Final Cut Studio 2: Color - Technical Specifications

Minimum Requirements to Install All Final Cut Studio Applications

•A Macintosh computer with a 1.25GHz or faster PowerPC G4, PowerPC G5, Intel Core Duo, or Intel Xeon processor
•1GB of RAM
•An AGP or PCI Express Quartz Extreme graphics card (Final Cut Studio is not compatible with integrated Intel graphics processors)
•A display with 1024-by-768 resolution or higher
•Mac OS X v10.4.9 or Mac OS X v10.5.5 or later
•QuickTime 7.1.6 or later
•A DVD drive for installation

Available Disk Space

•4GB of disk space required to install all applications (Final Cut Pro, Color, DVD Studio Pro, Soundtrack Pro, Motion, Cinema Tools, LiveType, Compressor, and Apple Qmaster)
•Additional 55GB required to install all optional templates, content, and tutorials (may be installed on separate disks):
•9GB for DVD Studio Pro content
•8GB for Motion templates and tutorial media
•24GB for Soundtrack Pro audio content
•12GB for LiveFonts and LiveType animated elements and templates
•2GB for Apple Pro Training Final Cut Studio Tutorials media

Recommended Configurations

The following are recommended for all applications:

•2GB of RAM when working with compressed HD and uncompressed SD sources
•4GB of RAM when working with uncompressed HD sources
•A display with 1280 x 1024 resolution or higher
•4 GB of hard disc space is required to install all of the Final Cut Studio 2 applications
•An additional 55 GB of hard disc space is required to install all optional templates, content, and tutorials (may be installed on separate discs):

•9 GB for DVD Studio Pro content
•8 GB for Motion templates and tutorial media
•24 GB for Soundtrack Pro audio content
•12 GB for LiveFonts and LiveType animated elements and templates
•2 GB for Apple Pro Training Final Cut Studio Tutorials media


 

Color-Specific Requirements

•The standard graphics card in any Mac Pro, 17-inch MacBook Pro, 24-inch iMac, or 2.5GHZ or faster Power Mac G5 Quad:

•ATI Mobility Radeon X1600
•ATI Radeon X1600
•NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, 7600 GT, 7300 GT, 6800 Ultra DDL, 6800 GT DDL, 660, or Quadro FX 4500.


•For 32-bit rendering: a graphics card with at least 256MB of VRAM.
•A display with 1680-by-1050 resolution or higher (excluding 20" iMac); dual displays are highly recommended.
•A three-button mouse for full functionality


Color-Configuration Recommendations

•ATI Radeon C1900 XT graphics card
•Dual Displays with 1920 x 1200 or higher resolution

 

Color Grading

•Real-time grading controls for SD, HD, and 2K without proxies
•Workflow-oriented interface divides controls into eight separate "rooms"
•Primary, Secondary, and Primary Out grading functions
•Color wheels with hue, saturation, and luminance controls for highlights, midtones, and shadows
•Curves for individual adjustment to R,G,B and luma with B-spline control points
•Advanced RGB and Printer Points controls for precise film printing
•Switch between four live grades per shot
•Autobalance correction available in Primary room
•ASC-style Lift, Gamma, Gain controls
•Eight secondaries per shot with custom mattes, key blur, and motion tracking
•Animated circle, rectangle, and user shape Vignettes with inner and outer softness
•Keyframing with interpolation for most controls
•Color FX with node trees for compositing control
•Still Store for saving and comparing reference images
•Pan and Scan with preset aspect ratios
•Real-time waveform monitor, vectorscopes, and histograms
•3D Color Space scopes for RGB, HSL, Y’CbCr, and IPT display
•Broadcast-safe limiting
•Support for 3D LUTs for display calibration and output simulation
•Multiple video tracks
•Support for third-party control surfaces with trackballs and knobs
•EDL support for DPX and Cineon files
•Can render directly to DPX or Cineon file formats for film out
•Use EDLs for "notching" programs without XML metadata

Effects

•Over 50 Color FX and premade looks
•Renders at 8-bit, 10-bit, and 32-bit floating point (dependent on GPU)
•Customizable node tree for effects creation
•Save and reuse favorite effects
•Support for third-party plug-ins
•Preview playback of SD, HD and, 2K on an attached Apple Cinema Display or third-party video card

Supported Formats

•Support for 4:4:4 2K as DPX or Cineon files
•Apple Uncompressed 8-bit 4:2:2
•Apple Uncompressed 10-bit 4:2:2
•TIFF, JPEG, and JPEG 2000 image sequences
•Apple ProRes 422 and Apple ProRes 422 (HQ), an 8- or 10- bit, full-resolution VBR format with target bit rates of 145 Mbps and 220 Mbps
•Ability to render all formats at uncompressed HD or ProRes 422 and ProRes 422 (HQ)
•Optional proxy creation for DPX and Cineon files
•Third-party codecs from AJA and Blackmagic Design
•IMX, HDV, XDCAM HD and XDCAM HD 422 can be graded but must be rendered at ProRes 422 or uncompressed resolution

Integration with Final Cut Pro 6

•Round-trip projects between Color and Final Cut Pro 6 with Send to Color and Send to Final Cut Pro
•Color projects configured automatically to match Final Cut Pro sequence settings
•2K Digital Intermediate workflow with Final Cut Pro
•Support for all standard frame rates and frame sizes
•Displays dissolves and fades in the Timeline and renders for 2K projects
•Constant speed change displayed in Color for playback in real time
•Pan and Scan metadata sent to Final Cut Pro as Motion effect

Trimming for 2K Output

•Trimming controls when rendering directly to DPX or Cineon files
•Ripple
•Roll
•Slip
•Splice
•Merge edits