The last few WWDC's have been pretty well packed with new hardware and software. Apple's 2022 World Wide Developers Conference continued the innovation.
Today's WWDC was long at nearly two hours, the first hour concentrated on the new iOS and its features. When that was done we got on to the new Macs and the new macOS Ventura.
- New M2 chip announced
- New MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro with M2 chip
- New macOS Ventura announced
Also good to see Final Cut Pro mentioned and featured on screen more than once during the presentation.
When the first set of M1 chips were announced, there was a lot of speculation about how large the performance increase would be with the next generation. Nobody took into account the Max or the UltraFusion iterations, which gave us the easy way to predict doubling of power.
But the M2 announced today is significant, because with it comes the first set of Apple performance figures we have from second-generation M silicon.
'Second-generation 5-nanometer technology, M2 takes the industry-leading performance per watt of M1 even further with an 18 percent faster CPU, a 35 percent more powerful GPU, and a 40 percent faster Neural Engine.It also delivers 50 percent more memory bandwidth compared to M1, and up to 24GB of fast unified memory.'
Now, if you have a calculator ready then you can make some good predictions of what is possibly coming in the future with a possible M2 Max and M2 Ultra.
But back to today and that new chip is in two new Apple laptops, the all-new MacBook Air and the updated 13 inch MacBook Pro.
MacBook Air
The new MacBook Air has a new 11.3mm thin aluminium case, two Thunderbolt ports and a returning MagSafe! The 13.6 inch Liquid Retina screen is 500 nits which is 25 percent brighter than the previous model.
You also get a 1080p FaceTime camera, four speaker sound system and a three-mic array. It also supports immersive Spatial Audio for music and movies with Dolby Atmos.
But what is it like for editing and image processing? Well, thankfully Apple has provided some benchmark figures.
'For intensive workloads like editing complex timelines in Final Cut Pro, performance is nearly 40 percent faster than the previous generation, and up to 15x faster for customers that haven’t upgraded to Apple silicon.
Applying filters and effects in apps like Adobe Photoshop is up to 20 percent faster than before, and up to 5x faster for customers that haven’t yet upgraded to Apple silicon.'
Pretty impressive for a machine that previously was mainly for email and surfing the web! Also for those curious about possible new versions of FCP appearing in the small text, no luck this time, it was 10.6.2 that was used.
MacBook Air with M2 starts at $1,199 and $1,099 for education. They will be in stores next month.
13-inch MacBook Pro with M2
We are all familiar with the 13 inch Apple Silicon powered MacBook Pro and this update to incorporate the M2 chip is a logical step, seeing as it was one of the first machines to move over to Apple Silicon.
The form factor is the same, but the new chip allows 24GB of fast unified memory, up from the previous 16GB.
Again, Apple has published Final Cut Pro benchmarks
'With support for ProRes encode and decode in the media engine of M2, users can play back up to 11 streams of 4K and up to two streams of 8K ProRes video. And they can convert their video projects to ProRes nearly 3x faster than before.'
The previous M1 version could play 'multiple streams' of 4K and a single stream of 8K in DaVinci Resolve. So the combined information from both the Air and this model makes us think that the M2 has a 40-50% increase in performance whilst using Final Cut Pro. No doubt there will be many YouTubers publishing comparison tests the day the machines are available.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro with M2 starts at $1,299 and $1,199 for education. Again the new models will be in stores next month.
Reference Color
Touched on briefly in a sneak peak of iPad iOS 16 was Reference Color. This puts the XDR iPad screen into reference mode which allows the correct display of colours. If you use an iPad Pro as a second display using Sidecar, then this is going to prove to be very useful and should give an accurate output for grading. (Resolve shown as a still image in the presentation!)
macOS Ventura
Possibly worth a separate article in itself, this is the new version of macOS. (13 if you are counting.) However we are going to touch on two new features that we think are relevant for editors and creative professionals.
The first is Stage Manager that groups open apps and shrinks them down into a smaller angled sized group on the left-hand side of the screen. In the WWDC presentation, we saw Craig Federighi add some titles to FCP by shrinking it back, then dragging the titles from the desktop direct to the timeline. As one who has to add lot of files from different sources to FCP, this looks like a real time saver.
Secondly, we must highlight the ability to use an iPhone as a camera in FaceTime. Not for the quality increase, but the fact that it gives you a desk shot using the wide-angle lens. We can see this being of use when teaching remotely. Very clever indeed.
A chock-full WWDC. Well worth two hours of your time to watch back and take it all in.
I am the Editor-in-Chief of FCP.co and have run the website since its inception ten years ago.
I have also worked as a broadcast and corporate editor for over 30 years, starting on one inch tape, working through many formats, right up to today's NLEs.
Under the name Idustrial Revolution, I have written and sold plugins for Final Cut Pro for 13 years.
I was made a Freeman of Lichfield through The Worshipful Company of Smiths (established 1601). Though I haven't yet tried to herd a flock of sheep through the city centre!
Current Editing
2020 has been busy, the beginning of the year was finishing off a new property series (cut on FCP) for Channel 4 called The Great House Giveaway. I also designed and built the majority of the graphics as Motion templates. It has been a great success and the shows grabbed more viewers in the 4pm weekday slot than any previous strand. It has been recommissioned by C4 for 60 episodes, including prime-time versions and five themed programmes. The shows have also been nominated for a 2021 BAFTA.
Although both were postponed to later in the year, I worked again on ITV's coverage of the Tour de France and La Vuelta. 2020 was my 25th year of editing the TdF and my 20th year as lead editor. The Tour was the first broadcast show to adopt FCPX working for multiple editors on shared storage.
BBC's Snooker has played a big part in my life, I've been editing tournament coverage since 1997. I'm proud to be part of a very creative team that has pioneered many new ideas and workflows that are now industry standard in sports' production. This is currently an Adobe Premiere edit.
Covid cancelled some of the regular corporate events that I edit such as trade shows & events. I was lucky however to edit, from home, on projects for Amazon Kindle, Amazon Black Friday, Mastercard and very proud to have helped local charitable trust Kendall & Wall secure lottery funding.
As for software, my weapon of choice is Final Cut Pro and Motion, but I also have a good knowledge and broadcast credits with Adobe Premiere Pro, MOGRT design and Photoshop.
Plugin Design & Development
I'm the creative force behind Idustrial Revolution, one of the oldest Final Cut Pro plugin developers. It hosts a range of commercial and free plugins on the site. One free plugin was downloaded over a thousand times within 24 hours of release.
I also take on custom work, whether it is adapting an existing plugin for a special use or designing new plugins for clients from scratch. Having a good knowledge of editing allows me to build-in flexibility and more importantly, usability.
FCP.co
Now in its 10th year and 4th redesign, running FCP.co has given me knowledge on how to run a large CMS- you are currently reading my bio from the database! Although it sounds corny, I am pretty well up on social media trends & techniques, especially in the video sector. The recent Covid restrictions has enabled live FCP.co shows online. This involves managing a Zoom Webinar through Restream.io to YouTube and Facebook.
The Future
I'm always open to new ideas and opportunities, so please get in touch at editor (at) fcp.co. I've judged film competitions, presented workflow techniques to international audiences and come up with ideas for TV shows and software programs!
