Clicking on each one runs the actual footage you have it applied to into a short loop so you can get an accurate preview right away. That button launches an interface that lists all of the presets for that filter or transition. When you open a filter or transition in the Final Cut Pro’s viewer and go to the filters tab, you’ll find the preset button. GenArts claims to provide 350 total presets. There are dozens of presets for each of the filters and transitions and the capabilities these presets provide are pretty impressive.

Once installed we had 14 transitions and four filters. It includes a preview engine that allows you to test out all the presets you want without waiting for render times. So what exactly is Sapphire Edge? It is a collection of filters and transitions with an extensive collection of presets. The filters are floating point to help deliver better quality faster, which shows. GenArts says they may consider adding OpenCL to their render engine in the future if there is enough demand for it. Our system did take longer than most other third party plug-ins to render, but we weren’t on their recommended graphics card. If you are running an NVIDIA CUDA, GeForce GTX 400/500, or Quadro FX 4000, 5000, or 6000 series graphics card, you’ll get much better performance. We tested Sapphire Edge on a QuadCore 3.2 GHz Xeon Mac Pro running OS X Lion 10.7.2, 16GB RAM, and an ATI Radeon HD 4810 graphics card, with Final Cut Pro 7 on DVCPRO HD 720p 30fps footage. Check the GenArts website for up to date compatibility requirements. Apple Final Cut Pro X supports Sapphire Edge.

Sapphire Edge is a totally reworked collection of filter and transition plug-ins for Apple’s Final Cut Pro 7.0+, Final Cut Express 4.0+, and Motion 3.0.2+ and Sony’s Vegas Pro 10.0e and Vegas Movie Studio HD 11. Its preview engine lets editors audition presets without rendering for fast, easy workflow. GenArts Sapphire Edge delivers a suite of plug-ins and presets that offer a variety of film, television, and lens flare styled looks.

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