PRESS RELEASE
April 2, 2003
Apple’s Final Cut Pro Leads a Host of Innovative Professional Video Solutions Based on Open Standards
MARKHAM, Ontario—April 2, 2003—Apple® Final Cut Pro®, the Emmyaward-winning video and film editing software, is leading the emergence ofa new ecosystem of professional video solutions based on open formats andindustry standards. Apple’s introduction of Final Cut Pro 4, with aninnovative open XML file format and FireWire® based I/O framework, issupported by announcements from Panasonic, AJA, Automatic Duck, Quantel,Pinnacle, Omneon and Curious Graphics.
“An incredibly vibrant ecosystem is quickly making Final Cut Pro thebest video editing platform across the industry,” said Philip Schiller,Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Applecontinues to invest in technologies such as XML, FireWire and industrystandards that open Final Cut Pro’s architecture and help drive furtherinnovation throughout this ecosystem.”
“We are excited that Apple’s Final Cut Pro 4 has native 24-framesupport for Panasonic’s AG-DVX100 and in an industry first, Apple andPanasonic have worked to deliver 50 Mbps 4:2:2 quality video overFireWire,” said Stuart English, vice president of marketing, PanasonicBroadcast. “Our DVCPRO50 customers can now edit in the highest quality4:2:2 video at low data rates and take advantage of all the innovativenew features and functionality of Final Cut Pro 4.”
“AJA and Apple worked together to combine our leading hardwaremanufacturing experience with Apple’s new Final Cut Pro 4 capabilitiesto deliver SD Video over FireWire,” said John Abt, AJA Video Systems’president. “This is the first solution that allows broadcastprofessionals to use 400MB FireWire to bring any uncompressed, standarddefinition format video in or out of a Mac with video and audiomonitoring.”
“Using Final Cut Pro’s increasingly open architecture, new APIs and theupcoming XML interchange format, Automatic Duck will be delivering thefirst XML plug-in for Final Cut Pro 4,” said Wes Plate, Automatic DuckInc.’s president. “With our new AAF import/export components, thismeans video professionals will soon have a seamless, powerful workflowthat will allow Final Cut Pro 4 project data to interact directly withhigh-end finishing systems.”
“Quantel is working with Apple and Automatic Duck to ensure that theAAF plug-in will take essential project data from Final Cut Pro 4directly into an online session using Quantel’s powerful hardware-basedfinishing systems,” said Nigel Turner, Quantel’s director of marketing.“This will bring post professionals the best of both worlds—the mostpopular editing software on fast, flexible Macs and powerfulhardware-based finishing systems from Quantel. This is what theindustry is demanding. Those who don’t commit to this kind of openplatform risk becoming an island.”
“Final Cut Pro 4 and Pinnacle System’s CinéWave 4 provide a tremendousnumber of real-time effects for both online and offline editing in manyformats including Photo-JPEG, DV and uncompressed 8-, 10-, and 16-bitSD video-with all formats even playing out from the same timeline,”said Laurin Herr, Pinnacle’s vice president and general manager forEditing. “For CinéWave 4, Pinnacle is enhancing standard definition andhigh definition projects with incredible new real-time keyframeablevideo tools and sophisticated audio capabilities including eight tracksof audio out.�Thanks to Apple’s open architecture and the power ofPinnacle’s TARGA CinéEngine, we can deliver all our new features andfunctionality without needing to make changes to the underlyinghardware. The latest and greatest CinéWave features are just a softwareupgrade away—even when using SD and HD in the same system.”
“The Omneon and Final Cut Pro combination provides broadcast facilitieswith an easy and flexible solution for collaborative production,” saidLarry Kaplan, Omeon’s president and CEO. “Omneon embraced Apple’sQuickTime file system wrapper when developing our Media Server Systemand as a result are able to provide seamless integration with Final CutPro for our ‘Edit in Place’ feature. Final Cut Pro running on aMacintosh G4 provides a lower per seat cost than any other system orplatform and a powerful, flexible solution as compared to proprietarynews editing devices.”
“Curious gFx marks our return to the high-end graphics applicationspace and the Mac platform is the best and first place to start,” saidGareth Griffith, co-founder of Curious Software. “Mac OS X’s advancedOpenGL implementation and the G4 Velocity Engine have allowed us tobring a fully integrated high-performance multi-layered paint,rotoscoping, animation and compositing system to the best desktopgraphics machines. gFx Pro�and Apple’s Final Cut Pro combine to make apowerful graphics workflow that was until now only available on muchmore expensive systems.”
Apple Canada Inc. is headquartered in Markham, Ontario and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Apple Computer, Inc. Apple products are available at more than 450 Authorized Apple Canada Dealer locations across Canada.
- © 2003 Apple Computer, Inc. All rights reserved.Apple, the Apple logo,Mac, Mac OS, Macintosh, Final Cut Pro, FireWire and QuickTime areeither registered trademarks or trademarks of Apple. Other company andproduct names may be trademarks of their respective owners.