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Apple Goes Pro:
Apple's New Pro Digital Media
Applications -
Review of Final Cut Pro 4 & DVD
Studio Pro 2
by
Douglas Dixon, Manifest Technology, www.manifest-tech.com
Apple
Digital Video - Consumer
Digital
Apple DVD
- Acquisitions
2002
Apple
2003
Final
Cut Pro 4 - DVD
Studio Pro 2
Apple Pro
References
It's
not just your "insanely
great" Apple Computer any more.
The new Apple has been highly
visible with an impressive array of
cool products for the mass market,
with sexy iMac computers, portable
iPod music players, and the "iLife"
team of digital media tools (iTunes,
iPhoto, iMovie, and iDVD). Ever
since the introduction of the DV
iMacs in October 1999, Apple has
been busily enhancing the Macintosh
as the "hub" of the
digital media experience for
consumers.
Final Cut Pro 4 & DVD Studio Pro
2
If
you were dazzled by all that iMac
and iLife magic, you may not have
noticed that Apple also has been
driving the Mac forward as a
professional platform for digital
video production. Through a series
of strategic acquisitions, Apple has
built a suite of high-end video,
audio and effects tools for
professional video and even film
production. This summer will see the
culmination of those efforts with
dramatically new versions of Final
Cut Pro 4 and DVD Studio Pro 2, both
rewritten and improved with
significant chunks of new
technology.
Although
this article is being written before
these new products have been
released, Apple has provided product
information and demonstrations to
help us see what it is doing with
these products. In the bigger
picture, these are not just new
product versions; Apple also has
bundled in several additional
components such as advanced titling
and batch compression as part of an
even stronger push into professional
production. Along with Apple's
recent acquisitions including the
Shake compositing and visual effects
software and Emagic music production
software, Apple is going seriously
professional.
The
Apple digital media story began in
April 1999 with the original
introduction of Final Cut Pro,
designed to run on the new Power
Macintosh G3 computers with built-in
FireWire interfaces. Final Cut Pro
was an impressive product, including
professional-quality video editing,
compositing, and special effects,
priced at (just) under $1000. It was
reportedly derived from a
never-released product developed at
Macromedia, marking Apple's first
step into assimilating digital video
components and delivering them as
aggressively-priced applications.
In
March 2001 Apple introduced Final
Cut Pro 2, boosting performance with
a real-time architecture for better
performance on the Power Mac G4, and
adding support for real-time
hardware acceleration cards such as
the Matrox RTMac.
Apple
first brought digital media to the
masses with the iMac DV
family, released in October 1999.
These included the new iMovie
software for personal video editing,
bundled in at no additional cost.
Apple then upgraded iMovie to
support the PowerBook and Power Mac
G4 in May 2000, and introduced the
iMovie 2 upgrade July 2000.
For
consumer audio, Apple then
introduced the iTunes CD
jukebox software in January 2001,
and upgraded to iTunes 2 in October
2001 along with the introduction of
the iPod portable music
player. Apple was clearly pushing
hard with mass-market consumer
products.
Meanwhile,
back in April 2000, Apple had
acquired Astarte, a maker of DVD
authoring software including DVD
Director. In what was to become
typical Apple style for
acquisitions, Astarte then went
silent and there was no further
information from Apple as to what it
had in mind for the products or
technology. Then in January 2001,
Apple unveiled its DVD story: two
new products, iDVD for
consumers and DVD Studio Pro
for professionals. iDVD was bundled
on new Power Mac G4 systems with the
SuperDrive combination CD/DVD
burner.
Again,
Apple offered nicely designed
applications with stand-out new
capabilities such as script
programming in DVD Studio Pro, and
with aggressive pricing at just
under $1000. These complemented
Apple's video editing tools, so you
could capture and edit in iMovie or
Final Cut Pro, and then author and
burn DVDs in iDVD or DVD Studio Pro.
But
Apple was not done with building its
DVD technology base. In July 2001,
Apple also acquired Spruce
Technology and its broad line of DVD
authoring products. Oddly, while
Astarte was a Mac-based company,
Spruce had Windows-based products.
Again, Apple shut down the existing
Spruce product line and was silent
as to its future intensions.
Later
that year, in October 2001, Apple
released iDVD 2 for Mac OS X
for an upgrade price of $19.95. This
included several impressive new
technologies, with motion video
button and menu backgrounds, and
background compression while you
continued to work (thanks to OS X
multitasking).
Having
staked out the professional market
with Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio
Pro, Apple took another significant
step forward in 2002, enhancing its
existing products and making several
more acquisitions to move into
higher-end and film production.
Apple
started with the introduction of Final
Cut Pro 3 in December 2001, for
both Mac OS X and OS 9. Version 3
supported real-time effects in
software on the PowerPC G4
processor's Velocity Engine, and
added features including
professional color correction and 2D
and 3D animated titles and effects
from Boris and CGM. It was still
priced at $999, or $299 to upgrade.
Then
in April 2002, Apple introduced the
new Cinema Tools for Final Cut
Pro, a $999 add-in that
supported editing of film and 24
frame per second video.
On
the DVD side, Apple released DVD
Studio Pro 1.2 as a free update
in January 2002, adding support for
external FireWire drives (not just
bundled Apple drives) and for
creating DLT tapes for professional
DVD manufacturing. It then quickly
followed in April 2002 with DVD
Studio Pro 1.5 for Mac OS X, adding
better integration of chapter marks
with Final Cut Pro, and background
compression.
To
strike into higher-end visual
effects post-production, Apple
acquired Nothing Real in February
2002, along with its Tremor and
Shake compositing applications.
Apple has continued to support Shake
on Unix, but its new pricing for Shake
3, released on April 2003,
encourages the use of Apple systems
such as Apple Xserve rack servers or
desktop Power Mac G4 ($4950 on Mac
OS X, versus $9900 on Unix).
In
July 2002, Apple acquired Emagic
and its popular line professional
music production software including Logic.
In this case, Apple has chosen to
run the company as a wholly owned
division and continue its product
lines on the Mac, but discontinue
the Windows line.
Also
last summer, Apple acquired Prismo
Graphics and its products, including
India special effects software for
animated titles and graphics.
Perhaps not coincidentally, one of
the major new components of the new
Final Cut Pro 4 is LiveType for
titling effects.
Rounding
out its 2002 collections, Apple also
acquired Silicon Grail, a developer
of high-end film production tools,
and Zayante, a developer of FireWire
hardware.
Which
brings us to early 2003 to see how
Apple has consolidated these
acquisitions and pushed forward its
digital media strategy in for both
consumer and professional products.
The
consumer products came first. In
January 2003, Apple announced an
upgraded iLife suite,
including the recent iTunes 3,
the new iPhoto 2, and the new
iMovie 3 with enhanced
effects and better integration with
the new iDVD 3. All but iDVD
are available as free downloads, and
the full iLife package with iDVD is
available for $49, or as a $19.95
upgrade.
Also
in January, Apple introduced the new
Final Cut Express for $299,
nicely filling the gap between the
free iMovie and Final Cut Pro at
$999. Final Cut Express is designed
for DV editing, and retains the same
interface and workflow as Final Cut
Pro, just without the higher-end
capture and production features.
Then
in April 2003, Apple revealed major
upgrades to its video and DVD tools,
announcing Final Cut Pro 4 and DVD
Studio Pro 2.
Final
Cut Pro 4 includes over 300 new
features, adds several major new
components for titling, music, and
compression, and now spans the range
from DV and SD (standard definition)
video editing to HD (high
definition) and film. It now
incorporates Cinema Tools,
previously sold separately, while
holding the same price: $999 for the
full version and $399 for the
upgrade. Apple announced the product
will be available in June 2003.
The
improvements with Final Cut Pro 4
start with the interface, which is
now fully customizable, including
the keyboard mappings, button
positions, and window layouts. You
can export your favorite custom
settings and transfer them to other
machines.
Final
Cut Pro 4 also boosts performance
with a new RTExtreme
software-based real-time effects
architecture. This scales with
increased system performance to
offer real-time video streams and
effects, plus viewing on an external
monitor though FireWire or a
break-out box.
For
even higher quality editing, Final
Cut Pro 4 supports 8- and 10-bit
uncompressed video formats, plus
full 32-bit floating point
processing for film-quality results.
More bits per pixel means subtle
details and no more edge effects or
color artifacts, even when you
composite many layers of filters and
effects.
Final
Cut Pro 4 also integrates three
tools for titles, music, and
encoding that provide features
previously accessible only in
third-party products. These are
available only as part of Final Cut
Pro 4.
The
LiveType titling application
allows you to create
professional-looking animated titles
and graphics, much like Boris
Graffiti. Apple includes over 8 MB
of media, including templates,
background, textures, objects, and
effects that you can quickly
customize for your own needs.
LiveType also includes LiveFonts,
allowing each individual character
of a font to be separately animated.
Soundtrack
is a soundtrack scoring tool much
like the Sonic Foundry Acid and
SmartSound products. Soundtrack
includes a library of thousands of
music loops and sound effects that
it can match to your project to
create a professional-sounding
score. It can automatically match
audio loops regardless of tempo and
key, and supports real-time audio
arranging and mixing. Soundtrack is
also available as a stand-alone
product.
Both
Final Cut Pro 4 and DVD Studio Pro 2
now also include Compressor,
a batch compression and transcoding
(recompression) tool, much like
Discreet cleaner, for automating
long or repetitive video processing
operations. Compressor allows you to
export and compress directly to
formats including MPEG-2 for DVD,
MPEG-4 for streaming, and any other
QuickTime format. Apple has upgraded
its MPEG-2 compressor to provide
professional controls including
multi-pass VBR (variable bit rate)
encoding. Compressor provides a
variety of other options for
automated processing, including
watermarks and 30 built-in filters
and effects.
For
compatibility and extensibility with
other production tools and hardware,
Final Cut Pro 4 supports a new XML-based
interchange format for importing and
exporting project information with
other tools, and a FireWire-based
input/output format. The FireWire
I/O framework supports high-quality
uncompressed video (not just
compressed DV) transfer with
external devices. For example, AJA
Video Systems (www.aja.com)
has announced the Io, an
uncompressed audio/video FireWire
capture device for Final Cut Pro 4.
It supports analog or digital
audio/video in a variety of formats
for the Apple PowerPC G4 or
PowerBook G4, with 8 or 10-bit
broadcast video quality. The Io will
be available mid-year for $2290.
Also
in April 2003, Apple announced DVD
Studio Pro 2, another major
upgrade to Apple's product line, and
combined with a significant price
reduction. At the same time, Apple
lowered the price of the
then-current DVD Studio Pro 1.5 to
$499, with an upgrade price for new
purchasers of $29.95. The upgrade
price for existing customers is
$199. DVD Studio Pro 2 is expected
to be available in August.
DVD
Studio Pro 2 is a major redesign,
moving from a graphical
schematic-based view of a project to
a linear timeline-based view that
can better support more complex
projects. The timeline offers
track-based editing, with chapter
marks, up to 8 video angles, 8 audio
tracks, and 32 subtitle tracks.
DVD
Studio Pro also joins tools like the
new Adobe Encore DVD by including an
integrated menu editor. Instead of
needing to design your menus outside
of DVD Studio Pro as a layered
Photoshop file with backgrounds,
text, buttons, and highlights, you
now can edit these elements directly
in DVD Studio Pro. You can make
changes including text, fonts, and
button graphics in the new DVD
Studio Pro menu editor, and it will
composite them into the final menu
images used on the DVD.
DVD
Studio Pro also includes cool
context-sensitive drop palettes.
Much like the pop-up Edit Overlays
in Final Cut Pro, you drag and drop,
and select the action at the same
time, such as creating and linking
to new tracks or automatically
building chapter indexes. Similarly,
it provides helpful interactive
guides and rulers to help align
objects on menus.
And
DVD Studio Pro, like Final Cut Pro,
includes the new Compressor tool for
automating video compression and
processing operations.
While
Apple's snazzy iMac computers, sleek
PowerBooks, and friendly iLife tools
are the most visible part of its
business, Apple has also kept a
clear focus on developing the Mac as
a professional digital media
platform. Through strategic
acquisitions and continued
development, Apple has bulked up its
product line to offer compelling
tools for professional production
spanning the broadcast, film,
post-production, corporate, event,
and pro audio markets.
Apple
has been both persistent and
aggressive in this focus, buying
companies and terminating existing
product lines. And the new versions
of Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro
have been significantly redesigned,
added major new features,
assimilated third-party add-on
functions, and essentially have had
their prices cut in half. That's
serious.
And
don't forget Logic and Shake. Logic
Platinum 6 is a popular
professional music production tool
for composition, notation, and audio
production, priced at $699. Shake
is advanced compositing software
designed for large format
productions by motion picture
studios and visual effects houses.
Shake 3 compositing and visual
effects software, starting at $4950,
has been used in the production of
over a hundred movies including all
three films in Lord of the Rings
trilogy. Very serious indeed.
While
Apple's ambitions will reduce the
development of additional
third-party digital media tools for
the Mac (Adobe's Encore DVD, for
example, is being released only on
Windows), it does continue to
position the Mac as a compelling
platform for a wide range of users,
from newcomers who want an easy
solution (iMac and iLife) to power
users and professionals, running the
Unix command line under OS X and
editing films on their 17-inch
PowerBook G4 laptops.
here for more info and to get
Final Cut Pro from B&H Photo
Video
Apple
- Pro Applications
www.apple.com/software/pro
Apple
- Final Cut Pro 4
www.apple.com/finalcutpro
Apple
- DVD Studio Pro
www.apple.com/dvdstudiopro
Apple
- Logic Platinum
www.apple.com/software/pro/logic
Apple
- Shake
www.apple.com/shake
AJA
Video Systems
www.aja.com
Manifest
Technology®
Copyright 1999-2003, Douglas
Dixon, All Rights Reserved
Manifest Technology
is a registered trademark of Douglas
Dixon
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