Video pros, commence "oooh"-ing and "aaah"-ing; it took a while for Apple's Final Cut Pro page to cease touting the many benefits of version 2 of that laudable editing tool, but in the meantime MacNN indicated that the Apple Store was offering the full rundown on Final Cut Pro 3, so we got the distant early warning. Since then, Apple's FCP page has finally caught up with reality, so believe it: version 3 is finally here. And while we at AtAT aren't video geeks, we can only assume that folks who make their living with this stuff are going to be experiencing steam-shooting ears, flipping head-tops, giant bug-out eyes on little stalks, and any number of other cartoony reaction effects when they get a load of what FCP3 has to offer.

Check it out: first and foremost, FCP3 is Mac OS X-native-- so that heavy-duty application is finally running on a heavy-duty OS, just like the video gods intended. Then there's a slew of new features like "top notch color correction," "integrated compositing," a new storage format called "OfflineRT," and lots of other stuff that means extraordinarily little to "Even iMovie Baffles Us" video ignoramuses like ourselves, but which probably sounds really good to the pros out there. But even we can tell what FCP3's killer feature is, and it's definitely a doozy. Ready for this? Final Cut Pro 3 supports real-time effects, which, as far as we can tell, makes it something of a holy grail for people who edit footage for a living.

Yes, if you've got the gear (at least a 500 MHz G4 and 384 MB of RAM), FCP3 apparently lets you apply video effects to footage in real time, all without dedicated PCI hardware. And that does mean something to our iMovie-using selves, since we're all too familiar with staring at that little red progress line while our PowerBook chews through a Star Wipe. What's more, FCP3 can render real-time effects on a PowerBook (well, provided it's the latest 667 MHz model), making for what we assume to be the very first portable real-time video editing rig, and one that only costs about four grand to buy. Again, we're not in the biz, but this strikes us as a distinction that puts Apple way out in front of the pack.

Perhaps best of all, Final Cut Pro 3 is available now-- at least, that's the conclusion we draw from the Apple Store's estimated ship time of "1 day." There may be a few gripes out there from sourpusses who find the hardware requirements for real-time effects a little on the steep side, or (more likely) who are a bit miffed at Apple for charging $299 for the upgrade when they've already shelled out a cool grand for version 2. But those are relatively small complaints (especially considering how much money customers would have to spend on dedicated real-time hardware), and they're more than offset by FCP3's greatest improvement of all: the box is now black. Upgrade today!