords, then save it as a Smart Collection. Final Cut Pro automatically adds new items to a Smart Collection when there is a match with the fields you’ve selected
Content Auto-Analysis creates Smart Collections for you using key attributes such as shot type or the number of people in the shot. You can also designate shots as Favorites or Rejects and include those criteria as you sort, filter, search, and create Smart Collections
Direct Access to Content Libraries
Drag and drop photos, movies, music, and more
Built-in content browsers let you preview and search for photos, music, and sound effects without leaving Final Cut Pro. Easily access visual content through the Photos Browser, which includes your iPhoto and Aperture libraries. Final Cut Pro supports MP3 and AAC files, so you can use iTunes as your built-in music library. Final Cut Pro also offers more than 1300 royalty-free sound effects through a free software update, as well as a range of generators — including graphic backgrounds and textures — that add polish to your projects. When you find the content you’re looking for, just drag and drop to add it directly to the timeline
