Apple on Tuesday began shipping Final Cut Server, the company’s new asset management

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Apple on Tuesday began shipping Final Cut Server, the company’s new asset management tool. Apple also gave some guidance on how its Final Cut Studio product is doing with filmmakers in the industry.

First announced in April 2007, Final Cut Server was supposed to ship last summer. Paul Saccone, Apple’s director of video marketing, said that Apple wanted to make sure they got it right before releasing it so customers could rely on it.

Final Cut Server catalogs media and generates thumbnails to enable viewing annotation and approval of content from anywhere using a Mac or a PC.

According to Apple, Final Cut Server has broad search capabilities, which extend from simple keywords to complex combinations of IPTC, XMP and XML metadata. The application also configures a range of specific access controls that define user permissions on an asset or project basis.

Final Cut Server is a scalable server application, so it supports many different sized workgroups. Of course, Final Cut Server is tightly integrated with Apple’s Final Cut Studio. The server tool also includes Compressor 3, Apple’s industrial strength digital encoding and compression tool.

Saccone said that there are now over 1 million editors using Final Cut. Over 80 percent of independent filmmakers are using Final Cut and 50 percent of all new purchases are going to Apple’s high-end application suite.

During the writer’s strike, Apple also went to Fox studios and trained 200 editors on Final Cut Studio.

Final Cut Server is available immediately for $999 for one server and 10 concurrent client licenses, and $1,999 for one server and unlimited client licenses.

Update: Added information about the number of editors using Final Cut Pro and comments from Apple executive.

source:macworld