Mac OS 8.6, Final Cut Pro
and Digital Video

May 1999 featured technology everyone wanted to have as soon as the meeting closed, provided they could come up with the funds. We had demonstrations of digital video being pumped into and out of a Power Mac G3 (blue and white) via Final Cut Pro, plus a nice rundown of the wonders of Mac OS 8.6, and a short tour of QuickTime 4.0.

Click on any image for an enlargement.

Among the goodies used for demonstrations at the May 1999 General Meeting were a blue and white Power Macintosh G3/400 and an Apple flat panel Studio Display. (Photo by Lawrence I. Charters)

This USB-equipped digital still camera attracted plenty of attention. (Photo by Lawrence I. Charters)

Apple demonstrated Final Cut Pro at the May 1999 General Meeting. This thousand dollar application is reputed to be as powerful, flexible and useful as dedicated video editing stations costing a hundred times as much and, based on what we saw, this could well be true. (Photo by Lawrence I. Charters)

Hosting most of the demonstration was this blue-and-white Power Macintosh G3, and it took almost all of the ports on the back. In addition to the USB port (used for keyboard and mouse), Ethernet port (used to demonstrate advanced networking and QuickTime video streaming), power and video, the machine also made good use of the FireWire port, used with a spiffy new FireWire hard drive. Only the Ultra2 SCSI port at the bottom was ignored. (Photo by Lawrence I. Charters)

Though nobody made a big deal out of it, this PowerBook G3 caused spontaneous drooling. Though a late prototype and not a release version, this "Bronze" PowerBook proved to be much, much faster than the machines used by 99% of the audience, not to mention lighter and more portable. (Photo by Lawrence I. Charters)

Apple brought a brand-new (released that week) bright red and yellow VST FireWire drive. In addition to being very light, very small, and very fast, the drive also demonstrated something new. At one point, while playing a very large QuickTime clip for the audience, the drive was unplugged. The QuickTime clip paused. The drive was plugged back in and, after a few seconds, the QuickTime clip continued. (Photo by Lawrence I. Charters)