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Apple's Final Cut Pro 2.0 is a very encouraging step in the right direction. I was impressed with the early versions of Final Cut Pro, but I did not fall in love. There were still too many features lacking and performance issues to threaten the dominance of my favorite hardware based systems. When it came to actually getting a job done, using Final Cut Pro 1.2.5 still wouldn't have been a choice I would have made willingly.
While Final Cut Pro 2.0 is far from perfect, it is a very solid system that can get many jobs done quite nicely, with a greatly reduced pain factor.
Part of the reason for this (a big part) is that hardware manufacturers, including Matrox, Pinnacle, Digital Voodoo, and Aurora, are all making serious hardware that specifically supports Final Cut Pro 2.0. Each hardware solution is targeted for different purposes and/or has certain strengths and weaknesses. But for certain uses, there are good solutions available now and for other applications, solutions are well on the way.
Enough so, that it is a good bet that Final Cut Pro will become a very popular system for a wide range of users. The Matrox RT Mac Board, for instance, represents a great solution for analog composite, S-Video, and DV work. The other three manufacturers are going for various forms and combinations of standard-definition serial digital, analog component, and HD video, which are detailed near the end of this article.
Enhanced Performance
So much for the hardware. We'll tackle that later. Suffice to say, though, if Final Cut Pro weren't an exciting software package, then I doubt you would see hardware manufacturers rushing to support it. There has been a need for a more advanced, hardware independent editing package for some time. Powerful hardware systems like Apple's G4 line are capable of doing significantly more than was previously possible and Final Cut Pro is designed to take advantage of this tremendous processing power. In the Apple 733 MHz G4 that I am using to evaluate Final Cut...