Apple Releases Final Cut Pro 4: Real Time Effects, LiveType (Titling), & Soundtrack

by , 7:00 AM EDT, April 7th, 2003

Apple has released a new full version of Final Cut Pro (FCP), bringing it to version 4.0. Final Cut Pro is an extensive professional video editing app designed for functionality and price busting. The latest release features numerous enhancements including improved titling with LiveType and music scoring with Soundtrack. The new version also includes RT Extreme, a new real-time effects engine. According to Apple:

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 compositing and effects, powerful new interface customization tools, new high-quality 8- and 10-bit uncompressed formats and for the first time in an editing system costing less than $100,000, 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.

The revolutionary RT Extreme is an enhanced software-based, real-time effects architecture that scales smoothly with processor speed to support an increased number of simultaneous real-time video streams and hundreds of real-time effects.

LiveType, a unique new titling application available only in Final Cut Pro 4, enables users to create dynamic, animated titles quickly and easily. LiveType includes LiveFonts, a new approach to text animation in which every character of a font is a separate animated movie.

Soundtrack, a breakthrough music creation tool also available only in Final Cut Pro 4, gives editors the power to easily create high-quality, royalty-free music scores for their projects. Soundtrack automatically matches audio loops regardless of tempo and key, providing real-time arranging and mixing.

You can find more information about Final Cut Pro 4 at the Apple Web site. Upgrades are available for US$399.00, while the full version of Final Cut Pro 4 is available for US$999.00.

The Mac Observer Spin:

Apple is improving Final Cut Pro at a brisk pace. Perhaps this is why Adobe chose to endorse the PC in the now infamous page that focuses on Adobe's own inferior performance with Premiere and After Affect on the Mac when compared to a Wintel machine. While both of Adobe's apps have more or less sat still for some time, FCP has continued to add more and more features at a brisk clip. At this point, FCP is competing with products that cost far more from companies like Avid.

Between FCP, Shake, and DVD Studio Pro -- all updated on Sunday -- Apple has definitely turned Mac OS X into a very competitive platform for the film industry.

Apple