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Apple has just released the update to its professional-level movie editing app Final Cut Pro for just $300. Previously, the application cost $1,000. Final Cut Pro X is available now, from the Mac App Store.
Remember when Apple completely reworked iMovie, rethinking the way that we would edit our home videos? This is like that, only aimed at Hollywood editors (and presumably not as feature-crippled as the first vresion of New iMovie).
FCPX now runs as a 64-bit application, allowing the use of as much RAM as you can fit into your Mac, and uses GPU to speed things up even more. The app will also render and transcode media in the background so you can keep working.
There are also plenty of new ways of working with your movies, including tools to automatically organize your media, and the neat-sounding "Auditions." This lets you drop several alternate shots in at one edit point and quickly cycle through them in context. Still, it's likely that the big UI change is going to wrong-foot or even upset some existing FCP users.
The biggest news, though, is the price and the distribution method. $300 makes this less than half the price of Adobe's $800 Premiere Pro, and pocket change compared to Avid's $2,500 Media Composer.
The price isn't quite that cheap, though. The previous $1,000 Final Cut Studio bundle included four other apps: Color, Motion, Soundtrack Pro and Compressor. Motion and Compressor are now separate apps in the store for $50 each, whereas Color and Soundtrack Pro have been folded into FCPX itself.
Final Cut Pro X [Apple]
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