Apple’s Final Cut Pro Leads a Host of Innovative Professional Video Solutions Based on Open Standards

Apple’s Final Cut Pro, the Emmy award-winningvideo and film editing software, is leading the emergence of a new ecosystemof professional video solutions based on open formats and industrystandards. Apple’s introduction of Final Cut Pro 4, with an innovative openXML file format and FireWire based I/O framework, is supported byannouncements from Panasonic, AJA, Automatic Duck, Quantel, Pinnacle, Omneonand Curious Graphics.

“An incredibly vibrant ecosystem is quickly making Final Cut Pro the bestvideo editing platform across the industry”, said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Apple continues to invest in technologies such as XML, FireWire and industry standards that open Final Cut Pro’s architecture and help drive further innovationthroughout this ecosystem”.

“We are excited that Apple’s Final Cut Pro 4 has native 24-frame support for Panasonic’s AG-DVX100 and, in an industry first, Apple and Panasonic have worked to deliver 50Mbps 4:2:2 quality video over FireWire”, said Stuart English, vice president of marketing, Panasonic Broadcast. “Our DVCPRO50 customers can now edit in the highest quality 4:2:2 video at low data rates and take advantage of all the innovative new features and functionality ofFinal Cut Pro 4”.

“AJA and Apple worked together to combine our leading hardware manufacturing experience with Apple’s new Final Cut Pro 4 capabilities to deliver SD Video over FireWire”, said John Abt, AJA Video Systems’ president. “This is the first solution that allows broadcast professionals to use 400Mbps FireWire to bring any uncompressed, standard definition format video in or out of a Mac with video and audio monitoring”.

“Using Final Cut Pro’s increasingly open architecture, new APIs and the upcoming XML interchange format, Automatic Duck will be delivering the firstXML plug-in for Final Cut Pro 4”, said Wes Plate, Automatic Duck Inc.’s president. “With our new AAF import/export components, this means video professionals will soon have a seamless, powerful workflow that will allow Final Cut Pro 4 project data to interact directly with high-end finishingsystems”.

“Quantel is working with Apple and Automatic Duck to ensure that the AAFplug-in will take essential project data from Final Cut Pro 4 directly intoan online session using Quantel's powerful hardware-based finishingsystems”, said Nigel Turner, Quantel’s director of marketing. “This will bring post professionals the best of both worlds — the most popular editing software on fast, flexible Macs and powerful hardware-based finishing systems from Quantel. This is what the industry is demanding. Those who don’t commit to this kind of open platform risk becoming an island”.

“Final Cut Pro 4 and Pinnacle System’s CinéWave 4 provide a tremendous number of real-time effects for both online and offline editing in many formats including Photo-JPEG, DV and uncompressed 8-, 10-, and 16-bit SDvideo-with all formats even playing out from the same timeline”, said Laurin Herr, Pinnacle’s vice president and general manager for Editing. “For CinéWave 4, Pinnacle is enhancing standard definition and high definition projects with incredible new real-time keyframeable video tools andsophisticated audio capabilities including eight tracks of audio out. Thanksto Apple’s open architecture and the power of Pinnacle’s TARGA CinéEngine, we can deliver all our new features and functionality without needing to make changes to the underlying hardware. The latest and greatest CinéWave features are just a software upgrade away — even when using SD and HD in the same system”.

“The Omneon and Final Cut Pro combination provides broadcast facilities with an easy and flexible solution for collaborative production”, said Larry Kaplan, Omeon’s president and CEO. “Omneon embraced Apple’s QuickTime file system wrapper when developing our Media Server System and as a result are able to provide seamless integration with Final Cut Pro for our ’Edit in Place’ feature. Final Cut Pro running on a Macintosh G4 provides a lower per-seat cost than any other system of platform and a powerful, flexible solution as compared to proprietary news editing devices”.

“Curious gFx marks our return to the high-end graphics application space and the Mac platform is the best and first place to start”, said GarethGriffith, co-founder of Curious Software. “Mac OS X’s advanced OpenGLimplementation and the G4 Velocity Engine have allowed us to bring a fullyintegrated high-performance multi-layered paint, rotoscoping, animation andcompositing system to the best desktop graphics machines. gFx Pro andApple’s Final Cut Pro combine to make a powerful graphics workflow that wasuntil now only available on much more expensive systems”.

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