This week’s National Association of Broadcasters conference (NAB) in Las Vegas has seen Apple unveil Apple Final Cut Studio 2, an upgrade to its pro video editing and production suite. During last Sunday’s presentation, Apple showcased the programs that make up the high-end HDV powerhouse editing tool suite: Final Cut Pro 6 for cutting together video sources, Motion 3 to add animated 2D and 3D titles, Soundtrack Pro 2 to manipulate the score, Compressor 3 to handle different output formats (from HD movie to iPod), DVD Studio Pro 4.2 to output to DVD media, and a new application, Color, that gives editors control over the look and feel of the footage through pro color grading capabilities.

The most interesting features that wowed the public were the Open Timeline, affording maximum flexibility to mix video sources (Final Cut handles “DV and SD up to HDV, XDCAM HD, DVCPRO HD, and fully uncompressed HD”) in one final product, and the introduction of a new post production format, ProRes 422. ProRes promises “uncompressed HD quality at SD file sizes” with real time drag and drop editing capabilities for HD video.

To this end, Apple has teamed up with AJA Video Systems to develop IoHD, a new hardware-based audio and video IO box that connects to the Mac using a single FireWire 800 connection, and promises real-time 10-bit HD conversion. The impressive IoHD sports a huge number of ports on the back and monitoring LEDs at the front, in an enclosure design reminiscent of Apple’s Mac Pro line.

Final Cut Studio 2 will cost $1,299 or $499 for an upgrade. Upgrading from any version of Final Cut Pro to the Studio will cost $699. Final Cut Studio 2 will be available next month, while AJA’s IoHD will debut in July for $3,495. Of course these are not consumer-priced products, but they are a breakthrough in high end HD video editing, offering solutions at a fraction of the price of the competition, making Hollywood style editing affordable for smaller studios and independent filmmakers.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 17th, 2007 at 7:17 pm and is filed under Software, Mac, Apple, Accessories, Digital Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.