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Final Cut Pro 4 Is Here Today!

S

sabbath999

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 9, 2003
79
0
rural Missouri
I have sitting before me on my desk my brand spanking new upgrade for Final Cut Pro 4. I didn't expect it to ship until next week, but here it is. It's still in the shrink wrap.

Let's open it and see what's inside!

Books:
FCP4 User's Manual 1, Setting Up, Input & Output
FCP4 User's Manual 2, Editorial
FCP4 User's Manual 3, Effects
License Agreement
Installation Guide
About FCP4 Booklet
Professional service guide
FCP4 Tutorial Booklet
FCP4 Quick Refference sheet
Training Catalog
I don't see any keyboard stickers

Disks:

Final Cut Pro 4 install disk
Soundtrack loops disk!
LiveType Data disks 1 and 2!
Peak 3 Express

That's it!
 
Originally posted by jelloshotsrule
does it have a brochure listing what's new or anything?
Click to expand...

Not exactly. The "about FCP4" document is ALMOST a what's new, mentioning the four new parts of the program on the front page, LiveType, Soundtrack, CInema Tools 2 and Compressor. It doesn't mention Peak 3 SE. It then gives a short overview, very much like the info on the FCP4 webpage, about FCP4, LiveType, Sountrack, Cinema Tools 2 and Compressor.

It's got a fairly useless diagram shoring all of this stuff pointing to FCP4 in the middle. It then talks about how to export a clip into livetype as a temporary background... Hmmm, I guess LiveType is a completely seperate app? Dunno, I am at work (no mac here) so I have not had a chance to find out. Definitely looks like a seperate app though.

Same thing for Soundtrack, shows how to export videos so that you can sync them up with your soundtrack files... it looks as though it's something like a cross between Acid & SmartSound, definitely loop based.

Compressor looks to be something like MPEG2 format for DVDSP 1.5 is, but that's just from looking. Manual for Compressor is on the DVD.
 
Originally posted by jelloshotsrule
does it have a brochure listing what's new or anything?
Click to expand...

I bought it at the Apple Online Store, it's an upgrade. I am doing a project next week so I wanted next day shipping, figured I would get it Tuesday next at the earliest. I got the notice that the product was shipped yesterday, and poof, here it was!

Very cool.
 
Ok, it's installed... hmmmm...

Ok, well, I installed the apps... have not yet installed the data for livetype o the sound app, but the apps install off the first DVD. Looks like the main apps, and the data disks are DVDs. I don't know about Peak, I haven't installed it (doubt I will).

The good news is that it didn't touch Final Cut 3, so if this thing crashes a lot I can still get my work done!

Speaking of crashing, I started FCP4 and the first thing that it did was crash! Unexpectedly quit. Damned buggy new apps! I guess that is what you get for being a first-adopter.

Anyway, FCP4 looks almost identical to 3. I am now going to install the data and play with it.
 
The sound loop program is cool

very intuitive. made a quick opener for my next project. Very similar to FCP, timeline the same, same controls.

Took about 1 minute to figure out how the app works.

Now on livetype.

Livetype is interesting. Again, very easy to use... I am assuming that Apple will be selling a lot of livetype fonts in the future. It's kind of fun, but it's also 10 gigs... hmmm.... I dunno.
 
Originally posted by boskie
can you post a couple of small screen shots for the masses?
Click to expand...

Stupid question... how do you do a screen shot on a mac?

I will be glad to post some shots. I am currently starting my project, everything seems to be (knock on wood) working OK.

FCP4 looks almost exactly like FCP3, but the other apps are kinda funky.
 
For screenshots: type shift-apple-3 to capture the whole screen, or shift-apple-4 to select an area (cursor turns into crosshairs, click and hold while dragging around desired area/window/etc)...
 
Thanks

Thanks for the info, I will be glad to post a bunch of screen shots to my .mac account tonight.

Any special requests?

I am capturing now, everything (knock on wood) is working flawlessly. The audio tracks are different. It's kinda wierd, but very cool.
 
(another dumb question)
what's the total install size for all the apps? any more crashes? i think i'm going to wait for the first update before i upgrade, but it's exciting to hear some details from an end user POV.
 
More information

Back, got in my ride.

I got it from the Apple Online store. I have no idea why they shipped it to me and nobody else (at least nobody that I have heard of... I have several friends with standing orders and they didn't get one!).

The .mov didn't work on the files page, so I made a cheapie quicky imovie page.

http://homepage.mac.com/sabbath999/iMovieTheater15.html

I have done most of a project now, and there are lots of small changes.

Stability is not good. Nothing unusual there for a new app, I have had about 10 unexpected quits while doing nothing else. I AM ABOUT OUT OF DISK SPACE!!!!! This thing is a disk hog, my 60 Gig disk is NOT big enough.

LiveType involves rendering. It's not too bad.

FYI

iMac flat screen 800mhz
60 gig hard drive (no scratch drive)
512 MB ram
 
Others have received them

I work for a university and the FCP orders arrived on Tuesday. Its a DVD (2 DVD and 3 CDs for the academic version), and our orders are placed directly with Apple.
I have not yet seen it up close. The software won't be installed until next week after finals.
 
Install to External Drive

Since I'm rarely edtiting w/o my external drive pluged in, can I just instal FCP on that drive and not have to crowd the powerbook's internal drive?
 
Re: Install to External Drive

Originally posted by Glossybear
Since I'm rarely edtiting w/o my external drive pluged in, can I just instal FCP on that drive and not have to crowd the powerbook's internal drive?
Click to expand...

I don't believe this is possible, since FCP -- like all Mac video apps -- is heavily dependent on Quicktime to make things happen.

I believe you have to install it on your primary drive.

I'd love to be wrong though. :)
 
OK, I got to instal a copy at work.
I had more space on my second drive, and although it is not disabled (I had another OS X start up on it) it installed. However, when i went to run FCP 4 I was told it had to be on the boot volume. I changed disks and it booted fine. SCRATCH space can be assigned anywhere.
Stability: It SEEMS as fast or slightly faster.
2 freezes/unexpected quites when importing old projects. No other issues
Features: Text tools are amazing.
No time to look further.
I am happy :)
 
Ran out of space

I had to dump the livetype data files, I didn't have enough space to burn a DVD that I had to get done. I am going to try to reinstall the data files on my firewire drive.
 
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