November 24, 2025

Last week's webinar - Essential Editing Workflow for Apple Final Cut Pro - is proving very popular. If you are thinking about getting it, you can save 25% by using coupon code: Save_25. This coupon expires the end of November.

This webinar covers everything you need to know about the basic operation of Final Cut - all in one hour.

I have three highlights from last week's webinar.

The first looks at how to optimize FCP preference settings. I also explain what the import settings in the Media Import window do. These confuse many editors and can make major difference in how easily you work with the media you import into your project.

This next excerpt looks at a little-known feature in Final Cut: Auditions. Auditions make it easy to compare multiple audio or video clips to see which works best for your project. 

In this video, I illustrate how to create, preview, select and finalize Auditions in Final Cut.

In this final excerpt, I illustrate several audio techniques, including how to use Final Cut to display audio meters and how to read them, where to set audio levels, and how to adjust the volume settings for multiple clips at the same time.

Creating a compelling video is not easy. But, it is a whole lot easier today than in year's past. It is very easy to overlook just how much M-series Macs have simplified hardware configuration and video editing.

• Five years ago, CPUs and GPUs were sold separately, in a wide variety of configurations. We constantly debated what was the "best" GPU for video, and whether we could afford it.
• Ten years ago, we needed a high-end CPU and GPU system with LOTS of RAM to edit 4K video. SSDs were so expensive that we used 4, 5, and 8-drive HDD RAIDs just to get storage with the speed and capacity for 4K.
• Fifteen years ago, shooting and editing 1080p video was the limit of what our storage could handle for an "affordable" price. I still remember the excitement of getting 80 MB/second from a FireWire 800 drive! Rendering, though, still took forever.
• Twenty years ago, our systems could barely edit SD video in real-time, and even a simple dissolve could take over a minute to render. There was no such thing as real-time playback of unrendered media. When it came time to render an hour-long project, it was best to let it render overnight.
• Twenty-five years ago, we needed custom-built hardware and inscrutable software just to edit video at all. The most popular frame size was 320 x 240 pixels. The big debate then was whether the "Digital Video Revolution" was just a flash in the pan because image quality, image size and frame rates more closely resembled cartoons with images that redefined "grainy."

Today, high-quality, 4K video is commonplace. But it took a lot of effort from a lot of people over a long period of time to make it happen. Telling a good story may be eternal, but the tools we use to tell it continue to evolve at breath-taking speed.

It is easy to forget that something we take for granted today was impossible as recently as 25 years ago.

Until next Monday, stay healthy, stay hopeful and edit well.

TUTORIALS & REVIEWS

» Optimize Preference Settings in Final Cut Pro (Tutorial)

  » Final Cut offers lots of choices - these are the best ones.

» Compare Timeline Clips Using Auditions in Final Cut Pro 11 (Tutorial)

  » Auditions make comparing clips and picking the best one easy.

» 3 Cool Audio Tricks Using Apple Final Cut Pro 11 (Tutorial)

  » Three tips to speed your audio editing.