Final Cut Studio - Old Version

by Apple

Product Features

• Edit, animate, mix, grade, and deliver on a Mac with Final Cut Studio--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
• Includes significant upgrades to Final Cut Pro, Motion, and Soundtrack Pro and updated versions of Color and Compressor

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 6 x 5.5 x 2.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B002J1UJ4A
• Item model number: MB642Z/A
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 14, 2004
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #205 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #4 in Software > Video & Music > Digital Video > Video Editing
  • #14 in Software > Graphics > Professional Design
  • #41 in Software > The Mac Software Store

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

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.

Motion includes real-time 2D and 3D graphics compositing, with drag-and-drop behaviors that make animation easy.

New speed change tools.

Change clip speeds with ease from the redesigned Change Speed window in Final Cut Pro 7. You can also create constant or variable speed changes in the Timeline.

3D shadows and reflections.

Motion 4 lets you add dramatic shadows and dazzling reflections that respond naturally as objects and lights move through 3D space.

Voice-level match.

The new Voice Level option in the Soundtrack Pro 3 Lift and Stamp tools lets you instantly match dialogue levels across your project.

Support for 4K files.

Color 1.5 lets you grade and render at maximum quality, with a workflow that supports native 4K files from cameras such as the RED ONE.

Batch templates.

New batch templates in Compressor 3.5 let you automate end-to-end encoding workflows including settings, destinations, and post-encoding delivery.

DVD authoring.

Produce studio-quality DVD titles with drag-and-drop ease using DVD Studio Pro 4.

Related Products

Complete your editing studio with a Mac Pro workstation and an Apple LED Cinema Display. Take a MacBook Pro with you and edit on location. Use Final Cut Server 1.5 to manage your assets and automate your workflow.

AppleCare Support

Offering solutions for businesses of any size, AppleCare provides ongoing product coverage, including the AppleCare Protection Plan for Mac systems and Apple flat-panel displays. To augment your experience with Apple professional software, AppleCare Professional Video Support and AppleCare Professional Audio Support offer direct access to Apple's professional support staff. For more information, visit www.apple.com/support/products.

Product Description

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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great and getting better each new release..., May 22, 2010

By 

Conrad B. Senior (Easton, CT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Final Cut Studio - Old Version (DVD-ROM)

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.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Burdensome interface, April 4, 2011

By 

J. S. Dodds (Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Final Cut Studio - Old Version (DVD-ROM)

I have been a Mac fanatic for years, and have been with FCP since v1.0. For the record, I am currently editing a series of complex one-hour docs now, one of them with FCP and another on Premiere, and am a corporate trainer on FCP. No editing package is perfect, and I can produce a perfectly good rant about Premiere's deficiencies, but on the balance I don't like working on FCP. (For the benefit of the Mac police, Windows 7 has been rock-solid, as much as I dislike working with it.)

To me, editing a complex project is like playing chess. When I am releasing the mouse button I am already thinking several moves ahead. With FCP, however, you have to hover over each edit. I can never quite get on a good creative roll because I am constantly diverted by having to manually perform some niggling little task that other editors do automatically, and the three-point editing model here practically demands you treat it like a linear editor. All the little things that you need automated aren't and all the big things you don't want are. The constant weight of little distractions makes for a long editing day.

Even if you disagree with everything I've said - which is fine, we all work differently - no serious editor can deny that FCP's browser is, well, terrible. Media management is a pain. It's inconceivable that the v1 browser is still with us. There is no icon view with comments, a miserable icon list view, icons do not automatically or conveniently arrange themselves (and when they do long file names prevent a clean arrangement), folders are poorly designed, long file names do not wrap or abbreviate, there is no indication if a clip has been used on the timeline. Yes it's true that you can perform an awkward clip search, which must be repeated for each edit (not does it address the bin you are working in but rather the entire project) but this is telling of the entire design. Functions that should be at your fingertips take a myriad of steps to accomplish. PLEASE Apple look at the browser in ANY competing project and GET A CLUE.

I would also add that this program does not play well with others. Unless you are going to import into the program direct from your source files, forget it. It won't read the most common file types. Even Apple's own .mov requires rendering. AVCHD? Not a chance. Not even mpeg4's. The last show I did had multiple file formats - we gave up and moved to Premiere on a PC. It just was not worth the endless rendering and megafile sizes.

The good news is that FCP does the job and is reasonably stable (but not perfect), but I have found Apple's support team to have a poor knowledge of the product. If you like it, more power to you. But I'd rather keep my mind on the script or the client and not be absorbed with the constant hair-splitting details one must manage to operate this software. Isn't getting your mind off the interface what Apple's supposed to be about?

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome product!, April 23, 2011

By 

jmanning55 - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Final Cut Studio - Old Version (DVD-ROM)

If you are serious about video editing and you are a Mac user, you need not look any further than this package. This is great for the professional video editor/producer as well as the hobbyist. Like any sophisticated software package, there is a bit of a learning curve but once you understand some basic principles, the whole package works together beautifully. THe great thing about this package is that anyone can have the same tools the big boys do to produce professional quality productions. I highly recommended it. If you don't have a Mac computer, this is a great reason to make the switch.