Apple Updates Final Cut Pro to 10.5.1 and Compressor to 4.5.1

Written by Peter Wiggins Published: 14 December 2020

Category: FCP News

Evergreen BlogReading time: 01:02

We thought it wouldn't take long before updates were released to the Apple Silicon compatible Pro Apps. Final Cut Pro and Compressor get an extra feature and stability improvements. Big Sur and iMovie get some love too. We also have a new Apple Wsupport article on sharing.

It hasn't taken long for an update since the big 10.5 unveiling in November that wowed us all when the M1 chip was released. Only one new feature and as you can see from below, it's outputting a file for YouTube & Facebook. There is NOT an update for Motion.

With the usual caveat of make sure you have everything backed up, the updates are on the App Store now!

Final Cut Pro 10.5.1

Adds a share option for YouTube & Facebook to create a file for uploading to those sites
includes stability improvements

Compressor 4.5.1

Adds a share option for YouTube & Facebook to create a file for uploading to those sites
includes stability improvements

iMovie 10.2.2

Adds a share option for YouTube & Facebook to create a file for uploading to those sites
includes stability improvements

Also the macOS Big Sur gets an update to 11.1

Read Apple's new support article Share to YouTube, Facebook, or Vimeo from Apple video apps.

Written by Peter Wiggins

Top BloggerThought Leader

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

great house giveaway 2020

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.

Tour de france 2020
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 snooker the crucible

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.

amazon kindle BF

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!

Posts in discussion: Apple Updates Final Cut Pro to 10.5.1 and Compressor to 4.5.1

JoeEditor replied the topic: #111487 14 Dec 2020 20:09

We had FB and YT presets already. Seems 10.5 kept the two separate, and then 10.5.1 combined them. Now, it just writes a file to your drive, it doesn't upload them for you, thank goodness.

JKL44 replied the topic: #111491 14 Dec 2020 21:42

Oh no! They make it worse! I use that upload function to Youtube everyday! Apple why?? Normally I back up FCPX, this time I didn't!

JoeEditor replied the topic: #111497 15 Dec 2020 01:46

It always crapped out when I used it. Lots of my students had bad experiences with it. I've run some tests and this new one is much faster, does a much better job, and it's one preset, not two separate ones.

davíð alexander.corno replied the topic: #111499 15 Dec 2020 04:33

This is kind of crazy. They have basically removed the previous function – this is now just a simple (and simplified) H.264 exporting preset, that has no real connection to either Facebook or Youtube. It is quite baffling really, especially rolling out an update with nothing but this downgrade – my suspicion is that they want to distance themselves from google and facebook, for some legal or corporate-political reason? Now Youtube/Facebook logos are not in FCP and FCP does not have "direct" contact with their servers...

Luckily I mostly upload to Vimeo, which has an app/plug-in that appears in FCP.

Larrie replied the topic: #111500 15 Dec 2020 05:05

Part of the reason for the change is that Facebook no longer allows direct uploads to their system. I could never get it to work either. Exporting a master file and then upload with FireFox has been pretty bulletproof for me.

martin.schneider-lau replied the topic: #111511 15 Dec 2020 16:25

Thanks! Very interesting!

gloidl replied the topic: #111513 15 Dec 2020 19:58

This sucks big time! The direct upload from within the program is part of my daily workflow - I do not need a simple mp4 export preset instead and do additional steps outside the program and a browser instead. They took away a very important feature and replaced it with a simple export preset and call it a new feature for an update... Luckily I backed up my copy of 10.5.0... You suck big time Apple! Who is the idiot who decided to do away with this feature?

Stooovie replied the topic: #111515 15 Dec 2020 22:11

Removing direct Youtube upload is YET ANOTHER thing that further complicates working with FCPX. What was an one-step process that worked 100% of the time and didn't require me to wait for the export to finish is now a multi-step journey of wasted time.

This and the case of missing render files might actually be what pushes me over the edge. It's just becoming less and less a tool that saves work. The issues and annoyances keep piling up. I love editing with X and been there since literally day one in 2011 but it's becoming too much lately.

I think there will be actually some stink about this from the Youtube creators community as they largely rely on stuff like this. Premiere has it and FCPX is the number 2 most used NLE for Youtubers. Maybe a 3rd-party dev can pick this up.

JoeEditor replied the topic: #111550 17 Dec 2020 13:42

Where did you get the data showing FCP to be the number 2 used NLE? I wish we could get all those analytics ourselves.

DudeMeister replied the topic: #111589 18 Dec 2020 15:36

Ben wrote:
I've run some tests and this new one is much faster, does a much better job, and it's one preset, not two separate ones.

Excuse me? 😂 What are you talking about?

"Much faster"??
How in the world could that be since it's nothing more than a regular H.264 export, only sans the upload! So I guess it's faster because it doesn't spend time uploading after rendering? Er… well duh! There's zero reason why the render should be any faster. That makes no sense.

"One preset, not two"??
Wow. So HOW exactly could they previously have been ONE destination when each used different direct APIs?? 🤦🏼‍♂️

I don't even get why they bothered making some extra "special" YT and Vimeo destination since this is nothing other than the "Apple Devices" destinations! Why not just call it UPLOAD FILE or something along those lines since there is absolutely nothing special let alone YT or Vimeo specific about the generated files!

This makes no sense and the fact that you NOW have to add the description and all the tags after the fact instead of simply adding them ONCE in FCP and having them upload automatically with the file via the API is a serious step BACK! Why did they do this??

That said, something like this, that is obviously utterly banal in the grand scheme of things, supposedly "pushing someone over the edge" is of course just jejune hyperbole. 🙄

JoeEditor replied the topic: #111591 18 Dec 2020 16:44

We are discussing the "YouTube & Facebook" preset introduced in the update. Apple recommends users employ Vimeo's own upload manager which is downloadable for free in the App Store.

With EU restrictions coming and all of the pending lawsuits we can reasonably expect changes will be made outside of Apple's control, and you'll probably see the other NLEs follow suit very soon.

The encoding of any file format is complex. H.264 has many variables that can be tweaked, look at it in Compressor. Apple is able to tweak their own custom settings further to work with their hardware and OS even more. All of which have a bearing on image quality and encoding times.

I timed exports and the new preset is a bit faster. I did not include upload times, just looking at the encodes themselves, which are significant quality improvements over the previous supplied preset.

I have always been able to export and upload faster than the old presets did on their own, anyway. I do this several times a day for my job. But hey, that's just one person's experience. Others may experience something different due to hardware and software variations.

Again, social media sites are being forced to restrict what third-party apps can do with their site now, so this is not Apple acting on its own.