Apple updated Final Cut Pro X to v10.0.3, adding multicam editing, advanced chroma keying, broadcast monitoring, support for XML 1.1, and more. Current owners of Final Cut Pro X can get the update for free from the Mac App Store. For those interested in giving it a try before you buy, there’s a 30-day free trial available.

Apple has just released the updated version of its popular video editing software—Final Cut Pro X—which according to Apple reinvents video editing via the new Magnetic Timeline feature, Content Auto-Analysis, and background rendering. Available now from the Mac App Store for $299.99, Final Cut Pro X is being dubbed as a modern and fast way of helping you become a creative story teller through your videos.

Other than one large flaw, Phyx Keyer is a useful suite of tools. Perhaps more importantly, it’s dead easy to use. It doesn’t make creating a chroma key into a one-click operation, but it makes the process simple. You’re still going to spend a lot of time tweaking settings, but if you’re ready to start working with keys, that’s the nature of the business.

It’s an open secret that the title generator included with Final Cut Pro can be a little… quirky. Thankfully, I’ve discovered that the plug-in wizards at FxFactory had come up with their own (free) solution: a title generator called Manifesto. Manifesto is simple, sweet, and works like a charm, and it comes with two title generators.

Kevin Murphy is a writer, comedian, and musician perhaps best known for his skill in making fun of movies as part of Rifftrax and voicing Tom Servo on Mystery Science Theater 3000. I first interviewed him about his love of film and the future of digital video in 2003, which to give you some perspective, was before YouTube existed. Catching up with Mr. Murphy as he prepares for a Rifftrax Live! show on October 28th and co-hosting a w00tstock concert on Halloween, we had a chance to further our discussion on the state of the digital arts.

Pluraleyes is a bit of software that does one thing. One extremely useful thing. It syncs digital video taken from multiple cameras. I wish I’d had this software a month ago, because it would have saved me hours of work and frustration. If you are shooting multi-camera video in a situation where you can’t link them via computer, and if timecoding is impractical, Pluraleyes is a beautiful, simple, and fast piece of software.

Nodes is a piece of software that makes data points into beautiful bits of video, that are really dazzling. If you’re working on an industrial or other business film where you need to clobber someone with text in a stunning manner—but not something they particularly need to be able to recite afterwards—then Nodes is a dead useful way to create a variety of visually compelling short sequences.

In terms of playing with color, Luca Light Kit is the big box of crayons. The really big box. Taped together with a magic marker set. An effects set for Final Cut (Pro and Express), Motion, and After Effects, Light Kit lets you add, adjust and play with an amazing variety of colors and moods, improving and altering footage. At the most basic level, LK lets you add light to digital footage, letting you fix problems you didn’t see or couldn’t adjust in the field.

Editing is “the invisible art” because the better it is, the less the audience notices it. But there are times when maybe you want to add a lot of energy to a transition, or call attention to an edit for dramatic or comedic reasons. Or maybe you’re trying to recreate a music video from the 80s. Boinx FxTiles are a set of splashy transitions and video filters that give you just that.

With all the product announcements (including Apple’s yawner of a Keynote) and the noise and color of the convention floor, it’s easy to forget that MacWorld Expo is also a conference, a place for people to come and learn about the programs that make the Mac a creative tool for so many people. From multi-day more »