Final Cut Studio 3 Announced
 

Apple has released a new version of Final Cut Studio:

Apple - Final Cut Studio

I don't see anything under the DVDSP part that says you can author BluRay discs.

The only thing I see about BluRay is listed under the bit about Compressor and says:
Someone please tell me I'm seeing this wrong.

nice features, nothing groundbreaking, but nice

sounds like the previous HD-DVD workflow

The big upgrades for me:

-Optical flow now only analyzes the portion of the clip you are using instead of the whole damn thing

-Speed changes are handled much better now with ease in/out options... much more Avid-like. The option is also there now to ripple the rest of the sequence or not.

-Depth of Field & 3D shadows in Motion! Yeah!

-ProRes4444 for more efficient 4:4:4 workflows.

-Background rendering with easy export

-Multicolored markers

Still no stereoscopic mastering support so I guess it is time to release my plugin!

Apple - Final Cut Studio - Tech Specs and System Requirements

Looks like I need an intel machine......damn.

Jonathan

A lot of speculation about not supporting PowerPC leading up to today's announcement.

Heath

I just read through the "in depth" PDF and DVDSP does not offer BluRay authoring. The only way you can burn a BluRay is by using the new feature through Compressor which will be a quick and easy burn without all the bells and whistles you can add by using DVDSP. I'm not happy about this.

I like many of you had hoped that Apple was cooking up a major update that would coincide with the release of snow leopard to utilize it's new features. This is not that.

Tim,

Email me privately about your plug-in; I may have an upcoming project in 2K 3D that I can use to test it!

Heath

Intel only is basically Apple preparing for Snow Leopard and the new features it'll offer. I expect next year there will be fairly large update brining 64-bit, OpenCL and Grand Central Dispatch support.

Two Gods of Cinema Using FCP ST3
 

That video with Francis Ford Coppola and Walter Murch on Apple's FCP website is about the best marketing I've ever seen for Final Cut Pro. When Murch said he's been using FCP for 8 years - wow - that could create an earthquake in the Avid community. This is a major campaign from a marketing perspective- regardless of the feature set. Editors don't get better than Murch. What an endorsement!

-C

Murch was one of the first to use Avid (read about it in the latest version of his classic book on editing, "Blink of an Eye") and I remember him talking about it when Cold Mountain was coming out in 02 or 03.

I loved the demos they showed of FCS 2 at NAB 2007 when David Fincher was talking about it. AWESOME!

Heath

In case noone has seen this already, Ripple Training ahs already posted some tutorials.
Ripple Training

I found a few things interesting.
For one, I am finally a happy camper when it comes to speed changes and working in FCP.
Now I can apply speed changes and NOT ripple my timeline. Bout frick'n time. I have missed this sverly since leaveing Sony Veags.
Not to mention, I like the streamlined speed changes work flow.

I am curios though if the speed changes, especially in slow motion are improved, as I have never been pleased with slow motion from FCP, as it was never smooth. So I found myself exporting to Motion and using the Optical Flow for the change. But it is very time consuming to do this.

I also think people should take a look at the tutorial on BluRay burning directly form FCP.
I am able to see why Apple didn't bother integrating BluRay into DVDSP. As it seems one can now, go to export> share, and then select BluRay for delivery options. From there you can select from some templates or insert your own backgrounds and logos.

Granted it's not nearly as customizable as creating a BluRay from scratch, but seems to be very quick and efficient with ones time.

We'll have to wait and see what the results are, but I do like the quick and simple work flow.

D'oh!
 

I am not sure if these annoyances have been fixed or not...

1. When batch digitizing, FCP fails to relink each clip instead waiting until the whole batch is done. Problem is when/if one aborts the batch digitize, all clips to that point become lost/unlinked.

2. Project based scratch disks. C'mon, Apple!

;-)

I get questionable slo-mo if I use progressive (24p, 25p or 30p), which is why I'll shoot in 60i or 50i (if slo-mo in the camera isn't available) and do slo-mo in post.

Besides, I've always seen a drop in quality when doing slow- and fast-motion in FCP. But I don't see it as much with HD vs. SD.

Heath