Apple’s newest edition of Final Cut Pro polishes an already mature, dominant video editor. That’s good news, since every Final Cut user will find clever, thoughtful refinements in version 7 that make life easier. But the focus on smaller tweaks has one drawback: it’s kept Apple from some fundamental infrastructure work that’s also needed.

One of the Final Cut 7’s standout features is a new version of the popular ProRes codec, ProRes Proxy. Proxy lets you encode video into tiny file sizes that even low-end laptops and iMacs can edit, but keeps the video--even HD--looking surprisingly good (though not perfect). Final Cut makes it easy to convert existing video into ProRes Proxy, and for Web or DVD projects, Proxy’s visual quality may be good enough to use for your project’s final output. If not, it’s easy to reassemble your work in a higher-quality version of ProRes and then output from there.

Final Cut Pro 7 is heavy on polish, but we wish it addressed a fundamental or two as well.

Apple has also redesigned its Speed Change feature, which lets you speed up and slow down a clip at precise moments (you’ll see this effect in any number of commercials or music videos). Of course, Final Cut has been able to ramp between speed values for years, but mastering this effect previously meant working with arcane speed graphs. Now you can simply place key frames in a clip and then drag them together or apart to change the video’s speed or freeze it. It’s all very visual and intuitive.

For editors who work off-site, Final Cut 7 has built-in support for iChat Theater, so you can create a videoconference with another iChat user and then play the video from your Viewer or the Canvas. It worked remarkably well for us using a 5Mbps cable Internet connection and should make life considerably easier for freelancers and those who edit remotely.

iChat Theater gets a little choppy when showing video with quick cuts and fast-moving camerawork, but generally does the job well.

Another improvement is the new Share menu, which lets you export your movie to preset or custom formats destined for websites, DVDs, and so on. The beauty of Share is that it works directly in Final Cut--no more loading up the busy, slightly intimidating Compressor application. Also, while Final Cut renders the video into your chosen format, it lets you keep editing, which is a major time-saver. Finally, Share will even let you burn a Blu-ray version of your movie (provided you have a third-party Blu-ray burner), along with simple menus.

Final Cut sports many other small, useful features, but we also hoped to see more fundamental, deeper improvements. A perfect example is Final Cut’s ancient Browser view, which lets you organize and find all the media in your project. Using the Browser is an essential part of editing, but Final Cut’s current rendition, neglected for years, now feels clumsy and primitive. In the last few years, OS X users have enjoyed new organizing/previewing tools like Smart Folders, Stacks, Spotlight searches, and Quick Look, but none of these tools has made its way into the Final Cut Browser. Even in 2009, the Browser’s most sophisticated tools don’t go far beyond basic folders with colored labels. Apple hasn’t even changed the size of thumbnail icons in the Browser--the largest thumbnail size available is tiny on today’s big 24- and 30-inch monitors.

Final Cut is still a powerhouse, and this new version offers something for everyone (especially at the bargain $999 price for Final Cut Studio 3, and the $299 upgrade price if you have any previous version of Final Cut Pro). We just wish that during its 26-month development cycle, Apple had reevaluated some of the fundamentals. There's definitely room for a little reinvention.

Final Cut Pro 7
COMPANY: Apple, Inc.
CONTACT: www.apple.com
PRICE: $999 (as part of Final Cut Suite 3); $299 upgrade from any previous Final Cut Pro version.
REQUIREMENTS: Intel Mac, Mac OS 10.5.6 or later, 1GB RAM (2GB recommended for compressed HD or uncompressed SD video, 4GB for uncompressed HD), ATI or NVIDIA graphics card.
ProRes Proxy for lower-end systems. iChat theater within Final Cut. Blu-ray movie burning. Dozens of other features.
Outdated Browser slows down editing.