Apple Final Cut Studio 2 Upgrade from Final Cut Pro (Mac) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Final Cut Studio is a fantastic suite of products, and the package just got sweeter with the release of FCP Studio 2.
Motion 3 and Color are the standouts, in my opinion, providing unprecedented power for their respective capabilities in anything remotely approaching this price range. In addition, the whole suite provides a level of interoperability that's unparalleled, and blows away any competition in the industry today.
Given the suite's fantastic breadth and depth of functionality, however, the newest iteration of the core application of the bunch, FCP6, does come off as a bit disappointing by comparison.
While the Open Timeline and ProRes 422 are notable and worthy enhancements to the FCP canon, the app nevertheless continues to be hampered by some long-standing Achilles' heels, including various media management and UI issues. While everyone has their individual list of pet concerns, few knowledgeable users would argue that notable limitations don't exist.
Especially considering the two-year "hiatus" from FCP's last major release, this is an unexpected bit of a letdown. Clearly, the hard-working Apple team focused the bulk of their efforts on the other apps, and the results do show there (as noted above). [It's also worth noting that seasoned editors who've had experience on other platforms besides FCP, and who are accustomed to more demanding workflow situations as a matter of course, tend to be more mindful of shortcomings than the majority of users who may have used nothing but FCP, simply by virtue of a greater spectrum of experience.]
However, none of this is to take away from the FCP Studio apps' overall high level of quality, tremendous synergy, and unbeatable price point. For the money, it is hard to imagine a better value in the world of post-production today.

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Venture beyond mere editing with Final Cut Studio 2. Discover the intuitive power of new tools designed expressly for Final Cut Pro editors. Editing, motion graphics animation, audio editing and mixing, color grading, and DVD authoring are all part of the flow. Final Cut Pro 6 is at the core of a powerful and fully integrated post-production process that also includes Motion 3, Soundtrack Pro 2, Compressor 3, and DVD Studio Pro 4--and introduces Color, an advanced color grading application.

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Apple Final Cut Studio 2 Upgrade from Final Cut Studio Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Final Cut Studio is a fantastic suite of products, and the package just got sweeter with the release of FCP Studio 2.
Motion 3 and Color are the standouts, in my opinion, providing unprecedented power for their respective capabilities in anything remotely approaching this price range. In addition, the whole suite provides a level of interoperability that's unparalleled, and blows away any competition in the industry today.
Given the suite's fantastic breadth and depth of functionality, however, the newest iteration of the core application of the bunch, FCP6, does come off as a bit disappointing by comparison.
While the Open Timeline and ProRes 422 are notable and worthy enhancements to the FCP canon, the app nevertheless continues to be hampered by some long-standing Achilles' heels, including various media management and UI issues. While everyone has their individual list of pet concerns, few knowledgeable users would argue that notable limitations don't exist.
Especially considering the two-year "hiatus" from FCP's last major release, this is an unexpected bit of a letdown. Clearly, the hard-working Apple team focused the bulk of their efforts on the other apps, and the results do show there (as noted above). [It's also worth noting that seasoned editors who've had experience on other platforms besides FCP, and who are accustomed to more demanding workflow situations as a matter of course, tend to be more mindful of shortcomings than the majority of users who may have used nothing but FCP, simply by virtue of a greater spectrum of experience.]
However, none of this is to take away from the FCP Studio apps' overall high level of quality, tremendous synergy, and unbeatable price point. For the money, it is hard to imagine a better value in the world of post-production today.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Apple Final Cut Studio 2 Upgrade from Final Cut Studio

Venture beyond mere editing with Final Cut Studio 2. Discover the intuitive power of new tools designed expressly for Final Cut Pro editors. Editing, motion graphics animation, audio editing and mixing, color grading, and DVD authoring are all part of the flow. Final Cut Pro 6 is at the core of a powerful and fully integrated post-production process that also includes Motion 3, Soundtrack Pro 2, Compressor 3, and DVD Studio Pro 4--and introduces Color, an advanced color grading application.

Click here for more information about Apple Final Cut Studio 2 Upgrade from Final Cut Studio

Final Cut Express 4 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Final Cut Express is a very powerful video editing package. If you are thinking about making the step up from iMovie (as I did), you need to understand that the level of sophistication and power in this package is exponentially greater than that of iMovie. If your video editng experience is limited to iMovie, don't expect to be able to install FCE and be off and running in an hour or two. You'll need to plan on investing some real time to learn the program.
This is in no way a criticism of FCE - it is as advertised, a "light" version of Final Cut Pro, which is used by professionals everywhere. I just want your expectations to be set properly. You'll need to invest in a third-party manual, as only soft copies of documentation are included, and they are for reference only, not for training. Just be CERTAIN that the manual you get is for the FCE 4 - there aren't many available as of this writing.
FCE is a very expansive and powerful program; just don't expect the type of plug-n-play results you got from iMovie. You'll need to spend time to understand the numerous differences in how iMovie and FCE operate.

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Discover powerful video editing for DV, HDV, and AVCHD*. Final Cut Express 4 delivers a single, open format Timeline where you can edit all three, mixing formats and frame rates using the same pro-level editing tools available in Final Cut Pro. Import video projects directly from iMovie ¿08. Take advantage of LiveType to create dynamic, animated titles. Built-in audio controls let you mix up to 99 audio tracks¿even add a narrative voiceover. Perfect your movie with professional transitions and effects, including optional third-party FxPlug plug-ins. *AVCHD video requires a Mac with an Intel processor.

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Final Cut Studio Upgrade Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I had been using Final Cut Express and decided that I would try Final Cut Studio (I had a much older version of Final Cut Pro that I was unable to use on my new iMac). This suite contains tremendous tools for video editing. You are basically getting 5 advanced editing software programs in one. The transition from Final Cut Express to Final Cut Pro 7 is very smooth. It is the same interface with expanded capabilities. I am really looking forward to learning more about Motion 4 and DVD Studio Pro 4, both of which are included in this software. I would also recommend getting the Apple Pro Training Series in order to really take advantage of all of the tools in this suite.Apple Pro Training Series: Final Cut Pro 7

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Edit, animate, mix, grade, and deliver on a Mac with Final Cut Studio. It includes more than 100 powerful new features. Use new versions of the ProRes codec to edit at high quality with reduced file sizes in a wide variety of workflows. Work with clients or colleagues in real time from anywhere in the world using iChat Theater. Add dramatic 3D graphics, repair common audio problems, and automate delivery in just a few clicks. The leading post-production suite now includes significant upgrades to Final Cut Pro, Motion, and Soundtrack Pro and updated versions of Color and Compressor. It also includes DVD Studio Pro, the industry standard for DVD authoring.

Upgrade Version
Upgrade from previous versions of Final Cut Studio.

The leading post-production suite is even better. The new Final Cut Studio.

Top Features
Expanded ProRes family.
Edit even faster at higher quality across workflows ranging from offline editing to broadcast events to high-fidelity compositing.

Easy export.
Use the new Share window in Final Cut Pro 7 or Motion 4 for single-click delivery to your Apple devices, the web, a Blu-ray disc, or a DVD.

iChat Theater support.
Work with clients or colleagues in real time from anywhere in the world. Just send your Final Cut Pro video to iChat Theater.
Soundtrack Pro makes it easy to edit and mix sound for picture, with point-and-click tools and seamless round-tripping with Final Cut Pro.

Get 20% OFF

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Final Cut Studio Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Complete video editing suite. Editing, Motion Graphics, Color Correction, Compression, Sound Recording and editing DVD authoring.
Some of these are simple to learn. I found Final Cut editing to be easy to use. Most of this is difficult to learn, but powerful to implement. Buy the PeachTree Apple Certification books.
I am not an expert at this. Here is what I found.
The Color suite is more Unix based and does not use the Apple file system, so if you have multiple hard drives and don't know UNIX well, you might have a hard time finding your files. I have 18 drives hooked up to my machine. I gave up and tabled further study until later. Next time I'll move the files over to my scratch disk with Finder and work on project entirely there. I was disappointed the new version did not fix this. It looks like a Unix program, not a clean looking Apple interface. Truthfully, I did not put much time into Color. I've seen professional demonstrations, and wish I recorded them. Those guys make it look so easy.
I found the sound editing package worked well, shifting between time and frequency domains made it easy to edit out pops of sound, mic thuds, etc. However, I could not re-import into Final Cut. More study needed.
The shear number of video formats will melt your brain. I might have to take a course on that. I wish it was more simple. Frankly I don't understand much of that. Pro Res 422 is a common format, but there are also iPod formats, SD formats, ok the number of formats is around 30 or so. That is a lot of different formats. Someone explain what they all are used for, and give me a way to blank out the non-US formats.
Motion graphics seemed somewhat easy to use, with a book for a study guide. I produced some cool special effects for titles in a short period of time. I could really get into that. Some people do this for a living. Very impressive.
DVD authoring was a snap. I found that marking chapters needed to be done in advance in Final Cut. Aside from that one issue, it was easy to produce a DVD that would play with chapter heading, slide shows, or anything else you might like. What a great way to back up still picture archives?
Some people like Avid. I can't comment on that. I think FCP is a great program, despite it's flaws. It is worth learning and mastering. Do not expect to master each book or application individually. Try instead to produce a small video using all of these elements and then build on your expertise in the individual elements once you understand the basics of each application.
Also, be advised if you are serious about learning this application, you want the most powerful Mac you can afford. The rendering times for Final Cut can take a while. Faster CPU's mean less of your time is spent waiting for such actions to complete. If you can afford a new MAC PRO you are on the right track, although newer MacBook Pro or iMac will do the job, albeit, it will take longer.
RAID is your friend so a Mac Pro is really the way to go. I'd put a SSD drive in the second optical bay and four RAID 0, 2 TB drives in the four drive bays. This would be a good minimal configuration.

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Edit, animate, mix, grade, and deliver on a Mac with Final Cut Studio. It includes more than 100 powerful new features. Use new versions of the ProRes codec to edit at high quality with reduced file sizes in a wide variety of workflows. Work with clients or colleagues in real time from anywhere in the world using iChat Theater. Add dramatic 3D graphics, repair common audio problems, and automate delivery in just a few clicks. The leading post-production suite now includes significant upgrades to Final Cut Pro, Motion, and Soundtrack Pro and updated versions of Color and Compressor. It also includes DVD Studio Pro, the industry standard for DVD authoring.

The leading post-production suite is even better. The new Final Cut Studio.

Top Features
Expanded ProRes family.
Edit even faster at higher quality across workflows ranging from offline editing to broadcast events to high-fidelity compositing.

Easy export.
Use the new Share window in Final Cut Pro 7 or Motion 4 for single-click delivery to your Apple devices, the web, a Blu-ray disc, or a DVD.

iChat Theater support.
Work with clients or colleagues in real time from anywhere in the world. Just send your Final Cut Pro video to iChat Theater.
Soundtrack Pro makes it easy to edit and mix sound for picture, with point-and-click tools and seamless round-tripping with Final Cut Pro.

Get 20% OFF

Click here for more information about Final Cut Studio