Final Cut Pro App Reviews

Apple should not have relased this version until it works! I’m a FCP fan, and a professional editor. I’m on a national commercial and am limping by. I won’t list all the issues but warn you to think twice before you update to the latest version. Apple- fix this now or we’re off to Adobe. And think twice before you release software that you know is not up to par.

I was just recently contemplating a swith to another solution with a much more agressive development cycle, but this release is finally there! I love that they took some time to fix a bunch of anoying and restricting workflow frustrations. This app has now matured to a very healthy level, and Im excited about the future again. Thank you, Apple.

Unfortunately, the latest update DOES NOT address the line spacing issue.

This is an amazing program and in the past it has worked well, but now it crashes by restarting my computer every time I use it. This is insane… This is a 5 star program with a death bug that makes it useless. PLEASE FIX ASAP!!!

I pretty much got this for the sole purpose of doing green screen shots. I usually edit videos in Adobe Premiere Pro because I am use to their software. I decided to give FCP X a real shot at being my NLE. I find it ridiculous that you have a library, event and project (just have a project and allow the user to decide if he or she wants extra folders within that project). Once I took a break from a project and started a new one. My older project’s timeline completely disappeared. I reverted the project to the date I knew I last worked on it and STILL nothing-all the clips were gone. I’m sure I checked every combination of library, event and project possible, but it took forever to do that and make sure it was really gone. So 50 hours into a project and nothing to show. I redid it in Premiere. A glutton for punishment-and because my Creative Cloud license was about to go up in price from the intro price, I still tried to familiarize myself with FCP. Right when I was getting used to the interface, they changed it. Not a big deal, I guess, if the product worked. But a very simple project “Failed to share” due to a rendering problem. A rendering problem? In 2016? On a project that is 4 clips and a title? No effects? No transitions!!!! How is there a rendering problem? And oh yeah, the share to YouTube has never worked for me, EVER. I only tried 4 or 5 times, but who has time to wait for a project to export and end up with nothing? Not even a saved file that didn’t upload so I could have uploaded it myself later. It’s an OK NLE, with a couple really great features. But if I can’t rely on it working correctly, I don’t need it.

Final Cut Pro is a great program, but this version is AWFUL. I’m sitting here trying to edit a video in 10.2.3 right, theres a clip I need to speed up, and with the preview set to “better quality”, 0 frames are dropped. Now upon updating, the same clip from the same project drops several frames, even in “better performance” mode. It is not my machine either, I have the highest end 5K iMac (quad core i7 6700K, 32GB RAM, AMD Radeon R9 M395x 4GB GPU). I had to go back to 10.2.3, it works, its smooth and it doesnt drop frames. I really hope Apple fixes this as I do like the appearance of the new Final Cut, just the issues it has are unacceptable. -DaSamNudge

I was using the trial version. My 30 days expired so I upgraded to the full version. The full version deleated everything I had been working on while using the trial version. Is there any way to recover what was done while using the trial version?

This is a review from an editor who is paid to use the program! There isnt full control! In previous versions or in another editing applications you control how the platform controls your edits. But in FCPX it controls it for you. And if you are a pro editor you want full control! The application manages to undue its positives in areas that completely cripple your editing fundamentals. And its unpredictable ‘Magnetic Timeline is near impposible to deal with! Clips react in a disturbing manner, often unlinking the picture from the sound when editing or trimming clips. And im just scratching the surface with this issue!. Here’s a simple list of positive and negative features inside FCPX. The quick positives for this editing platform are simple… - It looks cool! - Easier methods for importing and setting up projects. - Editing multicam projects. - Range tool - Helps select portions of clips and editable inside that area. - New color grading tools! - Visual audio waveforms - Indicate peeking in color. And when working with audio leveling the colors change indicatting they’ve been changed or that they are at an acceptable decibal levels. However it only works with Monotone channels. Not usuable with stereo links. Negatives (And I couldn’t list all of them because its way too much to add) - Magnetic Timeline is a disaster and should be thrown out immediately! - Trasitions create a grand clip for both audio and video - Transitions are added to the butts of clips connected. Really Annoying because you have to go back and delete them! - No right click short cuts for transitions. - Transitions are also unpredictable - often moving the audio or video out of sink. - Cant pull or separate different menu boxes to your viewing preference. - No cut through blade for all clips! - Cant save window layouts to your personal preferences! - Snap cutting is hit or miss by a frame or two . - Audio Clips do not snap to a frame or sub frame. They can be lengthened to be in-between frames. And with the magnetic timeline it constantly causes the audio to unsink form the video! With this editing application from Apple is has taken the confidence out of the editor! I am constantly scared of how my edits are being efffected by the program! I am constantly checking for problems that the software creates on its own and I’m constantly having to go back and fix things that should never have been disturbed in the first place! It a complete mess!!!!!!!!!! The biggest thing Apple can do to fix this program is to get rid of the Magnetic timeline!! Its horrendous! And it makes your life as an editor a living hell! It causes more problems then the solutions it solves! All Apple had to do was take FCP7 and give it the look of ‘X’ and add a few new features like background rendering and a few other features that do work! Editors would have been doing backflips in the middle of the streets! But by creating a whole new application that is a complete disaster they have left professional editors frustrated and scratching their heads to figure a work around to all the problems in FCPX! If you read this review and still buy the program, remember this text… YOU WERE WARNED!!!!!!!!!

As someone who worked with Final Cut Pro since version 1, I was furious when this redesign came out. I was so used to doing things a certain way that it was hard to adapt to new paradigm. I have, and Im thrilled. I work so much faster in FCPX, and with some of my projects I just cant imagine how I would have done it with legacy Final Cut. And I expect it to only get better with the future versions.

Put the bungled release of Final Cut Pro X behind you. Was it introduced too hastily and without a clear migration path from past versions of Final Cut Pro? Yes. But let’s looks at the application for what it is, especially now after over a dozen (free!) updates over the last few years. During every stage of your workflow, FCPX gets out of your way and let’s you get to the art of editing. - It’s blazingly fast. 64-bit, multithreaded, OpenCL GPU-accelerated, and boasts a resolution independent timeline (6K+ footage? no problem!). It screams. - Native support for RED footage, Sony XAVC, H.264, AVC, MXF, etc. Built-in controls to toggle Arri Alexa footage between Log and REC709. (And FCPX contains, hands down, the best RED workflow of any NLE). - Simply the best multicam tools of any NLE. Mix formats and frame rates; sync by timecode, audio waveform, or camera date/time, and easily manually adjust in the Angle Editor. - Amazingly powerful metadata and search tools that allow you to quickly log hundreds of hours of footage with ease. Keyword collections are more powerful than bins: think of them like labels in Gmail, so footage can exist in more than one Keyword Collection, if appropriate. Range-based keywords allow you to label just a section of a clip (a more powerful and flexible form of subclipping), especially great for docu work. Smart Collections allow for saved searches that update automatically. - The magnetic timeline is actually one of my favorite features. Basically, by default your editing tools are set to ripple; there’s a Position tool that reverts back to FCP7 behavior. But the strength of the magnetic timeline is that you don’t have to think about tracks and gaps and clip collisions and can just get to the art of editing. Come to it with an open mind, and I think you’ll come to see the myriad benefits. - Roles allow you to easily categorize audio (or video). Using a product like XtoPro, you can easily output an AAF for ProTools with all of the audio organized by dialogue, music, sound effects, or whatever custom roles/subroles you create. Roles can also be used for localization, so that different languages have different subroles and can be turned off and on accordingly (no need for separate timelines!). - Auditions let you combine multiple takes into a single clip and switch between them, even if they’re different durations. Really handy for narrowing down that best take. - Compound Clips are a way of nesting that can be used to clean up a timeline, group a section of clips, or easily create a graphic that will be used over and over again. - Background rendering! No more staring at that blue render bar before you can play anything. - Built-in "PluralEyes"; sync clips with scratch track audio automatically. - RGB color grading with ColorSync (and with a new Macbook Pro or Mac Pro with HDMI out, the ability to have broadcast out without additional hardware). - Powerful XML support for third party application integration. Has the best DaVinci Resolve integration of any NLE. - The ability to save and apply a bunch of different filters and effects, including any settings changed, as an Effects Preset – this is very powerful. - A powerful 3D titler that offers nearly unlimited customization with better playback/performance than many other similar motion graphics applications. With the 10.1 update, they drastically improved the way media management works in X with the introduction of Libraries. Libraries are essentially a combination of a classic FCP project file and an (optional) project-independent capture scratch. (And this means the end to previous FCPX shortcomings: now you can open just the project(s) you are currently working on, and close the ones you aren’t. SAN support is much improved. As always, your footage can be stored anywhere; it doesn’t need to be stored inside the Library). Libraries make organizing your media, collaborating with other editors, and archiving drop dead simple. Don’t let anyone tell you FCPX doesn’t work in a collaborative work environment. With 10.1+, I’ve done it, and it works far better than FCP classic did. All that being said, I do have suggestions, but my list of gripes gets shorter with each release. I’d love to see the following: - Save/recall custom window layouts. - The ability to lock a Clip/Storyline in time, or lock an entire Project. - Better audio mixing tools (master fader, keyframe recording). - The ability to more easily crossfade adjacent (video-attached) audio clips (like the one-step process from Soundtrack Pro). - Out-of-sync indicators, and the ability to re-connect audio to its video (without having to use compound clips). - True Motion roundtripping (“Send to Motion” from the timeline, and the ability to add a Motion project to the timeline). - Keyframeable color corrections. - A motion tracker for secondary color corrections, titles, etc. (add Motion’s tracker into FCPX). - Remove attributes. - The ability to copy and paste variable retiming attributes. - The option to display source clip timecode via the timecode generator (vs. just timeline timecode). - The ability to add a clip from the timeline to an Audition. - When selecting a clip in the timeline and choosing “Reveal in Browser”, if that clip exists in the currently selected keyword collection, it should keep me in that keyword collection instead of popping out to the root of the Event. - More granular timeline search in the Timeline Index. I would love to see these implemented. But the app as it currently stands is just as powerful as FCP7, and in many cases is lightyears beyond it. While it’s not perfect (no NLE is), I truly think this is the future of editing.

I have to force quit everytime 2-3 minutes, it just keeps freezing up on me. It is taking me hours to finish small projects that should normally take 15 minutes. Beyond Frustrated!

This software is 10 years ahead of its time, neither Avid nor Premiere can touch this. Avid has not changed since the 80ties, when it was revolutionary. They took on the tape to tape, A and B track editing system and digitized, and stuck to it since. Premiere is dancing between Avid and the old Final Cut, and their strategy is comfort food for editors. FCPX, today, is as revolutionary as Avid was in 89. I did not like FCPX at first, I dabbled with it for a moment or two, listened to the crowd, and joined the masses. I’m a pro-editor and work in reality TV, news and documentaries, and I edit them all for the most part in Avid and Premiere, because that’s what the industry has gravitated too and because, yes, FCPX was not ready at launch and was too weird. The fact is, when you are good and fast at something it’s plain and simply a pain in a#$ to lear something new. But, I have also been editing in FCPX for now more than two years and I know how much easier, more fluid and faster cutting in FCPX would be in those reality TV, doc or news scenarios. All the rumors that FCPX does not do this or that are just rumors (yes at first it was missing a couple of things). So what I want to tell the pro’s is, give it a try, be patient, take a tutorial, and be curious. FCPX is powerful and beautiful. It was build so that even amateurs can edit, but don’t let that feed your prejudice… that is just a result of incredibly well thought through interface design. FCPX is 100% pro, and easily deployable in any post environment. It’s more stable and powerful and faster than its brothers, but beyond the speed is a platform that is a joy to edit on. In a lot of ways it’s very different, and ultimately it does what Avid and Premiere do so much better that when I go back to those two platforms I feel like I’m back in a sort of proto-Bronze Age of post. The guys behind this software deserve an Oscar for innovation. FCPX has broken a new frontier.

I’ve been editing for over 20 years. There is a steep learning curve with this app if you are coming from a traditional non linear editing software such as the old Final Cut Pro or Premiere etc. There’s still features I miss from the old program, however there are a lot that I love in FCX. My biggest gripe is that they sacrificed functionality for asthetics, this is something Apple is notorious for. Features that were in plain view on Final Cut Pro are entirely buried or non existant in Final Cut X. Overall though, it works and it works well. So adapt or die. Or go get premiere and pay a rip off monthly fee.

I used FCP since V1. Major disconect from designers After 7.0 went software and converts into apps, now it’s terrible. Freezes, lockups, Pinwheel of death having to trash the app and reinstall. How about fixing the problems and listening to the designers. Every update the “APP" gets worse. I have the hottest machines to work on so its not my rig. I’ve stood behind this company for a very long time and they’ve abandond the designers. Now a days, it’s all about the iPhones. Adobe seems to be where us “Pirates” will sail.

It’s been a while since I used this Final Cut Pro. But the recent updates makes the application lagging even more and the duration display is completely out of place. It’s looks like as if the entire app is broken. Overall the Final Cut Pro is great, But I think it’ll be better if those problems could be solved.

Final Cut Pro X is just an amazing application that brings studio editing power to anyone’s fingertips. Add Motion to the list and you have surpassed many of the studio production capabilities in the last 20 years.

Crashes with the El Capitan update. Hopefully there will be bug fixes soon. LIKE REALLY SOON!!! Not happy

Final Cut Pro X is really an incredible video editing applicaition and one of my favorite apps on the Mac. I would love to see an iPad version or even an iPad complement app from Apple, such as a control surface for FCPX like it has for Logic Pro. My only complaint is that FCPX crashes constantly. It sends a crash report to Apple each time so I assume they know the frequency and the general cause of the crashes, and it has been crashing for several years over several major updates. It is running on the latest and most robust Apple hardware and everything is kept up to date. Given the amount of time required in video editing and that it is a critical part of my job it is hard to overlook the fact that even with autosave and other safeguards to prevent data loss, it is still costly to have the application crash so frequently. That alone is the reason I rate FCPX three stars rather than five and it frustrates me to rate it that way because I genuinely love the application. It seems there has been a trend with Apple over the last several years that OSs and applications just don’t seem as solid and reliable as they used to. That last comment is just an opinion, but the frequent crashes are not. They are real and they are a problem that should have been resolved long ago. I’ve used Premiere Pro and don’t like it nearly as much as FCPX, it feels antiquated in comparison, but I am starting to reconsider my video editing app of choice because it is costing too much time and anxiety.

The old versions of Final Cut usually left me digging through tutorials and reading third-party books to figure out how to accomplish things. When I moved to this new Final Cut, I no longer got migraines over how to accomplish various tasks. It is drop-dead easy to understand. I was editing without having to look up a single thing. The Keyer is so good I hardly ever have to make adjustments except for aesthetic reasons! In most cases, I no longer have to go to an audio application to clean up audio background noise. Overall, I just cannot praise this software enough. I know many who were expert at previous versions were frustrated by this new Final Cut, but even its harshest critic finally admitted to me that projects now take half the time and look better, too. And the huge library of effects available from third-party developers is mind-boggling! Now we get 3D type, too! It’s like Christmas every day for this user!

Really disapointing that Apple didnt have a FCP X update ready to match 10.11 for compatiblity. Over all its stable but there are some strange graphical issues on timecode viewer. Doesnt make you feel like your using a companies flag ship video editing product when that cant get the timing of the launch together. It was this way on the public beta and a shame they didnt address this for the release of 10.11. Hopefully there are some other goodies coming when ever they do decide to release the update for El Cap. Metal support will be amazing hopefully that is the hold up. Other than that its rock solid on 10.10.5.