Apple released its latest version of Final Cut Pro overnight, and despite the video editing program costing $US300 on the US Mac App Store, it received a $350 price tag locally. More »
newVideoPlayer("/finacutproichat_gizmodo.flv", 506, 320,"");Totally not the most pro feature in the new Final Cut Studio, but our favourite is that you can share Final Cut video, timelines and more through iChat theatre, even if the other person doesn’t have Final Cut. More »
And no, that’s not the National Australia Bank’s tradeshow (which would make sense that Apple wasn’t attending, I guess). Instead, it’s the National Association of Broadcasters tradeshow, being held in Vegas in April. Traditionally, Apple has a huge stand and uses it as an opportunity to launch something big on the software side – think Final Cut Studio and Soundtrack Pro.
Apparently their decision to withdraw is part of an overall strategic plan to attend less tradeshows this year. Anuj Nayar, senior manager of PR at Apple said: “Apple is participating in fewer trade shows this year. Often there are better ways to reach our customers. The increasing popularity of our retail stores and Apple.com Web site allows us to directly reach more than 100 million customers around the world in innovative new ways.”
Considering the fact that Apple is building one of their flagship retail stores in Sydney at the moment, plus the fact that they just launched photo book printing for Australians through iPhoto, I guess that means they’re really working hard to bring full iTunes functionality, with TV shows and movie rentals, to Aussie shores in the next few months? Am I dreaming? Yeah, I know… But at least the iPhone’s coming this year. Isn’t it, Apple? Isn’t it?
[Macenstein – Thanks Mike!] More »
AppleInsider reports that there will be something “super secret” unveiled at a January 16 Final Cut Pro group, held a day after Steve Jobs’ January 15 MacWorld keynote. What it is is unknown (obviously, because it’s a secret), but will probably not be the next version of Final Cut Studio. It could be an updated Mac Pro with improved processors/memory/specs/whatever, but it’s unlikely that it’s going to be anything for the consumer audience. So unless you’re waiting for an update to the high end Macs or some sort of Final Cut software feature update, you won’t have much to look forward to. [Apple Insider]
newVideoPlayer("color_gawker.flv", 520, 410);
Here’s a video from Apple showing the only truly new application introduced as part of Apple’s Final Cut Studio 2 rollout yesterday: Color. This sophisticated color correction tool looks like a $100K tool, but everyone gasped when the Applians said it was included with the software suite. It’s rather derivative of many other color correction tools for pros, but still, that price is right.
Okay, I hear you asking: To recap that pricing, the full price of the whole suite will be $1299, available next month. To upgrade from Final Cut Studio 1 will be $499, and an upgrade from any version of Final Cut Pro since its beginning (1999) is $699. – Charlie White
newVideoPlayer('red_gawker.flv', 520, 410);
Here’s the Apple-produced video from yesterday’s presentation that shows how footage from that lower-cost (meaning starting at $17,500) Red One camcorder works with Apple’s Final Cut Pro 6. We’ll be finding out more about that Red camcorder as NAB progresses. – Charlie White
If you’re interested in high-end video production, you’ll want to take a look at Apple’s Final Cut Studio 2. It’s chock full o’ apps, included a smooth new update to Final Cut Pro, now in version 6, Its main coolness is its ability to crunch HDTV video down to manageable sizes, made possible by ProRes 422, a codec for compressing video that Apple claims to be able to do the video equivalent of stuffing a basketball through a garden hose.
We watched a lengthy demo of the new software, and found it to be a remarkable polyglot, able to handle all kinds of footage all in one big bucket, something that’s really important to broadcasters and filmmakers these days. When there are dozens of varieties of HDTV and regular TV to deal with, this is not a new feature, but welcome by Final Cut users.
Check out a few of our pics in the gallery below, and read more about Final Cut Studio 2 on the next page. galleryPost('apple_finalcut', 8, 'Apple Press Event');
Apple’s Final Cut Studio 2 only has one actually, totally, new program. It’s called “Color”. Essentially described as advanced colour correction, I was confused as to why what sounded to be a pack of professional filters were being touted as their own program. Then I checked out the video on Apple’s site.
I grabbed a bunch of screencaps and posted them after the jump. The multi-pane interface allows for multiple colour graphs/scopes, along with what appear to be a multitude of timeline formatting options. I’m very interested in the ability to colour correct only parts of the image and sharing colour profiles among users with ease. Anyone spot interesting stuff?
Apple introduced Open Format for Final Cut Pro, allowing you to mix different formats on the timeline. They say “it just works,” and from the demo, looks like all kinds of formats can nicely live together on the same editing timeline, where they had to be transcoded to work together before.
Then Apple showed some uncompressed 1080p footage with other resolutions and frame rates, all edited together in real time. Nice.
They then showed us a side-by-side comparison of ProRes and uncompressed HD, and it was hard to tell the difference between the two. Then the kicker? The ProRes footage was 10th-generation. Impressive.
