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Apple Announces Final Cut Pro 3

DV EXPO 2001, LOS ANGELES, California—December 4, 2001—Apple® today announced Final Cut Pro® 3, the industry’s first video editing solution to deliver professional-quality, real-time effects without the addition of specialized hardware. Tapping the powerful video processing capabilities of the PowerPC G4 processor’s Velocity Engine™, the new G4 real-time effects in Final Cut Pro 3 deliver the productivity and creativity of real-time to a much broader audience of video editors.

Final Cut Pro 3 also debuts OfflineRT, an offline format that holds up to five times as much footage as the DV format, and new professional color correction tools previously available only in solutions costing tens of thousands of dollars more. Final Cut Pro 3 will be available this month for Mac® OS X and Mac OS 9.

“With G4 real-time effects, the high-capacity OfflineRT format and professional color correction tools, Final Cut Pro 3 raises the bar for the industry once again,” said David Moody, Apple’s senior director of Applications Marketing. “Whether you’re working from a dedicated edit bay or a seat on a cross-country flight, the combination of Apple’s G4 hardware, operating system and Final Cut Pro 3 software is the most potent video editing solution available. And, on top of all this, Final Cut Pro is now available on the world’s most advanced personal computer operating system, Mac OS X.”

G4 real-time effects utilize the power of the G4 Velocity Engine to deliver dual-stream, real-time effects such as cross-dissolves, titles and color correction. Because this is the first dual-stream, real-time architecture with no add-in hardware requirements, even editors using Final Cut Pro 3 on a PowerBook® G4 have access to true real-time effects playback. The number and complexity of G4 real-time effects scale as processing power increases.

Providing over 40 minutes of video per gigabyte of hard drive space, OfflineRT is an ideal format for mobile editing. Using a simple FireWire® connection, editors can capture and transcode DV footage to OfflineRT on the fly. This means that editors can work with massive amounts of high-quality, timecode-accurate video—more than 24 hours on a PowerBook’s internal hard drive—that can be reconnected to the original source material, without having to resort to special external storage solutions. OfflineRT is the first native offline format available for DV, and it can also be used by editors working with standard definition or high definition formats.

Final Cut Pro 3 also features a new set of professional color correction tools, including primary and secondary color correctors, range checking, zebra-stripe overlays, and waveform and vectorscope monitors, as well as a powerful set of controls to maintain broadcast-safe video levels.

Final Cut Pro 3 also includes:

  • New Voice-Over tool for audio capture directly to the timeline from a built-in or external microphone;
  • New Auto-Save Vault, which saves and time-stamps projects at user-specified intervals;
  • Productive editing tools, in a mode-free interface, that provide three-point editing, JKL keyboard navigation, match frame, extend and split edit functions, multiple and nested timeline project support, and timecode overlays;
  • Integrated compositing, including Adobe AfterEffects plug-in support;
  • QuickView, a new preview mode that allows editors to quickly preview complex effects;
  • Advanced media management and export tools that make it easy to consolidate, reconnect and move media, preserve trim handles and convert to various offline or web formats;
  • New 3D titling and effects from Boris and CGM, for creating stunning 2D and 3D animated titles and advanced transitions; and
  • PeakDV audio editing tool from Bias, providing VST plug-in support and time compression/expansion for precisely fitting audio to video.

Final Cut Pro 3 and Apple’s DVD Studio Pro™ form a complete system for professional digital content creation and delivery. From within Final Cut Pro, users can invoke DVD Studio Pro’s powerful MPEG2 engine to encode their edited video sequences. Using DVD Studio Pro, they can author sophisticated navigation menus, preview disk operation in real time, and burn DVDs using the Power Mac™ G4’s new SuperDrive™ for playback on consumer DVD players.

Apple Certified Training
In response to demand from both professional and academic sectors, Apple will launch a certified training program for Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro next month. The program includes training center, instructor, technician and courseware certification. A network of approximately 25 certified training center locations will serve users, offering a range of courses from beginning to advanced levels. For more information visit www.apple.com/finalcutpro.

Pricing and Availability
Final Cut Pro 3 will be available later this month through The Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $999 (US). Registered Final Cut Pro users can upgrade to Final Cut Pro 3 for $299 (US). Final Cut Pro 3 requires Mac OS X v10.1.1 or Mac OS 9.2.2, a Macintosh® computer with a 300 MHz or faster PowerPC G3 or G4 processor with built-in FireWire, 256MB of RAM (384MB recommended for G4 real-time effects), and 40MB of available disk space for installation. (G4 500 MHz or higher required for G4 real-time effects; PowerBook G4 667 MHz required for mobile real-time DV effects.) Versions for both Mac OS X and Mac OS 9 are included in the Final Cut Pro 3 box. More information on Final Cut Pro, including a list of certified, compatible hardware and software can be found at www.apple.com/finalcutpro.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Apple is committed to bringing the best personal computing experience to students, educators, creative professionals and consumers around the world through its innovative hardware, software and Internet offerings.

Press Contacts:
Alicia Awbrey
Apple
(408) 974-0922
[email protected]

Megan Prest
Edelman Worldwide
(650) 429-2730
[email protected]

NOTE TO EDITORS: For additional information visit Apple's PR website (www.apple.com/pr/), or call Apple's Media Helpline at (408) 974-2042.

Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, The Apple Store, DVD Studio Pro, Final Cut Pro, FireWire, Mac OS, PowerBook, Power Mac, SuperDrive and Velocity Engine are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.