Apple Thoughts - News & Reviews on all things Apple

"There is a crowd growing outside of the conference room of the Final Cut Pro User Group Supermeet right now. We're all waiting to take our seats to see what everyone at NAB 2011 has been talking about for the past couple of days . . . the unveiling of the next generation of Final Cut Pro."

Interesting stats from this presentation, such as two million users and 94% customer satisfaction rate, that was given at the 10th Annual SuperMeet for FCP users. This new version has a ton of updates to it such as support for all processor cores via Grand Central Dispatch, high-def 4k resolution, the ability to edit during import, scalable rendering, resolution independent playback system and most important to the crowd the fact that it will be 64-bit. The updated version is called Final Cut Pro X (or FCPX as they have come to refer to it) and will be available via the Mac App Store in June of this year for $299.00 USD.

"The agenda has now been set for the Ninth Annual Las Vegas SuperMeet to take place on Tuesday, April 13, 2010 in the Amazon Ballroom at the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, NV. Doors open at 4:00PM and presentations begin at 7PM and continue until 11:00PM."

SuperMeets are for Final Cut Studio, Adobe and Avid editors and digital filmmakers, who use or want to use Macintosh-based products for their workflow. They are held annually in a variety of cities and this time it is in Las Vegas. Tickets are on sale online for $15.00 USD each, or you can buy one at the door for $20.00 USD ($10.00 USD with valid student ID). You can also watch it streamed live at ZapLive.tv after registering. You can find more details at the SuperMeet site.

"Among the unusual circumstances surrounding the making of the film is that film figured so little in it," Cellini reports. "Although nearly every major Hollywood movie of this size and budget is still made on film, "Button," except for some high-speed and underwater sequences, was shot digitally on high-definition Thomson Viper cameras directly to hard drive, without ever touching tape, then captured into Apple's Final Cut Pro for editing."

While movies shot entirely digitally may be a bit far off, it's pretty amazing to think that the industry has progressed so much that most of their footage can be shot directly to a hard drive instead of much more expensive film. Even if you look at it from just a cost perspective, this is going to enable producers and directors to shoot more footage, get better angles, and do easier edits. All of this is good news for film buffs and production studios alike.

Apple continues its update streak for today, this time with Final Cut Studio. The update applies to the following apps and for the most part revolves around stability and performance enhancements.

• Final Cut Pro 6.0.5
• Compressor 3.0.5
• Shake 4.1.1
• DVD Studio Pro 4.2.1
• Cinema Tools 4.0.1
• Motion 3.0.2
• Color 1.0.3
• Soundtrack Pro 2.0.2

You can download the updates now from Apple.com or you can get them via Software Update.