Apple Announces Final Cut Pro 4

Apple today introduced Final Cut Pro 4, a major upgrade of Apple's Emmy award-winning editing software for film, HD, SD and DV. Packed with more than 300 new features, Final Cut Pro 4 introduces RT Extreme, for real-time composting and effects, powerful new interface customisation tools, new high-quality 8- and 10-bit uncompressed formats and for the first time in an editing system costing less than £75,000, 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.

“Final Cut Pro has revolutionised professional video editing by makingpreviously expensive and complex technology affordable and easier to use”,said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide ProductMarketing. “With Final Cut Pro 4, we're introducing more professionalcapabilities and broadening the market by offering a more accessible andaffordable product with innovative features that far exceed thecompetition”.

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

Final Cut Pro 4 features high-quality, software-based 8- and 10-bituncompressed formats and 32-bit floating point processing and is the onlynon-linear editing, compositing and effects package that scales smoothlyfrom DV through SD, HD and film. Final Cut Pro 4 includes support for HDRrender technology providing the ability to generate film quality output,rendering all elements in 32-bit (per channel) floating point colour.

LiveType, a unique new titling application available only in Final Cut Pro4, enables users to create dynamic, animated titles quickly and easily.LiveType includes LiveFonts, a new approach to text animation in which everycharacter of a font is a separate animated movie. With over 8GB of mediaincluding LiveFonts, 150 pre-configured effects, customisable templates,backgrounds, animated textures and objects, LiveType enables Final Cut Pro 4users to develop their own customised look, either from scratch or bymodifying existing effects. With support for DV, SD and HD formats, LiveTypeallows users to quickly and easily create sophisticated,professional-quality animated text and graphic effects.

Soundtrack, a breakthrough music creation tool also available only in FinalCut Pro 4, gives editors the power to easily create high-quality,royalty-free music scores for their projects. Soundtrack automaticallymatches audio loops regardless of tempo and key, providing real-timearranging and mixing. Soundtrack 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 andsupports AIFF, WAV and ACID files.

Compressor, a new batch transcoding tool that comes bundled with both FinalCut Pro 4 and DVD Studio Pro 2, lets users batch and export directly tomultiple formats including MPEG-2 for DVD, MPEG-4 for streaming media or anysupported QuickTime format. Compressor includes watermarking, real-timepreview and 30 high-quality filters and effects, providing an ideal platformfor high volume or repetitive encoding tasks. Compressor comes with a newworld-class MPEG-2 software encoder, which provides professional controlsfor adjusting bit rate and selecting one- or two-pass VBR encoding. TheMPEG-2 software encoder delivers pristine quality video rivalling the speedof hardware and software encoders costing thousands of pounds as stand-aloneproducts.

Final Cut Pro 4 offers editors new customisation options including over 600tools and commands, a mappable keyboard, custom interface buttons, customwindow layouts and enhanced screen layout options. Customised settings canbe saved, exported and imported onto any Mac with Final Cut Pro, making iteasy to preserve all the custom settings when switching from one Mac toanother.

With its open architecture, Final Cut Pro 4 fits into virtually anyproduction pipeline and provides incredible developer extensibility througha new XML interchange format and FireWire-based I/O framework. This newstandards-based composition and metadata interchange format, combined with anew import/export plug-in API, allows developers to create tools thatintegrate Final Cut Pro 4 into a wide range of production workflows. Inaddition, the new FireWire-based I/O Framework allows third-party developersto build FireWire-based I/O devices for fully uncompressed 8- and 10-bit4:2:2 broadcast video.

Additional features in Final Cut Pro 4 include:

Final Cut Pro 4 will be available in June through The Apple Store and Apple Authorised Resellers for a suggested selling price of £799 (inc VAT). Registered Final Cut Pro users can upgrade to Final Cut Pro 4 for £299 (inc VAT) and registered Final Cut Express users can upgrade for £549 (inc VAT). Orders can be placed on the Apple Store from today. Full system requirements and more information on Final Cut Pro 4, including a list of certified, compatible hardware and software can be found here .

Press Contacts:
Apple UK and Ireland Public Relations
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +44 (0)20 8218 1440