Apple announces Final Cut Pro 4

By Simon Aughton

Posted on 7 Apr 2003 at 10:12

Apple has announced the release of Final Cut Pro 4, a 'major' upgrade of its editing software for film, HD, SD and DV.

Final Cut Pro 4 has more than 300 new features including RT Extreme, for real-time compositing and effects, powerful new interface customization tools, new high-quality 8- and 10-bit uncompressed formats and for the first time in an editing system costing less than $100,000, full 32-bit floating point per channel video processing.

Final Cut Pro 4 also includes three completely new integrated applications-LiveType for advanced titling, Soundtrack for music creation and Compressor for full featured batch transcoding.

RT Extreme is an enhanced software-based, real-time effects architecture that scales smoothly with processor speed to support an increased number of simultaneous real-time video streams and hundreds of real-time effects. It allows software effects to be viewed in real time on an external broadcast monitor when connected via FireWire or an external breakout box. It is codec independent and allows editors to preview their work in real time at maximum resolution for finishing quality preview or at maximum performance for increased simultaneous streams and effects.

The new titling application - LiveType - enables users to create dynamic, animated titles quickly and easily. LiveType includes LiveFonts, a new approach to text animation in which every character of a font is a separate animated movie. With over 8GB of media including LiveFonts, 150 pre-configured effects, customizable templates, backgrounds, animated textures and objects, LiveType enables Final Cut Pro 4 users to develop their own customised look, either from scratch or by modifying existing effects.

Soundtrack, described as a 'breakthrough' music creation tool, gives editors the power to easily create high-quality, royalty-free music scores for their projects. Soundtrack automatically matches audio loops regardless of tempo and key, providing real-time arranging and mixing. It is fully integrated within Final Cut Pro 4, supports Final Cut Pro 4's new score markers for perfect synchronisation, includes a library of thousands of music loops and sound effects and supports AIFF, WAV and ACID files.

Compressor, a new batch transcoding tool that comes bundled with both Final Cut Pro 4 and DVD Studio Pro 2, lets users batch and export directly to multiple formats including MPEG-2 for DVD, MPEG-4 for streaming media or any supported QuickTime format. Compressor includes watermarking, real-time preview and 30 high-quality filters and effects, providing an ideal platform for high volume or repetitive encoding tasks. Compressor comes with a new MPEG-2 software encoder, which provides professional controls for adjusting bit rate and selecting one- or two-pass VBR encoding. This encoder delivers pristine quality video rivaling the speed of hardware and software encoders costing thousands of dollars as standalone products.

Final Cut Pro 4 features high-quality, software-based 8- and 10-bit uncompressed formats and 32-bit floating point processing and is the only non-linear editing, compositing and effects package that scales smoothly from DV through SD, HD and film. It also includes support for HDR render technology providing the ability to generate film quality output, rendering all elements in 32-bit (per channel) floating point color.

Final Cut Pro 4 offers editors new customization options including over 600 tools and commands, a mappable keyboard, custom interface buttons, custom window layouts and enhanced screen layout options. Customized settings can be saved, exported and imported onto any Mac with Final Cut Pro, making it easy to preserve all the custom settings when switching from one Mac to another.