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Final Cut Server released

It's Tuesday, which means more goodies from Apple. Apple today released their long-awaited and much-delayed Final Cut Server software, based on the Artbox software they bought from Proximity.

Final Cut Server is an asset management system that allows you to keep track of your media. It is especially useful for facilities with a large stock footage library or companies dealing with large amounts of footage, such as news rooms.

It is also useful for smaller facilities as well. I particularly like the versioning system which tracks changes made to a file, showing you who made the change and when, and offering you a way of reverting the changes if necessary.

One of my favorite features is the event system. You can ask Final Cut Server to watch a specific attribute such as a metadata field and perform an action when that is changed, such as uploading files to a server.

The server software is Mac-only but the client software is for both PC and Mac (this probably had something to do with the delays). Here are the system requirements:

Server software
* A Mac computer with a 1.8GHz or faster PowerPC G5, Intel Core Duo, Intel Core 2 Duo, or Intel Xeon processor (Intel Core Duo, Intel Core 2 Duo, or Intel Xeon processor recommended)
* 2GB of RAM (4GB recommended)
* AGP or PCI Express Quartz Extreme graphics card (Final Cut Server is not compatible with integrated Intel graphics processors)
* Mac OS X v10.5 or later
* QuickTime 7.4.1 or later
* A CD drive for installation
* 500MB of available disk space

Client software for Mac computers
* A Mac computer with a 1.25GHz or faster PowerPC G4, PowerPC G5, Intel Core Duo, Intel Core 2 Duo, or Intel Xeon processor
* 1GB of RAM
* AGP or PCI Express Quartz Extreme graphics card (Final Cut Server is not compatible with integrated Intel graphics processors)
* A display with 1024-by-768 resolution or higher
* Mac OS X v10.4.11 or later
* QuickTime 7.4.1 or later
* Java for Mac OS X v10.4 Release 6 or later
* Final Cut Pro 6.0.2 or later for Final Cut Pro integration
* 20MB of available disk space

Client software for Windows-based computers
* A PC with Windows XP (SP2) or Vista
* 1GB of RAM
* AGP or PCI Express Quartz Extreme graphics card (Final Cut Server is not compatible with integrated Intel graphics processors)
* A display with 1024-by-768 resolution or higher
* QuickTime 7.4.1 or later
* Java SE Runtime Environment (JRE) 6 Update 4 or later
* 20MB of available disk space

Important areas to note:
* The server software is Leopard-only.
* You must fit a separate graphics card to the machine as the on-board graphics will not suffice. Also note that the G5 servers do not even have on-board graphics. This also affects any machine that you connect to it as well, which rules out MacBooks and low-end PCs.

Final Cut Server is now available for $999 (10-client version) and $1999 (Unlimited version). Interestingly, the upgrade for the 10-client version is $999 which makes it cheaper by a dollar to upgrade the 10-client version than it is to buy the unlimited version outright.