Apple Computer Inc hasn’t officially launched its new Final Cut video editing product yet, but has set up a web site describing the product at www.apple.com/finalcutpro/. The site says the software, which was being demonstrated at MacWorld in San Francisco this week, will be available in Spring 1999. FinalCut Pro is described as affordable software combining professional editing, compositing and special effects capabilities, taking advantage of Digital Video and Firewire standards, or other professional formats and interfaces supported by Quicktime. It includes text and gradient generators and media management file system. Apple acquired the technology and engineering resources associated with Final Cut from Macromedia Inc last year (CI No 3,403). Macromedia also had a Windows version in the works (CI No 3,136), although there is currently no word of that. Meanwhile, Apple’s long-awaited decision to support Silicon Graphics Inc’s OpenGL graphics libraries looks like bad news for Apple’s own QuickDraw graphics libraries, which never really caught on in the graphics world. Apple ditched the printing component of QuickDraw back in 1997.
