Lightworks 12 for Mac, Linux and Windows is released

It's here! Lightworks for Mac

 Today, Lightworks is released for Mac users. Yes, the same application that already runs on Windows and Linux is now a fully-fledged Mac program that can be - and is - used to edit feature films.

A lot has been written about Lightworks over the last few years since Editshare acquired it and started to bring it back to the future. It's been a long journey, with false starts and destination changes. But now it's arrived and Editshare (RedShark's parent company) has told us that the first NLE to work on all three main computer platforms (Windows, Linux and OS X) has been released.

And Lightworks is in good shape. It's better now than it's ever been.

There isn't room here to go into the convoluted history of Lightworks. Suffice to say that it's had a lot of owners and by the time Editshare bought it, in 2009, it was ready for some love. But even then, there was still a core of enthusiastic, serious users.

Lightworks has always claimed to be an "editor's editor", and what it meant by that was that, like any highly optimised tool, once you knew how to use it it faded into the background. And this has remained its key strength: throughout all the development cycles, the testing, the new platform roll-outs and more, the focus has been on retaining the speed of editing.

Of course, in order to bring it back to the cutting edge it's had to be enhanced, and it now supports a huge range of codecs, and many more features, than just a few years ago.

It's grown to fit into modern user interfaces as well. When Lightworks was born, it was a DOS program. Now, without throwing away the efficiency that sits at its core, it behaves like a modern application, although its appearance remains unique.

Perhaps the most remarkable achievement by the Lightworks developers in the "Editshare era" is that the program has been made cross platform. Anyone who's ever tried to make an application run on more than one operating system will know that this isn't a trivial challenge. With an NLE, which has so many realtime requirements, it's an even more ambitious task.

To keep it manageable, the Lightworks developers have devised a system where new features (and fixes) can be rolled out across all three platforms almost immediately. So users of one OS or another will never be "orphaned".

How powerful is Lightworks?

You only have to look at the most recently edited major film, Wolf of Wall Street to see that as an editor it's able to handle the most complicated workflows and media management tasks. It doesn't skimp on modern technology either, making full use of GPU power when it's available.

Editshare didn't just bring Lightworks up to date, they revolutionised the way it was sold and distributed as well. Originally only available as a turnkey hardware and software system, it is now a fully functional software-only product. This means that it can run on a vast array of computers (indeed, much of the lengthy testing phase was to make it robust across a huge range of hardware, and, of course, three operating systems). The price? It's very, very low. There's a monthly or yearly license option, and "buy outright" option for those who prefer more traditional ways to pay for software.

We asked Matt Sandford, Lightworks Global Product Manager, about the significance of today's release:

"This is an incredible day for Lightworks, and the entire team is excited to finally have Lightworks available on all three platforms,” he said. “Although the Mac version has been in development for some time, we really wanted to improve the file management within the application. The new Content Manager introduced in version 12 is a massive step forward for the product. Bins and Groups (previously Racks) are now all contained in one helpful panel showing filters containing all your work (Clips, edits etc). The Content Manager becomes the new hub of the application allowing users to create new bins and filters and to always have access to their files.

“Now that Lightworks is on Mac we can once again make inroads into the US Feature Film market (which is predominantly Mac-based) and incorporate it into the rest of EditShare's industry-leading workflow."

The release today of the Mac version means that editors on the perennially popular platform will be able to try Lightworks. And, from what we've heard, it will be a welcome alternative!

There's a new pricing structure too. Details over the page

Lightworks new pricing structure

There's a new pricing structure with the new release of Lightworks. The concept of a renewing payment (a "subscription") has been replaced with simpler, easier to understand Monthly, Yearly and Outright licenses.

You can simply choose the period of time in which you want to use Lightworks, and then select the appropriate license. If you need to extend the period, you just buy another license, which is a simple process. If you want to buy a version outright, there's a price for that, and a simple upgrade price if you want to buy a license for a newer version.

The full-functional free version remains available too, but to access all the output codecs, you'll need to pay as per the table below:

(Full details of how this all works are available on www.lwks.com.)

Here are the main changes in Version 12

• Lightworks gives the same experience on all three platforms
• Added new Content Manager structure
  • Bins and Groups (previously racks) are now all visible within the content manager
  • Multicam Bins (previously Sync groups) are now all visible within the content manager
  • The Search function has been incorporated into the content manager (click the magnifying glass)
  • Added Clips, Subclips, Prints, Syncs, Edits, Searches, Everything and Recent filters to the content manager
  • Added ability to create and edit Filters
  • Added ability to create Filters based on search criteria and manage them
  • Added the ability to drag/drop files from the OS directly into an open bin (cannot import to Filters)
  • Added the ability to import directly into an existing bin (cannot import to Filters)
• Optimised the drawing pipeline to create a much more responsive user interface
• Rewritten the Lightworks Play engine for improved playback performance
• Added improvements to the export panel to make it easier to select a format for export
• Added entirely new Blur effect to the Effects panel
• Added powerful new Colour Correction effect
• Added powerful new Selective Colour Correction effect
• Added import of FCP7 XMLs
• Added 4K support for ProRes formats (Blackmagic cameras)

You can find these changes listed in detail on the Lightworks site here and tutorials for Lightworks version 12 are here

(The site should be live by now, but demand will be very high and if you can't get on to it, keep trying!)