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MillimeterFinal Cut Pro 3.0
Jun 1, 2002 12:00 PM, By S. D. Katz
Among the realtime effects in Final Cut Pro 3.0, the
color-correction tools include a software waveform, vectorscope,
histogram, and RGB parade.
Apple's Final Cut Pro 3.0 continues the blistering development of this hit Mac product and establishes it as the desktop NLE product to beat. Although FCP 3.0 is exceptional software, merit alone does not account for its success. It has also benefited from the considerable buzz surrounding Apple's comeback since Steve Jobs' return and its reemergence as a leading graphics platform.
On top of that, the FCP story is great copy, beginning with the exit of Adobe Premiere's development team to create a new NLE product at Macromedia that, as we all now know, became Apple's Final Cut Pro. Randy Ubillos, formerly the senior engineer for Premiere, is currently the senior software engineer on FCP. Ubillos is getting a rare second chance to correct in FCP all of Premiere's limitations while simultaneously building on all of Premiere's successes.
There comes a moment for most successful software products when the feature set achieves a level of performance and completeness such that the very challenge it was created to overcome is solved. As an editorial solution, FCP 3.0 is very close to having reached this point. Within the limits of the hardware, nonlinear editing in FCP is more about artistic decisions than technical bit wrangling.
A quick survey of the top of the pyramid for NLEs shows that Avid dominates commercial and mainstream feature editorial. Although FCP 3.0 could be considered a serious alternative to Avid, it's very difficult to unseat any incumbent software in our industry. The main reason is that producers hire editors, not editing systems, and most editors in the film industry work on the Avid. FCP 3.0, however, has come in the side door by winning the hearts and minds of today's DV filmmaking. Go to any independent film festival, and the tech talk among the documentary and narrative filmmakers is FCP and DV cameras. The reason is price and performance. FCP is a stable, full-featured NLE coming at a time when workstation processing power, hard drive cost, output quality (Digital Voodoo, Aurora, CinéWave, AJA), and OS stability (OS X) have converged to provide an affordable editing solution, giving Avid serious competition.
For years, it has been possible to animate, edit, and manipulate video on the desktop if you were a reasonably technical, driven, patient, and slightly masochistic personality. Only recently has digital production for small shops begun to resemble the rational, predictable workflow for any critical task found in other industries. If you are cutting together a short, commercial, or feature, FCP 3.0 is the best offline solution in its price category and very competitive on a feature-by-feature comparison with such packaged systems as Avid, Media 100, and Discreet's Edit. Two other possible contenders on the desktop side are Avid's very impressive Xpress DV (which is a DV-only solution) and Adobe Premiere 6.5 (which is not released yet). FCP is also a terrific choice for online output of DV shorts and features as well as uncompressed output to DigiBeta. If, however, you are using your NLE for intensive graphics or titling of the kind found in commercials, broadcast graphics, or corporate communications, all desktop applications including so-called realtime solutions have the usual problem of extensive rendering times.
What's in FCP 3.0
The latest version of Final Cut Pro is a major upgrade to a product that was already on the right track in just about every category. I'll start with the new realtime capability, but for the Millimeter audience there are many more relevant features that confirm Apple's commitment to high-end production.
Promises of realtime effects on the desktop really mean a preview mode solution, but it is actually an offline tool because while the effects previews are good enough for timing and editorial decisions, they are not final renders. G4 Realtime Effects are not available on anything less than a single-processor G4 500 or a G4 with dual processors. The faster the processor, the better the performance (picture quality). However, effects are previewed on the desktop, not the NTSC monitor connected to your DV camera. For that capability you will need Matrox's RT Max board, but if your video card has an S-Video output, you can still preview to an NTSC monitor. Realtime effects included in FCP 3.0 are Cross Dissolve, Iris Transitions (Diamond Iris, Oval Iris, Rectangle Iris, Star Iris, and many more), Wipes (Center, Clock, Edge, Inset, and many more), Color Corrector, and motion effects that include Opacity, Scale, Center, and Offset. The latest G4 dual-processor Macs can even process multiple effects. In addition to the realtime effects, many After Effects filters also work in Final Cut Pro, and FCP ships with Vol. 2 of CGM transitions and filters (35 in all) that are written in FCP's native language and take advantage of the Mac's AltiVec engine and multiprocessing. The bottom line is that you will still be waiting for effects to render. This is a limitation of hardware; not software.
At NAB, Apple announced the inclusion of Cinema Tools from Film Logic. This provides enhanced management of 24 fps editing capabilities in 16mm and 35mm, as well as support for film cut lists and 24 fps EDLs for HD video. For feature film editors FCP 3.0 is now a very complete solution.
Color Correction is one of the realtime effects, but it's a major new feature on its own. 2001 seems to be the year that software developers discovered color correction, Combustion 2, and FCP 3.0, and several plug-in developers for After Effects and Premiere have delivered professional color-correction tools for 16-bit per pixel color space. FCP's built-in color tools include a software Waveform, Vector-scope, Histogram, and RGB Parade, but you will still need a professional NTSC monitor to make accurate decisions.
Both primary and secondary color correction is located in the Color tab that sits in the Viewer window. The Color Correct filter does not work in realtime at full frame rate, but it is realtime on still frames. This may seem like a limitation, but as it turns out, color decisions are actually easier to make without motion in the frame, and most colorists use still frames throughout the correction process. FCP also allows you to play a series of color-corrected clips in sequence but not at the full frame rate.
Within secondary color correct, you can isolate a particular area of the frame using the Limit Effect controls. This is useful in many situations, but it is a great companion for chromakey effects. For those of us who routinely book tape-to-tape color sessions on a da Vinci or some other dedicated system at the end of a desktop-created project, FCP's color-correction tools are a major breakthrough.
One of the smarter Color Correction enhancements is the ability to apply the color-correct settings from one clip to another clip. This is an efficient way to work and helps maintain a consistent “art direction” from shot to shot. The settings become a standard style frame for any given scene based on numbers, not just the usual visual reference that the artist “eyeballs.”
FCP's color tools work in 24-bit (8 per channel) color depth rather than the 16-bit per channel provided by Combustion 2 and Adobe After Effects, but this is still a big step forward for editors and offers extremely subtle color control of an image. Hopefully, editors and motion graphic artists will be able to find good tutorials on the intricacies of color correction because none exists in Apple's manual (more about the manual later).
Another new feature I particularly liked was the Add Voice Over effect. This allows you to record a voiceover track to RAM while a sequence plays. The personal video essay and the exploration of text, voice, and image have seen a great deal of experimentation in the last decade, and this tool makes it possible to easily explore commentary over images. Technologies like Add Voice and cigarette-sized DV cameras bring much-needed spontaneity to a medium all too bogged down in technical processes. Because Add Voice is RAM-based, you will need enough free memory to capture long voice passages (approximately 6 MB per minute). Fortunately, RAM, like talk, is cheap.
FCP 3.0 also features an improved Media Manager. Asset and media management doesn't sound sexy, but it's at the center of an editor's workflow. The new Media Manager allows you to remove the trimmed portions (heads and tails) for selected clips or create a new project file with only the trimmed clips. You can also copy media files and make an offline project.
Another management tool new in FCP 3.0 is the Autosave Vault. A simple window lets you set the frequency with which FCP automatically saves your project along with the maximum number of copies of a project and the number of projects that are saved. In the vault you can easily go back to an old version of a project by selecting the Restore Projects windows.
Also new is OfflineRT, an alternative space-saving codec (photoJPEG) that provides 320 × 240 pixel offline files that are very compact. FCP 3.0 accelerates the codec using the G4 Velocity engine and builds the DV acquisition of NTSC and PAL into the system using Easy Setup. OfflineRT provides a very good image while saving considerable hard drive space.
I tested FCP 3.0 on OS X and found that the new operating system takes getting used to. The Mac's stability has always been an issue, and while OS X is reportedly rock solid, I have had little problem with FCP 3.0 under OS 9.1. FCP 3.0 is identical in either System 9 or OS X, though with the addition of video I/O cards there are some wrinkles. At the moment, Digital Voodoo, CinéWave, and RTMac are not OS X-ready. This is also an issue with certain disk arrays. However, every hardware vendor I spoke with plans to support the OS X by Siggraph.
And More
There are more features in FCP 3.0 than can be covered in this overview, but here are some of the most important. It has better integration with DVD Studio Pro. Essentially, you can set chapter markers in FCP 3.0 that are recognized in DVD Pro 2 along with the name of the marker. There are also Compression markers that are automatically set (but can be overridden) at each new shot. All this makes DVD export of movies simpler. Another big feature is QuickView, a RAM preview that stores and plays (from the Canvas or Viewer) full-, half-, and quarter-resolution sequences. You can also define selection areas such as play In and Out or play from the In Point to the end.
FCP 3.0 ships with Boris Calligraphy and text generators that take advantage of (unanimated) realtime playback. Vector-based Calligraphy comes with a very complete text control that includes tracking, kerning, leading control as well as five shadow effects and five edge effects.
I've read more than one article complimenting Apple's documentation for FCP 3.0. I have to disagree. This manual does not cover many of the new features, for instance, importing CD tracks. The manual for FCP 3.0 shows an import window that does not exist in the current software. As it turns out, the 3.0 manual is a slightly revised 2.0 manual. Fortunately, FCP has built-in support available within the program. This is a good approach in terms of accessibility, but more depth and tutorials could also be included here.
FCP 3.0 comes of age with this latest version. The documentation could be better, but third-party books, CDs, and DVDs, such as The Intelligent Assistant for Apple's Final Cut Pro, help fill the gap. FCP 3.0 combined with OS X is a great solution for NLE and is a clear indication of Apple's commitment to the high end.
