Review: Final Cut Pro X 10.0.3

Studiodaily by Scott Simmons

Multicam and Its Angle Editor Shine but Broadcast Monitoring Has a Way to Go

When I reviewed Final Cut Pro X last July I had some conflicting reactions. While I felt that the initial release was largely Final Cut Pro in name only, I also recognized that Apple challenged us (angering many) by bringing some very interesting new ways of working to the editing world. But because the original version of Final Cut Pro X lacked some very basic features, it felt a bit schizophrenic and, quite honestly, like an application that was released too soon.

Since that warm summer day Final Cut Pro has gone through several updates that have taken it from version 10.0.0 to 10.0.3. Those numbers may look small but the feature improvements are big and 10.0.3 feels more like what should have come out the door first. Still, there are plenty of improvements worth reviewing as part of a much-improved whole.

Multicam

Of all the features left out of FCPX's original version, Multicam was the biggest. FCP7's Multicam was entirely usable — and I have cut many music videos and concerts with it over the years — but it was sometimes difficult to set up, clunky to use and nearly impossible to amend once you had it working. Apple obviously realized this, too, and went back to the drawing board for this version of Multicam, which is extremely well thought out and a pleasure to use.

You may have already heard how this version uses the built-in audio syncing functionality in FCPX 10.0.3 to magically synchronize camera angles based on their scratch audio. While this is hugely important, very nice and could save you amazing amounts of time, I think the bigger deal is 10.0.3's ability to easily adjust and manage the Multi-camera Clips once they are created, even after editing has begun. Think of how much easier it will be to edit a large concert where you might even come close to hitting FCPX's extremely generous 64-angle limit for a Multi-camera Clip. read more...