Alteon.io and Apple Bring a Free Cloud-Based Workflow to Final Cut Pro

Looking to edit a film or video project in the cloud with others without enterprise-level pricing? Alteon may be the answer!

Following its successful extension for Premiere Pro users, Alteon is back with a workflow extension for Final Cut Pro, allowing fast and secure ways to share, organize, and access media in the cloud.

Alteon Cloud-Based Post-Production Collaboration

When Final Cut Pro X made its debut in 2011, one of the most prominent features was the organization of media files, even if the rest wasn't as well received. Before that, creatives needed to properly name clips, import the media into the NLE, and further organize it all into specially named folders. Who remembers scrolling up and down looking for "Wide Shot 003 Take 2 - Best"? I shudder at the memory.

FCP X gave editors a better way to tag, organize, and even search in the NLE based on the name, metadata, and keywords. Early controversy aside, FCP X helped editors to improve organization and speed up workflows.

Today, it’s not uncommon to collaborate via the cloud with a director, producer, second editor, and others worldwide. Gone are the days of copying projects and media to hard drives to ship at great expense, and cloud-based content management systems like Alteon and Frame.io helped to make the post-production suite a little closer, albeit virtually, without having to travel or ship hard drives.

With that in mind, Alteon has announced a collaboration with Final Cut Pro and is introducing a workflow extension to enhance, streamline, and improve cloud-based workflows.

The Alteon extension is similar to the one it released a year ago for Premiere Pro users. The FCP workflow extension lets editors share their media with the Alteon.io cloud-based post-production ecosystem with the click of a button.

Once the media is in the central hub of Alteon, editors can share with access to Read Only or Collaborate. Everyone can work on the project simultaneously without needing to save a new project file (remember those days).

Those clips can be downloaded as original files or proxies, which is nice when dealing with heavy-duty file formats such as ProRes 4444 or BRAW.

Another nice feature is the ability to take a look at a producer's time-stamped comments about the edit, all in Alteon. This can then be viewed by the editor in Final Cut Pro. No more sending an email with notes based on time codes.

What Does This Collaboration Mean for Creatives?

The biggest advantage of the Alteon and Final Cut Pro workflow extension is the access to cloud tools and collaboration that enterprise-level post-production companies have used for years. You have a project that needs an editor, but they may be hundreds if not thousands of miles away. Alteon lets you both affordably collaborate on the project.

"We designed Alteon specifically with independent filmmakers, small teams, and freelance content creators in mind," Matt Cimaglia, co-founder, and CEO at Alteon told us. "Our team is largely made up of people from the production industry, so we understand the problems that need solving, whether it's shipping hard drives between team members or toggling back and forth between multiple platforms and applications just to finish an edit.

"That's why one of our goals from day one was to partner with companies such as Apple, so we could integrate Alteon directly into Final Cut Pro, connecting post-production workflows to the cloud," Cimaglia continued. "Our goal has always been to democratize the creative industry, making enterprise-grade tools accessible, affordable, and approachable to everyone."

Pricing and the Competition

With Frame.io and Adobe making incredible strides to support C2C and post-production in the cloud, we'll have to look at how Alteon compares price-wise. For creatives on a budget, it's quite affordable for pretty much anyone (hello, free), and is available in three tiers:

1. Free Plan: 10GB of secure cloud storage and unlimited projects.
2. Standard: $9.99/month for 250GB of secure cloud storage and unlimited projects.
3. Premium: $29.99/month for 1TB of secure cloud storage and unlimited projects.

Dive in a bit deeper and learn more at alteon.io.

What do you think of the Alteon and Final Cut Pro workflow? Will you try it out with collaborators who aren't local to you? Let us know in the comments!