CUPERTINO, California<March 14, 2001<Apple today introduced Final Cut Pro
2, the next generation of its award-winning video editing, compositing and
special effects software. Final Cut Pro 2 is a powerful, all-in-one editing
solution, featuring real-time editing, breakthrough Power Mac G4
performance and a scalable architecture that allows users to output content
into any video format.
Final Cut Pro 2, running on our blazingly fast Power Mac G4 or PowerBook
G4, offers the specialized features and robust editing workflow sought after
by video professionals, without the expensive price tags, said David Moody,
Apples senior director of Applications Marketing. Final Cut Pros
innovative, extensible real-time architecture gives editors what they need
most<time to be more creative and productive.
With Final Cut Pro 2, real-time editing and compositing functions are
seamlessly integrated into the video production workflow. By simply adding
an optional, supported real-time processing card, video editors can
instantly perform wipes, dissolves, and 2D motion graphics effects,
dramatically increasing their creative freedom and efficiency. Final Cut
Pros real-time architecture allows third-party manufacturers to create
hardware that supports a variety of professional editing features and
formats. The first card to support Final Cut Pros real-time architecture is
the RTMac card from Matrox, which provides real-time broadcast-quality
transitions and effects, and uncompressed, 32-bit, animated graphics in a
dual-stream, native-DV editing environment.
Final Cut Pro 2 takes advantage of the supercomputing performance of Apples
new Power Mac G4 and PowerBook G4 lines, and the new QuickTime 5
architecture, to deliver dramatic gains in video editing productivity. On
compute-intensive operations, Final Cut Pro 2 is up to 30% faster on G4
systems and 70% faster on dual-processor G4 systems, when compared to the
previous generations performance on similarly configured systems.
Final Cut Pro works with Apples new DVD Studio Pro to form a complete
system for professional digital content creation and delivery. From within
Final Cut Pro, users can invoke DVD Studio Pros powerful compression engine
to encode their edited video sequences into MPEG2. Using DVD Studio Pro,
they can author sophisticated navigation menus, preview disk operation in
real time, and burn DVDs using the Power Mac G4s new SuperDrive for
playback on consumer DVD players.
Final Cut Pro 2 will be available beginning March 19, 2001 through The Apple
Store (www.apple.com) and through Authorized Apple Resellers for a
suggested retail price of $999 (US). Existing users can upgrade to the new
version of Final Cut Pro for $249 (US). Final Cut Pro 2 requires Mac OS
9.1, a Macintosh computer with a 300-MHz or faster PowerPC G3 or G4
processor, QuickTime 5, 192MB of RAM (256MB of RAM for real-time
processing), and 20MB of available disk space for installation. More
information on Final Cut Pro, including a list of certified, compatible
hardware and software can be found at www.apple.com/finalcutpro.
