FCP 4 made it's LA debut and figuring a lot of people wanted to see it we moved our regular meeting from the LA Film School to the beautiful Digital Cinema Lab in Hollywood which has a capacity of over 1000 seats. Good thing we did. Over 800 people showed up making this the largest gathering of FCP users on the planet anywhere at anytime. It was a remarkable night not only because of the amount of people who attended but because of their enthusiasm. A lot of spirit in that room and a lot of fun was had.

First up as usual was Stump the Gurus with lafcpug regular Ken Stone, and special guest Gurus, Steve Martin of Ripple Training , author, Lisa Brenneis and special guest, co creator of FCP, Michael Wohl. Steve was a bit late having been caught in traffic so Paul Saccone filled in for a few minutes. Some of the questions asked and answered were:

Q.) Is there a way I can modify the speed of a clip without it pushing the other clips down the timeline?
A.) Not really. At least in version 3. You will be able to in version 4. For now you can lock all your tracks and put the clip you want to modify on a separate track or do a match frame and use fit to fill.

Q.) I'm getting jaggie text and blurry text. My text looks like crap. What can I do?
A.) Read this: http://www.lafcpug.org/perfect_titles.html

Q.) I just moved 5 edited sequences from one computer to another computer using the media manager and I get this a "missing media" error and it says "clip does not have enough content..." Some of the movies contain the same file so I am wondering if maybe during the move on clip over wrote another.
A.) Maybe. Try using MM and moving the movies one at a time rather than all at once.

Q.)Is there a way to identify WHAT clips are being used and what clips are not? I'd like to find out before I use the MM to move my files.
A. Go up to EDIT menu, select FIND, then from pop up select UNUSED Media and it will pop up the clips with all of your unused media clips.

Q.) I'm getting interlace problems with graphics I bring in and after rendering they look like crap. What can I do?
A.) Try turning off interlacing in your sequence settings and set Pixel Aspect Ratio to NONE. Try that. Try exporting at Photo-jpeg and see if that helps

Since we were using the Digital Cinema Lab it would of been silly not to take advantage of this place so we brought in the Executive Director of the Entertainment Technology Center, Charles Swartz to show and tell us what exactly they do.

Charles began by giving us a bit of history. This theatre was originally built by the Warner Brothers in 1926 (specifically for the premiere of the "Jazz Singer") who's original studio was nearby before they moved to Burbank. It is designated a historical landmark by the State of California.

USC now operates this theatre which is essentially used as a research lab whose mission is to understand how new technology, specifically digital cinema (the ETC defines Digital Cinema as the mastering Distribution and Exhibition of movies regardless of their origination) and affects the movie going experience. In other words this place tests out the latest technology that one day will appear in cinemas through the world. It currently houses what is considered the best projector in the world, the Mark7 from Texas Instruments) That is the best for now according to Charles. New ones are coming and they of course will be better.

Charles says about 150 theaters in the world have converted to Digital. Why not more? Technology is expensive and no one has agreed on standards. One of the missions of this lab is to create those standards.

Charles then showed us a edited montage featuring many current motion pictures in digital form, Including clips from Star Wars, Monster Inc, Spy Kids, Shrek, 102 Dalmations, and more. It was projected from a Cubit server which uses a proprietary system of wavlet compression. How big are the files? Well, Star Wars in it's compressed form is between 50 and 75 GBs.

The experience of watching these clips in its digital form projected from a top notch TI projector and a state of the art sound system creates a movie experience that is a wonder to behold and be a part of. And this is only the beginning according to Charles. 2K projectors are coming.

Time to show and what everyone came to see and hear. With a little bit of help from Kerry Millerick who shot off streamers into the audience, we introduced FCP Product Manager, Paul Saccone and FCP Product Designer, Brian Meaney and the celebration began.

Paul began with a brief over view of what you get for $399.00 (upgrade) or $999.00 (Full Retail install for first time buyers) and it is considerable. Beyond considerable really.

FCP 4 has over 300 new enhancements, features and tools spread out over 5 different applications included in the box. To make it a little easier to get a handle on all this, these 300 enhancements are broken down into categories.

CREATIVE FREEDOM
RT Extreme ( multi structure RT support for a number of streams, that number dependent on how powerful your computer is) with nearly unlimited RT effects, scalable to your CPU.
Customization: You can now map your Keyboard
Improved Trimming
Multitrack Audio Mixing with multi channel OUTPUT.
LiveType More on that later
SoundTrack, More on that later
Time remapping: More on that later

PROFESSIONAL FEATURES:
Broadcast Quality codecs
8-bit uncompressed (4:2:2) YUV SD and HD
10-bit uncompressed (4:2:2) YUV SD and HD
DVCPRO50 (4:2:2) YUV SD
MPEG-2 for distribution (thats a BRAND NEW encoder)
HDR Imaging (High Dynamic Range) FCP can now render in 10bit mode. HDR renders in full 32bits per channel. Other NLEs, according to Paul, would cost you $100,000 or more to do this.
Cinema Tools, (now included FREE with V4. It has support for Change Lists as well as dupe detection.
Compressor, A brand new tool for batch encoding and automatic encoding. You can now take your sequence and export to MPEG 4 or 2 or QuickTime.
Media Management: You can now capture over TC breaks or gaps in TC on your tape, More later

EXTENSIBLE AND FLEXIBLE
QuickTime
ENHANCED EDL support
Plugins: Support for FX script, Adobe AE plugins, and new, OSX audio units for audio filters.
XML Interchange: This industry standard makes FCP the most open NLE platform around, according to Paul. ANYTHING that is in your timeline can be represented as an XML document, meaning any other NLE that can parse XML documents can get data into and out of FCP4. (Automatic Duck is working on a AAF I/O component as we speak and it will be available FREE to FCP 4 owners when it is finished)
I/O framework: Ability to get fully uncompressed SD (audio and 10bit video) into and out of your Mac via Firewire cable. The AJA Io is an example.
Developer Tools: At the next WWDC in June Developer Tools for all third party developers will be available for anyone who wants to get them.

Paul then brought up Ted Schilowitz, product manager for AJA to talk briefly about the new "Io" BOB which is being co developed by Apple and Aja. AJA does the hardware and Apple does the drivers. The BOB is simple in its design. No buttons or dipswitches or software set up and no PCI Card installation or adapters. Just plug it in via FW. Has Inputs that support 10-bit Uncompressed SDI, Component Analog, Composite, and S-Video - auto detected. Audio will handle AES/EBU, Balanced/Unbalanced, ADAT, SPDIF, Embedded SDI -auto detected. Outputs support video 10bit Uncompressed SDI, Component analog, Composite, S-Video - all live and audio: AES/EBU, ADAT, Embedded SDI - all live. Pretty much any format you can think of. It will sell for $2300 and be available in June and will work with FCP4 ONLY. Essentially it is the first product to take advantage of the new I/O framework Apple is developing.

Keep reading folks. We've only begun:

Time for the demos and Paul began with the scalable RT Extreme. (The Mac that was used for this demo was a DP 1.42 for those of you keeping score.) Scalable means you can get RT with a simple G-4 500mgz Mac but the more powerful CPU, the more streams of Real Time you will get. For example Paul brought up 2 video streams and a text layer and played them in Real Time. Well thats no big deal. You can do that on FCP 3 and a fast Mac. Using RT Extreme Paul brought up 4 video streams and a text layer. Ok, cool....(BTW, You can send all this out via FW to a NTSC Monitor) Before we move on I have to say that Apple has given us users control over our RT capabilities by giving us a SAFE mode and a UNLIMITED mode. In SAFE mode, you are only able to do what the machine can handle. In unlimited mode you can keep adding layers and (almost all the 200 transitions and filters included) in RT and depending on your quality settings, (you have high, medium and Low) you can keep adding till you drop.

Paul showed us 8 layers of video with a text layer playing at HIGH quality settings and it dropped a few frames. At LOW quality however, it played smooth as a babies bottom. Then Paul brought up 3 layers of Video and a text layer (probably could have added more) and played it at HIGH quality (Full DV Resolution) and it also played smoothly. In this example, Paul could of gone straight to tape. This was FULL DV Resolution out FW to NTSC. Big applause from audience.

Paul then moved into Live Type, the new titler included with FCP 4 and judging from the reaction from the audience, this one is a big hit.

From FCP, Paul opened Live Type and took us through some of its very cool features. The interface shows your video on the Top left and your timeline below. You can use your system fonts and place your title in a straight path or curved path with Bezier support. You can also isolate each individual character to do whatever you wish with. Live Type comes with Live Fonts which are very cool animated fonts that have pretty much done all the work for you should you desire to use animated titles in your movie. One would think that perhaps this might be a little cheesy but on closer inspection these things were created by very fine artists and are quite lovely as well as useful. Each one of these live fonts are customizable and categories include textures, Live Fonts, Fonts, Objects and Effects. Effects are very cool and have to be seen to be appreciated. Much more info on Live Type can be had HERE.

SoundTrack was up next and, especially for those of us musically challenged, this app is a gift. Paul opened the interface and it shows your video sequence at top left with video clips from that sequence at top center. The timeline is below your video clips with scoring markers you conveniently put in while editing your sequence in FCP4. Paul began with a selection of drum clips which he auditioned from a large number of included loops. Finding the one he liked he simply dragged the loop into the timeline. You can shorten or lengthen the loop to any length you desire. Next, Paul auditioned several of the included "synthesizer loops" and dropped one of those under the drum loops. How about a guitar loop? Sure. Bass loop? You betcha. Drop one of those in. ALL in real Time. No rendering. What is very cool is that all of these different loops had different tempos, keys and beats but when put together in the timeline SoundTrack will mix them as ONE tempo, beat and Key to sound as though they all go together, all in real time. Sweet. You can have these loops come in at any time you wish simply by adding them anywhere in the timeline. You need only export your sequence from FCP with scoring markers which you bring up by hitting MM and selecting "Scoring Marker." End result to spending about 5 minutes with this app was a very nice and not so "canned" sounding music background to your video.

There are also 19 audio filters from e-magic included in this app which you can apply all in real time AND, if you wish using the custom emagic interface. Done? Export back to FCP and do final mix in the FCP RT Audio Mixer. Thats REAL TIME folks.

So you got your music in your timeline and it's time to mix that with your dialogue and whatever else you have in there. Bring up the Mixer and start mixing. Bring your music down on dialogue and music up on visuals all in RT. But what is really cool here is as you play with the sliders on the audio mixer it writes the keyframes on the audio tracks at the same time. You can choose to have it write ALL keyframes or reduced Keyframes. Not enough? Well how about opening up those audio filters that FCP has given us since Version 1 and placing one of those on the audio track and playing with it in REAL TIME. Yep, you can do that now.

Paul then handed the mouse to Product Designer Brian Meaney who took us through the "little things" that are now included in FCP4. And it is those "little things" as you will see that make this version and especially the workflow so very powerful.

Since Paul left the Audio Mixer open Brian started with that and took us through the many ways it can be customized. You can make the mixer window as small or as large as you want with as many tracks showing or not showing as you want. You can click off as many audio tracks as you want and view in different modes. For example you can view dialogue tracks only or music tracks only or sound effects tracks only etc. Depending on how many tracks you have selected in one of those views, the same amount will also appear on your audio meter.

How about some new editing features. This is an editing app ya know.

Remember when you wanted to, say match a clip in your timeline with the source or master clip in your bin and you could only do that with a match frame and go hunting technique? No more. Put your play head on the clip and go up to the VIEW menu and choose Reveal Master Clip and viola, it magically highlights the clip in the bin. No more hunting.

Another cool feature is called Merge Clips which essentially allows you to lasso a bunch of clips (audio and Video) and turn them into one NEW clip. YOU can sync up via timecode, in points, out points or aux timecode. Very handy if for example you have audio from say a DAT source and you want to throw it in with a video clip.

Brian says Auto Save has gotten MUCH faster and works much better in V4. There is now a keyboard shortcut that changes the focus from the Viewer to the Canvas. Change the name of your clip in the Bin and it will update that name in your timeline automatically. Big time cool!

By selecting a clip in the bin or a set of clips in the bin you now can set your Bin Column Layout to show ONLY the exact items you want it to show. You do this via a pop up menu. Select another set of clips and do the same. Handy if you want one set to include certain item properties in the layout and another set to include item properties in addition or different then the first set and so on.

Zooming into timeline has been improved. Much faster. Also, by using this nifty little widget at bottom of screen you can not only zoom in on the Timeline but also the playhead at the same time meaning your playhead stays on the screen now while zooming. HUGE, huh?

Brian then showed us a bit of the trimming enhancements including support for asymmetric trimming. Says Steve Martin: "For those of you who do a lot of multi-track dialog editing, this feature is incredibly useful because you can now Command-click with your ripple tool to select both the A side of your outgoing clip and the B side of your incoming audio clip. When you perform the trim, the B side of the clip is trimmed in the opposite direction as the A side, which effectively keeps everything in sync while giving you more flexibility in experimenting with various types of dialog edits." You can do this in the trim window as well as the timeline. You can also hear ALL the audio in your trim window.

The customizable Keyboard window is quite nice and extremely easy to use. All drag and drop for those of you who dont like to read. But what is very cool about this is the ability to simply drag a keyboard shortcut item from the Custom Keyboard window as a BUTTON and place it in a space provided on the timeline or viewer or canvas or browser. Buttons are a feature of FCP4 that are incredibly powerful as a workflow enhancement. Plus they're dang cute. You can save button sets and have only those sets in view if you so wish. Have a set for capturing, a set for compositing, for editing, for trimming, etc. Change the colors of the buttons, arrange them anyway you want. Very powerful and infinitely useful.

Window layouts can be changed as saved as a button plus FCP will take into account your aspect ratio. Say you are working in 16:9., well FCP will automatically take that into account and adjust your custom layouts aspect ratio. PLUS it keep whatever trimming, editing, audio, capturing etc set of buttons you saved to that particular layout.

Another cool feature is you now have the ability to change the speed of a clip in Real Time. Really. We saw him do it. The new Time Remap plug in that obviously goes along with speed changes is also very powerful and in really real time.

Click on the clip you made the speed changes too and up pops a window telling you the speed on the right and speed on the left plus timecode plus TC of old source frame and new source frame. Now move your selection to the right or left and the window remains open giving you the TC and speed changes but more importantly you can view the speed changes in the canvas in real time. No math required here. You can pick and choose what frame you want your speed change to begin and end and how fast and how slow completely visually ad in REAL TIME.

Other timeline enhancements include the ability to resize each track individually, or holding down the shift key, resize all of them at once, or holding down the option key, resize only like tracks such as only audio or only video. You can also save these adjustments out to disk or to your custom layout.

Another cool enhancement is the "Keyframe Editor" which allows you to view whatever set of keyframes you want to view applied to your clip via a pop up menu. No need to go to Viewer. For example we wanted to see the keyframes from the time remap Brian did. Brian simply selected the keyframe graph from the pop up window for the remap he just did and up it came. You can clear out and smooth and essentially do anything you used to be able to do in the Viewer now on the timeline, and in real time and out FW to NTSC. You can still go up to Viewer if you like.

There is scroll mouse support now which will allow you to independently adjust audio and video tracks up and down. Also travel through the browser with greater ease. You can also jog with a scroll mouse. AND it will adjust the volume of the audio mixer up and down. Those are but a few.

My fingers are bleeding at this point from so much typing.

Understand that the above is just scratching the surface of what actually is included in this app. To cover it properly would take 5 evenings, so now was a good time to take a break and go out into the lobby and digest all of this and come back in to ask questions. In the lobby tonight were AJA, Medea, Pinnacle Cinewave, Intelligent Assistance, DV Creators Digital FilmTree Promax Apple, and Digital Anarchy

OK, we're back and it was time for the big Q and A which could of gone on for 3 hours but alas we only had 45 minutes.

Some of the questions asked and answered:

Q.) Is there audio support for external Control Surfaces?
A.) No. Not in this version.

Q.) Concerning Soundtrack, can you record your own sounds and use them in SoundTrack? And is there any support Midi?
A.) Yes. you can bring in your own sounds and import into Soundtrack and no there is no support for Midi.

Q.) Can you bring a audio track sampled at 44.1khz and drop it into a 48khz timeline and have it automatically convert?
A.) Yes you can. FCP will up sample on the fly. (Brian then got a bit sidetracked and showed us that now you can option drag a rendered clip and it will preserve the render files. You can also copy and paste attributes of rendered clips and that will also preserve the render files

Q.) Are the sound files that come with Soundtrack standard AIFF files or are they proprietary?
A.) Soundtrack supports AIFF, Waves and also compatible with the Acid Loop Library format..

Q.) Can you compare Compressor to what is now available in FCP3
A.) There is no comparison. You have an enormous amount of export and encoding options when you bring up the Compressor Window including 2 pass VBR. Quality and speed wise, at least compared to any other software solution out there, we believe Compressor is the best there is. More on Compressor can be found HERE.

Q.) Can FCP 4 do Stop Motion animation?
A.) No but third party solutions such as iStop Motion <http://www.istopmotion.com/> do that.

Q.) With Cinema Tools, can you, in addition to show the TC, Key numbers, and audio source reel numbers from the flex files.
A.) Cinema Tools is essentially the same as before as all information relies inside the application but there are a few changes. You can now add telecine on the fly for DV 24 material out FW in Real Time. There is integration with the DVX100 for removing the telecine after capture and playing it back out via FW in Real Time. Cinema Tools includes support for Change Lists now as film as Film Lists and Audio EDLs.

Q.) Can you compose 5.1 in Soundtrack?
A.) No. You can in DVDSP but it is very hard. You also can go to a third party solution such as Bias Deck.

Q.) One of the issues with FCP 3 is capture. Have you done anything in FCP besides give us the ability to capture over TC breaks that has improved the robustness of capturing SD or DV media so it is less problematic, i.e. drop frames, periodic freezes, etc.
A.) Much as been optimized in a general sense but much of what causes your specific issues can be attributed to configuration issues. This is one of the difficulties with being a open system.

Q.) I see that you have to export your sequence to Live Type or Soundtrack. How exactly do you do that and is it a project file or a self contained movie or a ref file?
A.) It's a QuickTime Ref File and you just go to the FILE menu and select EXPORT and then select Live Type or Soundtrack.

Q.) Is there a "Normalize" effect included in the audio effects?
A.) No, but other third party solutions have that.

Q.) Can you show me how the dupe frame detection thing works?
A,) Sure. Typically if I edit a sequence inside of a sequence it shows up as a nest per se. Now by holding down the command key I can edit in the source items as well. Now I'll do that twice to give you an example of the Dupe Frame detection. By holding down the control key I can bring up a pop up window and turn on Show Duplicate Frames, so I will. Then from that window it will show me where that dupe frame is as well as BRING me to that dupe frame in the timeline.

Q.) Is there any Multi Camera Support?
A.) No.

Q. How has OMF support changed?
A.) We've added support or 24bit files. We cannot import OMF files but Automatic Duck is working on a AAF import and export and it will be available in the future.

Q.) Is there any support for script based editing in FCP4?
A.) No. But the whole XML thing opens up a big door to third party developers. We are aware there is a need especially in Hollywood.

Q.) When saving a project AS can I go into the list of previous saved projects and pull one name off the list without having to retype it?
A.) No.

Q.) Will Soundtrack allow me to bring in my own material and make tempo changes?
A.) You can tag your material in Soundtrack and once it's been Soundtrack-ized, yes you can do tempo changes.

Q.) Why is there so many audio tracks out of FCP yet only two tracks in?
A.) We definitely recognize that as very important.

Q.) Does Compressor support cropping out over scan?
A.) Yes. Supports that, plus water marking and much much more.

Q.) When working on a film project is Dupe detection based on TC or Key Numbers and if you want to have dupe detection across multiple sequences do you have to assemble them into one sequence?
A.) Yes you have to assemble into one sequence and Dupe Detection is based on Time Code as it exists in FCP now.

Q.) How does this capturing over a TC break thing work?
A.) What Final Cut does is, assuming the TC is moving forward, nothing changes. FCP automatically keeps name of reel and timecode moving forward with out change. BUT if your TC re sets to ZERO or goes back in time indicating you reset it out in the field, FCP will auto increment the REEL Name, so you can essentially walk away while capturing and then log it later with the master clip relationship and you are still good to go.

Q.)Some OMF files I have brought in from other editing platforms have had volume automation brought directly into ProTools. Is that supported in FCP 4?
A.) No.

Q.) What is the upgrade path for FCP. Will we have as much trouble upgrading to 4.0 as we do with 3.0 especially if we have a Mac that boots only into OSX? What ships in the box to make our install less problematic.
A.) FCP 4 installer will install over your current version and auto detect your serial number so there is no need anymore to do a backwards install just to upgrade. Simply put the CD in and you are good to go.

Q.) If I have a fast Mac and an Io an I stripe 2 or more ATA drives, can I capture Beta SP uncompressed?
A. Well at NAB, AJA was showing an Io with 2 striped FW 800 drives with no problems so Yes, that should work fine.

Q.) Will Apple education be offering a discount to students or teachers for FCP 4?
A.) If you are a individual education or academic customer you would purchase the FCP 4 Retail upgrade version for $399.00 like everyone else. Your education or academic serial number will work with the full retail upgrade package. If you are an institution and you have a academic lab pack of say version 1 2 or 3, then instead of doing another academic lab pack we will offer volume licensing with a educational discount.

Q.) Anything new in the color correction filter?
A.) Yes, one cool thing is you can arrange your layout in a preset "multiple edit" style where the edit you are currently working on will be surrounded on the left and right by the previous and the next edits. Want to use only one window? You can split it horizontally or vertically or resize within the window. Edge thinning and softening has also been added to the color corrector. A lot of nice tweaks all around for the CC.

Q.) Is there any network rendering in FCP 4?
A.) No. But there is a cool new preference called Auto Render which is kind of cool. Set it to render any time you want. Say you want it to start rendering 10 minutes after you leave for lunch. Set it for 10 minutes after you leave for lunch.

Q.) Will FCP 4 handle different audio sample rates in the same timeline better than in previous versions and should we still convert audio files to match the sequence audio sample rate prior to bringing into FCP 4?
A.) Yes, FCP 4 will handle this much better and with item level rendering it isn't much of a problem to render out the item only. I'd say it isn't much of a problem anymore and it's best to render if you have too in the timeline. Plus the auto render will kick in after you walk away depending on what you set it at.

Q.) Last year lafcpug asked the world what features they wanted to se in the next version of FCP. Well now that it is announced how many of those features that were on the list are now in FCP 4.
A. (Paul just happened to have printed out that list and held it up) It looks to be about 2/3s of the top 50 that were sent to us. (I concur. Out of the top 50 about two thirds of the features that were requested are now in FCP 4. So yes, Apple does listen and continues to listen.)

Q.) Will my current set of plug ins convert over to FCP 4 and will my set of AE plug ins be supported in Final Cut?
A.) Certainly all the FCP plugins built in FX script (These include Joes Filters and CGM) will convert seemlessly, but more importantly it is not the effects that have been made real time it is the parameters within the effects so all third party effects currently working within FCP or even filters you create yourself will play in real time. After Effects support has not changed. Essentially what works in FCP3 will work in FCP 4 only it will work in real time.

Q.) Is there currently a San solution for FCP?
A.) No but we are looking at a different number of potential solutions from third parties. We are definitely aware of how important this is.

Q.) When I do an UNDO it would be great to be able to see exactly what it is I am undoing especially after several undo's. Does FCP 4 support that?
A.) No. But I agree, it is very important.

Q.) Does turning off track visibility still loose the render files meaning if you turn it off you have to render again?
A.) Yes. That still exists. We do highly recommend turning off CLIP visibility rather than TRACK visibility so you only loose the renders on the item you are working on rather than the whole track.

Q.) Is RT Extreme exclusive to FCP 4 or can one get more functionality with a third party capture card such as Kona?
A.) You can get more power with certain cards. RT Extreme is sort of the general wave length for the RT structure so there can be hardware OR software assistance. So there are things such as Luma Keys with a Cinewave card that can be played at FULL quality in RT.

Q.) What exactly can you bring into Live Type? Just fonts? Can you bring in Logos from Illustrator?
A.) You can bring any Photoshop files but not sure as an EPS file. We dont have Illustrator on this Mac but I imagine it might be able to handle it. I'll see when I get back to the office.

Q.) Using my Aurora Film Card there has been this nagging bug for quite awhile where by when capturing telecined material (29.97) Final Cut converts it to 24 frame format making it almost impossible to recapture your 29.97 masters. Has this been addressed?
A.) We are still working with third parties on alot of those issues. Right now I can not say complete if it has been solved. There is added support in 4. You can bring up the modify timecode window which basically allows different frame rates to be applied to clips. Definitely we are aware of this issue.

Q.) Will FCP 4 support TimeCode OUT?
A.) No.

(Brian then brought up the new Item Properties dialogue window which now allows you to view SEVERAL clips together in one window. Properties that are different than one another are in BOLD. Very handy for quickly identifying differences in clips.

Q.) Any change in Apple's position with FW drives and FCP?
A.) Thats a tough one. We are paying close attention to the new FW800 drives and we realize many of the FW 400 drives work for many people but we also acknowledge all drives are not equal as are all projects not equal. The faster the CPU and better the drive is a fairly good combination. We believe strongly that you ask around and get support from those that are using them for projects that are or might be as simple or as complicated as yours and then decide. We are hoping that with the new RT Extreme and new FW 800 drives this question can be answered definitively in the near future.

Q.) When will FCP 4 ship?

A.) June....2003

Thats it folks. Last question.

What a night and what a performance by Brian and Paul who easily can take this act on the road to sell out crowds through out the world. If they do, buy your tickets early.

On a personal note, three years ago this June, 43 of us met over at Video Symphony in Burbank to look at FCP version 1.2.5 and talk about forming a user group. Tonight there was over 800 of us looking over FCP 4. Ken Stone, Ramy Katrib and myself reminisced a bit tonight. Sure, lafcpug has grown over these past three years but in comparison to where Final Cut Pro is today, we are but mere toddlers.

Congratulations to the FCP team for all there hard work and we look forward to June, 2003 when we can finally get our hands on FCP v4.

World Famous Raffle was up next and lafcpug thanks the generous people and companies who donated to the cause

2 FCP Keyboard Keycharts - Neotron Design
2 Royalty Free Stock Footage CDs - ThinkStock Footage
ShuttlePro - Countour Design
Shuttle Xpress - Countour Design
3 Color Correction for FCP DVD - Digital FilmTree
Commotion Pro - Pinnacle Cinewave
Text Anarchy - Digital Anarchy
PowerStart Guide - Dv Creators
Secrets of Final Cut Pro - Dv Creators
120 GB Firewire Drive- Promax
5 $20.00 Gift Certificates - Poquito Mas Restaurants (Hey, we gotta eat)
DV Companion for FCP 3 - Intelligent Assistance
Great visual Effects for Final Cut Pro - Intelligent Assistance
DVD Companion Pro Pack - Recipe 4 DVD
Various books - CMP Books
one copy of Final Draft - Final Draft
1 T-shirt - kenstone.net
2 copies of lafcpug DVDs - lafcpug