Studio Monthly by Scott Simmons

The Radically Redesigned NLE Indeed Changes Everything, for Better or Worse

This review is an attempt to assess Final Cut Pro X, what may now be the most written about nonlinear editing tool in the history of nonlinear editing tools. To some, this review may feel unfinished. In that respect it is very much like Final Cut Pro X itself. Writing a review of a piece of software that is clearly designed to do so much could go on forever. But I can't touch on everything here. Forgive me if I skip over certain features entirely (like FCPX’s color correct, actually a very nice feature with auto-correction, primaries and secondaries).

iMovie on Steroids? Maybe
After using FCPX for a few weeks I still believe what many initially thought upon first seeing FCPX back in April: This is just the first version of a new application and in this form is essentially iMovie on steroids. There are just too many things that Final Cut Pro 7 users will be missing when they really dig into FCPX. It's not that we won't be able to make cool effects and pretty video, it's just that we'll do it in a much different way without some tools that we now take for granted. Word from people who are smarter than I am say that FCPX isn't built off of current iMovie code. I still find that hard to believe, as the similarities are striking. If they aren't based on the same code then Apple made a very conscious, very clear and very targeted decision to copy an awful lot of what's in iMovie now. Some of it is actually for the better but a lot of it is for the worse.

Click here to read the full review at studiomonthly.com