Blog Archives

This morning, Apple released new versions of Final Cut Pro, Motion and Compressor. Here are the details, along with links to the full release notes.

Confused when comparing Intel to Apple silicon systems? Jerry Thompson was, too. Here are the answers to your questions on what the differences are between Apple silicon and Intel, along with suggestions on how to spec a system.

Picking a high-quality computer monitor for video editing is surprisingly confusing. Here is Larry Jordan’s explanation of what specs you need to look for, which you can ignore, and what criteria he uses for picking computer and video monitors.

Here’s an illustrated tutorial on how to animate multiple elements in a bar graph to illustrate a scientific concept. While this will work with most video editing software, I use Apple Final Cut Pro in this example.

Which combination of hard disk or SSD storage provides the fastest speed or highest capacity for video editing? This illustrated tutorial will answer these questions, plus provide a spreadsheet you can use to test your own numbers. This works for Adobe Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve and Apple Final Cut Pro editors.

Here are two very clever workarounds to create short extracts of much larger media files to save storage space when importing video into Apple Final Cut Pro.

Looking for ways to work faster? Here are five pretty much undocumented quick tricks – from import to export – that make Final Cut Pro work even faster.

Sometime in October, Apple will release the latest version of the macOS: Ventura. First announced at the 2022 WWDC in June this version, like every macOS update, features a variety of new features and apps. Still, while this is exciting, …

August is vacation time. Still, over these five weeks, we published 19 tutorials and product reviews. Here’s a summary of everything we released this month. Something to look through during the holiday weekend.

In this illustrated tutorial are three interesting, but little-used, effects in Apple Final Cut Pro that create interesting backgrounds or change the mood of a scene.

Last week, I asked video editors to share how they organize and manage their media for video editing. Here’s what they told me.

There are seven Stylize effects in Apple Final Cut Pro that create illegal video levels. This tutorial shows what they are, the problems they cause and how to fix them before final export.

[ Updated Aug. 22, 2022, with comments from Ed Cilley. ] Kristen Flynn asks: “How do people keep track of stock music? Where do they keep it? How do they access it for an edit? I feel like I have …

In this highly-illustrated tutorial, I showcase what the “Light” effects do in Final Cut Pro, along with the settings used.

This week, Apple released a minor update to Final Cut Pro (v 10.6.4), Compressor (v 4.6.2), Motion (v 5.6.2) and iMovie. Here are the details.

The reason we use effects is to help us tell our story more effectively. While creating effects can take more time than we expect, the results, when effects are chosen wisely, can be amazing. Here are a baker’s dozen of little-known effects in Apple Final Cut Pro.

I think these four skills are essential for every video editor to master. I also think it is impossible say that one is more important than the other, because if any one is missing, the project suffers.

One of our favorite – and most wide-ranging – sessions returns with “Ask Larry Anything!” Presented by Larry Jordan, this is a free-form conversation based on questions submitted by viewers. In this short video, Larry has a conversation about computer performance in the real-world, specifically for video editing.

One of our favorite – and most wide-ranging – sessions returns with “Ask Larry Anything!” Presented by Larry Jordan, this is a free-form conversation based on questions submitted by viewers. In this short video, Larry talks about Mac obsolescence and whether the new Apple silicon computers make older systems obsolete.

One of our favorite – and most wide-ranging – sessions returns with “Ask Larry Anything!” Presented by Larry Jordan, this is a free-form conversation based on questions submitted by viewers. In this short video, Larry answers Simone’s question about scanning photographs for digital video.

The TourBox is a small control surface for just about any Windows or Mac application – with a special emphasis on media creation and editing. It is well-built with a very well-designed software interface. There’s only one small problem…

There’s an old axiom for everyone who works in video, “Editing is all about work arounds.” Carleton Cole presents a workaround for editing Microsoft Teams videos when the images randomly shift position.

Particle Illusion is a free, powerful particle generator that runs on both Macs and Windows with hundreds of presets for 2D or 3D particles. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to get started using it.

BorisFX Continuum is the “Swiss Army Knife for visual effects for video editors and motion graphics creatives. In this short video tutorial Larry Jordan shows how to create a complex effect using blurs, color effects and multiple masks, plus Mocha mask tracking in BorisFX Continuum 2022.5 and Final Cut Pro.

BorisFX Continuum is the “Swiss Army Knife for visual effects for video editors and motion graphics creatives. In this short video tutorial Larry Jordan shows how to create a simple blur effect using masks and Mocha mask tracking in BorisFX Continuum 2022.5 in Final Cut Pro.

BorisFX Continuum is the “Swiss Army Knife for visual effects for video editors and motion graphics creatives. In this short video tutorial Larry Jordan shows how to create a simple “Day-for-Night” color effect using Continuum in Final Cut Pro.

Integrating vertical video into a horizontal video timeline is increasingly common. Here’s an illustrated tutorial on how to do it using both Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere Pro.

Audio Design Desk is an amazing program. It creates sound environments faster and easier than anything I’ve ever seen. Now they’ve extended it with Media Bridge connecting ADD with sound effects libraries across the web. Learn more!

MediaInfo, published by MediaArea, is a convenient unified display of the most relevant technical data for video and audio files. It is free, available through the MacApp store. Here’s a detailed look at this useful utility.

Here’s an illustrated tutorial on how to slow a video clip from full-speed to a standing stop, then back up to full-speed, while inserting a freeze frame in the middle that can be any duration you want using Apple Final Cut Pro.

Relinking media in Final Cut has become increasing powerful and flexible. Here’s an illustrated tutorial on how it works, along with advice on where to store media for different Final Cut Pro projects.

Video bit depth makes a difference when you are creating effects, color grading or working with HDR material. Here’s an explanation of what bit depth is and when to care about it.

This illustrated tutorial on creating retro film effects using Final Cut Pro was written by Burkhard Berger.

This tutorial creates a 3D text template in Apple Motion that allows Apple Final Cut Pro to put moving video inside adjustable, textured 3D text. There are many creative variations on this idea.

Last week, Apple reassured editors it remained committed to Final Cut. But were they firing up development or simply being nice? This article is an effort to spark a discussion between Final Cut editors on what features they want to see and how important those features are. I encourage you to add your suggestions and comments.

Multicam recording captures an event using multiple cameras. Multicam editing displays all those angles during the edit. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to create virtual angles in a multicam clip to provide more diversity in shot selection, as well as how to create a montage using multicam in Final Cut Pro.

Multicam recording captures an event using multiple cameras. Multicam editing displays all those angles during the edit. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to add visual effects and color grading to a multicam clip in Final Cut Pro.

Multicam recording captures an event using multiple cameras. Multicam editing displays all those angles during the edit. In this short video excerpt, Larry Jordan shows how to handle multi-channel audio in a Final Cut multicam clip.

Apple responds to Final Cut Pro editors’ petition to refocus and intensity marketing and development on Final Cut Pro.

Based on a reader’s comment, this compares image quality between three different source codecs (ProRes, MPEG-2 and H.264) compressed into H.264 using Apple Compressor. This also illustrates how many CPU and GPU cores were active.

This tutorial compares the export speed on an Apple silicon MacBook Pro of Apple Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve; along with how effectively they used CPU and GPU systems.The results surprised me – none of them maxed out the system!

How many CPU cores do you need for video editing? This illustrated tutorial looks at how many CPU cores Apple Final Cut Pro uses during import, edit, render, export and multicam. The answer is surprising!

Why does Apple Final Cut Pro only use Apple silicon efficiency cores when exporting? And which cores do Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve use? Here’s a comparison between the three.

Recently, Apple updated Final Cut Pro to version 10.6.2. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to use the new duplicate media detection feature to indicate where you are using the same media in the timeline more than once.

Recently, Apple updated Final Cut Pro to version 10.6.2. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to use the new Voice Isolation feature to remove hum and reduce background noise.

If you are a relatively new user of Final Cut, you may not know that there is a powerful organizational tool in the Browser. Why? Because its hidden… in plain sight. It’s called “Favorites” and here’s how it works.

The new “sliced scale” effect in Apple Motion 5.6.1 scales an image while preserving key visual elements. This is similar to Content-Aware scaling in Adobe Photoshop. Here’s an example of how this works.

I was not expecting to be impressed with Voice Isolation, but if you are shooting in noisy environments, enabling this one checkbox can create a major improvement in your audio. This is a very helpful audio tool!

There seems to be a problem between Time Machine, Final Cut Pro and external RAIDs. Learn more.

With the release of Apple Final Cut Pro 10.6.2, Apple improved object tracking. Here’s an illustrated example of what’s new.