Editorial Product Review:

Item Description:
Final Cut Studio 2 takes you beyond editing. This powerful new version of Final Cut Pro is at the center of six integrated tools. Work is fast, fluid, and flexible, no matter what you're doing: Motion graphics, audio editing and mixing, color grading, and delivery. Whether you're cutting commercials, editing feature films, or pushing out the nightly news, Final Cut Server helps you work faster whenever you're working together. DVD Studio Pro 4 is professional DVD authoring. Create SD and HD projects, author discs with interactive elements and create animated menus. Whether you produce demo reels, complex commercial titles, or anything in between, it has simple, powerful tools for authoring DVDs.

Amazon.com:
Final Cut Studio 2 delivers an integrated post-production solution that lets you move effortlessly from editing to color grading to creating motion graphics to sculpting audio to multiformat encoding and DVD authoring. This powerful new version features Final Cut Pro 6, Motion 3, Soundtrack Pro 2, Compressor 3, DVD Studio Pro 4, and Color, the newest member of the suite.

Craft the perfect story using a tightly integrated and innovative suite of products created specifically for video editors.

With XML to share project data and QuickTime to seamlessly move media between systems, Final Cut Studio 2 can fit into virtually any production pipeline or newsroom.

Editing Unleashed
Final Cut Studio 2 helps take you beyond mere editing. Discover the intuitive power of new creative tools designed expressly for Final Cut Pro editors. Rapidly move through editing to motion graphics, audio editing and mixing, color grading, and delivery--all as a natural extension of the work you already do.

Final Cut Studio 2 puts a powerful new version of Final Cut Pro at the center of an integrated post-production workflow. Final Cut Studio 2 includes Final Cut Pro 6, Motion 3, Soundtrack Pro 2, Compressor 3, DVD Studio Pro 4, and Color--a brand-new application for professional color grading.

It's a Final Cut World
Independent filmmakers. Hollywood film editors. Corporate video and event producers. Editors with hourly deadlines cutting broadcast spots or network news. Hundreds of thousands of creative professionals all over the world have made Final Cut Pro their first choice for editing. It has rapidly become an industry standard.

Building on this success, Apple has designed each application in Final Cut Studio 2 with Final Cut Pro editors in mind. Start working quickly with intuitive tools and familiar interfaces. Whenever you're ready for precise control, a comprehensive set of features is just a click away.

The Editor's Choice
Final Cut Studio 2 is fast, fluid, and flexible. Use a laptop on location and a desktop in the studio. Start with the tools you already use today and extend your reach when you're ready. Final Cut Studio 2 has everything you need in a single product.

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  Edit. Use Final Cut Pro 6 for native editing of virtually any format--from DV and SD up to HDV, XDCAM HD, DVCPRO HD, and fully uncompressed HD. Or use ProRes 422, a new post-production format from Apple that offers uncompressed HD quality at SD file sizes. Drag clips with different formats and even different frame rates into the new open format Timeline.
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  Animate. Create stunning 2D and 3D motion graphics in real time with Motion 3, the fastest and most intuitive way to animate and express your creative vision. Just drag and drop to make dramatic particle effects explode into 3D space; form vector-based paint strokes with the swish of a pen. New Motion master templates let you edit text and drop in video without leaving Final Cut Pro.
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  Mix. Record and edit dialogue, add music and effects, and complete your mix with ease. Soundtrack Pro 2 lets you work faster than ever in its new streamlined interface. You can even produce in surround sound using innovative visual tools. If you make changes to your edit in Final Cut Pro, you can rapidly update your audio mix with the powerful Conform feature in Soundtrack Pro.
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  Grade. Give your production a signature look or create a consistent feel for shots from different sources. Color is the newest member of the Final Cut Studio family, offering professional color grading that can elevate the quality of any production.
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  Deliver. Use Compressor 3 to create pristine-quality output for a wide range of delivery formats--including the web, iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, and broadcast servers. A streamlined new interface lets you batch-process encoding with point-and-click ease. If film is your destination, use Cinema Tools 4 to output film lists that combine timecode and keycode in a single list. Or use DVD Studio Pro 4 for professional DVD authoring and mastering.

Post-Production Without Walls
Final Cut Studio 2 is not just a product. It's a platform. Open standards encourage innovation, giving developers and partners the freedom to create custom solutions. With XML to share project data and QuickTime to seamlessly move media between systems, Final Cut Studio 2 can fit into virtually any production pipeline or newsroom.

Whether you're working in a group of 2 or 200, Final Cut Studio lets you collaborate with ease. Share media seamlessly across multiple workstations with Xsan. Use Final Cut Server--with or without Xsan--for media asset management and workflow automation that is deeply integrated with Final Cut Studio 2. Whether you're cutting commercials, editing feature films, or pushing out the nightly news, Final Cut Server helps you work faster whenever you're working together.

Final Cut Pro 6 One timeline. Infinite possibilities.

Mix and match source material--both formats and frame rates--in real time using the new open format Timeline in Final Cut Pro 6.

Create exactly the look you want for your projects with the complete set of professional color grading and finishing tools in Color.

Easily create sophisticated 3D environments with depth and realism--with the real-time 3D multiplane compositing tools in Motion 3.

Fly through audio editing and mixing, create immersive soundtracks, and easily conform audio to video edits using the new, streamlined interface in Soundtrack Pro 2.

Deliver your best work quickly and easily to virtually any format, encoding hands-free on your local Mac or across a network of connected Mac systems with Compressor 3.

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

The first choice of professional editors worldwide, Final Cut Pro 6 delivers high performance digital nonlinear editing, native support for virtually any video format, and facility-class extensibility and interoperability. Its workflow extends through the other Final Cut Studio applications and Final Cut Server for even more power. Whether you're working solo or collaborating with a team, Final Cut Pro gives you more creative options and technical control than ever before, including:

• Broad format support
• Incredible real-time effects
• Comprehensive editing tools
• Expanded power as the hub of Final Cut Studio
• Open, extensible architecture

Color Color grading is in the house.

Color grading involves more than color correction. Just as different soundtracks can make a particular scene feel humorous, romantic, or menacing, the look created by a color grade can radically alter the tone and mood of a sequence. Color, Apple's new professional color grading application, makes it easy for editors to create signature looks for projects ranging from short video pieces to full-length theatrical films. Color offers the following key features:

• Real-time professional color grading
• Dramatic color effects
• Cinema-quality signature looks
• Final Cut Studio workflows

Motion 3 Now playing in 3D.

Motion 3 takes the complexity out of 3D by extending the 2D tools you already use. With its intuitive interface and rich toolset, the only limit is your imagination. Send particles exploding through space. Swing cameras around an object with breathtaking ease. Squiggle a vector-based paint stroke in 3D through the cosmos. Motion 3 lets you create 3D motion graphics with drag-and-drop ease, startling performance, and unprecedented color fidelity. This powerful upgrade to Apple's award-winning motion graphics software features:

• An intuitive real-time design environment
• Flexible animation tools
• 3D motion graphics done right
• Breathtaking filters and effects
• Numerous time-saving features

Soundtrack Pro 2 The next wave in audio post.

Soundtrack Pro 2 offers unprecedented convenience and power to editors. Fly through audio editing and mixing with a new, streamlined interface that combines the multitrack Timeline and Waveform Editor in a single view. Easily create immersive soundtracks with innovative surround sound tools. Automatically conform your audio edit to changes made in your video edit. With its familiar interface and intuitive tools, Soundtrack Pro is the Final Cut Pro of audio post-production.

Key features of Soundtrack Pro 2 include:

• Streamlined multitrack interface
• Professional editing and dialogue tools
• Intuitive surround sound
• Automatic audio conform process
• Intelligent workflows

Compressor 3 Create once. Debut everywhere.

With increasing demand for media distribution in multiple formats--ranging from HD broadcast to an iPod screen--it's more important than ever to be able to output files efficiently while keeping quality high. The streamlined interface of Compressor 3 lets you quickly configure batch processes for encoding to a wide range of industry standard formats. Or create format and standards conversions at pristine quality through sophisticated optical flow technology. For the ultimate high-speed workflow, set up distributed encoding over a shared-media network powered by Xsan.

Key features of Compressor 3 include:

• Streamlined encoding workflow
• Industry-standard encoding support
• Pristine format conversions
• Distributed encoding

DVD Studio Pro 4 Simply powerful DVD authoring.

DVD Studio Pro 4 makes it easy to extend your creative vision to every aspect of DVD authoring. Whether your project is simple or sophisticated, you'll enjoy using familiar, easy-to-use tools to produce the perfect presentation of your SD or HD content. A comprehensive set of advanced features is available whenever you want more control.

Key features of DVD Studio Pro 4 include:

• Intuitive design environment
• Professional authoring tools
• Versatile DVD mastering

Post-Production Workgroups
Collaborate with a small team of editors in a boutique post-production facility. Or build a custom workfl ow for a global news network. Whether you're sharing a small number of media assets over a LAN or supporting hundreds of editors on a SAN, Final Cut Studio makes it easy for everyone to work together.

Shared Media Assets
Small workgroups can share media over a LAN or WAN by copying assets from a shared volume to a local workstation. For a scalable high-performance shared storage solution, Final Cut Studio editors can collaborate over a Fibre Channel storage area network (SAN) powered by Xsan.

With Xsan, every editor on a project has concurrent access to source media files and never needs to transfer assets between workstations. Each Mac system accesses shared files on the SAN as if the storage were directly attached. Xsan can support hundreds of concurrent clients and can easily be expanded to provide more storage capacity and bandwidth as your needs grow.

Asset Management and Workflow Automation
Meet Final Cut Server, Apple's powerful new media asset management and workflow automation software. Final Cut Server takes the headache out of managing large collections of media files, then extends to tracking job status, managing reviews and approvals, and automating complex sequences of tasks--all with Apple's legendary ease of use, and all in a single product designed to work seamlessly with Final Cut Studio.

Final Cut Server combines server software designed to run on Mac OS X with a cross-platform client that runs on either Macintosh or Windows-based computers. Collaborate over a LAN or WAN with a small number of users, or leverage the power of Xsan to share media across a large number of workstations.



Accessories available:
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Accessories available:

• Mac OS X Version 10.5.4 Retail
• Apple Mac OS X Version 10.5.4 Leopard [5-User Family Pack]

Product Availability: unknown

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More related to this product:
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More related to this product:

• Apple Pro Training Series: Final Cut Pro 6 (Apple Pro Training)
• Apple Pro Training Series: Final Cut Pro 6 Beyond the Basics
• Apple Pro Training Series: Motion 3
• Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Home & Student Edition
• Mac OS X Version 10.5.4 Retail
• click for more

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Customer Rating: - Expected More quality
Updated Feb 2008
Final Cut Studio 2 is an inigma. On th one hand it has MASSIVE strengths and on the other it has MASSIVE weaknessess. If you are eperianced on other pro editing applications like Pro Tools or Avid you could experiance frustration ... as I do.
STRENGTHS
Final Cut Studio 2 has everthing you need to produce a great program
Final Cut Studio 2 ships with awsome content to get you up & running ... templates, presets, royalty free music and sound effects (lots!)
Intergration with the other programs in the suite makes Final Cut Pro do amazing stuff. Some great codecs too.
Apple listen to feedback (note the change in this review ... you CAN now zoom in on the cursor ... thanks Apple.)
WEAKNESSESS
No manuals for applications that have had a major overhaul!! (Except FCP6) There are 4 manuals for Final cut Pro 6 containing far too much detail about a program that really doesn't have a lot of functionality. (there is about a quarter of an inch thick section on the audio mixer ... a mixer that has inputs, levels and pans AND NOTHING ELSE!!!! no inserts - nix!)
and yet there is not even a piece of paper for Motion, Soundtrack Pro, Live Type, Compressor and DVD Studio Pro. The brand new program - Color gets a "setup guide" but no user manual. There are pdf files woopie doo. (Oh and you can't buy them either!)
Final Cut Pro is not a user friendly cutting platform. As others have said, the User Interface is cumbersome ... You often need to move the mouse / Trackball by fractional amounts to grab minute "hot spots / Lines" ... not so easy when you have your mouse set up to cover 2 screens with one sweep. If you want to Export from Motion or STP (and many other MAC based Programs) you use Cmd E right? NOT on Final Cut Pro! Luckily you can assign it if it bugs you (i did) So the suite integration isn't all it could be.
File Management (as with other NLEs is tricky. With FCP your files get stored on a "scratch disk" It seems to have more in comon with Avid Liquids FM system (which is terifiying!) than with good 'ol Adobe Prmier Pro.
Soundtrack Pro 2 now seems to be less Buggy than it's first (2.0.0) release. It offers so much and is enjoyable to work with (better in some ways than Adobe Audition)
Put asside 12 hours if you are installing OS and FCS2 from scratch.

All in all Final Cut Studio is OK ... getting better ... but still just Ok. I expected more quality and less initial bugs from Apple ... (There was the OS 10.4.10 bug that prevented the use of the Alesis iO2 Audio interface ... now fixed I am glad to say) ... after all there are only about 10 Intel based MACs on the market as opposed to a quadzillian number of PC hardware / software combinations. Motion rocks but is still not as good as After Effects (I run AE CS3) You can do better. Avid Liquid (PC only unfortunatly ... but does run well on boot camp) Pro Tools and After Effects is often a better (but far more costly) solution.

With all that said ... I do use FCS2 a lot.

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Customer Rating: - Little difference--should have been a "point release" upgrade
I like Final Cut Pro, I like Motion, and I like LiveType. But it is as if they were written by 3 different companies who didn't expect them to work together. And sadly, this version is no different. Still if you are doing editing on Apple hardware Final Cut Studio 2 is your best choice.

This program is for the every-day editor/user, not for casual users as the learning curve is way out there. Add to that the inconsistencies between the "Studio" products and you have more learning curve issues. Sadly, the video editor which bares the studio name Final Cut Pro, is the one tool that could have used a contemporary face lift and yet it had only what I would call "point release" quality updates. Whereas Motion (which was the most user-friend and modern interface) got huge new features that are outstanding.

It seems to ne that Final Cut may be at the end of what software engineers can do with the Final Cut Pro editor itself without a complete rewrite from the grown up. But then they stand the chance of alienating their current legacy users; and as we've seen with iMovie 2008, Apple isn't too smart when it comes to cleverly updating video editing workflows.

Unfortunately, I still have to resort to using iMovie from time to time to capture video since it always captures anything from any camera, and then import it into Final Cut Pro. Whereas Final Cut Pro often imports without a problem 60 to 80 percent of the time. The other times you can spend an entire day trying to select the right "Easy Setup" to capture video. Why or why Apple does it not capture as easily as iMovie ('06)?

Is it worth an upgrade fee? Well sure if you're in the business it isn't that much of an expense. If you're counting your pennies, however (if you only do wedding videos for example and don't need the latest and greatest) you are really not missing anything by staying with the previous version. If you are considering this vs Adobe, well I'd go with Final Cut Studio and get a copy of Adobe After Effects (the CS3 version is very cool) and you'll have the best tools available for the Apple platform.

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Customer Rating: - Finally!
Using v1 for years, I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of v2. I can now confirm that FCS2 has matured to the point of being called industry ready. v1 had issue no doubt. But with so much effort directed towards Motion and DVD studio Pro, v2 has all the elements in place for serious mission critical use. Though FC itself seems to have been ignored. To date, we still rely heavily on third party plug-ins to get most of our intensive work done in FC. Soundtrack lacks. But we do very little sound. But it does have unparalleled integration and ease of use. Though the app seems a bit unstable. Certainly not as bad as mentioned above. Having used After effects CS3, I can reasonably claim that it simply does not compare. We haven't launched AE since we became familiar with the newest Motion. Now that the entire suite has been optimized to run on the 8 Core Mac Pro, we have officially listed all of our remaining Avid hardware for sale on ebay. Avid can't hold a candle. With the Pro HDVC from Apple and broadcast H.264, color correction was all that was keeping Avid alive in our studio. Now that Color is finally here along with support from Red industries, goodbye to Avid and their lackluster and unjustifiably high priced hardware. We get better results in less time for $100,000 less. Color is a bit raw, but has been the biggest difference maker. It is beyond words. Apple made the purchase for $25,000,000 and still kept the price-point the same. This is a sign of great things to come. We are no longer at the mercy of over priced hardware and overly difficult software from Avid. To top it all off, FCS2-Server was the reason why we made the hardware switch all together to Mac Pro 8 cores. It has full support for X-grid and SAN solutions. Now, if any station is unmanned, we run our own scripts to jump start the rendering on 24 cores with 48 Gigs of ram. We get final color and rendering done with a 30 minutes to 1 hour of content time ratio. Unbelievable. Just unbelievable! If the expected fixes come to Soundtrack and Color, we will be ready to move our entire Dubai fleet over within 6 months. Thanks Apple for your hard work and impeccable business ethics. You have finally done it!

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Customer Rating: - A mixed bag
Final Cut Pro 6 is a fantastic tool; a mature app with great features and rock-solid implementation.

Soundtrack Pro 2 (specifically 2.0.1), on the other hand, may be the worst piece of commercial, non-beta software (based on the severity and frequency of fatal/non-recoverable errors) I have ever had the misfortune to use. Of course, your mileage may vary, but I would advise anyone to think twice or three times about using Soundtrack Pro 2 for any sort of serious and/or mission critical application. Check the various boards/forums dedicated to Soundtrack Pro 2 and you will see that I am not alone in this estimation. Hopefully, Apple will soon see fit to patch this inexcusably buggy piece of software.