Entered CNET Catalog: 12/22/2001
SKU: M8562ZA
Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
Manufacturer description
Final Cut Pro 3 is a comprehensive and innovative editing solution with unprecedented flexibility featuring award-winning editing capabilities, precise color correction tools, and built-in compositing and effects. Revolutionary out-of-the-box G4 real-time effects deliver real-time playback without rendering or additional PCI hardware. The new OfflineRT format yields over 40 minutes of footage per gigabyte, providing a highly efficient editing workflow. Designed for ease of use, with tools that can expertly handle virtually any video format, Final Cut Pro 3 is the complete solution for professional video editing. With a comprehensive set of award winning features that rival expensive proprietary editing systems, it's no wonder why Final Cut Pro is quickly becoming the digital editing choice for professional editors and filmmakers worldwide. Desktop or laptop, real-time editing anywhere is now a reality. Final Cut Pro 3 features G4 real-time effects, the industry's first host-processor-powered, dual-stream, real-time effects architecture. This out-of-the-box real-time solution delivers render-free playback of transitions, composites, titles, and color correction for DV and OfflineRT formats - no PCI card required. When combined with a PowerBook G4, Final Cut Pro 3 provides unprecedented real-time mobile editing capabilities. G4 real-time effects scale with the power of your Mac. For the ultimate in render-free editing, use a dual processor Power Mac G4 and take advantage of multiple layers of real-time transitions, titles, and effects. Final Cut Pro 3 dramatically reduces hard drive media limitations with OfflineRT, a new high-capacity format that yields over 40 minutes of high-quality offline video per gigabyte - on standard hard drives. OfflineRT delivers the industry's easiest offline format for DV. Simply set Final Cut Pro 3 to capture OfflineRT video via FireWire and get on-the-fly transcoding from the 3.6MB per second data rate of DV down to the 660 Kb per second data rate of OfflineRT. The enhanced Media Manager in Final Cut Pro 3 also allows you to convert other finishing formats - M-JPEG, SD, and HD - to this highly mobile format. With a PowerBook G4 and OfflineRT, uncompromising mobile video editing has become a reality. Final Cut Pro 3 brings advanced primary and secondary color correctors to your desktop. With range checking, overlays, and hardware-accurate waveform and vectorscope monitors at your fingertips, you can easily monitor video levels. You also get a powerful new set of image controls to maintain broadcast-safe luminance and black, levels. New keyboard shortcuts let you quickly switch between shots for instant comparison and analysis of your clips.CNET editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 02/12/2002
Just drag and drop
As with the previous version of Final Cut Pro, installation and setup is practically a no-brainer. Once you double-click the installation icon, the program starts loading. After you've installed Final Cut Pro, just attach a DV camera to your Mac's FireWire port, and you're ready to start transferring video.
When you fire up Final Cut Pro 3.0, you'll notice a brand-new window that hosts the so-called Video Scope tools. There you'll find a variety of tools for gathering information about your video, from color strength to signal levels. Although a bit clunky to use, these tools give you a good idea of how to correct bad video images or color-match different video clips.
What sets Final Cut Pro apart from other video-editing applications is how fast it gets you from the first cut to the finished video. Unlike rival editing programs, such as Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro allows you to drag clips within the program from the Monitor window, where you preview the shots, into the Program window, where you assemble the video you want and perform one of six different types of edits automatically. Just drag the clip onto the graphic overlay that says Insert With Transition, and Final Cut adds your clip to the timeline with a nice dissolve (or another default transition) between it and the previous clip.
Real-time effects; real small video
One of Final Cut Pro's most touted new features is the ability to preview video transitions and filters in real time without having to render the image in color or view it in black and white. Unfortunately, you'll find that only 12 of Final Cut's 60 video transitions and 1 of its 75 video filters work in real time; the others need time to process. Also, your processor limits the number of effects and filters viewable at the same time. With a single G4 processor, for instance, you won't be able to use more than a couple of effects simultaneously. According to Apple and several professional video editors we talked to, Final Cut's real-time cross-dissolve, 5 wipes, and 6 iris transitions will be sufficient for most amateur editors. We'd like to see many more transitions added to the roster of real-time effects, including pushes, where one image is literally pushed from one side of the screen to the other.
Preview like a pro
The video previews are excellent, even when using Final Cut Pro on a relatively slow 667MHz G4 PowerBook. We especially like the Color Corrector three-way filter: a real-time filter that lets you adjust the white, black, and midtone levels in a video image. This is a great tool for correcting video images that do not match well because of different lighting or cameras.
Another feature, the Media Manager, allows you to convert any type of video file (from standard DV to HDTV clips) to Final Cut Pro's new OfflineRT mode. According to Apple, OfflineRT compresses your files to let you record more than five times more video material onto your hard disk.
Technical support
Support for Final Cut Pro 3.0 is excellent. Besides two volumes of user manuals, you'll also find a separate tutorial manual, 90 days of free technical phone support, and online help from within the program. However, this app is definitively not for beginners. Apple's tech support handles almost any technical problem but doesn't cover basic editing techniques. The included tutorial and DV media, however, do explain most of the basics of filmmaking.
The winner and still the champ
Final Cut Pro's combination of robust tools makes version 3.0 the most powerful software-based video-editing program on the planet. Final Cut Pro 3.0 is the only software program to use if you are serious about editing video on the Macintosh.
User opinions
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User Rating: 
9/10
FCP dreams
Pros: Interface inspires creativity, versital with many many other creative products
Cons: Expensive, Avid better for boring industrial and corporate work
User Rating: 9/10
The cheepest complete professional package their is, period.
Pros: Check out 4, it will nock you socks off. There is nothing i can't do with this program. For those people complaining about it's availabilty, they don't realize that the best thing about it is that Apple FCP to work with the hardware and OS, meaning that
Cons: The sterotype that it carries with it simply because it runs on Mac only, which is stupid. I have been Windows all my life, until i tried this program, and i am lucky enought to have had an awakening. I'm never going to go back to PC now that i have FCP
User Rating: 9/10
Much better than Vegas or Storm
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User Rating: 9/10
Everything you want it to be
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User Rating: 9/10
Best PC/MAC Based Software Editor
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8/10
Pro video comes home
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User Rating: 8/10
Its for Macs, of course its gonna rule
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User Rating: 8/10
Avec Final Cut je suis devenu un monteur professionnel
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7/10
Moving on to Vegas Video 3
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3/10
nice try, but still not an Avid!
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User Rating: 8/10
it's an awesome thing
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5/10
no thanks
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6/10
Vegas Video 3 is far better
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User Rating: 8/10
Ideal for business
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10/10
Full Professional, almost-realtime
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User Rating: 8/10
It's the wave of the future.
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User Rating: 6/10
DV Storm beats the pants off this
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User Rating: 8/10
Hello Wintel people...
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User Rating: 10/10
It just keeps getting better!
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User Rating: 9/10
Could it be better? No.
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User Rating: 9/10
If you make videos, then you had better be using this program!!!
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User Rating: 8/10
Close to perfect
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User Rating: 9/10
Nothing beats it in education
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User Rating: 9/10
Spielberg wannabees? Apply here
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