Hollywood Reporter, as is being widely reported on Mac sites on the net, noted last month that Apple’s Final Cut Pro 3 is making inroads in the video market long dominated by Avid. “Now it has cleared another major hurdle — its first big-league feature,” says Hollywood Reporter. That’s not entirely fare: while the innovating rotoscoped 2001 flick Waking Life wasn’t quite big league, Steve Soderbergh’s Full Frontalcut DV segments on FCP, and The Rules of Attraction was cut in FCP in Roger Avery’s living room, composer Andy Milburn told the PowerPage.
This is still very big news on Planet Final Cut. Walter Murch, editor for Anthony Minghella’s “Cold Mountain,” due out next Christmas, has eight Academy nominations and three Academy awards under his belt — and the film’s $100 million budget clearly blows apart the notion of Final Cut as the mid-range, economical solution and Avid as the high end. The video savvy will definitely want to check out the article to learn his reasons.
It’s also worth noting that Avid is the parent company of Digidesign. Apple has acquired Germany audio company Emagic for its flagship Logic in an unmistakable parallel to its acquisition of Final Cut from Macromedia. There are some differences: Digidesign still is the only vendor for ultra-high-end audio hardware, and Emagic isn’t challenging them there. Also, while Final Cut occupies a specific niche, MOTU Digital Performer and Steinberg Cubase SX are nearly identical in features and market to Logic, so Apple may not be looking to triumph over competition in this case. In fact, the Emagic acquisition (and the subsequent decision to make Logic Mac-only, infuriating Windows users), makes it clear what Apple’s real goal is with the pro software market: to sell more hardware. With Apple putting the high end on its inexpensive computers for the rest of us (that is, unless you have hundreds of thousands to invest on an Avid setup in your loft), I can’t complain!
