Apple Rare Apple Final Cut Pro 2.0 - M8276Z/A - Computer software - In original box

Rare Apple Final Cut Pro 2.0 - M8276Z/A



What is Final Cut Pro 2.0?

Final Cut Pro, Apple’s professional-level video editing software, was a hit when it debuted in 1999. Compact and elegantly designed, it replaced many high-priced Avid turnkey systems in Mac-based editing suites. However, what Final Cut Pro lacked was speed. Unlike Media 100 or Avid systems, Final Cut Pro had no hardware component to provide real-time rendering of video. Nor did it take advantage of the G4’s Velocity Engine (AltiVec) or earlier multiprocessor Macs. So you’d race through the editing process and then watch your clients twiddle their thumbs while the final render bar crawled along.

No longer. In Final Cut Pro 2.0, Apple has solved the sluggishness problem with a transparent real-time QuickTime architecture. Install an optional real-time video-processing card — such as Matrox’s RTMac... or Pinnacle’s forthcoming real-time version of CineWave... — and Final Cut Pro 2 will fly through video jobs that used to take hours.

We put Final Cut Pro 2.0 through its paces on both a stock Power Mac G4/400 and a new dual-processor Power Mac G4/533 with an installed Matrox card. With the Matrox card, cutting DV, rendering stock transitions, and compositing three video layers happened instantaneously. You can view and output camera moves, cropping, scaling, and shadow effects, all of which previously took minutes or hours to render, without the lengthy rendering process.

Final Cut Pro 2.0, now optimized for AltiVec, also performed faster than its version 1.2 on our basic G4/400. The entire app felt more responsive, and we observed a significant speed increase—about 25 percent—when rendering the same project in both versions.

There are numerous improvement tweaks throughout the app. For example, you can set parameter defaults (resolution, frame rate, and so on) when you install Final Cut Pro 2.0, or use the all-in-one Easy Setup dialog box to change default settings later on, instead of entering basic parameters in several different windows. You can also save and exchange settings files — an important feature if you routinely edit media from different sources or work with other editors and want to ensure everyone is using the same settings.

Organizing clips is more intuitive with the new Media Manager. Version 2.0 searches for and reconnects media files using a Find button in the Reconnect Options dialog box, making it hassle-free to locate and relink missing clips and files. You also have more options to tag, flag, and annotate clips for customized tracking. It's a pity that Final Cut Pro still doesn't organize Capture Scratch files properly — it places them into a new folder with each capture session, instead of allowing you to specify a single Capture Scratch folder for each project.

Apple was smart in building compositing and keyframing capabilities into Final Cut Pro, negating the need to launch Adobe After Effects for daily tasks like adding or multiplying layers, superimposing flying titles, or creating a basic matte. The improved keyframing tools have more options for numeric input, allowing you to move, scale, and spin any clip and generate motion blur. The text generator, formerly one of the weaker features, boasts a new, high-quality outlined text generator with animatable attributes like opacity and edge softness, plus new Scrolling, Crawl, and Typewriter text-motion generators.

Final Cut Pro 2 ships with many effects, filters, and satellite apps, including Commotion DV (a subset of Pinnacle’s roto-and-paint heavyweight, Commotion 3), Maxon’s Cinema 4D GO (a lightweight 3D version of Cinema 4D XL that creates flying 3D logos), Boris Script LTD (a plug-in character generator that expands Final Cut Pro 2's own titling tools), and Terran’s Cleaners EZ (for compression). Most of these are minimally useful, so save your paycheck for the full versions. Final Cut Pro 2 also supports most After Effects filters.

While Final Cut Pro 1.x’s audio tools weren’t on par with its video tools, version 2.0 addresses previous issues (such as setting relative gain for selected clips or an entire track) and fixes several other limitations. However, Apple still has more work to do. For example, the colorful new peak meter provides better feedback on the master stereo audio level, but we would prefer to see a peak meter for as many individual tracks as we like. Fortunately, Apple has improved compatibility with external audio solutions. You can export Final Cut Pro 2.0 audio tracks in OMF (Open Media Framework) format for import into Digidesign’s ProTools for audio postproduction or use Bias’s Peak DV (included), which supports VST plug-ins.

A few other issues: We experienced a couple of crashes while rendering with the dual-processor G4/533; whether this is a real Final Cut Pro issue, a problem with QuickTime 5, or some issue with the multiprocessing code, we’re not sure — but this is a version 0.0 release, after all. Also, Final Cut Pro 2.0 is not Mac OS X compatible — meaning you can’t even run it in the Classic environment. Apple promises an OS X upgrade but didn’t announce a target date as of press time.

Version 2 solidifies Final Cut Pro’s position as the leading video editing solution for the Mac. If you make a living editing with Final Cut Pro, upgrade and invest in an RT hardware solution. You will recover your investment in no time.

Anzovin, Steve, Anzovin, Raf. (July 2001). Final Cut Pro 2.0. MacAddict. (pp. 44-45).