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Final Cut Pro 4, Shake 3

Posted by Hemos on from the try-it-again dept.

chasingporsches writes "It appears that Apple released Final Cut Pro 4, Shake 3, and DVD Studio Pro 2. FCP4 has great new features, such as updated HD support, but unfortunately the usual hefty price tag ($999 full, $399 upgrade). Shake now has unlimited network rendering, and DVD Studio Pro 2 has a new basic/advanced user interface."

34 comments

  1. Monkey? by evil_posmaster · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Monkey, monkey, monkey Apple rocks.

    --
    -- I'm stuck in the middle and I won't get lost again - Devin Townsend
  2. Keeping their edge by bsharitt · · Score: 1

    It looks like Apple is still trying to keep their edge in the area.

  3. i failed to mention... by chasingporsches · · Score: 1

    that shake is 4 times cheaper on the mac, but takes 4 times the machines to do the same rendering... hopefully they'll fix this later on. oh, and before you go and tear apart my comment about the hefty price tag, i think it's a great price for the software, but i just wish it was more like premiere's price...

    1. Re:i failed to mention... by chasingporsches · · Score: 1

      maybe i shouldn't post comments when i've had such a long day... i meant to say $4000 cheaper, but takes 4x as long... wow.

    2. Re:i failed to mention... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Going for first troll post on your own submission. What a tool.

    3. Re:i failed to mention... by Graymalkin · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Adobe would charge a lot more for Premiere if it didn't suck in its entirety. If you never had to meet a deadline or didn't mind your project getting trashed all the time Premiere would be a great application. Their Mac port of it is especially poor, as is their port of After Effects which is a sad excuse for a professional application all on its own.

      As for shake needing 4 times the hardware, there is where Apple's sales department kicks in. You buy Shake 3 and say Maya and they'll gladly sell you a rack of the cluster specific XServes that you can run mental ray and QMaster network rendering clients on.

      --
      I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
  4. Hefty? by whjwhj · · Score: 1

    Well $999 seems to me to be a reasonable price for a piece of software as outstanding and feature rich as FCP. $999 might seem "hefty" when you're used to paying nothing for software. But unlike much of the software that carries a $0 price tag, FCP actually .... works! And works quite well! Sometimes it's true: You get what you pay for.

    Peace

    1. Re:Hefty? by ionyka · · Score: 1

      very true, i luv FCP, i use it at work alot. I even made a movie for a class last semester and ended up doing alot in final cut instead of premiere. Its a great program and it well worth the extra $.

    2. Re:Hefty? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      $999 might seem "hefty" when you're used to paying nothing for software. But unlike much of the software that carries a $0 price tag, FCP actually .... works!

      If you want to pay for your own laziness, feel free!. It takes nothing more than a little searching and trying out the Free OSS tools (yes, all of them if need be) available to do the job, and perhaps writing a few scripts to customise them to your workflow and you end up with a far more useful setup than simple one "mentally cheap" package that attempts to do it all.

      Pay $999 or spend a little time online? I know which is the solution an intelligent mind would pick.

    3. Re:Hefty? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you want to pay for your own laziness, feel free!. It takes nothing more than a little searching and trying out the Free OSS tools (yes, all of them if need be) available to do the job, and perhaps writing a few scripts to customise them to your workflow and you end up with a far more useful setup than simple one "mentally cheap" package that attempts to do it all.

      You never spent a day working in a real television production environment have you? I'm not talking about CLI automating workflow/render farm type situations. I'm talking about digital compositing using DVCPRO video feeds directly, or the ability to edit and splice 24P HD and add real time effects.

      Lemme guess, you're one of those guys that argues the Gimp is good enough and Photoshop is a waste of money too, right?

      Unfortunately, lots of these PRO REAL WORLD production applications do not have OSS equivalents that are anything more than toys.

    4. Re:Hefty? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm sorry but you've just backed yourself into a corner there. The scripting abilities, hardware independence, flexibility and openness leave photoshop for dead. Ever tried to script photoslop from a command line, and have it do remote rendering? ever had multiple instances of photoshop running from several such scripts, all doing work and actually using cpu cycles rather than relying on purely gui interfaces?

      No, didn't think so. I've been doing professional imaging since you've been in diapers. Photoshop just doesn't compare. Proprietary just doesn't compare.

    5. Re:Hefty? by rf600r · · Score: 1

      Did you spell-check your work _alot_, too?

    6. Re:Hefty? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've been doing professional imaging since you've been in diapers.

      remind me when gimp added professional level cmyk support with conversion, dcs separation and color calibration for print imaging...

  5. Shake 3?? by Tuxinatorium · · Score: 0, Troll

    How long before ID software sues Apple for copyright infringement? AOL did the same thing to Aimster.

    --
    Repeal the DMCA!
  6. Check out Soundtrack by BlueGecko · · Score: 3, Interesting

    One thing not mentioned at all in the summary of the new parts of FCP 4 is the new Soundtrack component, which in my opinion could justify the upgrade and the price tag of the entire suite all by itself. This lets anyone, regardless of musical experience, write fairly complex scores for their movies. Essentially, you get a vast library of super-high-fidelity loops that you can then combine with surprising ease straight into your FCP project. You can see the demos/tutorials here. Note that QuickTime and a fast connection are required.

  7. Price Tag by SewersOfRivendell · · Score: 3, Insightful

    $999 is hefty? Have you priced an Avid system recently? One with all the features of FCP? Is one such even available?

  8. Adobe Encore DVD by stubear · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I wonder how Adobe Encore DVD stacks up against DVD Studio Pro 2.

  9. well, to be fair by mrpuffypants · · Score: 1

    from other articles that i've read a compariable linux solution to Shake would cost upwards of $10,000, compared to $5,000 for shake...sounds like a good deal to me :)

    1. Re:well, to be fair by FueledByRamen · · Score: 1

      Shake is actually $5,000 only on OS X - $10,000 on all other platforms (Linux, Win32, and IRIX [i think]).

      --
      Every cloud has a silver lining (except for the mushroom shaped ones, which have a lining of Iridium & Strontium 90)
  10. Damn did you see the features?! by DebianDog · · Score: 2, Informative
    I am glad I waited on buying Boris Red (titler) and SonicFire Pro (audio creation tool) most of these products features are included now in FCP 4.

    PLUS they dropped the price of DVDSP to a "mere" $500 and added themes. Fucking too sweet!

    I think I will hold on to FCP 3.0.4 for a while since the iLife fiasco with iMovie.

    --
    Dan Slagle
    Keeper of the "Unofficial" iMovie FAQ

    1. Re:Damn did you see the features?! by mbbac · · Score: 1
      I think I will hold on to FCP 3.0.4 for a while since the iLife fiasco with iMovie.

      There was no iLife fiasco with iMovie. iDVD, as it has always been, is not a no-charge application. To sweeten the pot for some people iMovie (free), iPhoto (free), and iTunes (free) are included in the package.
      --

      mbbac

    2. Re:Damn did you see the features?! by DebianDog · · Score: 2, Informative
      No really? Did you read my sig? I am an Apple Forum "helper" and run the iMovie FAQ. I am pretty fimilar with the Apple product line-up.

      Perhaps I was not clear when I was talking about a "fisaco". I was talking about the crap product it turned out to be if you try and do anything complicated. Especially if that product did not originate in IM ver 3.0.2. I stopped using iMovie, for the most part.

      Click here for a current list of problems

    3. Re:Damn did you see the features?! by mbbac · · Score: 1
      Click here for a current list of problems


      Expertly created in FrontPage, no less.

      (...since we're getting all sarcastic now, I'll throw this out.)

      --

      mbbac

    4. Re:Damn did you see the features?! by DebianDog · · Score: 1

      Dreamweaver and I are not friends... yet. I am a switcher and FP seems so much easier (to me).

      Old habits die hard, including the sarcastics side ;-)

      Sorry

  11. Re:Keeping their edge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Goddamn, second post overall and redundant?

  12. Re:Keeping their edge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, it's already basically stated in the topic.

  13. In my opinion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In my opinion Apple tries to be jack of all trades, master of none. I may be wrong, but this so called "Professional Video Lineup" seems to prove my point.

    1. Re:In my opinion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Huh?

    2. Re:In my opinion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Very typical argument of an average Mac user... *sigh*

  14. Re:Keeping their edge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I guess I'll keep the Karma bonus o n next time.

  15. What I like about Shake... by PrimeWaveZ · · Score: 1

    Is that it uses Rendevous to automatically discover local nodes on the network to use as a sort of self-discovering render farm. This is great for folks who would like to get a few cheap G4s rather than pay for an SGI and pay for the IRIX version of the software.

    And if folks want a smaller cluster for rendering, they can always get xServe cluster nodes to free up that valuable desk space.

    Incredible!

  16. Re:Keeping their edge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And it was metamoderated as "Fair!"

    Ha!

  17. Re:Keeping their edge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fuck! forgot to logout!

    Well, you're welcome!