Final Cut Pro 12.4 Cinematic edits: export flat, then caption

Final Cut Pro 12.4, released 2026-09-29, lets you edit Cinematic mode effects recorded in Final Cut Camera, including focus points and depth of field. The edit lives in your Final Cut project. To process the result with Sume, export a flattened MP4 first, put it at a public HTTPS URL, and call the caption or trim route. The Sume docs do not say whether Cinematic depth metadata is read, so assume it is not.

What to export

Apple's release notes describe the editing capability, not export formats. Pick an export in Final Cut that bakes the focus choices into the picture, such as a standard H.264 MP4. Sume's caption route needs a fetchable public HTTPS video, and the trim route needs Sume-hosted media, so import the file with the media-imports route before trimming. After that you can chain: trim, caption, then place on a timeline.

A caption call on the flattened file

Captions take a style; omit it and Latin text gets slam while Korean gets black-outline. Pass script_text when you already have the words and want them used. A silent clip fails as caption_no_speech. Confirm prices in GET /v1/catalog.

curl -X POST https://api.sume.com/v1/video-captions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: fcp-flat-caption-001" \
  -d '{"video_url":"https://media.sume.com/artifacts/example/flat.mp4","style":"punch"}'

Honest limits

• Sume cannot edit Cinematic focus or depth; once exported, that choice is final.
• The docs do not describe reading Cinematic depth metadata, so do not send the original .mov expecting it to be used.
• Standalone captions are priced for videos up to 60 seconds; longer files follow the long-video guidance in the docs.