FCP Cafe is a community for professional Final Cut Pro editors and developers.

This website has been thrown together by Chris Hocking at LateNite.

Cult of Mac reports that Apple has removed the 90 day free trial of Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro.

Because the trial timer reset with each Final Cut Pro & Logic Pro update, there's quite a few Final Cut Pro users that have actually just been using the free trial for years, as there's generally been a new update every 90 days.

Some users also realised that you just needed to delete a file to reset the trial - for those wanting to stay on an older version.

This definitely isn't a surprise, and eventually I'm sure Apple wants everyone to jump to the subscription option.

Dylan Bates (The Final Cut Bro) recently posted a video about Patrokiras's Final Cut Pro X Workspace Remapper.

This is a free tool that allows you to completely customise your Final Cut Pro Workspace layout.

In theory it's amazing - and Patrokiras has done a great job building a fantastic website to customise things. It's a really nice user interface!

Because a fcpworkspace file is just a plist (Property List) - it's actually very easy to mess around with an customise - you can just open it in a text editor (I use BBEdit).

Back when I first started working on FCPX Hacks, which later became CommandPost, I had a tool that allowed you to customise Final Cut Pro workspaces in a very similar fashion.

Alex Gollner (Alex4D) was also messing around with these files about a decade ago.

However, what we discovered is that hacked or customised workspaces made Final Cut Pro pretty buggy and unstable, and we were generating lots of crash reports.

When I spoke to Apple about this, they basically said to stop messing with the Workspace layouts - so we did.

So now that Patrokiras has released a very friendly and easy-to-use way of creating your own layouts, it'll be super interesting to see if the same users start to report more FCP bugs and crashes.

I've already started to see a few reports of people saying that things like the Export button randomly stop working.

If you're using a customised workspace, and Final Cut Pro isn't crashing and is rock solid - please let us know in the comments!

Discuss this news item

Thanks for all the messages and feedback from yesterday's blog post!

Apple Creator Studio has definitely caused a heap of discussion in the Final Cut Pro community, which is awesome.

Jeff Roy responded to the blog post on Facebook with:

Great write up as always, but I’m surprised nobody is talking about 𝗣𝗵𝗼𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿. I use it more often than 𝗣𝗶𝘅𝗲𝗹𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝗣𝗿𝗼. Based on past product cycles I’m guessing the team just didn’t have the bandwidth to overhaul both apps, sort of like the situation with 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗖𝘂𝘁 𝗣𝗿𝗼 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗶𝗣𝗮𝗱. It’s conceivable that they could be somehow rolling it into 𝗣𝗵𝗼𝘁𝗼𝘀 in the various 𝗢𝗦 𝟮𝟳 releases as part of their AI story at WWDC. 𝗣𝗵𝗼𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿 was born as a universal iPhone/iPad/Mac app and awarded App of the year by Apple. It has both a subscription or “lifetime” license available as in-app purchase.

We are also losing classic 𝗣𝗶𝘅𝗲𝗹𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿 for iPhone, which is a real shame if they don’t replace it with something. It was already compatible with 𝗣𝗶𝘅𝗲𝗹𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝗣𝗿𝗼 so maybe they just haven’t finished developing the universal version. I don’t know of any non-Adobe iPhone apps that do what 𝗣𝗶𝘅𝗲𝗹𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿 can with layering.

𝗠𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗶𝗣𝗮𝗱 was also rumored previously, so maybe that’s still part of the “coming soon” promise that they are not ready to reveal.

I’m overjoyed to see Transcription Search and Visual Search coming to 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗖𝘂𝘁 𝗣𝗿𝗼, but the screenshot gives me pause. It depicts a search field with results on the left, but I don’t see any visible transcription. That’s not very useful to me if I can’t see the text. What I need is a way to see the transcript for my ranges in the Browser at a glance, so I don’t have to play through them to know which is which. Currently I use 𝗠𝗮𝗰𝗪𝗵𝗶𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗿 to get a transcript and then replace the word “Favorite” with the text for that range, and it’s incredibly useful when building interview edits.]
This is all great news, though. Regarding education customers, it still does not address the barrier for institutions using MDM. That could be one reason for maintaining the single-purchase applications, but nobody would deploy them at full price. The way it works with Adobe is that they have an annual contract for seats, and the 𝗖𝗖 gets pushed to the managed devices as a portal to the other apps and no in-app purchases are ever involved. I could see that working with 𝗖𝗦 on the Mac where the App Store isn’t gospel. Or maybe they aren’t interested in that play at all.

I don’t think they cancel the Summit. I think it’s coming in Spring as the site says. Hopefully not during our busiest week in education.

Jeff makes some great points. Whilst I own Pixelmator & Photomator - I don't really ever use them, so I'm definitely not an expert in this area, hence why I mainly focussed on Final Cut Pro news.

I also had quite a few messages about my comments on Blackmagic RAW.

Apple's MediaExtension SDK was actually announced back at WWDC 2023 - so it's not new - it's been out for a while. We posted about it on FCP Cafe at the time.

We also posted about it back at WWDC 2024, and later in November 2024.

To quote the old blog post:

Whilst Apple did announce at the 2024 Final Cut Pro Creative Summit that Final Cut Pro 11 now supports the new macOS system-wide MediaExtension Framework, and that Blackmagic will at some point release a Blackmagic RAW Media Extension - there is currently no time frame, so we have no idea if this is coming in days, weeks, or months.

In 2023 Apple announced a new framework called MediaExtension, that provides a means for developers to create format readers and video decoders for media that the system doesn’t natively support - such as Blackmagic RAW and Nikon NRAW.

This was supposed to come in macOS Sonoma, but they silently killed it - only for it to reappear in this years WWDC for macOS Sequoia.

Whilst it's been out for a while, the documentation is insanely complicated and limited and the only person I know who's done ANYTHING with it so far is the incredible Anton Marini, who's been building an ffmpeg Media Extension over on GitHub here.

I originally started playing with and testing MediaExtension's both back in 2023, and during the macOS Sequoia beta's, but never made much progress, as Final Cut Pro 10.8.1 didn't support Media Extensions anyway.

However, given there's no certainty as to when Blackmagic will release a Blackmagic RAW Media Extension, we're going to go back and see if we can bring a Blackmagic RAW Media Extension to market sooner rather than later.

Apple announced 3rd party Motion Templates were "coming soon" to iPad at launch, and that functionality is still not out - so we don't really want to waste time waiting for something that could be a year away.

We'll continue to keep you posted on our progress on FCP Cafe.

You can learn more and download BRAW Toolbox on the BRAW Toolbox website.

Apple then announced that Blackmagic WOULD be releasing a BRAW MediaExtension at the last FCP Creative Summit - but whilst nablet has released some MediaExtensions - we still haven't seen anything from Blackmagic.

Over the years I've continued to look into and experiment with MediaExtension's - but with the Blackmagic RAW SDK in it's current form, it's insanely hard (or maybe impossible) for a third party to build a BRAW Media Extension - mainly because MediaExtension's are sandboxed, and they don't get access to the entire BRAW file - they just get "chunks" of data per frame.

I'll continue to update and improve BRAW Toolbox for now - and we'll just see what Blackmagic does.

Also, thinking about how Apple might actually handle the licensing for Apple Creator Studio - Sharing access to keychain items among a collection of apps is probably one way to solve that issue.

CineD posted an article where they spoke to Apple about Apple Creator Studio.

Some highlights:

In our interview, Apple went on the record to debunk this. When asked directly if the standalone Mac version of Final Cut Pro would include the new AI-driven tools, Bryan O’Neil Hughes was definitive:

“The same features and functionality – Visual Search, Transcript Search, Beat Detection – will be on the one-time purchase version that you have today. It’ll update, and it’ll all just work as you expect it to.”

However, I don't think there was any question of this. Apple announced yesterday:

A one-time purchase will still be available, but access to some of the premium content is available only to Apple Creator Studio subscribers. If you already own Final Cut Pro, it will continue to be updated.

Again, my GUESS is that the "premium content" will be music, sound effects, motion graphics - basically the kind of thing you currently can find in Final Cut Pro for iPad - which doesn't exist on the Mac version.

Apple clarified that the “M5” mention was about peak speed, not minimum requirements. The new features will work fully on all Apple Silicon devices, including the original M1 generation. John Danty, Product Marketing, reassured us that older hardware won’t be left behind:

“The difference you’ll see in the latest hardware is enhanced performance… but if you’re on original Apple Silicon devices, no problem whatsoever.”

This is Apple's super power - Apple Silicon is just so darn good. I'm still on a MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2021, M1 Max, 64GB RAM, 8TB SSD) - at it flies. It would cost me a LOT to upgrade to a new MacBook Pro with the same specs, so there's very little incentive to do so.

Finally, Background Export is also coming on Final Cut Pro for iPad. Apple stated they have “aggressively tested” this with heavy memory loads. Danty confirmed that switching to memory-intensive apps like Lightroom or Safari will not pause or kill the render process:

“We’ve been aggressively testing it with really heavy loads… and have not bumped into any problems.”

DaVinci Resolve for iPadOS v20.3, added support for background rendering last year - so it's nice to see Apple catch up in this department.

Whilst I've still got you...

Basic Apple Guy on Twitter has posted some fun images:

I also enjoyed Andy Allen's post on Threads:

The Boringification of Software

...and Héliographe's post on Threads:

If you put the Apple icons in reverse it looks like the portfolio of someone getting really really good at icon design

Yes... I'm still in denial about Apple's icon direction.

Strada Agent v2026.1.14 (88) is out now!

It contains the following improvements:

Some fun updates for you all:

• You can now create a folder! Need to transfer to a location that doesn't exist? Make it!
• New users and collaborators now have a step-by-step onboarding experience to get started easier
• Jobs details MODAL. You can now open up an expanded view of a job and see every file, how big it is, a thumbnail, and its transfer status.

Bug Fixes:

• Breadcrumbs now stay after a refresh
• UNC path on windows
• Agents now load individually in the left nav and show an error state when they can't be reached due to a network error
• Agents going offline and not trying to restart themselves
• Auto-Updates ( NOTE: If you are on an older agent you will need to manually update to this version and then auto-updates should work here on out )
• Some jobs were not showing as complete until refreshing the page, they looked stuck but they were done
• Cleaned up states for folder not existing or you no longer having access so you know exactly what is going on with a certain folder
• thumbnails on mobile
• many many many more!

SNEAK PEAK of the coming month:

• We are working on launching our new license server which will allow you to buy and manage licenses on behalf of others or your team!
• We have a Alpha version of our new Virtual File Editing technology. We will post more here about how to get involved in the coming weeks.
• Raw playback support. Starting with Blackmagic Raw we will support remote viewing of raw files in our video player on web and mobile WITHOUT having to create a proxy or upload anything to a cloud.

Happy new year everyone! We are starting a new initiative called the feature of the week so look here soon for our next little feature: Sorting!

You can learn more about Strada on their website.

Simon Says Transcription v3.9.9 is out now with performance improvements and bug fixes.

You can learn more and download on the Mac App Store.

Frame.io v2.7.6 is out now with the following bug fix:

Fixed a bug where the app could fail to detect if FCP is installed when installing Share Destinations.

You can learn more and download on the Mac App Store.

SpeedScriber v3.0.4 is out now with the following improvements:

• Searching for words with Any Speaker selected, now works correctly after opening multiple files.
• Quitting the app after logging out when a file has been opened will no longer cause a crash.

You can learn more and download on the Mac App Store.

Discuss this news item

Happy New Year! Hope you all had a fun and relaxing holiday break!

2025 proved to be a bit of a rollercoaster for pretty much everyone I know (especially in the Film & TV world) - so fingers and toes crossed 2026 can be a bit more behaved!

Keeping FCP Cafe up-to-date the last few months has proven to be tricky, however, I hope to be a bit more active this year if I can.

The big news today is that Apple has announced Apple Creator Studio, which launches 28th January.

You can read the official Apple Press Release in their newsroom.

Interestingly, this news didn't make it to the front page of the Apple site - clearly the wider Apple doesn't think this is big enough news to go mainstream, which is interesting.

The initial launch of Apple Creator Studio includes:

• Final Cut Pro for Mac 12.0
• Final Cut Pro for iPad 3.0
• Logic Pro for Mac 12.0
• Logic Pro for iPad 3.0
• Pixelmator Pro for Mac 4.0
• Pixelmator Pro for iPad 4.0
• Motion 6.0 (Mac)
• Compressor 5.0 (Mac)
• MainStage 4.0 (Mac)
• Pages 15.1 (Mac, iPad, and iPhone)
• Numbers 15.1 (Mac, iPad, and iPhone)
• Keynote 15.1 (Mac, iPad, and iPhone)

You can watch the slick trailer on YouTube:

It would be AMAZING if the above trailer was actually created in Final Cut Pro and Motion - but the fact they don't mention it was, makes me think it sadly wasn't.

In a perfect world, Apple would be creating all these kinds of slick animations in Apple Motion, and showcasing how they're built - but alas, not this time at least.

For those that aren't already up-to-speed:

Apple Creator Studio gives subscribers access to a suite of creative apps designed for video, music, and image editing and creation. You can make videos in Final Cut Pro, Motion, and Compressor, produce music in Logic Pro and MainStage, and edit photos or graphics in Pixelmator Pro. And while Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and Freeform remain free for everyone, an Apple Creator Studio subscription offers premium templates, a library of high-quality, royalty-free photos and graphics, and powerful intelligence features.

Iain Anderson has written up a great little summary up on ProVideo Coalition.

Matthew O'Brien has already posted a new video on his YouTube discussing Creator Studio.

Apple Creator Studio will be subscription - however, the existing lifetime/perpetual versions of the app's will still be alive - i.e. the Final Cut Pro 11.2 you have today will continue to be updated.

A one-time purchase will still be available, but access to some of the premium content is available only to Apple Creator Studio subscribers. If you already own Final Cut Pro, it will continue to be updated.

My GUESS is that the "premium content" will be music, sound effects, motion graphics - basically the kind of thing you currently can find in Final Cut Pro for iPad - which doesn't exist on the Mac version.

Final Cut Pro is included in your subscription to Apple Creator Studio, which also includes Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage. In addition, Apple Creator Studio comes with enhanced versions of Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and Freeform that include premium templates, a library of high-quality, royalty-free photos and graphics, and powerful intelligence features.

You can try Apple Creator Studio free for 30 days. After your free trial, new subscribers pay $12.99 per month or $129 per year. Educator and student subscriptions are $2.99 per month or $29.99 per year. Final Cut Pro is also available as a one-time purchase for $299.99.

The cheaper educator and student subscriptions is quite a big deal - USD$2.99/month and USD$29.99/year is CRAZY cheap for what you get. I can imagine lots of universities and film schools around the world being very excited by this.

It will be super interesting to see how this works, and if this means Apple will be making policy changes to the App Store to enable this, because as far as I know, there's currently no mechanism in the App Store to do this specific educational pricing - at least not for third party developers like myself.

Also interesting is that:

...with the purchase of a new Mac or qualifying iPad, customers can receive three months of Apple Creator Studio for free

It's also worth noting:

Apple Creator Studio is available to download on the App Store as a universal purchase.

...meaning that if you purchase on iPad, it will work on Mac, etc. and:

Up to six family members can share all of the apps and content included in Apple Creator Studio with Family Sharing.

...which means you can buy once, and the whole family can use it - which is pretty awesome.

The other current unknown is how exactly the "legacy" version and the new version will ship.

My GUESS is that the current "legacy" version of Final Cut Pro will continue to ship "as-is" with it's existing bundle identifier (i.e. com.apple.FinalCut on Mac), and they'll use the Final Cut Pro for iPad bundle identifier (i.e. com.apple.FinalCutApp) for the Creator Studio version of the Mac App - so that existing users can continue to work away and update Final Cut Pro as they normally would.

However, less is clear about how exactly the Apple Creator Studio will appear in the App Store.

It's possible that Apple Creator Studio might just appear as a single application - and Apple does some trickery (that third parties aren't allowed to do currently due to sandbox requirements) that installs the other applications.

Or it's possible that Apple might just treat it as an App Bundle, and add some kind of mechanism to support subscriptions in App Bundles (which I don't believe is currently possible?).

If I had to make a prediction, maybe the reason Apple just announced the Apple Creator Studio today, rather than ship it, is because they need to make some changes to the App Store policy, and they didn't want to do that first, as the rumour mill would pick up on what's in-store. I wouldn't be surprised if we see some App Store policy changes in the coming weeks. We'll see.

So what's new in Final Cut Pro?

Video Creation Gets Smarter and Faster
Final Cut Pro for Mac and iPad empowers content creators, video editors, and filmmakers to elevate their projects with intuitive features. One-time-purchase Mac users and Apple Creator Studio subscribers can experience blazing-fast performance with Apple silicon for the most demanding workflows, and get into the creative flow faster than ever with new on-device intelligent features that make video creation effortless and easy.

For better or for worse, the wider Apple seems to have very much stopped using the term "machine learning" and is now pushing "AI" as much as they can. Apple Creator Studio really seems to be a way to help convince Apple Shareholders that they're still in the AI game.

First up, we have Transcript & Visual Search on Mac and iPad.

With Transcript Search on Mac and iPad, users can now easily find the perfect soundbite in hours of footage by simply typing phrases into the search bar to see exact or related results. Video podcasts and interviews can be assembled quickly, eliminating extensive time spent skimming through footage. Looking for a specific video clip also gets an intelligence assist with Visual Search. Now, users can quickly pinpoint exact moments across all footage by searching for an object or action, and then add that visual to their timeline in seconds.

Transcript Search in Final Cut Pro requires a Mac with Apple silicon and macOS 15.6 or later, or an iPad with the Apple M1 chip or later, iPad (A16), or iPad mini (A17 Pro) and iPadOS 26 or later. Available only in U.S. English.

Visual Search requires a Mac with Apple silicon and macOS 15.6 or later, or an iPad with the Apple M1 chip or later, iPad (A16), or iPad mini (A17 Pro) and iPadOS 26 or later. Available only in U.S. English.

Essentially... this is bringing Jumper natively to Final Cut Pro.

With Transcript Search, you'll be able to search through all your dialogue in your Library and find specific words and phrases by entering a description using natural language - i.e. in the example below, they're searching all the transcripts that have ranges that are related to the history of racing (as opposed to finding the words "history of racing"). You'll also obviously be able to search for exact words/phrases too.

You'll be able to make Smart Collections with these search criteria, so as you ingest more footage, the Smart Collections will be populated with more stuff.

You'll also be able to filter by Relevance.

In this first release, this will only work in U.S. English - but I'm sure it will come to other languages over time.

Visual Search will be much the same - you'll be able to use natural language to search for actions (i.e. "climbing stairs") and objects (i.e. "red ball").

We would ASSUME that both Transcript & Visual Search will be on by default in the Import Settings.

As someone who directly helped bring Jumper to Final Cut Pro, it'll be super interesting to compare Jumper and Apple's offering in terms of speed, quality and ease-of-use.

I'm ASSUMING that Apple's machine learning models will be super fast - especially as they're supporting all Apple Silicon devices.

The quality - who knows until it ships. We do know that lots of people are using Jumper in Adobe Premiere, even though Media Intelligence is built in natively, simply because Jumper's search results are better - i.e. Jumper understands what a Millennium Falcon is.

My GUESS is that Apple will have to tread very carefully with their machine learning models - and like with Adobe, Apple's models also won't know what a Millennium Falcon is (for example).

Personally, I think Apple's Transcript & Visual Search will work awesome for most users. It'll be fast, native, and super handy.

Even today, when it comes to searching transcriptions, I sometimes find it faster and easier to just throw all my footage into a timeline, generate captions and search the Timeline Index to find specific things - as opposed to firing up Jumper.

However Jumper's advantage is that the same analysis files can be shared between Mac & PC, and between Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Adobe Premiere Pro and Avid Media Composer. It also works in multiple languages - which Final Cut Pro won't do on launch.

Next up, we have something that I'm SUPER excited about... Beat Detection.

Final Cut Pro for Mac and iPad also makes editing video to the rhythm of music fast and fun with Beat Detection, an amazing new way to see musical beats, bars, and song parts right in the project timeline. Beat Detection uses an AI model from Logic Pro to instantly analyze any music track and display the Beat Grid, so users creating fast-paced videos can quickly and visually align their cuts to the music. Re-editing music tracks to different lengths is also easier than ever.

At the previous Final Cut Pro Creative Summit, the Final Cut Pro team told us that they were basically "sharing a wall" with the Logic Pro team - so it's awesome to FINALLY see a truly great collaboration between the teams!

Even though 3rd party tools like the awesome BeatMark Pro exist - personally, I still spend a lot of time manually adding markers to music tracks - so I think this will be a massive time saver.

The fact it uses a beat grid, rather than markers, is a really nice design. It looks like you'll be able to toggle it from both the toolbar and shortcut keys, so it'll be super handy.

Weirdly, Apple continues to add features to iPad that haven't made it to the Mac, such as the new Montage Maker.

The new Montage Maker in Final Cut Pro for iPad lets users kick-start their edit in just seconds. Using the power of AI, Montage Maker will analyze and edit together a dynamic video based on the best visual moments within the footage, with the ability to change the pacing, cut to a music track, and intelligently reframe horizontal videos to vertical with Auto Crop to simplify sharing across social platforms.

I'm going to ASSUME this is basically use the same technology/frameworks as Apple Photos.

It'll be super interesting to see how these montages translate from iPad back to Mac.

Not very exciting, but handy for new users, it looks like there's also a new toolbar button for creating Libraries, Events & Projects:

And that basically concludes all the new Final Cut Pro features.

We'll definitely see some bug fixes and general improvements.

To quote my previous blog post:

One major bug that's been in Final Cut Pro for a while, but is a major pain, is if you have UltraHD (3840x2160) footage in a HD (1920x1080) timeline, it doesn't actually fill the entire frame - there's a 1 pixel boundary at the edges.

If you have your Viewer background set to Black then this is very hard to notice - you really only notice it if your Viewer background is transparent, or if you have something colourful underneath the UltraHD footage.

Whilst this is annoying for every Final Cut Pro user working with UltraHD footage in a HD timeline - this is a major pain for anyone working in broadcast, as it will fail QC.

I know that Apple is aware of this bug - so I'm HOPEFUL that we'll see a fix sooner rather than later.

There's a lot of other bugs on the FCP Cafe Bug Tracker - but I feel like this one is really a priority.

We'll definitely see FCPXML v1.14. We'll also definitely see a (hopefully big) update to FxPlug. Hopefully we'll also see an update to Workflow Extensions.

It's VERY unlikely, but one day we might also eventually see a Control Surface SDK - so that control surface manufactures can interact directly with Final Cut Pro without CommandPost.

In other news... The Magnetic Mask finally comes to Apple Motion on Mac.

The powerful and intuitive Magnetic Mask comes to Motion, allowing users to isolate people and objects in their footage to customize backgrounds and environments without a green screen.

At the Create immersive media experiences for visionOS event Apple announced that Compressor will be able to export Apple Immersive Video packages - so we'll most likely see that ship too.

Apple Creator Studio subscribers also have full access to Compressor to customize output settings, and Motion for creating 2D and 3D effects.

For those that haven't been following along, FMC recently posted:

While we’re finalizing our plans for 2026, we’ve got something new we’re excited to share now: Apple is partnering with FMC on an exclusive Final Cut Pro track at Post|Production World during NAB.

The top experts in the industry will be leading sessions packed with advanced techniques, workflow breakthroughs, and insider knowledge that’ll change how you work with Apple pro apps.

See you in April.

Given this, I think that the Final Cut Pro track at Post|Production World during NAB will mostly be focussing on this new update - i.e. Transcript & Visual Search.

My GUESS is that they'll either cancel the FCP Creative Summit all together (probably in favour of a smaller, but more mainstream one day "Creator Studio" even at the Apple Developer Centre) - or postpone it until later in the year (similar timing to what they normally do).

I think we'll hear much more about Apple Creator Studio at WWDC this year - they'll use it to announce more AI features.

Apple's predicted to release a HEAP of hardware this year too - so we'll most likely continue to hear about Apple Creator Studio with each hardware update as well.

Before I wrap things up, we have to talk about these:

Interestingly...

Final Cut Pro, Motion, Compressor, Logic Pro, MainStage, and Pixelmator Pro are also available as one-time purchases for Mac on the App Store. If you previously purchased one of these apps and you also have an Apple Creator Studio subscription, you can use either version of the apps. You can have both versions of these apps installed on your Mac. To make it easier to distinguish versions, the apps in Apple Creator Studio have unique icons.

Personally, I really HATE the direction Apple has gone with their Mac icon designs. I really LOVE traditional Mac icons.

I really LOVE all my app icons, designed by the insanely talented Matthew Skiles.

I'm still currently running macOS Sequoia for the simple reason that people constantly send me screenshots of all the visual atrocities that are occurring in macOS Tahoe.

So my sincerest apologies to all the hundreds of CommandPost users who email me daily about CommandPost's Timeline Batch Export not working in Tahoe - I haven't fixed it for the simple reason, that I just don't want to upgrade any of our machines to Tahoe because it's so ugly. I promise I'll get to it eventually.

Overall, I think this Final Cut Pro update is a great one - I'll use Transcript Search, Visual Search, and Beat Detection almost daily.

Because I maintain Transfer Toolbox (allowing you to get from Final Cut Pro on iPad to Mac), I'll basically have to subscribe to Apple Creator Studio to keep using the iPad version.

So now that we know what the next Final Cut Pro looks like - what's next?

Well, we still haven't gotten a Final Cut Pro for iPad update with 3rd Party Motion Templates (it's been "coming soon" for years now).

MacRumors reported:

Apple might be preparing iPad apps for Pixelmator Pro, Compressor, Motion, and MainStage, according to new App Store IDs uncovered by MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris. All four of the apps are currently available on the Mac only.

...so my GUESS is that at some point this year we'll see Compressor and Motion for iPad, and we'll finally see 3rd party Motion Templates for Final Cut Pro on iPad.

Long term, I think Apple will try and move everyone across to an Apple Creator Studio subscription, by using collaboration as the draw card - seamless sharing between Mac & iPad. But I think this is probably 5 years away still.

The other interesting thing that's come up recently in Richard Taylor's YouTube Channel and on various Facebook groups is that fact that Blackmagic still hasn't shipped their Blackmagic RAW MediaExtension.

Apple announced that Blackmagic would be releasing a BRAW MediaExtension at last years FCP Creative Summit - but whilst nablet has released some MediaExtensions - we still haven't seen anything from Blackmagic.

As the creator of BRAW Toolbox, I'm obviously in touch with the BRAW team at Blackmagic quite a bit, and I know they've been working on the MediaExtension for a long time now - so it's curious that they still haven't shipped anything.

My GUESS is that there's some technical issue/limitation that's preventing Blackmagic from releasing it - i.e. maybe the MediaExtension performance is worse for BRAW than in Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve or using the official BRAW SDK - who knows.

However, for now - BRAW Toolbox still works awesome - and there's over 3.80K BRAW Toolbox users using it on all kinds of projects, from television shows, to feature films to music videos. I'm constantly blown away by some of the projects that people use BRAW Toolbox on.

Slightly old news now (4th January), but Gyroflow Toolbox v1.3.3 (Build 25) is out now on the Mac App Store!

It contains the following improvements:

• Gyroflow Toolbox can now handle video files greater than 8192 pixels (as long as your GPU supports it). Thanks for reporting mhbsavant!
• We've updated to the latest Gyroflow Core Renderer. HUGE thank you to the amazing AdrianEddy for all his ongoing help, assistance, genius and support!
• 28 lens profiles have been updated from the hero Gyroflow project. Thanks to EVERYONE who has submitted lens profiles and another HUGE thank you to AdrianEddy for all the work that goes into managing them.

We also missed the Gyroflow Toolbox v1.3.2 (Build 24) released on FCP Cafe (18th Nov) which contained:

🐞 Bug Fix:

• Fixed a bug where vertical (9x16) clips would not stabilise correctly in Final Cut Pro. If you now set the Input Rotation and Video Rotation to 90 in Gyroflow Toolbox, things should now render correctly.

🔨 Improvements:

• We've updated to the latest Gyroflow Core Renderer. HUGE thank you to the amazing AdrianEddy for all his ongoing help, assistance, genius and support!
• 6 lens profiles have been updated from the hero Gyroflow project. Thanks to EVERYONE who has submitted lens profiles and another HUGE thank you to AdrianEddy for all the work that goes into managing them.

Jumper v2026.01.12 (Build 2740) is out now!

This release includes facial recognition support.

You can learn more on the Jumper website.

Marker to Reminder v1.1 by Automatic Duck is out now for FREE on the Mac App Store!

Convert your Final Cut Pro timeline markers into Apple Reminders instantly. Track editing tasks with timecodes, right from the app you already use.

You can learn more and download on the Mac App Store.

Simon Says Transcription v3.9.8 is out now with performance improvements and bug fixes.

You can learn more and download on the Mac App Store.

fontAudition-X v1.0.8 is out now with bug fixes.

You can learn more and download on the Mac App Store.

captionAnimator v1.1.5 is out now on the Mac App Store.

It includes:

• New app icon
• Bug fix to replace a deprecated call to open the new fcpxml file
• Bug fix for switching between multiple titles when shortening the captions

You can learn more and download on the Mac App Store.

Production Clip Reporter has just been announced!

Frame accurate Sequence Reporting: Track all Clips, Effects, Transitions, Clip and Sequence Markers.

Generate professional production reports from Avid Media Composer, Adobe Premiere or DaVinci Resolve via OpenTimelineIO.

You can learn more on the Intelligent Assistance website.

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Apologies for the lack of updates on FCP Cafe recently!

This year as been super challenging, both on a personal front (i.e. a tree fell on our house back in July), and the professional front (i.e. the ever-evolving film and television landscape globally) - so it's been a challenge to devote time to unpaid things like FCP Cafe and CommandPost.

However, as the year rapidly races towards Christmas, I hope to have some time in December to finally spend some time on CommandPost to get it working well on macOS 26 - again, apologies for the delay on this.

Currently we're keeping all our production machines on macOS Sequoia - which is one of the reasons why getting CommandPost running on macOS 26 hasn't been a huge priority.

For those that are interested, it looks like Apple is currently hiring lots of people for it's Creativity Apps and ProApps teams:

• Pro Apps Acquisition Business Lead
• Sr. Software Engineer-Video Apps
• Software Engineering Manager, Shared UI / UX - Creativity Apps
• Senior UI Software Engineer, Creativity Apps
• Software Engineer, Creativity Apps
• Senior Software Engineer, Creativity Apps
• Software Engineering Manager, Creativity Apps & Frameworks
• Senior Software Engineer, Creativity Apps & Frameworks
• Software Engineer - LLM Workflows - Apps
• Sr iOS Engineer, Photography Editing & Creativity Tools

Some interesting tidbits from these job ads include:

• The scope of this role is broad and the opportunity to drive customer impact is high. In this role, you will chart the strategic direction of our Pro Apps (including but not limited to Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro) across all Growth & Acquisition initiatives. As the Pro Apps Acquisition Business Lead, you will be responsible for driving the growth of the Pro Apps subscriber base through initiatives that achieve meaningful business results. The ideal candidate is able to set a clear vision for a multi-year growth plan, is adept at simplifying the complex, and influencing across a highly matrix organization. The role requires an experienced leader who will partner directly with product, engineering, marketing, design and finance working cross-functionally to deliver results.
• As a Senior Software Engineer, you’ll help drive the modernization of persistence systems that must handle multi-gigabyte projects with real-time responsiveness. You will be a technical contributor within the team while collaborating across Apple’s creative applications ecosystem.
• The Creativity Apps team is seeking a highly skilled Software Engineer with hands-on experience with media management, collaboration, persistence, or syncing. As a Software Engineer, you will play a key role in designing, implementing, and maintaining robust cloud syncing, media management, efficient on-device storage, and collaboration solutions to enhance our products and services.
• The Creativity Apps team is looking for a senior engineer with expertise in Apple platforms to help architect and build media management and collaboration features for creative tools. You’ll be working with the world-class teams behind Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, and iWork to create next-generation tools for creators.
• Develop and enhance the data model, persistence infrastructure and shared frameworks used across Final Cut Pro applications.
• Contribute to the migration of legacy Objective-C systems to modern Swift applying best practices for maintainability and testability.
• Develop new capabilities using Swift structured concurrency and Grand Central Dispatch, ensuring thread safety and optimal performance.
• Collaborate closely with product and platform teams to deliver foundational improvements that enable seamless workflows across applications.
• Identify and resolve complex bottlenecks in multi-threaded, latency-sensitive environments processing large media files.

It certainly seems like behind the scenes, a lot is happening at Apple in the ProApps departments.

It looks like a big effort is being placed on updating a lot of Final Cut Pro's legacy Objective-C code to modern Swift is happening - although it's a massive long-term project.

A few weeks ago MacRumors reported:

Apple might be preparing iPad apps for Pixelmator Pro, Compressor, Motion, and MainStage, according to new App Store IDs uncovered by MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris. All four of the apps are currently available on the Mac only.

Given that Apple is looking for a "Pro Apps Acquisition Business Lead" with "Proven expertise in leading growth and customer acquisition efforts for subscription services", it's certainly a possibility we might see more ProApps move to the subscription model in the future.

I think in the short term, there's a high possibility we might see Final Cut Pro 11.2.1 sometime in the next few months with bug fixes.

One major bug that's been in Final Cut Pro for a while, but is a major pain, is if you have UltraHD (3840x2160) footage in a HD (1920x1080) timeline, it doesn't actually fill the entire frame - there's a 1 pixel boundary at the edges.

If you have your Viewer background set to Black then this is very hard to notice - you really only notice it if your Viewer background is transparent, or if you have something colourful underneath the UltraHD footage.

Whilst this is annoying for every Final Cut Pro user working with UltraHD footage in a HD timeline - this is a major pain for anyone working in broadcast, as it will fail QC.

I know that Apple is aware of this bug - so I'm HOPEFUL that we'll see a fix sooner rather than later.

There's a lot of other bugs on the FCP Cafe Bug Tracker - but I feel like this one is really a priority.

Longer term, at next years Final Cut Pro Creative Summit in Spring 2026, I think we'll see a much bigger update.

Although I have no inside knowledge, and I'm not on any top-secret betas or seeds, my GUESS as to what we'll see is:

• Motion & Compressor will come to iPad
• User generated Motion templates will finally work across iPad and Mac
• Better collaboration between Final Cut Pro on Mac and Final Cut Pro on iPad (bye-bye Transfer Toolbox).
• Blackmagic will finally release their BRAW MediaExtension they announced at last years FCP Creative Summit (bye-bye BRAW Toolbox).

Then, once macOS 27 is out (dropping Intel support), we might finally see some big major machine learning improvements added to Final Cut Pro - i.e. machine learning image and audio search to compete with Jumper.

It's certainly going to be an interesting few years!

Compressor v4.11.1 is out now with a security fix:

• Addresses a security vulnerability involving external connections to Compressor's open TCP/IP ports.

Given Apple very rarely release security only updates for their ProApp's, this is probably a good one to update quickly incase this is being exploited in the wild.

This addresses CVE-2025-43515:

Available for: macOS Sequoia 15.6 and later Impact: An unauthenticated user on the same network as a Compressor server may be able to execute arbitrary code Description: The issue was addressed by refusing external connections by default. CVE-2025-43515: CodeColorist and Pedro Tôrres(@t0rr3sp3dr0)

You can download on the Mac App Store.

BRAW Toolbox v1.4.7 is out now with the following improvements:

• Added support for Blackmagic PYXIS 12K.
• Added support for Leica SL3-S, Sony FX3 and Sony FX30 Blackmagic RAW clips.
• Updated from Blackmagic RAW SDK v4.6.1 to v5.1.

You can download and learn more on the BRAW Toolbox website.

Transfer Toolbox v1.4.1 is out now with the following improvements:

• Added support for Final Cut Pro 11.2 (for Mac) and Final Cut Pro 2.3 (for iPad).

You can download and learn more on the Transfer Toolbox website.

captionTranslator v1.0.2 is out now with the following improvements:

• New feature: Support updating an .fcpxmld bundle's Info.fcpxml file (to preserve effects applied to clips in the project)
• Bug fix: Improved detection of installed languages

You can download and learn more on the Mac App Store.

SpeedScriber v3.0.1 is out now with the following new features and bug fixes:

• Usage is now rounded up to the next second rather than the next minute.
• Speaker ranges can be deleted by clicking the X button in the top right of the range.
• Speakers can be merged together by clicking the speaker menus in the transcript.
• Can now choose to only export Favorite ranges to FCP (in Settings).
• Profanity filter per imported file plus default option in Settings.
• Caption layout algorithm has been rewritten for better readability.
• Can now choose up to 1 or 2 lines per caption page.
• Can now choose 20/32/36/42 maximum characters per caption line.
• Dragging FCP libraries to the Dock now works again.
• Improved reliability of transcript editing.
• Fixed bugs with transcript scrolling to wrong location.
• Fixed bug with blank lines that could occur in PDF exports.
• Editing of words in Favorite ranges now works as expected.

You can download and learn more on the Mac App Store

Producer's Best Friend v1.4.74 is out now with the following improvements:

• Support for reporting keyword collection folders
• Bug fix for for creating thumbnails from clips in certain cases

You can download and learn more on the Mac App Store

Sync-N-Link v1.3.8 is out now with the following improvements:

• Bug fixes for creating synced clips when "Make wrapped Video clips at a different frame size" is turned on

You can download and learn more on the Mac App Store

Backups for Final Cut Pro v2.1.5 is out now with the following improvements:

• New Tahoe compatible App icon. Updated help.
• Verified to run under MacOS Tahoe and work with Final Cut Pro v11.2.

You can download and learn more on the Mac App Store

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evrExpanse v6.3.0 is out now — free for existing v6 users!.

Update — 🎁 evrExpanse 6.3 Launch Promo: Up to 60 % OFF for 15 days with code EVRE63INTRO → Get it now Experience the full power of evrExpanse with a 15-day trial — no limitations, just complete access to all features.

Hi, Antonio here — developer of evrExpanse.

Version 6.3 is focused on one thing: connecting all your metadata in a simple, reliable way.

You can now tag both videos and photos using metadata from DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro, or embedded XMP, EXIF, and Production data — all directly inside Finder.

Photo format support has also been added to the Export Metadata process, so stills and video metadata now work together across your NLEs.

What’s New:

• Photo + Video Support — JPG, HEIC, DNG, AVIF, TIF, and PNG are now fully supported by both the Apply Finder Tags and Export Metadata processes.
• Lightroom Integration — Automatically reads XMP Keywords from Lightroom and Photoshop and applies them as Finder Tags.
• Creative, Camera & Clip Metadata — Tag files using fields like Scene, Shot, Take, Title, and Description, or pull camera details directly from EXIF metadata.
• Smarter Batch Workflow — Drop a folder, and evrExpanse extracts metadata and tags all supported files automatically.
• Metadata Tags Preferences — Choose exactly which metadata fields are read and how each maps to Finder Tags.

With photo and video metadata now unified, Finder becomes a practical media browser — searchable, organized, and ready for Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, or other supported NLEs.

👉 Update in the app via evrExpanse > Check for Updates…, or download here.

Antonio Marogna Developer, evrApps

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FidelityFuze 1.4.0 is now available with a new Quick Setup Check.
At the same time, Brad West has released a full walkthrough of FidelityFuze in a real Final Cut Pro workflow. Watch it here to see how the plugin fits into editing and what the results look like. While you watch, grab the discount code and join the giveaway he is running. If you decide to buy, using his link supports the effort he put into creating the video.

FidelityFuze 1.4.0 quietly shipped earlier this month.
It is a smaller update focused on making the first run smoother for new users and trial testers.

Quick Setup Check

Opening the app for the first time now shows a welcome and setup screen. It provides a short overview of the plugin and guides you through the initial project configuration.

The goal is to help new users avoid common early mistakes such as incorrect clip setup or confusion about compound and adjustment layers.

About FidelityFuze

FidelityFuze is a native Final Cut Pro plugin for real-time video upscaling. It doubles resolution directly in the timeline from 1080p to 4K or from 4K to 8K. There are no proxies, no exports and no round-tripping.

It uses fast, predictable algorithms rather than generative AI. It includes noise reduction and detail recovery. It is built for Apple Silicon and Metal-accelerated for smooth playback and clean output.

You can download the update or start the 7-day trial at https://fidelityfuze.com.

— Sebastian (Author of FidelityFuze)

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nablet X-OCN Media Extension v1.0.0 is out now for free!

In what appears to be the first third-party Media Extension, nablet has released a free X-OCN Media Extension plug-in for macOS into the wild.

It adds support of X-OCN footage in a MXF container - so that you can use X-OCN footage shot with the popular Sony VENICE 2 and Sony BURANO cameras as well as with Sony PMW-F55, F5 and other models that record X-OCN video internally or onto an external unit.

Support for legacy Sony RAW format like from F65 camera will be added in a future version.

This Media Extension allows you to access X-OCN footage with Final Cut Pro 11.1 (or later), Finder, QuickTime Player, and any other macOS application that supports Media Extensions.

Media Extensions work on macOS Sequoia 15.6 and later.

In Final Cut Pro, you get access to clip-level metadata controls:

You can read more about how it all works in this support article.

You can download and learn more on the nablet website.

Marker Toolbox v1.5.2 is out now!

It includes the following improvements:

• Add supported for Wipster's new CSV format. Thanks for reporting Alister Robbie!
• Updated TimecodeKit from v2.3.3 to v2.3.4. Thanks Steffan Andrews!

You can download and learn more on the Marker Toolbox website.

Arctic v25.2 is out now!

It includes the following improvements:

• Support for Final Cut Pro 11.2
• Fixes for some crashes already present in FCLM

You can download and learn more on the Hedge Arctic website.

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evrExpanse v6.2.0 Expands Metadata-to-Finder Tag Workflows

The metadata-focused workflow app evrExpanse just got even better! With version 6.2.0, Finder Tags go far beyond simple labels — transforming macOS Finder into a true Media Asset Manager (MAM) and a powerful metadata bridge between DaVinci Resolve and Final Cut Pro.

This update brings a whole new level of flexibility: more fields, smarter options, and a cleaner interface that makes it a joy to keep your media perfectly organized.

What’s Fresh in 6.2 🚀

• More Metadata from Resolve — Go way beyond Keywords: now tag with Description, Comments, People, Scene, Shot, Take, Good Take, Camera #, Reel Number, Roll Card #, Camera Type, Lens Type, and Location.
• Notes from Final Cut Pro — FCP Library and Event exports (.fcpxml / .fcpxmld) now bring across both Keywords and Notes.
• Pick Your Fields — The brand-new Apply Finder Tags Options panel lets you choose exactly which fields should become Finder Tags.
• Metadata Exchange Made Easy — Export from Resolve, tag in Finder, and re-import into Final Cut Pro as Keywords — smooth and consistent.
• Cleaner Process Options — A redesigned layout makes choosing the right operation quicker and easier.

Ready to try it? 👉 evrExpanse 6.2.0 is available now at: evrapp.cloud/evrexpanse

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This is slightly old news now (apologies - it's been a crazy month), however last week Apple updated all of the ProApps! 🥳

For developers, FCPXML remains on v1.13, FxPlug remains on v4.3.3, Workflow Extensions remains on v1.0.3.

Interestingly, Compressor now includes a Apple ProRes RAW Processor Media Extension plugin.

As far as I'm aware, this is the first shipping Media Extension on the Mac App Store.

The MediaExtension Framework provides a means for developers to create format readers, video decoders, and RAW processors for media that the system doesn’t natively support.

Now that Apple has a Media Extension in the wild of their own - it's really only a matter of time until Blackmagic finally releases their Media Extension for Blackmagic RAW - as announced at last year's Final Cut Pro Creative Summit.

Until then though, BRAW Toolbox still remains the best way to access BRAW directly/natively in Final Cut Pro.

These ProApp's updates were mainly focussed on macOS Tahoe and ProRes RAW on iPhone support - with a few bug fixes thrown in.

The official release notes are as follows:

Final Cut Pro v11.2 includes the following enhancements, changes, and bug fixes:

• Unlock even more controls for ProRes RAW video shot on iPhone, so you can adjust exposure, color temperature, tint, and demosaicing. (ProRes RAW capture requires supported iPhone models.)
• Edit and play back your Apple Log 2 footage with the vibrancy of the original scene by applying the Apple Log 2 LUT.
• Fixes an issue that caused recordings made with the Voiceover tool to not be saved when media storage was set to a location outside the library.
• Improves stability when adjusting sliders in the ProRes RAW Settings window.
• Fixes an issue that caused Final Cut Pro to quit when RED RAW clips were selected in the timeline while the RED RAW Settings window was open.
• Removes support for FireWire-connected devices on macOS Tahoe. (On macOS Sequoia, FireWire capture is supported, but the playback controls for FireWire-connected devices are no longer available.)
• Includes stability and performance improvements.

Final Cut Pro for iPad v2.3 includes the following features and enhancements:

• Unlock even more controls for ProRes RAW video shot on iPhone, so you can adjust exposure, color temperature, tint, and demosaicing. (ProRes RAW capture requires supported iPhone models.)
• Edit and play back your Apple Log 2 footage with the vibrancy of the original scene by applying the Apple Log 2 LUT.
• Easily access app commands and shortcuts from the new menu bar by swiping down from the top edge of iPad or moving your pointer to the top when using a trackpad. (Requires iPadOS 26.)
• Improves reliability when using a multichannel audio source in pro camera mode or with Live Multicam.
• Improves reliability when using VoiceOver while adjusting volume keyframes.
• Includes stability and performance improvements.

Compressor v4.11 includes the following enhancements and bug fixes:

• Use the new RAW inspector for easy access to RAW video settings such as ISO, exposure bias, and color temperature for ProRes RAW and other RAW formats.
• Take advantage of the flexibility and even wider color gamut of Apple Log 2 video.
• Improve ProRes RAW video captured on iPhone with denoising powered by machine learning with Apple silicon.
• Customize third-party RAW video Media Extensions with the new RAW Processing inspector.
• Fixes an issue where selecting additional Compressor instances in Settings would not enable additional instances.
• Includes stability and performance improvements.

Motion v5.11 includes the following enhancements and bug fixes:

• Take advantage of the dynamic range and even wider color gamut of Apple Log 2 video.
• Fixes an issue that caused Motion to sometimes quit when the HUD was displayed.
• Improves stability and performance improvements.

Final Cut Camera v2.0 includes the following features and enhancements:

• Capture ProRes RAW in open gate for full-frame resolution and incredible editing performance.
• Record in high dynamic range and an even wider color gamut with Apple Log 2 in ProRes or HEVC.
• Easily enable timecode options including Time of Day, Record Run, or external timecode for precise identification of your footage. (Requires iOS 26.)
• Genlock multiple video sources with precise frame alignment using a compatible sync generator.
• Quickly switch to the 200mm (8x) telephoto lens to capture the perfect shot.
• Dynamically adjust the video orientation to vertical or horizontal with the front-facing camera, regardless of how you hold your iPhone.
• Adds support for 29.97 fps recording.
• Adds support for constant frame rates at 24 fps, 25 fps, 29.97 fps, 30 fps, 50 fps, and 60 fps on supported iPhone models.
• Adds stabilization support for recording 4K at 120 fps and 100 fps on supported iPhone models.
• Adds Dolby Vision support for recording 4K at 120 fps and 100 fps on supported iPhone models.
• Enable or disable the LUT Preview directly from the format settings menu.
• Fixes an issue that caused video recordings with stabilization enabled to sometimes stutter.
• Improves reliability when recording with Spatial Audio and stabilization enabled.
• Improves reliability when using a multichannel audio source.
• Addresses an issue that sometimes caused the thumbnail image to not appear when an external SSD was connected.
• Fixes an issue that sometimes caused videos saved to an external SSD to not appear in the media browser.
• Addresses an issue that sometimes caused the LUT Preview menu to appear unexpectedly in the media browser.
• Fixes an issue that sometimes caused the Record button to appear dimmed after a Live Multicam session ended.
• Includes stability and performance improvements.

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evrExpanse v6.1.0 Adds Finder Tag Support for Final Cut Pro.

The metadata-focused workflow app evrExpanse has just released version 6.1.0, expanding its Apply Finder Tags feature with full Final Cut Pro integration.

With this update, editors can now automatically apply Finder Tags directly from Final Cut Pro Keywords using FCPXML Library or Event exports. This builds on the existing DaVinci Resolve integration, completing a seamless round trip between NLE metadata and macOS Finder organization.

What’s New

• Final Cut Pro Integration — Apply Finder Tags from FCP Keywords via FCPXML exports.
• Duplicate Handling — A new “Include Duplicate Files” option in Preferences gives editors control to skip or include duplicates.
• Detailed Progress Window — Now includes missing file detection and clear reporting.

Why Use evrExpanse to Tag Files in macOS?

Unlike simpler tagging utilities that only append tags, evrExpanse gives editors full flexibility:

• Batch-add, replace, or remove Finder Tags (including macOS color labels)
• Skip or include duplicates depending on workflow needs
• Detect missing files with clear progress reports
• Remove tags applied from metadata exports without wiping all tags
• Seamlessly bridge metadata between Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, and macOS Finder

More Than Finder Tags

evrExpanse remains a complete workflow suite for media professionals:

• 🏷️ Extract and import video metadata into NLEs
• 🔄 Transcode and embed rich metadata
• 📤 Automate secure backups and transfers
• 📌 And now: Organize everything with Finder Tags across both Resolve and Final Cut Pro

evrExpanse 6.1.0 is available now at evrapp.cloud/evrexpanse

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FidelityFuze v1.3.1 is now available, and for the first time it includes a fully featured trial license.

From day one, the most common request was: “Can I try it first?”

Now you can. The trial gives you the complete plugin for 7 days, with every feature active: real-time upscaling, GPU noise reduction, and detail recovery. The only limitation is a small watermark. No cut-down mode, no hidden limits. Just the real plugin, ready to test on your own footage.

What Is FidelityFuze?

FidelityFuze is a native Final Cut Pro plugin for real-time upscaling. It doubles resolution (1080p → 4K, 4K → 8K) directly in the timeline, avoiding round-trips or exports to other apps. Alongside upscaling, it includes GPU-based noise reduction and a detail recovery stage designed to preserve structure and texture without boosting artifacts. Controls like Detail Sensitivity and Post-Upscale Detailing make it easy to balance clarity and noise handling.

Unlike generative AI tools, FidelityFuze uses fast, predictable algorithms engineered for stability and responsiveness. Written in Swift and Metal for Apple Silicon, it takes advantage of Unified Memory, Media Engines, and real-time hardware rendering. The result is smooth playback while editing and clean results at export.

Try It Today

You can download the new trial right now at fidelityfuze.com.

— Sebastian (Author of FidelityFuze)

Comparisons

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Arthur Moore has just released BadAss Fx 6 into the wild!

You can watch his absolutely epic introduction video on YouTube:

It's an incredibly well put together video - visually stunning, and some beautiful editing and motion graphics techniques - so absolutely worth watching in full.

You can download the free and paid packs from Arthur's online store.

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Marcel Carlberg has just released LibraryViewer on the Mac App Store!

A fast, native Final Cut library viewer.
Browse events, media, and thumbnails without ever opening Final Cut.
Built for macOS, made for editors.

You can learn more on Marcel's website.

You can download on the Apple Mac Store.

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FinalCap Ultimate is out now on the Mac App Store.

The developer writes:

Hi FCP Cafe! I want to share FinalCap Ultimate, an extremely flexible captioning workflow extension/plugin built for Final Cut Pro!
It runs 100% offline and gives you full control over how subtitles are split, styled, and formatted. You can choose between fixed word counts or natural speech segments, and with options like breaking at punctuation or merging short subtitles (three words or fewer), you can quite literally shape any subtitle flow you want. You can also set custom character limits for line wrapping, translate subtitles to English, and even filter profanity automatically!
It is available on the App Store right now!

To see how it all works, you can watch this fun YouTube video.

You can download today on the Mac App Store.

You can learn more on the FinalCap Ultimate website.

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SendToX v1.2.8 is out now.

It includes the following bug fix:

• Bug fix for clip xml missing a duration element

You can download SendToX on the Mac App Store.

Sync-N-Link X v1.3.7 is out now.

It includes the following bug fixes:

• Bug fix for creating synchronized clips 1 frame too short
• Bug fix to support trimming synchronized clips

You can download Sync-N-Link X on the Mac App Store.

Blackmagic Cloud Store v1.7.2 is out now.

It includes the following Final Cut Pro specific bug fix:

• Fixes an issue preventing Apple Final Cut Pro from creating and reading libraries.

It also includes these additional bug fixes:

• Fixes an issue seen when setting up syncs to shared Organizations folders on Blackmagic Cloud.
• General performance and stability improvements have been made for all models, such as better handling of files that have names which include Korean characters.

You can download the latest update on the Blackmagic website.

NeoFinder v8.9.1 is out now.

It includes the following Final Cut Pro specific improvement:

• Catalogs keywords embedded in MP4 and MOV video files by FCPX (Final Cut Pro X)

It also includes these addition changes:

• Lossless image rotation of HEIC files generated by iOS 26
• Massive speed improvements when cataloging very large RAW files, like Sony ARW, but also ORF, RAF, ORI, IIQ, MOS, X3F, and MRW
• Catalogs the rotation information embedded in video files, and adjusts height and width values accordingly for 90 and 270°
• Video files created by the integrated Video Converter are playable in Apples QuickTime Player, even when the H.265 codec is used. (Apple requires some very special codec settings)
• Improved context menu support for the Icon View in macOS 15 and newer
• Text Export generates a row with the aspect ratio of video files
• Locate files in the current User folder, even if the Catalog was created by another user or on another Mac
• Works around some bugs in macOS 26 and the new, giant, ugly buttons there
• Massively improves speed when adding XMP Captions to large video files
• Improves performance when adding and deleting items in Albums, if there are many existing Albums with lots of items
• Fixes a problem with some XML tags in the XML Export
• The progress window for rotating images uses the correct title
• Fixes some problem with the More Finder Info when editing Finder Tags and XMP Keywords for very large video files
• Fixes a problem where the Slideshow could leave an empty window open if it was ended from full-screen with the escape key
• Fixes a problem in the Watermark generator for presets with just an image, but no text
• Improves behavior when a Catalog is updated and the Found Items were showing items of that Catalog
• Fixes a problem with the Display Filter that could sometimes show ghost items after a Catalog was updated
• Works around a bug of macOS 12.7.1, where items in LIBRARY could sometimes not be renamed
• Text Export uses separate column titles for XMP Keywords and Finder Tags
• Addresses numerous minor issues
• NeoFinder 8.9.1 requires Mac OS X 10.14 "Mojave" or newer, including macOS 15 "Sequoia", Intel or Apple ARM M1, M2, M3, or M4

You can learn more on the NeoFinder website.

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Pomfort has announced a really interesting Final Cut Pro Integration with their Reeltime Pro application.

They write:

Sometimes watching isolated takes just isn’t enough. So let’s edit some previews!

We built Reeltime Pro to reimagine video assist software and deliver an innovative, user-friendly solution. But for on-set editing, the smartest move wasn’t to reinvent but to integrate. That’s why Reeltime Pro works seamlessly with Final Cut Pro, combining powerful video assist with professional editing tools in one smooth, full-circle workflow:
Export clips from Reeltime Pro with metadata for fast, organized editing with multicam and multi-track timelines in Final Cut Pro.
Preview edits instantly on set by routing your Final Cut Pro timeline to the video village via NDI and Reeltime Pro’s intuitive slot interface.
Reimport your edits into Reeltime Pro to keep a reference version accessible throughout production.
Head to the blog for a step-by-step walkthrough, including three short demo videos that show just how smooth and production-ready the workflow is.

You can read more on their blog post.

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FidelityFuze v1.2.0 is now available. The update adds integrated noise reduction and a revamped detail recovery engine to the upscaler for Final Cut Pro, which runs natively inside the timeline. Designed for Apple Silicon, FidelityFuze processes upscaling and cleanup tasks in real time within the editor.

The creator, Sebastian, writes:

It’s a native Final Cut Pro plugin built for real-time upscaling, and version 1.2.0 introduces a major new capability — fully integrated Noise Reduction, powered by our custom render pipeline.

Noise Reduction, Right at Your Fingertips

This isn’t a blur pass or a temporal trick — it’s a dedicated solution that removes sensor noise and compression artifacts while preserving edge sharpness and texture. It runs entirely on the GPU, directly inside the Final Cut timeline. No caching, no roundtrips, no delay.

Choose between Gentle, Balanced, and Aggressive modes to adapt to your footage. Whether you’re dealing with soft grain, macroblocking, or noisy highlights, FidelityFuze gives you clean output with minimal effort — and zero structural smearing.

---

Reworked Detail Recovery

We’ve completely rebuilt the Detail Recovery pass from the ground up. The new version delivers cleaner, more natural results — sharper structure, less aliasing, reduced haloing, and no more noise amplification. It enhances where it helps and stays invisible where it doesn’t.

As part of this revamp, we’ve introduced a new Detail Sensitivity parameter. It gives you control over how aggressively fine texture is preserved or suppressed, making it easier to balance clarity with noise handling — especially in scenes with low contrast or heavy compression.

We’ve also added a Post-Upscale Detailing control. This pass sharpens upscaled output if additional clarity is desired. It’s simple to dial in and can help add crispness where needed — especially in cases where footage benefits from a subtle digital edge.

There’s also a new comparison video showing upscaling from WQHD to 4K using the new feature set:

You can read about FidelityFuze in more detail in this Reddit post, which includes a 15% discount code.

For more, visit the FidelityFuze website.

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BRAW Toolbox v1.4.6 (Build 76) is out now! 🥳

It includes the following improvements:

• Added support for Panasonic LUMIX S1RII Blackmagic RAW clips.
• Updated from Blackmagic RAW SDK v4.6 to v4.6.1.

You can learn more on the BRAW Toolbox website.

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Fast Collections v1.2.0 (Build 4) is out now!

It has a fancy new icon by the amazing Matthew Skiles!

We'll be adding more exciting features to Fast Collections over the coming weeks and months. Stay tuned!

You can learn more on the Fast Collections website.

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Color Finale v2.12 is out now!

It includes the following improvements:

• Six Vectors Just Became Seven. The popular Six Vectors tool now includes a seventh vector dedicated to skin tones, offering even more precise and flexible control over this critical color range — all while preserving the intuitive feel of the original tool.
• Introducing Texture EQ. A brand-new filter, Texture EQ, brings advanced control over image texture and detail. Use it to subtly enhance or suppress fine details, shape tone and texture, or create custom looks with surgical precision.

It includes the following bug fixes:

• Improved Compatibility with Final Cut Pro’s Transform Tool. We’ve resolved a compatibility issue between the Color Atlas filter and Final Cut Pro’s native Transform tool. Transforms now work as expected — without visual glitches or erratic behavior.
• Full Support for Legacy Projects. Even in the latest version, projects created with Color Finale 1.x open seamlessly in Color Finale 2.12. We continue to ensure full compatibility, so your older work remains intact and accessible.

You can learn more on the Color Finale website.

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Our latest 2D animated series Deadbeat Ends Meet is now live on YouTube!

Deadbeat Ends Meet follows housemates Milo (a frill neck lizard) and Indy (a dingo) as they navigate their ambitions and identities whilst reckoning with the cost of living and the pitfalls of the gig economy.

Storyboarded in Toon Boom Storyboard Pro. Animated in Toon Boom Harmony Premium. Edited in Final Cut Pro by Kevin Luk.

You can watch the four episodes for free on YouTube.

We've updated our LateNite icons! How cool are these:

All created by the insanely talented Matthew Skiles.

FidelityFuze has posted a detailed post on Reddit explaining how their software works.

You can read more on Reddit.

Marker Data v1.3.0 is out now!

It contains the following improvements:

• Added new Compressor Chapters Profile
• Added new Markdown List Profile

You can learn more on the Marker Data website.

Pipeline Neo v1.0.0 is now release!

Pipeline Neo is a modern Swift framework and spiritual successor to the original Pipeline, designed for professional video editing workflows. Built with Swift 6.0 and targeting macOS 12+, it provides a comprehensive API for parsing, creating, and manipulating FCPXML files with advanced timecode operations, async/await patterns, and robust error handling.

The framework seamlessly integrates with TimecodeKit to deliver type-safe operations for professional video editing environments. Pipeline Neo is currently in experimental development, focusing on core functionality while providing a foundation for future expansion. The entire codebase has been developed and refined using AI-assisted development practices.

Pipeline Neo is refactored and developed using AI agents. Vigneswaran Rajkumar welcomes developers interested in maintaining or contributing to the project through similar AI-assisted development approaches. Those passionate about AI-driven development workflows and looking to collaborate on expanding Pipeline Neo's capabilities are encouraged to reach out.

Developers with experience in AI agent development and FCPXML processing are invited to contact Vigneswaran Rajkumar for repository access and collaboration on advancing the framework's functionality.

You can learn more on Pipeline Neo's GitHub Repo.

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Soundly v2025.07.98 is out now!

This release fixes an issue where Final Cut Pro import would fail if your Event had emoji's in it - and who doesn't love an emoji in your event name!

You can learn more on the Soundly website.

FidelityFuze is now available for purchase! 🥳

Until 13th of July, the first 100 FCP Cafe users can get a discount by using the discount code: FCPCAFE20

The website explains:

Resolution. Refined. Real-Time.
Next-gen video upscaling that feels like magic — right as you edit.

Quality without the wait. FidelityFuze is built for creators who move fast and deliver sharp. Whether you're upgrading older clips, finishing fresh content in 4K or 8K, or dialing in detail before hitting publish — it upscales in real time, right in your timeline. No intermediate exporting. No extra apps.
Just beautifully crisp footage that's ready when you are.

You can watch a promotional video on YouTube:

It was first announced over at Reddit, in a post titled Built a native Final Cut Pro plugin for real-time upscaling – 1080p, 4K, even 8K directly in the timeline.

The developer Sebastian Krogull will post a developers case study over at FCP Cafe in the coming weeks.

You can learn more and purchase on the FidelityFuze website.

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Soundly now has Final Cut Pro Integration! 🥳

The developers write:

Our new integration with Final Cut Pro, currently in beta, lets Soundly send sounds directly to the timeline. Know someone who wants to test it? We’re offering six months of Soundly for free to beta testers. Just reply to this email to show your interest.

You can learn more on the Soundly website.

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Color Finale Transcoder 2 now supports Canon RAW video (CRM files). 🥳

This popular format joins BRAW and N-RAW as formats you can edit directly on the Final Cut Pro timeline with full control over exposure, white balance, and color temperature.

Still using Transcoder 1? Don’t worry — an exclusive discounted upgrade to Version 2 is available for all Transcoder 1 users, now with powerful new Canon RAW support.

We've tested CRM files in Final Cut Pro and it works well:

However, the Canon RAW implementation still has the same bugs/issues as we've previously reported with Color Finale Transcoder for BRAW and N-RAW - i.e. it doesn't work well with speed effects.

You can learn more on the Color Finale Transcoder 2 website.

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Pinch and a punch for the first day of the month!

Ok, so this is pushing the boundaries of a Final Cut Pro related post, HOWEVER I did edit it in Final Cut Pro, so... there's that...

Regardless... Jumper for Avid Media Composer now has Group Clip support (i.e. Multicam support). 🥳

Whilst Jumper for Final Cut Pro and Jumper for Adobe Premiere Pro has supported Multicam Clips (and Synchronised Clips in the case of Final Cut Pro) for a while, on Avid it's a bit more tricky.

However, now, as long as you have matching timecode ranges, Group clips now work in Avid too!

You can watch a quick and dirty realtime demonstration of the functionality here:

You can watch a much longer and deeper dive into Jumper this FCP Cafe news entry from 10th June 2025.

You can also learn the origin story of how I got involved with Jumper on this FCP Cafe news entry from 6th November 2024.

You can download and learn more about Jumper on the Jumper website.

Krock.io now has a Final Cut Pro Workflow Extension available on the Mac App Store.

The Krock.io plugin for Final Cut Pro brings feedback, review, and collaboration right into your editing timeline —so you can stay creative and in control, without switching tabs.

For those that don't know Krock.io is basically very similar to Frame.io.

You can learn more about the integration on the Krock.io website.

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Andrew Arrow writes:

Hello FCPCafe! I've been working on an open source golang fcpxml program called "cutlass":

I've really gone deep into each XML element and how to properly generate working xml you can import.

I'm a developer and Final Cut Pro user. My history with FCP goes back years and year, I tried to be a video editor as a career but ended up beging a software developer instead. But, I purchased the full version of the software a long time ago. And, to Apple's credit, every single time I go to the App Store on any mac I still have access to download it. I must have been through 20, 30? I don't know but a lot of macs over the years. Just recently I downloaded it again and notice the XML Export feature.

Wow. There's a lot of stuff there. I mean a lot. I started playing around with generating the xml and that has lead to this project. I spend most of my time just telling Claude Code the video I want to create, and he uses the cutlass library to achieve it. I'm hooking up FCP directly to Claude. A different kind of AI Video generation!

Would love feedback, -aa

You can check out a tutorial video he's made on YouTube titled Final Cut Pro plus golang: Using cutlass with FCPXML Templates.

You can download and learn more on his GitHub repository.

ZaRealWeb has created a new website and tool called AutoSubtiler specifically for Final Cut Pro.

The tagline is:

• Feed Your Audio
• Craft Your Subtitle
• Produce For Free

You can check out a tutorial video on YouTube titled I built a FREE AUTO-SUBTITLER for FINAL CUT PRO (Customizable).

You can check it out on the AutoSubtiler website.

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Dev Benegal’s film on James Ivory for The Metropolitan Museum of Art, titled An Arrested Moment was won Best Short Documentary at the New York Indian Film Festival’s 25th Anniversary edition. 🥳

You can read a case study about the film on FCP Cafe.

The official press release says:

On Friday, June 20th, after the Opening Night Screening at the 25th Anniversary Edition of the New York Indian Film Festival, Festival Director, Aseem Chhabra, and filmmaker, Anurag Kashyap, presented the award for Best Short Documentary to director Dev Benegal for his film ‘An Arrested Moment’ in collaboration with Navina Haidar, Nasser Sabah al-Ahmad al- Sabah Curator in Charge of Islamic Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The film was produced by Min(d) Studio’s Maya S. Patel and Neeraj Jain.

‘An Arrested Moment’ is about James Ivory’s relationship to India, his deep admiration for Indian art, and his love for storytelling. The film transports viewers into images of Indian painting, drawing, and photography that have inspired Ivory’s work over the years. On seeing Indian miniatures for the first time as a young man, Ivory said, “Something just clicked — like falling in love.”

Benegal says, “Celebrating James Ivory and collaborating with Navina Haidar, has been a deep dive into the soul of India and Indian art. There were no divisions or boundaries when these masterpieces were being created. To film Jim, and hear his journey through art and film has been an experience of a lifetime. As a filmmaker, I could not be more fortunate.”

The film is a collaboration between The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Islamic Art Department and Min(d) Studio for the exhibition Ink and Ivory, Indian Drawings and Photographs Selected with James Ivory, on display in the Museum’s Hagop Kevorkian Gallery from July 29, 2024–May 4, 2025. It had a special premiere at The Met’s Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium in the fall of 2024 with over 700 guests in attendance.

Haidar says, “Presenting Indian painting and photography through the lens of James Ivory’s life and work and Dev Benegal’s filmic imagination, created a unique addition to the exhibition.”

Min(d) Studio was founded by Dev Benegal, Maya S. Patel, and Neeraj Jain with a shared vision to tell stories about people and cultures that are often unheard and unseen — championing stories that can spark conversation outside the walls of the cinema.

You can watch a trailer for the film on YouTube.

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ATEM Exporter v1.0.3 (Build 5) is out now!

It includes the following bug fix:

• Fixed a regression which prevented connecting to an ATEM device. HUGE THANK YOU to Hans Linssen for all his help, support and testing! Thank you to all our TestFlight users!

You can learn more and download on the ATEM Exporter website.

evrExpanse v6 is out! 🚀

We’re excited to introduce 📌 Apply Finder Tag—a powerful new feature in v6 that allows you to apply Finder Tags to your files using metadata.

The Apply Finder Tags feature in evrExpanse lets you quickly batch-apply Finder tags—including both color tags and custom tags (labels)—to your files. This makes your media instantly easier to find, group, and organize using Finder’s built-in tags system.

The initial release supports DaVinci Resolve: You can now automatically assign Finder Tags to your media based on the Keywords metadata exported from Resolve. Future updates will expand this workflow to support metadata from other leading NLEs as well.

You can also choose how tags are managed:

• Add: Add new tags from your metadata file to each file’s existing tags. This preserves all current color tags and custom tags, simply adding any new ones for richer organization.

• Overwrite: Remove all existing Finder tags from your files and apply only the tags specified in your metadata. This is ideal when you want your Finder tags to exactly match your exported metadata.

• Remove: Delete only the tags listed in your metadata from your files, leaving all other tags in place. Use this for quick cleanup or to undo previous tagging actions.

With Apply Finder Tag, we complete the round trip by bringing organizational metadata from your NLEs back into Finder Tags—closing the cycle and enabling seamless metadata interchange between your Mac and your editing software. 🔄

This gives you complete control to fit your workflow needs.

Detailed Reporting & Full Transparency

After tagging, evrExpanse creates a dedicated report folder next to your metadata file. Inside, you’ll find color-coded logs for all processed files, missing files, and any duplicates that were skipped—making it easy to review your tagging results right in Finder.

You can download and learn more on the evrExpanse website

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Earlier this week Final Cut Pro turned 14! 🥳

I'll let Mr Richard Taylor do the honours...

Also, in very positive news, Mashable reports from VidCon 2025:

The editing software of choice? Final Cut Pro

TikTokkers can keep CapCut. At VidCon 2025, it's all about Final Cut Pro. For Apple users who shoot and edit their own content, this Mac video editing software is indispensable. So far, it's the single most-recommended product we've encountered in conversations with creators. A subscription will set you back $299.99, but there is a free trial to test it out.

That's awesome news, and to be honest, very surprising given all the help, support and sponsorship Adobe gives VidCon!

FidelityFuze has been announced over at Reddit, in a post titled Built a native Final Cut Pro plugin for real-time upscaling – 1080p, 4K, even 8K directly in the timeline.

The developer Sebastian Krogull has already had HUGE interest in the product, which is currently at release candidate stage, in final beta testing.

I've had a chance to download and play - and it's very impressive.

Sebastian will post a developers case study over at FCP Cafe after launch!

You can learn more here:

• Product page
• User guide

Noting that Sebastian says:

Note: These are preview versions of the final website. FidelityFuze hasn’t launched yet – it’s still in early access. I’m building it solo and working to make sure everything is solid. DM me or reply here if you’d like to try it – or just share your thoughts.

We'll post more in the coming weeks!

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To help support the editing community through these uncertain and crazy times, the amazing Zack Arnold (ACE—editor/producer for Netflix’s Cobra Kai & founder of The Arnold Academy For Creatives) has put together an exciting event called Navigating the Future of Entertainment.

It includes an insane lineup of speakers including Walter Murch, Jay Clouse, Annie Duke, Matt Nix and many more.

It's a free 5-day event to help creatives of all kinds understand what the hell is going on now, forecast what's coming next, navigate industry uncertainty, and survive the AI apocalypse (without selling your creative soul).

It runs 23rd to 27th of June 2025.

You can learn more on the Navigating the Future of Entertainment website.

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ATEM Exporter has been reduced from USD$150 to a one-time payment of USD$79.99 on the Mac App Store. 🥳

After posting about ATEM Exporter on the Facebook Blackmagic ATEM Mini User-group, which has over 60K members, I started to receive a lot of DM's and emails with interest in the software.

For those that don't know, ATEM Exporter is a native Swift + Swift UI Mac Application that listens to a Blackmagic ATEM switcher, and logs all the camera changes.

You can export the camera changes as a Final Cut Pro FCPXML, to use in Final Cut Pro or Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve.

You can export a Program Cut, which allows you to use your program feed from an external recorder (such as a Blackmagic HyperDeck), and add cut points each time there's a camera change.

You can also export a Multicam, which allows you to use your program feed as well as any ISO (i.e. independent camera) recordings, and export a Multicam clip for Final Cut Pro or DaVinci Resolve.

ATEM Exporter was built in a few hours during a live event, and at release it had only been tested in a real-world live production using an Blackmagic ATEM Constellation 8K, Blackmagic HyperDeck's and AJA recorders for ISOs.

Since release, we've had quite a few users test it on all kinds of ATEM's.

Originally I was thinking that this would be a very niche, high-end tool - i.e. for people with expensive Blackmagic ATEM Constellation 8K's.

However, after posting to the Facebook group I realised just how many people have and use ATEMs for all kinds of things - especially at the lower budget in schools, universities, places of faith, etc.

As a result, I decided to reduce the price, and also release a quick and dirty demo video that I originally threw together late at night for Apple's Mac App Store Review.

You can watch it here:

Hope this helps!

You can learn more on the ATEM Exporter website.

Whilst I've got you... here's a sneak peak at our upcoming SplitTake icon by the AMAZING Matthew Skiles:

He's also put together a "placeholder" icon for LateNite apps we still have in development:

How cool are these!

Media Sync Tool v8.9 is out now on the Mac App Store.

It has the following improvements:

• The proxy media workflow has been drastically simplified.
• Media Sync Tool now syncs your proxy media the same way as the originals, eliminating the previous necessity to use the complex workaround.
• You no longer have to use the 'Force Sync' keyword - this option has been removed completely.
• The option to add a source metadata FCPXML is now removed too, as it is became unnecessary.

You can download on the Mac App Store.

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BRAW Toolbox v1.4.5 (Build 75) is out now! 🥳

Whilst Blackmagic will be releasing their Blackmagic RAW MediaExtension at SOME POINT in the coming weeks/months, as of today BRAW Toolbox is still the best way to get BRAW into Apple's Final Cut Pro.

It's also currently unclear if the Blackmagic MediaExtension will actually have decent RAW controls within Final Cut Pro.

Given Blackmagic really just wants you to use DaVinci Resolve - it's unlikely that Blackmagic's developers are spending too much time on making BRAW great in Final Cut Pro.

BRAW Toolbox is INSANELY powerful - you can even keyframe RAW parameters that you can't control in DaVinci Resolve.

Whilst there are now other competitors that copied the same techniques as BRAW Toolbox to get BRAW into Final Cut Pro, BRAW Toolbox is the only solution that's updated regularly, always includes the latest FxPlug and BRAW SDK updates, and is tried and tested on real-world productions.

BRAW Toolbox was built for my production company, LateNite, because I got frustrated when clients would hand over SSDs with 2-4TB's worth of BRAW footage, that we'd need to convert to ProRes to start editing with it in Final Cut Pro.

BRAW Toolbox is now used by over 3.45K users across the world. It's been used on feature films, televisions series and high-end television commercials.

gwphotographe writes on the CommandPost Discord:

I swear if you get me talking about how much I love this plugin you’ll never get me to shut up. Using it currently to work with 6TB of BRAW footage for a documentary. 🙌🏼

The latest update contains the following improvements:

• We've improved how we render error messages in BRAW Toolbox. HUGE thank you to Darrin Cardani at Apple and Gabriele de Simone at FxFactory for all your ongoing help, assistance, genius and support (and for putting up with my crazy questions)!
• Added support for Panasonic LUMIX S1II and S1IIE Blackmagic RAW clips.
• Improved performance for URSA Cine 12K LF and URSA Cine 17K 65 clips.
• Updated from Blackmagic RAW SDK v4.5 to v4.6.
• Updated from FxPlug v4.3.2 to v4.3.3.

You can buy and learn more on the BRAW Toolbox website.

Marker Data v1.2.1 is out now!

This release includes the following improvements:

• Updated Pagemaker Module to version 1.0.7
• Pagemaker module now maintains aspect ratios for vertical images in PDF exports, ensuring parity with gallery preview

You can learn more on the Marker Data website.

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WWDC 2025 has been and gone.

I've been flat out this week, so I haven't caught up on all the latest WWDC news yet, however, luckily we have Iain Anderson in the community!

You can read his Video news from Apple’s WWDC article over at ProVideo Coalition.

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WWDC 2025 has launched! 🥳

However, unlike previous years, I didn't have the interest and excitement to get up at 3am to watch the Keynote or Platforms State of the Union.

In fact, I haven't even finished the Keynote yet. 😬

However, for Final Cut Pro editors there's not a huge amount of exciting news.

Metal 4 is coming to Mac & iPad, so that'll bring some improvements.

The latest version of Metal is built to scale to the needs of modern apps. The streamlined API makes it easy for you to achieve optimal performance on Apple silicon with lower overhead command encoding and scalable resource management. Compilation is more explicit and faster than ever with all new ways to reduce run-time compilation.

Metal 4 introduces first-class support for machine learning, starting with native support for tensors in both the API and shading language. Integrate machine learning directly into your Metal app using the command line to execute large networks, or within your shaders to inline inference operations alongside the rest of your shader code.

Metal 4 also extends the MTLDevice that you already use today. You can incrementally adopt features that will help your app or game the most, in the order you need them.

Background Tasks are coming to iPad, so you'll finally be able to export from Final Cut Pro on iPad in the background, without Final Cut Pro aborting the export if you change app focus. 🥳

Here's some example Swift code:

import BackgroundTasks
import SwiftUI

@main
struct ColorFeed: App {
    var body: some Scene {
        WindowGroup {
            // ...
        }
        .backgroundTask(.appRefresh("com.colorfeed.wwdc25.appRefresh")) {
            await self.handleAppRefreshTask()
        }
    }
}

Image Playground gets an update, with support for ChatGPT - but really, who is ACTUALLY using Image Playground in Final Cut Pro today?

...and so far, that's pretty much it as far as I can tell.

I still need to finish the Keynote and Platforms State of the Union, so I'll post more tomorrow if anything jumps out.

There's normally lots of cool new tech, as the WWDC videos are released each day.

Fun fact... All of the 2024 Apple WWDC videos were graded using Tangent panels in Final Cut Pro controlled by CommandPost. I wonder if they did the same this year? 🤔

Oh, and one interesting side note... Intel Mac's won't be supported in macOS 27 next year.

But I didn't want to end the day on a downer, so...

People often ask me "what makes Jumper so special" and "why would I use Jumper when Premiere has Media Intelligence now built-in"?

Well, if you're a Final Cut Pro editor, you should ABSOLUTELY be using Jumper - it's a no-brainer.

But even for Avid Media Composer, DaVinci Resolve, and Adobe Premiere Pro users, Jumper is insanely useful - especially in high-end collaborative workflows.

You can even access Jumper Standalone from your Mac menubar. Remote users will be possible in the not-so-distant-future too! 🤯

It's basically "Spotlight for your NLE" - and it's SUCH a handy tool to have in your toolbox.

It hasn't changed the way I edit - I still organise Events with lots of emoji's, in the Final Cut Pro Browser, and I still do selects in the Browser's collections - for example:

However, I basically use Jumper as my "search engine" for times when a client asks "find me the shot of the old man with the red hat", etc.

When I'm doing fast-turnaround edits, unless I have two machines, I don't really have the computer power to analyse things whilst I'm editing (as Jumper makes use of every bit of CPU, GPU and RAM you throw at it!), so I generally just let Jumper analyse everything overnight once I've finished for the day, so when it comes to revisions, I can find things super quickly.

You can download a free trial and learn more about Jumper on the Jumper website.

You can read about my involvement with Jumper on this FCP Cafe news post from 6th November 2024.

To demonstrate it's power - I've just recorded a very quick and dirty screen recording.

This video is unscripted, real-time, no edits, warts and all, using beta software... so... well... enjoy!

If you have any questions, reach out on the CommandPost Discord or Jumper Discord!

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Gyroflow Toolbox v1.3.1 (Build 23) is out now! 🥳

This includes the following improvements:

• We've updated to the latest Gyroflow Core Renderer. HUGE thank you to the amazing AdrianEddy for all his ongoing help, assistance, genius and support!
• Updated from FxPlug v4.3.2 to v4.3.3.
• 175 lens profiles have been updated from the hero Gyroflow project. Thanks to EVERYONE who has submitted lens profiles and another HUGE thank you to AdrianEddy for all the work that goes into managing them.

There is still an outstanding bug/regression related to vertical videos.

Originally, vertical videos worked great in Gyroflow Toolbox, but at some point changes in Gyroflow broke something, and we haven't been able to work out what.

I think, thanks to the amazing AdrianEddy, we now have a possible solution - we'll try and solve this and get out a new bug fix ASAP.

You can learn more about Gyroflow Toolbox on the Gyroflow Toolbox website.

I'm also busily working away on my next app for the Mac App Store, SplitTake.

SplitTake is a Swift/Swift UI application for capturing your screen, webcam and external microphone to ProRes for editing in Final Cut Pro.

There's a lot of great screen recording apps out there, but a lot of them (like ScreenFlow) expect you to do all the editing WITHIN their app - I just want something that easily records the highest quality possible, then gives me everything in Final Cut Pro.

I'm still trying to get the under-the-hood stuff working well first, before tackling the user interface, but here's a sneak peak:

I'll hopefully get it up on TestFlight next week. Stay tuned!

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FxPlug v4.3.3 is out now! 🥳

FxPlug is the effects engine for Apple's Motion and Final Cut Pro.

It includes the following improvements and bug fixes:

• FxPlug SDK is now supported on machines running macOS 11.0 and above.
• Added ability for plug-ins to close a remote window.
• Added tagged pop-up menus so that plug-ins can rearrange the items or add new items between existing items without having to change their parameter handling code.
• Added compatibility with older versions of Final Cut Pro, Motion and Compressor and support for macOS 11.0 and above.
• OpenGL is deprecated. Please update your plugins to work with Metal.
• Fixed an issue that would cause dynamically registered FxPlugs to not load during a “Send To Compressor” event.
• Fixed an issue where anamorphic footage was improperly cropped during analysis.
• Fixed an issue where the FxCustomParameterAPI’s -currentTime method could return an invalid time.
• Deprecated the -[FxImageTile openGLTextureForContext:] method.

You can download FxPlug on the Apple Developer Downloads website.

We'll look into updating BRAW Toolbox and Gyroflow Toolbox ASAP.

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Transfer Toolbox v1.4.0 is out now on the Mac App Store! 🥳

This release adds support for Final Cut Pro 11.1.1 (for Mac) and Final Cut Pro 2.2.1 (for iPad).

Transfer Toolbox allows you to convert Final Cut Pro (for Mac) Libraries into Final Cut Pro (for iPad) Projects.

You can learn more on the Transfer Toolbox website.

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Wow - it's June already. That went quick.

ATEM Exporter v1.0.2 (Build 4) is out now!

This release has zero improvements or bug fixes - sorry!

However, it does have an INCREDIBLY cool new icon but the insanely AWESOME Matthew Skiles. 🥳

Matthew has made some KILLER icons for me over the years...

...but I think this one may be near the best!

You can buy and learn more about ATEM Exporter on its website.

A few days ago, I posted the following on our CommandPost Discord:

Back in 2016, I introduced FCPX Hacks into the world. It originally started off as a little proof of concept project to make finding the browser playhead easier for Scott Simmons. Once I solved that annoying problem... LOTS of other Final Cut Pro editors had other ideas and suggestions, myself included. FCPX Hacks grew and expanded. Eventually, a random Queenslander called David Peterson emailed me, and said my code was basically rubbish (he since disputes this accusation, haha) and I desperately needed help. He introduced me to GitHub, and my single Lua file, eventually become hundreds. David and I are now great friends, who catch up in person whenever we're in the same state. FCPX Hacks evolved into CommandPost.

In the last 9 years, there's been well over 244 releases of CommandPost/FCPX Hacks. It's been downloaded over 258 thousand times. It's been used for projects at Netflix, Pixar and the BBC. People at companies such as Apple, Avid and Adobe use it daily. All of the 2024 Apple WWDC videos were graded using Tangent panels in Final Cut Pro controlled by CommandPost.

CommandPost has always been free and open-source. We've had some awesome financial contributors via GitHub Sponsors and PayPal. Over the last 9 years, CommandPost has brought in AUD$26,374.12 of revenue - basically AUD$2,930.46 per year. A lot of that money has been spent on buying new control surfaces (such as the DaVinci Resolve Editors Keyboard) so that we can add and maintain support in CommandPost.

As you will have seen... I haven't been able to spend as much time on CommandPost as I used to. I now have kids to feed, mortgage to pay, a Film & Television production company with staff (that also have kids and mortgages) to keep afloat. As many have experienced, in the last couple of years, our bread and butter of corporate/advertising jobs have dramatically decreased, and budgets have shrunk. I'd LOVE to spend more time on CommandPost, but it's super hard when it doesn't bring in a lot of revenue.

So I'm proposing a change... I would like to ATTEMPT to try and bring CommandPost to the Mac App Store. I have zero idea if Apple will ever allow it - but I'd like to give it a shot.

In a perfect world, I'd like to just make it a one-off cost (i.e. lifetime/perpetual only) - but I know that times are tough, and some people actually prefer the smaller monthly/yearly costs than a more expensive one-off cost - so I'm open to your ideas and suggestions.

There's currently 471 things on the CommandPost todo list on GitHub, that I would LOVE to action. If CommandPost actually paid my wage, I could spend my time ticking off all of those items - but to do that, I need decent income from CommandPost.

CommandPost would remain open-source (although to be honest, there's only been a tiny handful of contributors to the code), so you could always build it yourself. Old versions would still work. But if you wanted to use the latest and greatest, you'd need to pay, to basically maintain the support. It's actually a LOT of work to keep up with Apple's Final Cut Pro and macOS changes - we're not on the Final Cut Pro beta program - so each time they do an update it's a mad rush to fix things. I would give free licenses to EVERYONE who was a GitHub/PayPal Sponsor prior to today.

I'm not sure about prices. I'm still not sold on a subscription option. I still have no idea if Apple will even allow it. But if we want CommandPost to keep being updated, SOMETHING needs to happen.

Anyway... here's food for thought. What do YOU think?

After posting this on Discord, and sharing the link to the post on Facebook, Twitter, etc. I've been FLOODED with DM's, messages, emails, voice mails, etc.

The feedback has been INSANELY overwhelmingly positive and excited. People seem to genuinely love CommandPost, and want to see it updated and improved.

Whilst there's lots of differing opinions and views, the GENERAL consensus seems to be that people would prefer perpetual/lifetime licenses (as opposed to subscription), and would be ok with around USD$50.

So... that's what we're going to do. Over the coming days and weeks, we'll attempt to bring CommandPost to the Mac App Store for a single fee of USD$50.

The core CommandPost Lua code will remain open-source with an MIT license. We'll continue to merge any CommandPost-App changes back into the Hammerspoon repository.

Given CommandPost v1.5.2 has over 14,312 downloads (noting that a lot of users are still running very old versions of CommandPost for a variety of reasons - I still get bug reports from users on version CommandPost v1.0.6!) - there's certainly potential that it could generate enough income to keep me fully on CommandPost for a year!

There will also be other changes/improvements/additions...

After building Jumper for Avid Media Composer, I fell in love with the Avid PanelSDK - it's so good. The documentation is great, the API is great, the team behind it are great.

Compared to DaVinci Resolve's Python/Lua API, Premiere's Extensions API, and Final Cut Pro's very basic and lacking Workflow Extensions - the Avid PanelSDK is fricken awesome.

As a result, over the coming weeks/months, I plan to release a CommandPost Panel for Avid Media Composer on the Mac App Store for USD$50. This purchase would just be for the Avid panel - you'll still need CommandPost installed - so it'll be USD$100 for Avid users.

There's almost infinite possibilities of what we can do here - so it's super exciting! Your ideas are certainly welcome!

We will also continue to "spin out" toolboxes from CommandPost and make them standalone apps.

The Sony Timecode Repair Toolbox will eventually become the Timecode Toolbox on the Mac App Store - we already have an epic icon for this:

I started building this not long after BRAW Toolbox was shipped, and I even employed someone to try and build it for me at one point, but it's never been finished. It's on the todo list!

The Titles to Keywords/AutoSequence Toolbox will eventually be "spun out" as a standalone paid called SyncScript Pro (previously referred to as Assistants Toolbox on FCP Cafe).

I'm also currently building another app called SplitTake - a simple Swift/Swift UI application for capturing your screen, webcam and external microphone to ProRes for editing in Final Cut Pro.

So, as always, there's a LOT to do, and not enough hours in the day. But hopefully the more people that eventually buy CommandPost, the more time I can spend on it.

And if enough people buy it, maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to drag David Peterson away from his "real job" so he can work on CommandPost full time!

Onwards & Upwards! xx

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If you've been in the post production community for a minute, you've most certainly come across the name Monica Daniel.

She's been featured on the BorisFX Artist Profile.

She's been on Zack Arnold's various websites and podcasts for years.

She's been Sh*tting Sparkles.

She has an insanely impressive list of IMDB credits.

Whilst I don't believe we've ever met in person, I've probably listened to hundreds of hours of her talking over the years on various podcasts.

She now needs our help.

She writes on GoFundMe:

This is very difficult for me to do. I pride myself on being self-sufficient and independent. I have been a professional editor with a successful career in film and television for 20 years. I am a single mother of two teenagers who do well in school and are loving young humans. My son is special needs, and that provides its own unique challenges as I try to be the best mother I can for them. I have given back to the post-production community through volunteering for non-profit organizations like Los Angeles Creative Pro User Group and Blue Collar Post Collective. I have moderated and been a speaker on panels, taught seminars, mentored many up-and-coming editors, and produced a filmmaking edu-tainment podcast for the filmmaking community.

When the strikes hit a couple of years ago, I had just finished working on the finale of a television show. And I have not worked since then. I needed to continue to provide for my children while I tried to find work. I have drained my savings and have managed to extend it as long as I can by accumulating extremely high credit card debt. I have had to pay thousands for water damage to my home in that time and have delayed repairs in my home because I cannot afford it. There have been medical bills and car repairs. I've gone to food banks and ran out of food stamp benefits.

I need help as I am trying to find sources of income and get back on my feet and figure out my career path. I am too young to retire and too old to be considered for many other types of jobs. Thank you for reading.

When you look at the people who have already donated, you know this is important - for example:

• Marianna Montague
• Michael Kammes
• Philip Hodgetts
• Trevor Horton
• Kes Akalaonu

These are industry heavyweights.

I know it's bloody hard to be a post production professional anywhere in the world today, but if you can spare some money and help out Monica, that would be amazing.

Thanks team! xx

You can learn more on her GoFundMe post.

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ATEM Exporter v1.0.1 is out now on the Mac App Store! 🥳

ATEM Exporter is a native Swift + Swift UI Mac Application that listens to a Blackmagic ATEM switcher, and logs all the camera changes.

Click here to buy on the Mac App Store

You can export the camera changes as a Final Cut Pro FCPXML, to use in Final Cut Pro or Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve.

You can export a Program Cut, which allows you to use your program feed from an external recorder (such as a Blackmagic HyperDeck), and add cut points each time there's a camera change.

You can also export a Multicam, which allows you to use your program feed as well as any ISO (i.e. independent camera) recordings, and export a Multicam clip for Final Cut Pro or DaVinci Resolve.

ATEM Exporter was built in a few hours during a live event, and has only currently been tested in a real-world live production using an Blackmagic ATEM Constellation 8K, Blackmagic HyperDeck's and AJA recorders for ISOs - so we welcome any user feedback for other ATEM's!

We're currently just using a placeholder icon (from Timecode Toolbox) whilst a new one is being designed - stay tuned!

You can learn more on the ATEM Exporter website.

evrExpanse 5.6.3 & 5.6.4 Bring Accurate Camera Capture Time to FCP Workflows

The latest updates to evrExpanse, versions 5.6.3 and 5.6.4, deliver a major improvement for editors who rely on accurate timestamp metadata — especially when working in Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, and other NLEs or metadata tools.

📸 Camera-Embedded CreateDate Support

CreateDate is the actual moment the camera records each clip — embedded directly in the file’s metadata. Until now, many workflows relied on the filesystem creation date, which can become inaccurate after file transfers or cloud uploads/downloads.

With evrExpanse 5.6.3, this camera-authored CreateDate is now embedded in DaVinci Resolve metadata export, joining the existing support for Final Cut Pro and other supported NLEs. The “Content Created” field in metadata now reflects the true capture time, enabling better organization, filtering, and Smart Collection creation — even after transfers or rewraps.

🕞 Accurate Timestamps in Transcoded Files

Version 5.6.4 takes it even further. When the “Include Source Metadata” option is enabled, evrExpanse sets the transcoded file’s creation date to match the original CreateDate from the camera — not the OS-generated date.

The result? When transcoded media is imported into Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, or other NLEs, the “Content Created” field shown in the browser reflects the true capture time — not a timestamp corrupted by transfer or OS-level changes.

✅ Key Benefits

• True Content Created timestamps preserved in transcoded files
• Improved accuracy for Smart Collections and media organization workflows
• Full compatibility with FCP, DaVinci Resolve, and metadata tools like FoolCat
• Smart fallback to filesystem creation date when metadata is unavailable

These updates are available now in evrExpanse 5.6.4. 👉 Learn more at evrapp.cloud

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The amazing Joe Marler reports on our Discord:

The v11.1.1 fix involving "MXF media to plays back incorrectly" (only XAVC-L) had been filed as issue 449 in the FCP Cafe bug database

There was also an unannounced fix in Pro Video Formats v2.4.1 the day after the Final Cut Pro v11.1.1 release.

That Pro Video Formats v2.4.1 fix addressed sluggish Quicktime XAVC-L playback on Apple Silicon.

I tested the Final Cut Pro v11.1.1 fix on bug #449 before installing Pro Video Formats v2.4.1, and it none-the-less fixed the specific XAVC-L bug involving black frames when using the Final Cut Pro Import dialog on Apple Silicon.
However the QTP bug was suspicious. It might have been in /Library/Video/Professional Video Workflow\Plug-Ins/AppleAVCLGCodec.bundle or in /Library/Video/Professional Video Workflow Plug-Ins/AppleMXFImport.bundle, but I did binary diffs on those and diffs of the decompiled pseudocode and I don't see where it was.

The Final Cut Pro v11.1.1 fix was possibly in the Flexo private framework, maybe in MXF::FileReader.

This is what I absolutely LOVE about the Final Cut Pro community - we have such insanely smart people just openly sharing very technical information. Awesome.

Thanks Joe for all your on-going help, support and genius in both the wider post production community, and ESPECIALLY here at FCP Cafe in the GitHub Issues!

The Pro Video Formats v2.4.1 update was released on 23rd May 2025, so if you haven't already updated, please do via System Settings or downloading manually on the Apple website.

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Final Cut Pro v11.1.1 is out now with the following bug fixes:

• Addresses an issue that could cause MXF media to play back incorrectly.
• Improves reliability when adding video to drop zones in the inspector.
• Fixes an issue when sharing with the “Allow export segmentation” setting that caused inconsistent frame rates.

Compressor v4.10.1 is out now with the following bug fixes:

• Improves reliability when exporting ProRes 422 clips in MXF format.
• Fixes an issue when sharing with the "Allow export segmentation" setting that caused inconsistent frame rates.

There has been no changes to Motion, FxPlug, or Workflow Extensions... yet.

For those that might have missed it Final Cut Pro for iPad v2.2.1 was realised on 8th May with the following bug fix:

• Fixes an issue that caused user-installed fonts to not appear.

We'll test out, and keep you posted on our findings. Thanks team!

evrExpanse v5.6.3 is out now!

New Features: Expanded Metadata Field Coverage

Metadata is now more consistent across all export types, improving cross-platform workflows and post-production integration.

Newly added fields by export type:

• DaVinci Resolve (.CSV): Date Recorded

• Final Cut Pro (.FCPXML): Focus Distance

• evrExpanse (.CSV): Reel Number, Scene, Take, Camera Number, Focus Distance

• Silverstack (.CSV): Camera Letter, Reel Number, Scene, Clip Number, Take

• ASSIMILATE SCRATCH Integration (.XML): Clip Number, Reel Number, Scene, Take, Camera Number, Focus Distance

• Avid Media Composer (.ALE): Clip Number, Reel Number, Scene, Take, Camera Number, Finder Tags, Finder Flag, Focus Distance

📊 For full field comparison, see the updated metadata coverage chart.

You can download and learn more on the evrExpanse website

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Gyroflow Toolbox v1.3.0 (Build 22) is out now!

This release includes the following improvements:

• We've updated to the latest Gyroflow Core Renderer. HUGE thank you to the amazing AdrianEddy for all his ongoing help, assistance, genius and support!
• We've improved how we render error messages in Gyroflow Toolbox. HUGE thank you to Darrin Cardani at Apple and Gabriele de Simone at FxFactory for all your ongoing help, assistance, genius and support (and for putting up with my crazy questions)!
• Updated from FxPlug v4.3 to v4.3.2.

You can learn more and download Gyroflow Toolbox on the Gyroflow Toolbox website.

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Pro Editor Bundle v3 is out now!

Now you can buy all of our apps directly on the Mac App Store! 🥳

The Pro Editor Bundle v3 is USD$500 and includes:

• BRAW Toolbox
• Capacitor
• Fast Collections
• Gyroflow Toolbox
• LUT Robot
• Marker Toolbox
• Metaburner
• News Import
• Recall Toolbox

The Mac App Store also supports Complete My Bundle - which credits customers for apps they’ve already purchased within a bundle. You only pay the balance for the remaining apps.

You can find the Pro Editor Bundle v3 on the Mac App Store here.

Alternatively, if you don't need LUT Robot or Capacitor, you can buy the original Pro Editor Bundle on the Mac App Store here, or if you don't need Metaburner, you can find Pro Editor Bundle v2 on the Mac App Store here.

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Metaburner is now available on the Mac App Store at a discount rate (for a limited time)! 🥳

Previously it was only available on FxFactory - however, there were a few users (cough, Vigneswaran Rajkumar), that really wanted it on the Mac App Store too, so we've finally put it there too!

The versions should be mostly identical (although the Mac App Store version is sandboxed) - and we'll try keep them in-sync.

You can buy it today for USD$79.99 (previously USD$149 on FxFactory).

Metaburner is an Advanced Metadata Generator for Final Cut Pro.

You can access it via a Title in the Titles sidebar.

Metaburner gives you 25 text layers that you can populate with whatever metadata you want.

You can even stack multiple Metaburner Titles on top of each other for unlimited metadata fields!

To begin, simply drag your Final Cut Pro Project from the Browser into the Metaburner Title Inspector via a drop zone, and then Metaburner has full access to everything that's in the FCPXML.

There's also a Lua scripting environment built-in, so you can even "code" your own text for unlimited possibilities.

You can even share Lua variables between multiple Metaburner titles for some crazy cool workflows!

You can learn more on the Metaburner website and buy on the Mac App Store.

The charming Shamir Allibhai from Eddie AI has released an awesome little blog post.

He explains:

I remember April 2011. It was when Apple launched Final Cut Pro X and ended FCP 7. FCP X’s magnetic timeline looked amazing but too much of radical departure for me back then. It was too hard to use after having learned and depended on FCP 7. I migrated to Adobe Premiere.

The launch didn’t just divide the editing world — it shattered it.
Editors walked out. Forums caught fire. Careers shifted overnight.

But what if we got the story wrong?

What if that launch wasn’t a failure… but a fault line?
One that quietly reshaped the next decade of content creation?

We wrote about this pivotal moment in our latest long form article...

The Final Cut That Wasn’t — A deep dive into the launch that broke the industry before building it again. For editors, creators, and anyone who loves a good comeback story.

You can read it on the Eddie AI blog.

You can also step back in time, and read my ORIGINAL FCPX thoughts from 2014 on the FCP Cafe Blog.

Enjoy!

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Thanks to everyone who visited Max & Ronny at the OWC booth at MPTS to check out Jumper for Final Cut Pro!

There was lots of excitement - especially seeing that Jumper analysis files created in Final Cut Pro, can be used in Avid Media Composer, DaVinci Resolve, Adobe Premiere Pro and Jumper Standalone - on Mac and PC!

You can read more about Jumper on our original FCP Cafe article.

Marker Toolbox v1.5.1 (Build 22) is out now!

It includes the following improvements:

• Add supported for Vimeo's new CSV format. Thanks for reporting Matt!
• Updated TimecodeKit from v2.0.11 to v2.3.3. Thanks Steffan Andrews!

Marker Toolbox allows you to import a Adobe Premiere CSV, Vimeo CSV, Wipster CSV, Dropbox Replay JSON, Frame.io FIOJSON (including from the V4 Beta), Timecode+ TSV & Text Comments into Apple's Final Cut Pro, Blackmagic's DaVinci Resolve and Avid Media Composer.

You can even get OpenAI's ChatGPT to help interpret your Text Comments - which is perfect for handling emails from clients!

You can download and learn more on the Marker Toolbox website.

Eddie AI is now available in Final Cut Pro! 🥳

Shamir Allibhai writes:

Imagine if you could just "prompt" your clips in Final Cut Pro to create a great story.
Scratch that. You don’t need to imagine: "ChatGPT" capabilities have arrived for FCP.

And the big week for Eddie AI just got even bigger.
(🎥 Launch video part 3, below...watch to the end 😉)

First Premiere Pro.
Then DaVinci Resolve.
And now... Final Cut Pro. 🍎✂️

Eddie — the AI assistant video editor for pros — is now integrated with all three major video editing applications. That means wherever you cut, whatever your workflow, Eddie and its advanced AI models are there to make you more efficient.

And quite frankly, to liberate you.

📥 Import footage (multicam, sync, compound, and all)
🧠 Find the story
🗂️ Log b-rolls
✂️ Cut roughs
✨ Export projects/timelines, ready to polish

⏳ Hours, if not days → now minutes ⚡

Try Eddie for free — 2 full projects/month, no credit card required

You can learn more on the Eddie AI website.

You can also read about this new integration on RedShark News.

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Introducing Off-topic Rants! 🥳

Over the years, I've written hundreds of blog posts on various personal and LateNite websites, as have some of my friends, collaborators and co-workers at LateNite.

When we re-designed the LateNite website a few years ago, we simplified it, and removed links to the very old blog - the pages were still online, but kinda hidden, only to be found if you Googled them.

However, rather than letting all that content die, I've decided to keep it alive here on FCP Cafe in the *Off-topic Rants section.

Yes, I'm a digital hoarder. We have 267 hard drives in NeoFinder and 353 LTO tapes. 🫠

I also created Unreal Cafe and Resolve Cafe very shortly after setting up FCP Cafe, but they never really took off, so I've moved my Unreal Cafe blog posts here, and have taken down both these sites, so I can just concentrate on Final Cut Pro. 👋

So basically... Off-topic Rants is a random collection of blog posts that contain technical information, creative information, film reviews (apologies if I wrote something bad about your film!), and who knows what else.

Some interesting posts from over the years include:

• Philosophy of Open Source (13th September 2006)
• Post Production Workflow (23rd December 2008)
• Final Cut Studio 3 Predictions (21st February 2009)
• Avid vs FCP – My thoughts… (10th May 2009)
• Mac Hardware Predictions – Death to the Mouse (22nd June 2009)
• Assistant Editor Lecture (30th October 2010)
• Waiting on Sound (16th September 2012)
• The Hard Drive Challenge (12th December 2013)
• FCPX Rant (28th January 2014)
• Directing The Wizards of Aus (20th December 2015)
• Superannuation for Filmmakers (6th June 2018)

Some of the old blogs have formatting issues, broken links, and missing content, so feel free to submit a pull request if you come across anything, or just let me know on the Discord or GitHub.

Also the main Off-topic Rants page currently doesn't list everything, so you can only find a lot of the old blogs by searching, or stepping through the blog posts page-by-page (which will take a while, as there's currently 349 posts!).

If nothing else... all these decades of old blog posts will probably explain why I'm so crazy... 🤷

Enjoy!

Jumper for Final Cut Pro has been on display at MPTS show at Olympia Grand Hall in London today, and will be back again tomorrow! 🥳

The amazing Ronny Courtens from OWC (Head of Enterprise solutions - Jellyfish/Jupiter/LTO) and Max Lund from Witchcraft Software (the lead developer of Jumper) will be on the stand demoing Jumper, running large shared media volumes and on-premises machine learning datasets off a Jellyfish NAS.

Ronny is giving live demos of their latest high-performance Jellyfish NAS systems, their powerful new Jellyfish Manager v3.0, and the very first release of their brand-new Jellyfish Media Management software.

The Jellyfish systems is connected to super-fast OWC Thunderbolt 5 hubs, docks, and drives, to demo high-speed edit-while-ingest collaboration workflows.

If you want to see the fastest and most user-friendly storage solutions for creative teams, and the latest developments in on-premises machine learning, go and visit MPTS on the ccktech booth, Stand B42.

The event runs:

Thursday 15th May - 09:30 - 17:00

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New Case Study!

Dev Benegal has written an awesome new case study covering his film An Arrested Moment.

You can read all about it on FCP Cafe.

Thanks heaps Dev for sharing with the Final Cut Pro Community! 🥳

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Marker Data v1.2.0 is out now!

In includes the following improvement:

• Introducing Pagemaker – a new feature that allows users to create PDFs directly within Marker Data
• Swatch analysis now provides percentage progress, including completion status for each processed image (#122)
• Updated Notion Module CSV2Notion Neo to version 1.3.5
• Increased Notion Module's upload threads

You can learn more and download on the Marker Data website.

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Jumper for Final Cut Pro will be on display at MPTS show at Olympia Grand Hall in London next week thanks to OWC! 🥳

The amazing Ronny Courtens from OWC (Head of Enterprise solutions - Jellyfish/Jupiter/LTO) and Max Lund from Witchcraft Software (the lead developer of Jumper) will be on the stand demoing Jumper, running large shared media volumes and on-premises machine learning datasets off a Jellyfish NAS.

Ronny will give live demos of their latest high-performance Jellyfish NAS systems, their powerful new Jellyfish Manager v3.0, and the very first release of their brand-new Jellyfish Media Management software.

The Jellyfish systems will be connected to super-fast OWC Thunderbolt 5 hubs, docks, and drives, to demo high-speed edit-while-ingest collaboration workflows.

If you want to see the fastest and most user-friendly storage solutions for creative teams, and the latest developments in on-premises machine learning, come and visit MPTS on the ccktech booth, Stand B42.

The event runs:

Wednesday 14th May - 09:30 - 18:30
Thursday 15th May - 09:30 - 17:00

Caption Pop AI v1.1.5 is out now!

It now includes background text boxes, improved color pickers, new languages, and a DTD bug fix.

The auto-update’s broken, so to install:

• Quit FCP & SR app
• Delete the SR app
• Download and install new version
• Restart FCP and then relaunch Caption Pop AI

After updating, both the SR app and Caption Pop AI should have 1.1.5 version numbers.

You can learn more on the Stupid Raisins website.

evrExpanse v5.6.2 is out now!

This update is packed with powerful new features and enhancements for Canon users, making it easier than ever to unlock the full potential of your EOS Cinema camera metadata — especially for those working with legacy equipment.

New Features:

• Canon XF Utility Integration: Seamlessly integrate with Canon XF Utility for a more efficient metadata workflow with Canon XF-AVC MXF media.

Enhancements:

• Expanded Metadata Support: Direct extraction of Camera Index, Reel Number, and Clip Number from Canon EOS Cinema MXF files, providing deeper insights into your footage.

FIXED:

• Improved Color Space Detection: Resolved color space extraction issues for Canon C200 (XF-AVC) files.

Read the Full Release Notes

You can download and learn more on the evrExpanse website

72-Hour Flash Sale – 50% OFF evrExpanse! Claim Your Discount

EDL-X v2.14 is out now!

In includes the following improvement:

• New Choice for Clip Names: Top-Level Clip Names - Forced - grabs the first name found while drilling down in the timeline

You can download on the Mac App Store.

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