Part of a series of blog post on the “Best of 2018”

Part 1: the iMac Pro and FCPX

The year started off with the new iMac Pro and Final Cut Pro X 10.4. Both new hardware and software were released in December 2017. New awesome hardware and software to start of 2018.

FCPX and the iMac Pro have proven themselves to be a great combination that has been amazing for FCPX editors everywhere. The new colour grading tools and other enhancements were warmly received in FCP X 10.4. The power of the iMac Pros was not exaggerated. Excellent pro hardware.

FCPX works great on a MacBook Pro and internal storage, with Apple’s Xsan and fibre channel or with Lumaforge Jellyfish 10GbE over NFS. I worked with all different setups in 2018 and happy to report that editors kept editing and left the storage and backup worries to me (and I didn’t worry since I’ve got Archiware P5 watching my back).

Working with the Jellyfish I installed the P5 Linux agent to backup and archive to tape. Getting the Jellyfish to back up to my P5 server running on a Mac Mini couldn’t have been easier. Through the year I worked with Archiware to make improvements in the P5 Archive app so that my editor clients can archive and restore more easily on their own. Works well and look forward to working more closely with both companies to help make awesome setups for FCPX editors and creative professionals everywhere.

NAB and FCPX

The week before NAB 2018, Apple announced a new version of Final Cut Pro X with support for closed captions, and the brand new ProRes RAW codec.

NAB in April is always a busy month with announcements from all companies in the media production and media asset management world and Apple’s public talk at NAB showing off new features so soon after their last major release was unexpected but very warmly received.

Of course there was one more major event in the 2018, in November there was the FCPX Creative Summit.

I attended this year and it was awesome. Apple released a brand new version with 3rd party integration in the form of extensions. This is huge. This will be amazing for FCPX editors who want to stay in FCPX and do their editing work but integrate with other apps.

What was the FCPX creative summit?

⁃ rendez-vous in Cupertino with Final Cut Pro editors, studio owners, plugin authors, creative apps vendors

⁃ Visit to Apple HQ. With Apple Pro Apps engineers, QA, managers and everyone involved.

⁃ In depth discussion of the next version of FCPX extensions which allow third party integration deep into the app for example: Frame IO for review and approve or Keyflow Pro or Cat DV media asset management apps.

⁃ Great team of people organizing. This event had multiple tracks and lots of great sessions for everyone. Well done. Enjoyed it immensely. Everyone using Final Cut Pro or involved in this creative universe should be there.

2018 was great year for pro hardware and software. The iMac Pro and the constant stream of FCPX updates kept us grinning from ear to ear. Great stuff. Awesome year.

Next up: best conferences of 2018