© 7-18-02 Michael Tate Jones

• Product Name/Version: Apple Final Cut Pro 3.0
• OS X ?: Yes
• Company: Apple Computer
• URL: http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro
  
• Category: Digital Video Editor
• Price:
  • $999 full version
  • $299 upgrade
• Requirements:
  • Macintosh computer with a 300-MHz or faster PowerPC G3 or G4 processor and built-in FireWire
  • 500-MHz or faster single or 450-MHz dual processor Power Mac G4 or PowerBook G4 required for G4 realtime effects
  • 667-MHz PowerBook G4 required for mobile G4 realtime effects in DV format
  • Mac OS 9.2.2 or Mac OS X v10.1.1
  • QuickTime (included)
  • 256MB of RAM (384MB recommended for G4 realtime effects)
  • 40MB of available disk space required for installation
    
• Test System: 2001 500 MHz Powerbook G4
• Rating: Overall: 4 bounces, Pure Lust

Ratings Legend
One Bounce: Lustless	This product is uninspiring and not only lacks lust appeal, but it also lacks even the possibility of lust-production.
Two Bounces: Lack-Luster	If you need what it is that this product does, look elsewhere or wait, it lacks lust-appeal.
Three Bounces: Lustworthy	A few rough spots here and there, but overall a high quality item worthy of lust.
Four Bounces: Pure Lust	Unalloyed lust.

When Final Cut Pro first entered the video-editing scene a few years back it got the attention of the big nonlinear players Media 100 and AVID. At first they may have laughed at the thought of a $999 program competing with their products, but the laughter soon turned to serious contemplation of their product strategies. Three versions later and Final Cut Pro 3 has quickly earned the respect and support it deserves from video editors, designers and hardware developers.

I come from a Media 100 and AVID editing background, so I've been spending the last few months getting to know Final Cut Pro 3.0. It's not an easy task, but a task well worth the effort if you like to consider yourself a video editing professional. If your coming to FCP 3 without any nonlinear editing experience, expect to be bewildered and confused. Even as great a program as iMovie is, it still doesn't quite prepare you for the full onslaught of FCP 3. If you're coming into FCP 3 with Media 100 experience, expect to be slightly disoriented when first learning FCP 3. Experienced AVID users should be able to jump into FCP 3 with little fuss. Luckily, I have had the fortune to know both Media 100 and AVID, so learning FCP 3 has been relatively painless. AVID's editing environment is a bit more rigid than the Media 100 environment. I was a Media 100 editor first and then learned AVID. From experience, I can tell you that I had to 'rewire' my brain to learn how the AVID system worked. It took a little time (about 9 Days of AVID Boot Camp), but was well worth the knowledge gained. With this knowledge, I will present to you my thoughts and comparisons of these video-editing systems.

Final Cut Pro 3 combines the best features of Media 100 with the best features of AVID into a single, powerful video-editing package. Granted, Final Cut may not have as many real-time effects out-of-the-box as Media 100 or AVID does, but FCP 3 costs $1,000 and entry level systems from Media 100 and AVID start about $5,000 and go way up from there. But don't think for a second that FCP 3 can't compete with these systems. Many 3rd Party hardware developers offer PCI video cards that give FCP real-time effects and a BoB (Break-out-Box) for inputting and outputting multiple video formats. Pinnacle's CineWave system even offers real-time Color Correction and Chroma-Keying for Final Cut for about $10,000. This is quite an achievement considering the fact that an AVID system with these same abilities costs $60,000 to $100,000. It's this extreme pricing that has driven many companies to consider Final Cut as an option when buying their next video-editing system. However, AVID isn't sitting on its laurels. They'd like to put a stop to this trend with the recent release of AVID Xpress DV 3.5 for OS X. It's a bit late in the game and priced higher than Final Cut Pro, but AVID seems to have a way of impressing people with their name alone. All this is but a general comparison between these systems. Now, let's get into the specifics of Final Cut Pro 3.

I mention above that Final Cut combines the best of Media 100 and AVID systems. Now, I'll show you how. On first starting a new project, AVID users will immediately recognize the source/program window setup used by their systems. Clips you load from the bin appear in the source window and clips you add to the timeline appear in the program window. But this is where the similarity ends.

You'll notice that FCP 3 includes tabs in source and program monitors for performing various tasks to your video clips. The source window includes Video, Audio, Filters and a Motion tab. The Motion tab is where the power of Final Cut Pro is most evident. After Effects users will immediately notice the similarity when clicking the Motion tab. Here, after double-clicking on a clip you can adjust basic properties of your clip such as scale, position, center and rotation using multiple keyframes and/or adjust more advanced properties such as distort and motion blur.

The motion timeline and the Final Cut Pro timeline CTI's (or Current Time Indicators) move in unison so it's easy to see where you keyframes are being placed. Final Cut Pro even allows the use of After Effects filters within the program. Unfortunately, as with After Effects, were in a waiting game for many filter plug-ins to be carbonized for OS X. After adding filters to your clips the filters tab shows any video filters you have applied. In the program window a new tab is added for each sequence you are working on. Unlike the AVID, Final Cut allows you to have multiple sequences open in an editing session similar to Media 100. Unlike Media 100 though, Final Cut places each new sequence as a tab instead of having multiple sequences (or programs as Media 100 calls them) open in separate windows.

This leads us to similarities and differences in the timelines of each system. Final Cut Pro is very similar to AVID in its timeline design. Both Final Cut Pro and AVID allow for multiple video tracks which may contain video, full-page graphics or keyable titles in any of the tracks. Media 100 users have long complained about the lack of video tracks (one-track with an A, B and FX sub-track) and only one Graphics track (which will be remedied with the eminent release of Media 100 version 8). I've always liked this aspect of the AVID and I am glad to see it in Final Cut Pro. But, where the AVID is strict about manually adjusting clip lengths in the timeline using handles, Final Cut Pro takes a cue from Media 100 and lets you manually adjust clips directly in the timeline without first having to switch to trim mode (like the AVID). Final Cut Pro also allows you to insert or overwrite clips depending on where you place the cursor when dragging a clip into the timeline, one-upping both Media 100 and AVID. One default setting, which I quickly turned off in Final Cut Pro, is timeline snapping. It's a helpful feature for new FCP editors, but rather annoying for more experienced editors. A small icon in the upper left corner of the timeline turns the feature on and off. Final Cut Pro's tool palette contains trim edit, roll edit and slip edit tools for more precise control over your clips. They way these are integrated is very intuitive and not as confusing to use as Media 100's.

Other features I will note here, but the differences between them in each of the editing environments are slight at best. Digitizing clips is much the same in each system. All of them allow you to log and batch capture or capture clips on the fly. Final Cut Pro has an Offline RT option which digitizes clips at a lower bit rate for faster editing on less powerful systems (such as a Powerbook G4). Both Media 100 and AVID offer low resolution options as well. Bin and Project windows in each system function very similar too. Within each project window of these systems you may have any number of bins and sequences. In Final Cut Pro bins appear as folders in the project window. Double clicking on the folder opens a separate bin window showing you a list of each clip in the bin. Right clicking in the bin allows you to switch between list views and icon views of your clips. As with all systems, having a large Cinema Display or dual monitors helps reduce clutter when windows begin to propagate on your desktop.

Also present in Final Cut Pro (and the other systems as well) is a 'Find' feature which lets you locate used and unused media to help trim down the size of your project when it gets too big.

One final topic to cover is Final Cut Pro's performance. Final Cut Pro runs in both OS 9 and OS X, however, its performance in OS X is what really makes Final Cut Pro shine. With OS X's advanced memory architecture, preemptive multitasking and dual processor support, Final Cut Pro feels right at home in OS X. If you've read any of my recent articles, you know how thrilled I am with the rendering abilities of video applications in OS X. If you're not fortunate enough to own a real-time hardware card to help out Final Cut, OS X still allows you to continue working in other programs while Final Cut renders in the background. As always, it helps to have dual processors and lots of RAM. As I've said before, this is a great productivity boost for editors. Unfortunately, those that do own 3rd party real-time hardware cards are still waiting for OS X drivers for their hardware. The Kona-SD card is the first to market with OS X drivers. Other developers are at work making drivers for OS X and should be available in the near future.

For all it's worth (which is a $999 bucks), Final Cut Pro 3 is an amazing video editing package at an extremely affordable price for small to medium sized production facilities or design houses. FCP packs in all the features of the more expensive editing systems, but does so at a reasonable price. It may not have all the real-time abilities it's more expensive competitors do, but this can be easily obtained with the addition of a real-time hardware card and still not break your budget. Final Cut Pro has simultaneously filled a market niche for a video editing system and created a new market for designers and content creators. Apples Seminar Series for Final Cut Pro 3 touts that video editing is in its third revolution. If Final Cut Pro is the video-editing tool leading this revolution, I'm inclined to believe it. I'm giving Final Cut Pro 3, a Pure Lust rating with 4 bounces of the apple.

Resources:

• http://seminars.apple.com/business/video3/
• http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/
• http://www.apple.com/creative/
• http://www.creativepro.com/front/home
• http://www.dv.com/

Books to Read:

• Final Cut Pro 3: Visual QuickPro Guide by Lisa Brenneis - PeachPit Press
• Final Cut Pro 3 and the Art of Filmmaking by Jason Cranford Teague and David Teague - Sybex
• Editing Techniques with Final Cut Pro By Michael Wohl - PeachPit Press

- Michael Tate Jones

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