Final Cut upgrades boast more than 100 new features
A "significant" upgrade to Final Cut Studio was announced by Apple Thursday, with more than 100 new features and new versions of Final Cut Pro, Motion, Soundtrack Pro, Color and Compressor.
And at $999, the new Final Cut Studio costs $300 less than it did before. Existing users can upgrade for $299.
"With 1.4 million users and 50 percent of the market, Final Cut Pro is the number one professional video editing application," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "The new Final Cut Studio includes more than 100 new features and dramatically expands Apple's ProRes family of codecs so editors can work in the studio with the highest quality video or on location at low bandwidths."
Apple also debuted the new Final Cut Server 1.5, which is the asset management and automation tool for Final Cut Studio. It offers offline editing with ProRes Proxy, production hierarchies to organize media, and support for still sequences to easily view and manage image sequences for graphics and effects workflows. The new Final Cut Server also includes unlimited client licenses. It is available for $999 or as a $299 upgrade for existing users.
In revealing the new Final Cut Studio Thursday, Apple announced the following new features for each of the suite's included applications:
Final Cut Pro 7
Expands Apple's ProRes codec family to support virtually any workflow. ProRes Proxy allows offline and mobile editing at low bandwidth; ProRes LT allows general purpose editing; and ProRes 4444 is for editing and visual effects at the highest quality possible.
Easy Export allows users to continue working on projects while encoding is done in the background and the sequence is exported to YouTube, MobileMe, iPhone, iPod, Apple TV, DVD or Blu-ray.
iChat Theater support allows real time collaboration by sharing Final Cut® timelines or individual source clips with iChat users anywhere in the world, even if they don't have a copy of Final Cut Pro.
New speed tools to change clip speed with ease.
Alpha transitions to create dramatic effects using moving mattes.
Native AVC-Intra support for the latest high quality Panasonic cameras.
Motion 4
Enhancing 3D compositions is faster than ever with new customizable features that add point and spot lights to cast realistic shadows or turn any shape, video plane or paint stroke into a reflective surface.
Gives editors the flexibility to adjust the depth of field within a 3D canvas by selectively highlighting a single object or using multiple objects to create a racking focus effect.
Soundtrack Pro 3
Voice Level Match extracts volume information from the vocal content of one clip and applies it to another without altering any other audio content so editors can easily correct mismatched voice levels.
Enhanced File Editor includes new tools to make sophisticated edits and fine tune volume adjustments by targeting specific frequencies such as the rustle of a paper or the bump of a desk without affecting dialogue.
New Advanced Time Stretch feature stretches and compresses audio with incredible precision using three Apple-designed algorithms or other algorithms available as third party plug-ins.
Color 1.5
Works with a greater range of sequences and effects from Final Cut Pro and an integrated workflow allows editors to complete projects entirely within Final Cut Studio.
New 4K support works natively with files from cameras such as the RED ONE and outputs directly to ProRes for HD or DPX for film.
Expanded support for new high quality formats includes AVC-Intra, XDCAM 422 and ProRes 4444, for grading with the maximum amount of color information.
Compressor 3.5
Adds ability to automatically detect QuickTime settings and create an Easy Export template or a mini "droplet" on the desktop that automates specific Compressor actions. New, customizable sharing options make it easy to publish to YouTube and MobileMe, or export for iPhone, iPod, Apple TV and mobile phones.
Menu templates and encoding presets make it fast and easy to create Blu-ray discs.
Last month, AppleInsider was first to report that Apple was planning a new version of Final Cut Studio with major upgrades to Final Cut Pro, Motion, and Soundtrack Pro. While under development, the project was code-named Sideways.
And at $999, the new Final Cut Studio costs $300 less than it did before. Existing users can upgrade for $299.
"With 1.4 million users and 50 percent of the market, Final Cut Pro is the number one professional video editing application," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "The new Final Cut Studio includes more than 100 new features and dramatically expands Apple's ProRes family of codecs so editors can work in the studio with the highest quality video or on location at low bandwidths."
Apple also debuted the new Final Cut Server 1.5, which is the asset management and automation tool for Final Cut Studio. It offers offline editing with ProRes Proxy, production hierarchies to organize media, and support for still sequences to easily view and manage image sequences for graphics and effects workflows. The new Final Cut Server also includes unlimited client licenses. It is available for $999 or as a $299 upgrade for existing users.
In revealing the new Final Cut Studio Thursday, Apple announced the following new features for each of the suite's included applications:
Final Cut Pro 7
Expands Apple's ProRes codec family to support virtually any workflow. ProRes Proxy allows offline and mobile editing at low bandwidth; ProRes LT allows general purpose editing; and ProRes 4444 is for editing and visual effects at the highest quality possible.
Easy Export allows users to continue working on projects while encoding is done in the background and the sequence is exported to YouTube, MobileMe, iPhone, iPod, Apple TV, DVD or Blu-ray.
iChat Theater support allows real time collaboration by sharing Final Cut® timelines or individual source clips with iChat users anywhere in the world, even if they don't have a copy of Final Cut Pro.
New speed tools to change clip speed with ease.
Alpha transitions to create dramatic effects using moving mattes.
Native AVC-Intra support for the latest high quality Panasonic cameras.
Motion 4
Enhancing 3D compositions is faster than ever with new customizable features that add point and spot lights to cast realistic shadows or turn any shape, video plane or paint stroke into a reflective surface.
Gives editors the flexibility to adjust the depth of field within a 3D canvas by selectively highlighting a single object or using multiple objects to create a racking focus effect.
Soundtrack Pro 3
Voice Level Match extracts volume information from the vocal content of one clip and applies it to another without altering any other audio content so editors can easily correct mismatched voice levels.
Enhanced File Editor includes new tools to make sophisticated edits and fine tune volume adjustments by targeting specific frequencies such as the rustle of a paper or the bump of a desk without affecting dialogue.
New Advanced Time Stretch feature stretches and compresses audio with incredible precision using three Apple-designed algorithms or other algorithms available as third party plug-ins.
Color 1.5
Works with a greater range of sequences and effects from Final Cut Pro and an integrated workflow allows editors to complete projects entirely within Final Cut Studio.
New 4K support works natively with files from cameras such as the RED ONE and outputs directly to ProRes for HD or DPX for film.
Expanded support for new high quality formats includes AVC-Intra, XDCAM 422 and ProRes 4444, for grading with the maximum amount of color information.
Compressor 3.5
Adds ability to automatically detect QuickTime settings and create an Easy Export template or a mini "droplet" on the desktop that automates specific Compressor actions. New, customizable sharing options make it easy to publish to YouTube and MobileMe, or export for iPhone, iPod, Apple TV and mobile phones.
Menu templates and encoding presets make it fast and easy to create Blu-ray discs.
Last month, AppleInsider was first to report that Apple was planning a new version of Final Cut Studio with major upgrades to Final Cut Pro, Motion, and Soundtrack Pro. While under development, the project was code-named Sideways.
Comments
Does the new version of Color support multi-cam sequences?
(cough, cough) ...Logic? (cough, cough)
Ah, yes, Apple coughed up a new version of Logic too
Happy now?
I know a few who will be.
And use Windows to actually burn them
Hahah so true. lets hope they resolve that issue!
Ah, yes, Apple coughed up a new version of Logic too
Happy now?
I know a few who will be.
Sorry, this was actually posted as a separate story a few minutes later.
And yes, I'm happy now!
still no navtive AVCHD edit?
Finally an Apple product with Blu-Ray support
I know -right? The tide is changing- slooooowly.
Does Sony get a royalty for this too?
Wow Apple. DVDSP 4? And what the hell ever happened to the successor to Shake?
Does the new version of Color support multi-cam sequences?
You don't need DVDSP 4. It is all handled by FCP 7 now. And yes, Color can FINALLY handle multi-cam sequences!! Woohoo!
How many updates to film/audio since the update to photographs?
For crissakes, Apple... I'm moving to Lightroom soon.
$999 for all that?!
Finally an Apple product with Blu-Ray support
what exactly does that mean. seriously. what is so special about Blu-ray other than the higher res. because that is all I seem to find and imovie 09 has a number of reports of handling 1080 just fine.
Is it just me or can we not actually buy this?
with most products it ships the day it is announced out to stores, which receive it within about 2-3 days and the online comes up within an hour or two later. try again after lunch, it will likely work.
Wow Apple. DVDSP 4? And what the hell ever happened to the successor to Shake?
And STILL no Aperture 3.0.
given them time. Apple likes to spread things out a little. there have been reports of an A3.0 update coming soon. probably by the end of summer at the lastest. maybe at the same time as SL.
It'd be great to get a comment out of Apple whether Final Cut Studio has 64-bit support in Leopard and OpenCL support for Snow Leopard.
I suspect that all 64bit will be in Snow Leopard. and I for one don't see the big deal about that. it's $29 to upgrade if you have Leopard. is that really so much money. especially compared to the old days when they would lump all the mail etc into it and charge $100 more. this time they spread the apps updates out via software update and all we are paying for is the actual system software updates. seems very worth the price to me.
Dang! This package is such a good Effin deal!!!
$999 for all that?!
yep. bit of a shocker really that they dropped the price point on this rather than staying steady like before.
not that I"m going to complain. i'm just glad I hadn't bought it yet.
And STILL no Aperture 3.0.
How many updates to film/audio since the update to photographs?
For crissakes, Apple... I'm moving to Lightroom soon.
No kidding. How long ago did Aperture 2 come out? I'm almost tempted to move back to iPhoto (ok, not really, but almost). It handles RAW much better than it used to and supports geotagging. I though features were supposed to trickle down from the pro apps to the consumer apps, not the other way around! And they still don't even fully support RAW formats for the Canon 5DII which came out nearly a year ago.