Customer Reviews

Final Cut Studio - Old Version

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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?

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.

This pack is great! And way cheaper on Amazon.

My only gripe is that you can't just buy Final Cut Pro by itself.

I'm still learning more about this product every day, but for a novice it's definitely usable. Great for making videos (if you make a lot of videos); I use it for work and I'm able to send clients videos that I make using this product.

Final Cut is a no-brainer! It is the #1 editing suite for feature films. I worked in visual effects for over ten years and I saw Avid replaced by Final Cut. I also recommend it on my website and blogs. Keep reading the reviews and I think you will agree.

I am amazed that there are only four reviews for FCS on Amazon. This is by far the best video editing suit available, especially for the price. Its only competitor is Avid which costs double and both programs are very similar but each one excelling in different areas. Final Cut Studio is the best money you can spend on editing software, besides a class to learn how to use it.

I am the owner of a production company, JVW inc, that uses Final Cut exclusively. I am also the executive producer of Forged, an award winning feature film edited on Final Cut. Final Cut is essential for any professional filmmaker or editor. Any amateur editor using Final Cut Pro will significantly improve their craft. Final Cut Pro is the most impressive and valuable piece of software I have ever used. If you are serious about film you need to own this. Final Cut Pro is the most important achievement in cinema since Louis Le Prince developed the first movie camera.

I have been using Final Cut Studio for editing video for about 5 years now. I bought it (and my MacPro 2.1 to be compatible with a big client. At first I hated it as I missed features that my previous software (Avid Liquid 7) had had.
I did get used to it fairly quickly despite the severe LACK OF MANUALS! I'm not going to bore you with griping further here is a list of pros and cons:

Pros: Very Affordable. Great CODECS. Excellent Colour Corrector in FCP - so good I never even open the specialised "Color" program. "Compressor" is a fantastic encoder and will run multicore, making it really fast. DVD Studio Pro is easy to use and works well. Soundtrack Pro is loaded with features and has a great sound library. (however see "STP cons" below) Motion does most of what you need and the timeline runs in real time.

Cons FCP: No Manuals. No Background Rendering. Sorting and finding clips in bins is badly implemented.
Cons Motion: No Manuals. Problems with Shadows in 3D. Poor Keying plug ins. Not even on the same planet as After Effects!
Cons Compressor: No Manuals. Heaven help you if you need to uninstall and need to attempt to re-in stall!!!
Cons Soundtrack Pro: No Manuals. Despite it's seductive tools set, I had to stop using STP as it will not output projects reliably - not so "Pro". Random Automation being the main culprit. Logic works better but is not a "Post" app like STP is supposed to be - sad.
Cons DVD Studio Pro: No Manuals. NO BLURAY SUPPORT. Yes - NO BLURAY SUPPORT AT ALL!!!!!
Cons Live Type: Although Apple discontinued the amazing "Live Type" app in FCS 3 it will still support the files - unfortunately, the next version will not. Motion is supposed to replace it - yeah right!

Much better than Final Cut Pro X. More of a professional product although I like a few of the features of Final Cut Pro X. I hope FCP8 is a hybrid of 7 and X.