It's a big day in Final Cut Pro land, both for fans of X and 7. Besides the rather feature-laden update to Final Cut Pro X v10.0.3 comes one of the most asked for things since the day of release and what was arguably the single biggest glaring omission from the original FCPX: the ability to move a project from Final Cut Pro 7 to Final Cut Pro X. That ability isn't built directly into FCPX v10.0.3 but comes from the $10 Intelligent Assistance utility 7toX for Final Cut Pro (Mac app store link). Apple has said this particular transfer path probably wouldn't happen since they couldn't guarantee an accurate enough transfer given the differences in the two applications. Whether you call shenanigans on that claim or not, Intelligent Assistance has been able to make it work with what looks like (from the bullet points) some surprising accuracy. This is now after they (Intelligent Assistance, not Apple) said they weren't going to make a 7 to X transfer utility when they did make one to move from X to 7. That's too confusing, so here are those 7toX bullet points we were talking about:

  • Bins become Keyword Collections, complete with original Log Notes and comments
  • Sequences become Compound Clips and are tagged with an “FCP7 Sequences” keyword to make them easy to find
  • Multicam clips are fully supported
  • Original track structures are represented by Roles
  • PICT files are automatically converted to TIFF files
  • 31 transitions are translated to matching transitions
  • 72 video FxPlug and FxScript filters are translated to matching video filters
  • 32 audio filters are translated to matching audio filters
  • Layered Photoshop files are accurately translated to Layered Photoshop files in Final Cut Pro X
  • Motion Tab settings (Scale, Rotation, Center, Anchor Point, Crop, Distort and Opacity) are translated to Transform settings (Scale, Rotation, Position, Anchor, Crop, and Distort)
  • Composite Modes are translated to matching Compositing settings
  • Constant speed changes are translated

That's quite a nice transfer, I must say, considering what Apple has said about just this process. There's even deeper info if you move beyond the bullet points. It looks like Intelligent Assistance has done some good work in bringing this very affordable utility to market. It's much cheaper than their $50 Xto7 for Final Cut Pro utility (Mac App Store link). If you're buying Final Cut Pro X for the first time, just consider the price $310! Okay, $315. If you're using FCPX in any serious way you need their Event Manager X as well.