Welcome to Tool Tip Tuesday for Adobe Premiere Pro on ProVideo Coalition.

To wrap up 2024 and Tool Tip Tuesday for Adobe Premiere Pro on ProVideo Coalition, Jeff and Scott thought they would double up the last two weeks and the year with what are they thankful for from the past year of Adobe Premiere Pro releases and what are they most looking forward to next year.

What is Scott thankful for?

One of my favorite things that came along in the August 2024 update to Premiere is Linear Timecode support when creating Multicam Source Sequences. Many of us call Linear Timecode “audio timecode” and it is that awful sound you hear when a timecode generator pumps timecode to the audio channel of a camera that doesn’t support traditional timecode in signals.

But while the audible sound is horrible, it is, in actuality, it’s a glorious sound as it means you have timecode going to a camera. And if you hear it in one camera file that usually means it’s likely going to other cameras for easy mulitcam sync.

From Adobe’s new features support documents:

Linear Timecode support

With native Linear Timecode (LTC) support, you can quickly and accurately sync multiple video and audio sources from devices that encode timecode in the audio signal. You can use LTC to synchronize clips or create multi-camera source sequences.

LTC has become more popular and useful since many newer, more affordable devices don’t support recording timecode as metadata in the video file. A common solution is to store timecode data in an audio track. While this track is audible to the human ear, it’s a high-pitched sound that contains data instead of a “normal” sound. Many lower-cost timecode syncing devices can generate LTC.

How do you use Linear Timecode? It’s simple: If you have clips with Linear audible timecode, when you select those clips and choose “Create Multi-Camera Source Sequence,” there’s a new option for Linear Time Code.

Don’t confuse Linear Timecode with Sound Timecode – the sound timecode option has been there for awhile and has to do with high-end dual system sound workflows. Linear Timecode is a relatively inexpensive way to timecode sync cameras using external audio generators. Use them on your next multicam production, and your editor will thank you.

What is Jeff thankful for?

Skip Import Mode

There’s nothing better than a tiny fix that gets the unnecessary bits of the user interface out of the way.

This, though, hurt when it came out.

I get why Adobe added this giant new import box. I hated it, but could work past it. After all, you shouldn’t be seeing this box anyway. Professionals should be working from a prebuilt template project with all the assets/named timelines already part of the project. 

Every now and again, I need to do a small new project – maybe it’s a scratch project, maybe it’s a project to just hold temporary elements. And the import box kills me.

In the October 2024 release, Adobe added this tickbox called Skip import mode.  

It does exactly what I want: it gets the Import out of the way. I can name a project, and get to work. Great for when I need one of these scratch projects. 

It’s like Adobe heard the experienced users and gave us a way to work around something built for new software adoptees. Thanks, Adobe.

This series is courtesy of Adobe. 

For years I’ve teased the idea of The Angry Editor as a regular column here on The Editblog as a way to complain, gripe, nitpick, bellyache as well as air grievances out loud and in public when 280 characters on Twitter doesn’t work. 

I think I need to start a recurring column called “The Angry Editor.” Seems I’m making a lot of notes and observations these days that would fall nicely under that heading. pic.twitter.com/EApwJayV5b

— Scott Simmons (@editblog) January 17, 2018

Today’s topic:

The massive time suck when it comes to searching stock sites for a good graphics template.

When editors are talking shop, we often talk about how much of a time suck it is to search for good stock music. The stock music sites are plentiful, with some good music in them and a few of them even have some really good search tools. But it can still be a black and dark abyss. As you audition tracks, find a few good ones to narrow down to what you want to use.

But I’ll add a new time suck that is even worse than looking for good music. It’s scouring the stock sites for a good graphics template. That template might be as simple as a single line lower third all the way up to a multi-second opening title package. It’s a pretty amazing time we live in, (especially for those like myself who aren’t overly talented in motion graphic design) that there are template sites and stock sites that let us pay a reasonable rate for graphics tailored to our specific editing platform of choice. But as many of these sites have been around for years, and new content streams in on a regular basis, it’s getting to where many of them are a mess.

I know what you’re saying, “Hey angry editor, be less of a dumb editor and use some of the filtering options. That’ll help you narrow your selection down.” And that’s true. By choosing a few filters, I did get it down to just over 3,000.

The problem now is that so many of the options that are returned have multiple graphics within a single returned result. So if even half of these 3000 returned results have 9 different lower third options within the single result, I’m back to my 16,000 number. And I guess a “TITLES PACK” might have what I’m looking for because technically a lower third is a title but the preview thumbnail is so bad I won’t know that until I click into that “Corporate Titles Pack.”

But wouldn’t this be a great place for AI to help solve this voluminous and monotonous search nightmare?

It just so happens Envato Elements has an “AI Labs” tab with an AI search! That should make it much quicker to find a simple two-line lower third that has an elegant animation on and off the screen.

Let’s go!

Nice job Envato AI labs.

Perhaps I’ll have better luck with Motion Array.

Well that’s a whole lot of results also returned. I actually expect a lot of results with such a simple term as “lower thirds,” as there’s a whole lot that can encompass. Let’s get a bit more specific because I know exactly what I want, a simple two-line lower third that has an elegant animation on and off the screen.

I think you get the idea here.

Honestly, this grievance is less about the number of search results returned when looking for video templates and more that these websites have pretty bad granular search and filtering options. While there are plenty of search filters, it still seems difficult to narrow down findings. I know they are trying, they just need to be better.

In the meantime, perhaps we’re just resolved to a world of having to spend hours upon hours searching and digging.

Now don’t get me started on the quality of a lot of what these stock sites are selling these days, or the instructions on how to use some of this stuff.

If you have a stock template site that you just love, or want to defend Envato or Motion Array (I’m picking on them because those are ones I’ve used extensively) then please let us know in the comments below.

I asked around on social media how others might feel about this topic.

You never know the quality of the template you are going to get from the thumbnail, how adaptable it’ll be to your needs. Often templates are not built with the end user in mind.

— Brian Levin (@brianlevin83) December 18, 2024

Yup absolutely. I almost wonder if it’s a marketing thing. You look for something, get a ton of results and think “oh there’s heaps of stuff here!”

I mean it’s fine, I found some good stuff, but it seemed harder than maybe it needed to be.

— Dylan Reeve (@dylanreeve.com) December 18, 2024 at 1:50 PM

It can be a time sink but I’ve realized that you’ll probably only find that magic item once a year. The rest of the time I search for elements within templates to build my ideal look. I end up using 2-4 bits to frankenstein a result.

— EternalAfrican (@Donut_Tai) December 18, 2024

Music search has always been a horrible time suck. Clients never appreciate it. It’s always wonderful when I have someone else who will do it for me.

— Robb, with 2 b’s (@nledit.bsky.social) December 18, 2024 at 1:58 PM

I hate trying to find templates for anything. You don’t know the quality of it until you download it and it seems like they don’t always have all of the media to recreate the demo, so it takes forever to figure out how to configure it. So in many ways it’s worse than searching…

— Mike Nease (@nease) December 18, 2024

Yeah it’s pretty bad. I’d like AI to be able to help with searching through the different sites that offer these templates.

— Robbie Patton (@FilmPatton) December 18, 2024

Trying to find templates even with AI search integrated into some sites can be the worse. And unless you have an intermediate to somewhat advance understanding of app the template is made for, it isn’t always user friendly

— Kes Akalaonu (@NLE_Ninja) December 19, 2024

Also add stock music/SFX to this too. I can spend countless days between VFX elements, MX, and SFX. Even when I build my own libraries I get bored of it or need something different. Then back to the endless cycle of going through many different sites with differing quality.

— Corey Frost (@coreysfrost) December 19, 2024

On that subject – why do stock footage companies never have any mechanism to re-conform the watermarked preview clip with the paid-for full quality version (like actual matching timecode or something)!?

— dickij10.bsky.social (@dickij10.bsky.social) December 18, 2024 at 2:09 PM

It might be worthwhile to build a good relationship with a Motion Designer. The need is often somewhat repetitive (titles, l3rds) and shouldn’t incur a massive cost. It used to be my job, and I still make all the graphics I need. I was always happy to do quick gigs while working on longer projects.

— Jukka Tallinen (@jukkatallinen.com) December 19, 2024 at 3:09 AM

Stock sites were in an arms race with each other to accumulate templates. Quantity beat quality in internal metrics (number must go up!). Now they all have the same cesspools of crap to sift through. So the pendulum swings back to bespoke

— Nic Dean (@_nicdean) December 20, 2024

Every week, we will share a new tooltip to save time when working in Adobe Premiere Pro.

Have you ever wanted a way to do something as simple as mark a single clip as good? You can do just that by using the ‘Good’ metadata column – it’s a checkbox that you simply click to check and label a clip as good.

First, set clips to list view in a bin as you need to display the Good metadata column. Then, go under the panel menu in the tab of the panel you media is in.

This menu opens the Metadata Display dialog box. When that is opened, type the word “good” into the search bar at top. There are two good metadata column option, and the one that you want to check is the one at top for Premiere Pro Project Metadata.

When that metadata column is turned on, you will have a new Good metadata column that is just a checkbox. By clicking on that Good checkbox, you can mark a clip as “good.”

Double-click on a clip to load it in the source monitor. Scan around to see if it’s one you like, and then check the box to mark it as “good.”

To make this even more useful, create a new Search Bin that will gather all the clips marked with this “good” metadata.

Go under File > New > Search Bin (or click the little Search Bin icon next to the search box at the top of any bin) to bring up the “Create Search Bin” dialog box. Then go under the top pop-up menu and choose “Good” from the list of metadata options. In order to create a new search bin that collects just the clips you’ve marked as good, type ‘true’ in the Find field.

With that Search Bin created, you will have a new bin in your project that only includes those clips where the ‘Good’ column has been checked on.

As you check or uncheck clips as “Good” throughout your edit, they will populate this new Search Bin.

This series is courtesy of Adobe. 

If you are a cinematographer or anyone interested in the camera department, then you will want to join the Nashville Filmmakers Guild for the “Team Deakins Live in Nashville” event. This coming weekend, December 7th and 8th, the Nashville Filmmakers Guild will host legendary cinematographer Sir Roger Deakins for a one-of-a-kind event celebrating Sir Roger’s work as well as the art and craft of cinematography. This event came together fast, and while Early Access was available exclusively to NFG members, we’re now opening the event to the general public. If you’re in Nashville or the surrounding area, then join the guild for one or all of the events throughout the weekend. Unfamiliar with Sir Roger’s work? A read over his Wikipedia page will tell you all you need to know.

Here’s the weekend’s schedule:

O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU screening

Date: Saturday, Dec 7
Time: 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Location: Belmont University – R. Milton and Denice Johnson Center, 1909 15th Ave S, Nashville, TN 37212
About: The film screening will be directly followed by a Q&A session with Roger Deakins moderated by Nathan Thompson.

MEET & GREET HAPPY HOUR

Date: Saturday, Dec 7
Time: 6:00 – 8:00 PM
Location: Arc Studios – 11 Willow St #2, Nashville, TN 37210
About: Meet Roger and James Deakins in a casual atmosphere after the post-film Q&A. Beverages and light hors d’oeuvres are provided with admission sold separately from the screening.

MODERATED DISCUSSION WITH TEAM DEAKINS

Date: Sunday, Dec 8
Time: 1:00pm Doors open
Location: Vanderbilt Sarratt Student Center – 2301 Vanderbilt Pl, Nashville, TN 37240
Time: 2:00 – 4:00pm Discussion in the Vanderbilt Sarratt Cinema
About: A moderated discussion with Team Deakins led by Travis Wears

BYWAYS BOOK SIGNING

Date: Sunday, Dec 8
Time: 4:00 – 6:00 PM
Location: Vanderbilt Sarratt Student Center – 2301 Vanderbilt Pl, Nashville, TN 37240
About: Following the discussion, a copy of BYWAYS. Photographs by Roger a Deakins, is available for pre-sale and guarantees your spot in line for signature and a photo. Books are limited to the first 150 people at 1 copy per person. Due to limited time, no additional materials may be signed during this event.

Cost varies depending on the event of the weekend, so you can choose to attend one part of the weekend or buy tickets for all different events. Prices range from $25 for the screening, or a meeting/greet, or a Team Deakins conversation up to $65 for a copy of Roger’s book “Byways” that includes the book signing and a moderated discussion. This is definitely a unique opportunity to learn from one of the greats of cinema.

Click on over to the CINEMATIC INSIGHTS WITH TEAM DEAKINS Event Registration Page for more details or to secure your tickets.

My annual Christmas Gift Ideas for the Editor column has been running for 14 years now: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. It’s hard to believe we are here again! After doing this for a few years, I realized that it’s easy just to put the same kind of ideas into a Christmas Gift list, year after year after year. And that’s what a lot of similar annual gift lists do. There’s always some of that (an M4 Mac mini would make a great Christmas Gift for any editor) but it’s best to find something unique. I asked a few friends for help this year as we are all navigating a post-Twitter #postchat world so those are included below.

Coffee or tea cup warmer

This one has been on the list before but a suggestion from Twitter is worth mentioning again.

pic.twitter.com/D3a0yMRuPo

— Chris Hocking (@chrisatlatenite) November 20, 2024

I keep a warming plate in both my edit suites but I plug it into the wall and not a USB port. There’s nothing worse that cold coffee or cold tea. There is no shortage of these things on Amazon for many different prices.

Now if you really want to get fancy, ask for an Ember mug as that has the warmer built in. These things aren’t cheap at $150 depending on what you get but I know several folks who swear by them. Ember isn’t the only one out there as far as self-warming mugs go but it’s the most common.

Novelty coasters

I’m sure you have cups or glasses to set around in your editing suite. Then you need some novelty coasters!

Not exactly an editing tool, but since we’re all geeks here, this is on my list. https://t.co/XaZOk37w9K

— Jesse Koepke (@jessekoepke) November 20, 2024

I couldn’t find a color bars coasters but I did find some floppy disk coasters so if Star Trek isn’t your thing then those might fit the bill.

Desktop mini vacuum

Since we can’t embed Threads posts that I can see, I’ll screen grab this one for a desktop mini vac! This is a great idea as I’m sure most of us spill the occasional crumb onto the keyboard and surrounding areas.

This particular one is less than $20 (and was under $10 during Amazon Black Friday Deals). This is the kind of thing you might not ever buy yourself but makes a great stocking stuffer so put that on your list!

Under desk treadmill

I don’t know exactly how I feel about this one as it seems an under desk treadmill might be old pretty quickly. But hey, some people love them!

The one pictured above is under $300.

SUPERDANNY LED desk lamp

A nice LED desk lamp isn’t a bad thing. And from knowing Juan for quite a few years, he’s usually good about picking his gear.

I just got it, so can’t vouche for it yet, but so far it’s pretty good. The good bit is that it saves its last setting even if it loses power, so I can put it on a smart switch.

a.co/d/jas43R9

[image or embed]

— j-salvo.bsky.social (@j-salvo.bsky.social) November 26, 2024 at 2:45 PM

Price is right too.

Retro Tribute Camera

This is a great find, a retro film camera that is “compatible with Lego Dsiney 100” … gotta love the cheap, misspelled Lego ripoffs as they can be cheap and plentiful and cool!

How about this for the edit bay? a.co/d/8MmSJ5s

[image or embed]

— Nathan Downing (@nathandowning.bsky.social) November 26, 2024 at 3:32 PM

Magnetic Levitating Floating Wireless LED Light Bulb Desk Lamp

Continuing with the funky, desk accessories. This one will cause some conversation.

a.co/d/fU3vZys

[image or embed]

— Thom Lyons (@thomlyons.bsky.social) November 26, 2024 at 6:39 PM

Media Offline Mug

The Media Offline mug is a classic. In fact, any Media Offline materials are instant Christmas Gift Ideas for Editors classics!

www.redbubble.com/i/mug/Media-…

[image or embed]

— David Preston (@davidpreston.bsky.social) November 27, 2024 at 4:05 AM

Color bars wind breakers

No Christmas Gift Ideas for Editors would be complete without some color bar test pattern gifts. This “TV Color Bar Windbreaker Jacket, Water Repellent” is just that and is under $30. Hurry, supplies look to be limited.

If you want to up the game a bit, Etsy also has a color bars bomber jacket but it’s more expensive at $75.

Some clever inside baseball IYKYK t-shirts

I love this line of editing, post and workflow t-shirts designed by workflow guru Isaac Terronez. These designs go way beyond the usual media offline or test pattern designs as they will only have true meaning to those are deep in the know when it comes to a number of editing and post topics. In fact, you might have to explain them which might be part of the fun.

The Final Cut Pro ones are particularly hilarious to those FCP folks who know. Order one today!

Every week, we will share a new tooltip to save time when working in Adobe Premiere Pro.

Markers are very useful in Adobe Premiere Pro. Extended Markers are even more useful as the marker can have a span of time in both a source clip and a timeline.

Hit M on your keyboard to add a marker (or map the keyboard shortcut somewhere else if you please) and then hit it again and the Marker dialog box opens.

From there you can type in a Duration (or drag over the Duration field) for an extended marker of any color you choose. You can also enter a marker Name and/or Comments. The name and comment data is really useful and you can view that data without opening the Marker dialog box back up by just hovering your mouse over the Marker.

That marker data pop-up goes away, for some reason, after a couple of seconds but if you keep slowly hovering your mouse over the marker, the data pop-up will stay there. I love these marker data pop-ups and it’s something I dreamed of years ago. It’s been in Premiere for quite awhile.

But an even faster way to make an extended duration Marker is to OPTION+drag a Marker to the right as Premiere will extend that marker as you OPTION+drag on it.

You have to drag to the right as an OPTION+drag to the left doesn’t work as that just splits the marker, in anticipation of you dragging to the right to extend it! In the future I would love to see the ability to make an Extended Marker from a marked IN to OUT point.

Markers are useful for both logging source footage as well as makes notes in a timeline. Happy markering!

This series is courtesy of Adobe.

And it’s not just Resolve Studio as you can also save on several consoles including the Micro Color Panel, Micro Panel and the Fairlight Desktop Console.

• DaVinci Resolve Studio was $295; now $235
• DaVinci Resolve Micro Color Panel was $509; now $395
• DaVinci Resolve Micro Panel was $859; now $665
• Fairlight Desktop Console was $3,055; now $2,445

I haven’t seen Blackmagic ever offer up a sale so this might be a one time thing. Or it might become a regular Black Friday thing but I haven’t actually seen the term Black Friday used in any of the marketing of this sale. Regardless, it’s a great time to buy some Resolve gear! It’s worth noting that the DaVinci Resolve Micro Panel is included in this sale. If you look at the Resolve consoles page that panel isn’t listed as the newer Micro Color Panel as the Micro Color is the new and more affordable option. I don’t know the exact differences in the two Micro panels but the price on the newer Micro Color Panel is great and if you’re doing any work with Resolve for iPad then that’s the right choice. In fact, if you just dabble in the Resolve Color page then $395 is a steal for the Micro Color Panel.

But also note that the Micro Color Panel does not include a license for Resolve Studio. If you look at the price then you might see why, so just note that if you’re looking for an even cheaper route to Resolve Studio, the Micro Color Panel is not it.

If you want to get into a deep comparison between the two download the PDFs for the Micro Color Panel and the Micro Panel and compare away. I bet there’s an LLM that could do that for you. Now, I’m not sure why Blackmagic’s 20% off numbers in the image above are a bit off, but regardless resellers should be reflecting this discount on these products. Way to go BMD!

Every week, we will share a new tooltip to save time when working in Adobe Premiere Pro.

Recently we published an Adobe Premiere Pro tip about Adobe’s music editing tool called Hacking Remix. Today we look at another tools that lets you “remix” a Remix.

Most editors probably use Remix by grabbing the Remix tool in the toolbar and just extending or shortening their music right in the timeline. But if you’ve ever noticed, the Essential Sound panel will open when you use Remix and there is a pane for Duration.

Under there, the “Method” will be Remix. There exists two sliders: Segments and Variations. Adjusting those will remix the Remix and perhaps give you different music edits that might better fit the flow and beats of an edit. I find this a good way to experiment with the music. It’s especially useful to remix the Remix with waveforms turned on in the timeline as you can get an idea of where music peaks and valleys might fall.

Remixing a Remix with these sliders doesn’t always offer much adjustment. It often depends on the length of the song and musical movements within the song itself, so your mileage may vary. Often I let Remix make an attempt at the music edit and then I hack that Remix and finish up the music editing myself.

This series is courtesy of Adobe. 

I just so I can be the first to make this joke, let me make it at the top of this article.

via GIPHY

And it’s not Final Cut Pro XI. The X is long gone. Ok, that’s done.

As I was looking over the feature list, two things really stood out to me and I gave those two features a look: Magnetic Mask and Transcribe to Captions.

Magnetic Mask

The new AI-powered magnetic mask is, in my humble opinion, the signature feature of this Final Cut Pro 11 update. It’s a new effect that can be added from under the Masks & Keying category (or under Modify > Add Magnetic Mask) and it’s going to be incredibly useful for everything from creating layered effects, color correction and keying of all types. What is really great about these new AI-powered masking tools is that you can basically do green screen-type stuff without actually shooting on a green screen. It’s that good at being able to quickly create keys that include intricate details such as hair or fingers. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t shoot a good screen if you need that type of thing, but just know that this new tool is there.

Where it’s even more useful is the Magnetic Mask is now built into a lot of individual effects. You apply an effect, and under the masking controls for each effect that supports it, you will now see Add Magnetic Mask in addition to Add Shape Mask and Add Color Mask. Multiple masks can be added per effect, so no need to apply multiple instances of the same effect in many situations.

And true to Final Cut Pro, keeping ease of use as an important part of the tool, the Magnetic Mask controls are simple to use and very powerful. Once you’ve clicked in the viewer to have the magnetic mask select the needed item, you can further refine that mask by adding or subtracting from the mask just by clicking and adding addition or subtractioncontrol points. That’s the “AI way” to refine the mask. If you need more traditional controls, there is the option to add or subtract from a mask using a paintbrush tool.

If you’ve done masking before, you’ll feel right at home with custom mask colors, the ability to view your mask in a black-and-white matte, marching ants, and all the stuff that masking entails. Once you get the single frame of masking right, just click the Analyze button, and Final Cut Pro is very fast to track that Magnetic Mask. It will automatically track both directions when you hit the Analyze button.

This is a really easy to use yet very powerful implementation of modern AI masking. As an editor who doesn’t do a lot of visual effects, I loathe having to do extensive masking and I’m not great at it. These kinds of tools help fulfill the promise of AI in post-production: not taking our jobs but making our jobs easier. Having this kind of tool available would make me actually think differently about how I’m achieving some tasks it might even move me to Final Cut Pro for certain jobs when I have the choice.

Transcribe to Captions

Adding to the useful AI tools, Final Cut Pro 11 adds a new function to transcribe audio in the timeline straight to captions.

You can select a single clip or multiple clips to Transcribe to Captions. It would make sense to select all of your dialog at the end of the edit to use this function but it will also work on a fully mixed program as well.

And this function is fast. I had a 6.5-minute finished program that I needed to create captions for, so I gave it a try with our different tools, and I was blown away by how fast Final Cut Pro 11 could do this. This program has a sit-down interview as well as a number of setups with a full mix and dialogue over music, which was all part of the mastered QuickTime file I used to make these captions.

To be fair, in both Premiere Pro and Resolve, it’s a multi-step process to create captions from a transcription as you have to first do the transcription and then take those transcriptions and click some buttons to use them in a subtitle track. But I was floored by how fast FCP 11 pulled that off. So floored, I tried a few more transcribed captions and it was equally fast.

Now, what you can’t do with these super fast transcriptions in Final Cut Pro 11 is use them for anything besides creating captions. There is no text-based editing, and there’s not even the ability to export a text file. So, beyond captions, there is currently no use for that transcription data. Will that change? Perhaps. It seems a shame to have all that transcription data but only one thing to do with it. Maybe there’s more transcription tools coming in a future FCP update or Apple will open up that data to third-party tools, so maybe we could get a Workflow extension that can do things with that transcription data.

I really do hope Apple opens that transcription data to developers. Intelligent Assistance just released a couple of very useful tools that can work with captions. captionAnimator is for animating captions TikTok style while captionTranslator will translate captions to different languages. They are both very affordable workflow extensions so imagine what third party developers could do if they get access to transcription data!

And Intel Macs?

I was curious if this new version of Final Cut Pro would install on an Intel Mac so I tried and install and it worked! But worked is relative on Intel Macs these days. Some of the more advanced features aren’t available as the options to Transcribe to Captions wasn’t even here in the clip submenu. The Magnetic Mask worked but it was very slow to select as well as track. Another reason to move off of Intel Macs these days and with a very reasonably priced M4 Mac mini, there’s not much reason to stick to an old Intel machine these days.

Spatial video editing for Apple Vision Pro

The other big part of this update (and probably the reason the version number pushes up to v11) is the ability to edit spatial video for the Apple Vision Pro. Ever since the iPhone 15 Pro was introduced, it has been possible to shoot spatial video, but there is no real way to edit it. This makes perfect sense to keep this spatial editing ability within the Apple world. The Apple Vision Pro isn’t exactly a mainstream device but if Apple ever wants to make the hardware more mainstream there at least has to be easier tools to create content for it. We now have a full spatial video workflow for the Apple Vision Pro. Others might come along later.

• Import stereoscopic video captured with Apple Vision Pro, iPhone 15 Pro or later, or supported third-party cameras

• Add effects, color correction, and titles to enhance your work

• Make adjustments to left eye and right eye angles of your spatial video clips

• Export directly to your Photos library and immediately view your spatial edit on Apple Vision Pro

• Share your spatial video with Apple Vision Pro users anywhere in the world with the native visionOS Vimeo app (coming later this year)

There are some other things worth noting in this Final Cut Pro 11 update as Blackmagic RAW support means no more transcoding your .braw footage for the edit. Some new keyboard shortcuts make their way into FCP 11 as well. This new FCP support document from Apple gives good detail about some of the smaller parts of this update. Zooming to fit the timeline vertically will be very useful. 

The Final Cut Pro 11 update is free for existing users and is $299, and is now available from the Mac App Store. If you want to take a really deep dive into the new FCP then download the PDF user manual and get to work.

There’s also a new update to Motion, a very underrated post-production application.

Motion v5.9 is available

More of a ‘5.8.1’
– if you don’t consider ‘v5.8’ actually more like version v5.6.8

A bugfix update
With feature to do with video decoders
No spatial template features

At least they didn’t discontinue it#fcpCeativeSummit pic.twitter.com/7k6pqhaHR0

— Alex ‘4D’ Gollner ⧜ (@Alex4D) November 13, 2024

Updates to Final Cut Pro for iPad and Final Cut Camera

The mobile side of Apple’s editing tools also get an update. Final Cut Pro for iPad goes to version 2.1 and Final Cut Camera to 1.1. I didn’t have time to test out these updates but here’s the bullet-point list of what’s new on the mobile side of things.

Final Cut Pro for iPad 2.1

• Automatically improve the color, color balance, contrast, and brightness of video or still images using the new Enhance Light and Color effect, powered by machine learning.
• Add personalized Live Drawing animations to your video with new watercolor, crayon, fountain pen, and monoline inks.
• Highlight visuals with new Reframe effects, add video overlays with Modular transitions, and polish your content with even more color grading presets and soundtracks.
• Edit high-frame-rate media with timeline support for 90, 100, and 120 fps settings.
• Experience instant haptic feedback as you edit and navigate your projects using Apple Pencil Pro.
• Increase efficiency with new keyboard shortcuts for common tasks in the browser and timeline.
  • Render Timeline: Control-Shift-R
  • Select All (Browser): Command-A
  • Deselect All (Browser): Shift-Command-A
  • Zoom In (Browser): Command-Plus Sign (+)
  • Zoom Out (Browser): Command-Minus Sign (-)
• Dynamically adjust the size and position of the viewer in Picture in Picture mode.
• Expand or minimize clip height in the timeline with a vertical pinch to zoom gesture.
• Double-tap to reset white balance, manual focus, and exposure settings to default values in pro camera mode.

Final Cut Camera 1.1

• Preview your Log video in SDR or HDR with the vibrancy of the original scene by enabling the Apple Log LUT while recording. (Requires iPhone 15 Pro or later.)
• Record in Log and HEVC for increased flexibility and dynamic range combined with smaller file sizes. (Requires iPhone 15 Pro or later.)
• Precisely compose your video using the level with tilt and roll indicators or crosshairs for overhead shots.
• Capture high-quality 4K footage at up to 120 fps with iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max.
• Double-tap to reset white balance, manual focus, and exposure settings to default values.
• Expands ISO ranges to include additional values.

Now you can connect both Macs and Windows to a single Pro Data unit and share containers.

The full press release is below:

Mill Valley, California (November 12, 2024)—iodyne, developer of the world’s fastest Thunderbolt storage for media professionals, announced the official release of Windows support for iodyne Pro Data, and is now sharing some of the breakthrough multi-platform workflows enabled by this new feature. Editors, colorists, VFX pros, animators, and DITs can now use the fastest, most reliable, and secure path from camera to edit on both Mac and Windows.

“With this update, production teams can have one editor working in Avid Media Composer on a Mac, two different editors working in Adobe Premiere Pro on Windows, while a colorist might be working in DaVinci Resolve, all collaborating on a single Pro Data the size of a laptop—all working from the same files at the same time in 8K RAW at full speed, fully encrypted,” explained Martin Christien, Director of Workflow, iodyne.

“Our engineering team is dedicated to building the most innovative storage devices for creative productions, and the most reliable, secure, and fastest workflow for moving data from camera to post. We’re thrilled to bring our technology to Windows users, and users who need to combine Mac and Windows platforms in a single workflow,” said Mike Shapiro, Co-President, iodyne.

Windows support is available to current iodyne customers through a free, simple update to their existing Pro Data units.

• First and only Thunderbolt storage with Thunderbolt NVMe multipathing on  Windows—Eight Thunderbolt ports with support for up to four upstream paths to either Mac and/or Windows computers, and four downstream to additional Pro Data units or other devices.
• First and only Thunderbolt storage with support for the accelerated Windows DirectStorage API—This Microsoft API can speed up data access time even further in compatible apps, reducing the processor’s load by up to 40%.
• Multipathing and multiple operating systems at the same time with up to four Thunderbolt-connected computers– multiple PCs to Pro Data to enable collaboration on a single copy of your data.
• Hardware RAID-6 and enterprise-grade encryption while sustaining performance.
• Multiple Containers which allow working on separate projects or computers all within the same device.

BAFTA award-winning production studio, Atlantic Productions, who has produced projects in collaborations with BBC, Meta, and other major broadcasters and streamers, field-tested Pro Data Windows support on a recent project they ingested on Macs and edited on PCs. “We took over 15TB of video media, including 8K Prores Proxy, 8K H.265, and 12K BlackMagic Raw files, and processed up to 27 mags on Pro Data. We relied on Pro Data’s speed for the edit, as our files—even in proxies— are enormous. We also need cross-platform functionality, high speed, and security for our partners,” said Steve Cullen, Head of IT, at Atlantic Productions. “The [iodyne Pro Data] form factor is a huge advantage on a location relative to other solutions we’ve tried in the past. The great thing about Pro Data now that we own them is the ability to reuse them on other projects once we’re done with this one.”

“Pro Data worked seamlessly on our Netflix multicam production. It let us connect more than one user to each RAID, allowing for fast and collaborative data management—and the ability to connect more than one Thunderbolt cable to increase transfer speeds was great! Fast drives really did save lives on this one,” said Justin Warren, Digital Imaging Technician, IATSE Local 600.

About Pro Data

Pro Data powers the most demanding image, sound, design, film, VFX, and animation workflows with the world’s fastest Thunderbolt storage. Pro Data combines unmatched sustained ingest and playback speeds of up to 5.2 GB/s read and 2.4GB/s write with RAID-6 protection and 256-bit encryption worthy of the most powerful enterprise storage appliances. Enabling the full power of Thunderbolt NVMe technology, and constantly innovating with a growing set of features like unique Multipathing, Storage Handoff, and Multi-Reader Sharing, Pro Data is a unique tool to power production workflows. Available in 12, 24, or 48 TB configurations, the compact design fits elegantly into a backpack, DIT cart or an editing desk setup.