Ready for macOS
For people who work to picture.
Meet Spectus. The purpose has always been settled: precise, unhurried review of picture.
What it does
Everything the review pass needs.
A deliberately short list. Each capability earns its place in the daily work of reviewing sound against picture.
Smooth scrubbing
Glide through footage at any speed and land exactly where you intended.
Frame-by-frame stepping
When the moment sits between two frames, step to the right one.
Export any frame as a JPEG
Pull the exact frame on screen straight out of the player, exactly as it looks, look and LUT included, ready for a note or a deliverable.
Timecode inspection
Read the exact timecode of the frame in front of you, at a glance.
Fullscreen that behaves
macOS fullscreen in its own Space, picture filling the display edge to edge. Press F.
Updates without interrupting
Spectus looks for a new version once each launch, quietly, and only installs when you ask. It never restarts in the middle of playback: the install waits until the picture is stopped.
Copy timecode in one click
The timecode of the frame on screen, straight to the clipboard, ready to paste into notes or a session log.
Camera originals
Straight from the card, with the look on.
Review the footage the camera actually recorded, graded as you watch, without a transcode and without leaving the player.
The camera original, untouched
The same frame, with a look
Plays Blackmagic RAW
Open a .braw file straight from the card, with its audio, decoded on the Mac's GPU. It plays at half resolution so it stays smooth, and redraws the frame at full resolution the moment you stop. Every frame is directly reachable, so stepping and scrubbing behave exactly as they do with any other format. Put a look on it and the same applies here: the camera's own LUT when the clip carries one, a built-in film look, or your own.
White balance and ISO, on the spot
Set colour temperature in Kelvin and tint by number, and pick ISO from the values that clip actually supports. The as-shot values are always shown, and one click returns to them. Or take the eyedropper, click something that should be grey, and let Spectus solve the white balance for you. It refuses a spot that is blown out or too dark, and says why.
Spectus compatible with Blackmagic Design Blackmagic RAW. Tested with footage from the Pocket Cinema Camera 4K and 6K.
Apple Log
Log footage, already looking like something.
Log footage is recorded flat because it is meant to be graded later, which is exactly what you do not want on screen when a client is watching. Pick a look and Spectus puts a finished picture in front of them straight away, in the review and in every still you send out, with nothing to grade and nothing to export first.
Apple Log, flat
The same frame, with a look
Seven looks built in
Looks that emulate the ARRI and Sony cameras colourists reach for, grouped by iPhone generation. Pick one and the picture is presentable immediately, on screen and in any frame you export for a client, without opening a grading suite.
Log clips only
The look is applied to Apple Log footage and nothing else. Ordinary video plays untouched, and choosing a look while a non-log clip is open tells you so rather than appearing to do nothing.
Balance it by eye
Temperature and tint, from minus 100 to plus 100, where zero is as shot. Or click something that should be white and let the eyedropper neutralise it. It reads the log picture before the look, so the pick does not depend on which look is on.
Bring your own looks
Drop any 3D .cube file into the LUT folder and it is in the menu the next time you open it. No settings, no relaunch. Put them in subfolders and the menu groups them the same way. They stay on your Mac, never uploaded and never shared, which is what a purchased LUT pack requires.
Spectus runs on macOS 13 or later, Apple silicon. Apple Log needs macOS 14.2 or later, and Apple Log 2 needs macOS 27 or later. The built-in looks are our own, made in DaVinci Resolve.
Try it before you buy it.
The demo is the full application: one minute of playback per launch, and still export unlocks with a serial. Scrubbing and frame stepping are never limited. Give us an email address and the download starts the moment you confirm it.