Final Cut Pro 4 a day early...

[Charles Martin]

> From: Richard Brown <richard at go2rba.com>
>
>  Will report
> tomorrow on our  "first impressions."  First thing, this upgrade is
> HEAVY, lots of manuals and a DVD with immense amounts of things to
> install. Basically, I believe buying new and buying by upgrade is the
> same experience. It's a brave (all) new world.

The folks in Orlando, FL got a "sneak preview" of FCP4 courtesy of the 
their local user group FLMUG.

First impressions: WOW.

You REALLY get a lot for your $999. *SIX* DVDs of stuff.

The LiveType portion was the bit I was most interested in, since it was 
all new to me. WOAH. Think Adobe Illustrator meets Vertigo HotTYPE 
meets TypeStyler meets loads of special effects (like fire) you can 
apply onto any font you have. VERY nice.

The Soundtrack portion of the program is, quite simply, a direct copy 
of SmartSound Pro, only better and more integrated.

Cinema Tools seems virtually unchanged from the last release, but bear 
in mind that you now get that $999 program for *FREE* with FCP4.

As for FCP itself ... I doubt I have much to add to what everyone here 
knows, you guys probably use it 10x more than I ever will. I played 
around with it a little, I like the new "gray but tarted up a bit" 
environment, more realtime effects (if you have the processor muscle 
that is). I didn't get a chance to play with "RT Extreme" or any of the 
really new features, so for me it seems a lot like FCP3 only nicer. 
YMMV.

I still can't believe the academic price on this thing.

_Chas_

The iTunes Music Store has sold three MILLION songs in ONE month, more 
than all other legal download services have sold in TWO YEARS. If they 
can maintain that average over the course of a year, Apple will sell 
more music than any other retail music source. And that's BEFORE you 
add in countries outside the US, and Windows users. Woah.