The Apple Quadra & the Evolution of Video Editing

At the time of its release, the Apple Macintosh Quadra 900 was a state of the art computer; it had significantly greater speed and memory capacity.

It was one of the first that could be used to create movies using QuickTime.

It was introduced in October 1991 and discontinued in May 1992. A second monitor could be added to facilitate viewing multiple pages of documents or multiple windows whilst working on graphics or video.

The Quadra 900 had sufficient capability to support advances made in digital video editing, for example, by the release, in December 1991, of Apple QuickTime and the Adobe Premiere professional digital video editor software.

The Quadra 900 gained a solid reputation as the preferred setup for video editing, although its price of about AUD$8000 was expensive for a personal computer.

By the end of 1991, video editing was brought to a broader group than high-end production houses. This was achieved through the Quadra and developments, such as the Apple QuickTime video format, Adobe Premiere and the availability of the Videospigot card. The card, plugged into the Quadra 900, and allowed analogue to digital conversion of video direct from the camera.

Subsequently digital video converter cards were incorporated into the full range of Apple computers. Then in 1999 further strides were made, such as the introduction of the iMac DV SE computer and iMovie software. An ever widening group of video enthusiasts were engaged in digital video production.

Movie editing at home became accessible to the general computing public, what took hours on the Quadra 900 in 1991 could take place in minutes on the iMac DV SE computer.

In 1999, Apple introduced a fully professional video editing application, Final Cut Pro, which was a direct competitor on the Macintosh to Adobe Premiere.

From 2001, Apple's iDVD was also bundled with the computer and this software enabled the edited movie to be burnt to a DVD without resorting to a third-party application.

In 1992, the donor began a home-based video production business. He purchased a Quadra 900 with 2 monitors, and CD ROM reader with SCSI cable as well as the following items: Videospigot for converting analog video into digital, Adobe Premiere 1 for video editing and QuickTime Developers Kit.