This rather heavy box contains Final Cut Pro 5, Soundtrack Pro, Motion 2, DVD Studio Pro 4 & Shake 4 and lots and lots of books (my kind of packaging). My old Final Cut Pro 4 books have lots of places bookmarked with stickies. I know that you can use the help menu on the computer but for those of us who do like to curl up with a good manual I was in heaven. The box has a total of eight books. Five of them are for Final Cut Pro the others are for Motion 2, Soundtrack Pro and DVD Studio Pro 4.
You have to invest both time and hard drive space for this software. I didn't install all of the extras that came in the box, but I did install quite a bit. To install all of the bells and whistles you would need about 41GB. I installed partial which used only 21GB which is still a hard drive hog.
While there were many great programs that came in the box I will only focus on Final Cut Pro 5.
What comes new for Final Cut Pro:
- "Multicamera Editing Using Multiclips". This allows you to group together multiple clips as separate angles and switch back and forth between the clips in real time. You can have up to 128 angles but only the first 16 can be played back in real time. This worked great for my multi-camera projects.
- You can now capture, edit and output native MPEG-2 HDV video plus 720p30, 720p60, 1080i60 & 1080i50 formats. Using supported USB or FireWire you can import and export native DV, DVCPRO & DVCPRO 50 footage from Panasonic P2 cards all without any generation loss.
- Apple Professional Application Integration has a new "Send to Menu" which allows you to select one or more clips in your project and open them in other Apple Pro applications such as Shake 4, Soundtrack Pro and Motion 2.
- You can embed Motion and LiveType projects directly into your Final Cut projects and edit them like any other clip in your timeline.
- You can also process audio in your Final Cut project using Soudtrack Pro by editing nondestructively or destructively using the Waveform Editor. When you make changes to Soundtrack audio that is embedded in a Final Cut project the audio in your Final Cut project is updated immediately.
- Interface Enhancements, allow you to now change the text display size in the Browser and Timeline. A new customized keyboard layout for real-time multicamera editing is also included. Plus new button bars for common workflows like Multiclip, Media Logging & Audio Editing.
- Rendering of "Still Images" & "Generator Performance" are now rendered to a "Constant Frames" folder which is stored in the current "Render Files" on your scratch disk which helps playback performance significantly.
- RT Extreme & Real-Time Playback: allows you to manually adjust the video quality (high, medium or low) and playback frame rate (full, half, quarter) to reduce CPU load so you can increase the number of simultaneous real-time effects.
Dynamic Real-Time Playback: Where Final Cut can automatically adjust video quality, frame rate or both on a frame-by-frame basis during playback thus allowing you to get the best real-time performance.
Limiting the Data Rate of Real-Time Playback: Is useful when you have more video streams that your hard disk is capable of playing back. This would be helpful to those who media is stored on a (SAN) storage area network or if your scratch disk has a low data rate, such as 4200 rpm which is the case with some PowerBooks and portable FireWire drives.
Unlimited Real-Time Playback Enhanced: If you choose the "Unlimited RT" option from the RT pop-menu in the Timeline you can preview more effects than previously available. The engine has been enhanced to support playback for effects that were previously unplayable, such as Motion & LiveType clips.
- Audio: MIDI Control Surface Support allows you to precisely control fader levels and pan settings simultaneously, instead of adjusting faders one at a time. You can control whether or not audio beeps are heard when unrendered audio tracks are played back.
- Log and Capture: You can now capture up to 24 audio channels at the same time. The Log & Capture window allows you to choose which audio channels you capture and whether audio channels are captured as mono channels or stereo pairs.
- Scratch Disks, Xsan & Network Support: The Directory & File Permission supports scratch disks on storage area networks such as Xsan. All UNIX file permissions are obeyed, allowing you to carefully control read & write access for multiple Final Cut Pro editing systems connected to the SAN.
Each time Final Cut is opened it searches any computers on your LAN for easy setups, plug-ins, window & keyboard layouts, button bars, etc... Which allows you to install settings and preset files in only one location and share them with all other editing systems on the network.
Capture Now no longer preallocates disk space so now media files grow as they are written and there is no longer a waiting period before Capture Now operation begins.
- Media Management: There is a faster reconnect feature to your media files. You can also reveal a clip's media file directly in the "Finder". The Media Manager can process the latest supported video formats, including DVCPRO, HD, HDV & IMX.
- Film Editing and Cinema Tools: Clips in Final Cut can be linked directly to a Cinema Tools database. So whenever you make changes to your Cinema Tools database you can update the associated clip in Final Cut.
You can import "Telecine Logs" directly into Final Cut and associate the clips with a Cinema Tools database that is created automatically. Final Cut Pro supports feet + frame units in the Timeline ruler and timecode fields throughout the application.
As with most programs today there are many ways of getting help. With Final Cut you can use the onscreen help menu or one of the 5 manuals that ships with the program. Personally I like to use the manuals.
The program itself has a bit of a learning curve. If you have used other editing programs before you will pick it up fairly quickly. I was a heavy PhotoShop user before I started using Final Cut and I noticed that many of the concepts are the same in how things are laid out and how there are many ways to get to the same point according to your work style.
The first book "Getting Started" is a great book for someone that has not used the program before. It gives great insight on the Post Production process and how to best keep your work flow efficient:
- Planning is the first thing you should do before you start shooting or at least before you start editing.
- Setting up your editing system should only have to happen once when you first start working on your project. For most systems today you just have to attach your video camera to your computer and you are ready. I have my system setup with my digital camera, connected to a dedicated TV which is attached to a stereo VCR/DVD combo.
- Logging, capturing & importing: This step is mostly style driven. Some people prefer to dump all of the material off their tapes onto their hard drive instead of going through the tape before hand and just "logging" in what you would like to have in your project. I usually go through my tapes in front of my TV with my laptop and get the time codes and make a description of the scene. Next "Capture" your footage. I just go to the in and out points and capture just the images I want. By just capturing what I want I save on hard drive space. You can also "Import" QuickTime movies, audio and graphics files, such as a music track from a CD, a still image, or a layered Photoshop file.
- Editing your project this also can vary according to your style. You can drag all of the clips into the Timeline then start cleaning them up and adding transitions or you can clean them up as you pull them in. Me I drag what I need into the Timeline, fine tune, add my music then add my transitions.
- Mixing & sweeting audio this is where you can clean up your dialogue (you know when the annoying plate clatter at that important point in a presentation), add sound effects, music or voiceover and make adjustments to the mixing levels to make a more harmonious sound to your audio. You can set Final Cut to default to Sound Track Pro for additional audio editing. I love working in Soundtrack Pro because I can view my project in a mini-screen as I add the music to the sections I want.
- Adding effects and titles can be very time consuming which is why it's a good idea to have most of your project laid out and almost done before you start adding the effects. You can change the speed of a clip, create a motion clip, adjust your colors and many other touches to give your project that polished feel of a professional.
- Outputting and distributing your project is your last step. Final Cut Pro provides you with a variety of output options. You can create a video tape or export it to a DVD authoring program such as DVD Studio Pro or another DVD program or you can make a mini movie and place it on the web.
When you open Final Cut for the first time you will be prompted to choose and "Easy Setup" which will determine how Final Cut works with your editing system. Go to "User Preferences" where there are six folder tabs to chose from.The first tab is "General" this is where you can setup the number of "Undo's" you would like (we all LOVE undo) how many "Recent Clips" you would like to be displayed, setup your "Real-time Audio mixes, how often you would like to have a copy "Auto Save" and many other things that affect the general feel of your workspace.
Editing is the next tab: This tab handles the "Still/Freeze Duration", "Dupe Detection" and other audio warnings.
Labels is the next tab: It has five different color blocks which show Orange-Good Take, Red-Best Take, Aqua Blue-Alternate Shots, Lilac-Interviews and Lime Green-B Roll.
Timeline Options: is the next tab which has your starting Timecode, Track Size, which gives you the choices of "Reduced, Small, Medium & Large", You can set the Default # of Video & Audio tracks, Change your Thumbnail Display from "Name, Name Plus Thumbnail or Filmstrip and how you want your Audio Track Labels to Appear "Paired or Sequential". You can also control "Your Track Display" by having different things shown and what appears in your "Clip Keyframes".
Next is Render & Playback tab: where you set the Filters, Frame Blending for Speed, Motion Blur and how you want the Frame Rate or Resolution Rendered @ 100% or less.
Last tab is the Audio Outputs tab which is set at the Default Stereo Preset. You can "Duplicate, Edit or Delete" presets according to the project you are working on.
Next setup your "System Settings" This is where you setup your "Scratch Disks," for your Video & Audio Capture to include Video & Audio Render. Setup your "Waveform & Thumbnail Cache" plus your "Autosave Vault. Setup your "Minimum Allowable Free Space on Scratch Disks, Limit Capture/Export File Segment and the length of time for your "Limit Capture Now." (A note about scratch disks if you do a lot of editing on different projects and you would like to keep your files separate from your other projects you will have to reset this for every new project.) When I first started using Final Cut 4 I didn't and my files were everywhere. I like to have all of my files from a particular project in the same folder so I make sure that my render files and other cache files all get saved in the same folder. Some have said that this may slow down a project I haven't seen that in any of my edits. Again this is a personal choice.
Audio/Video Settings is the next thing to setup:
There are five tabs under this section the "Summary" where you setup your Sequence Preset which determines the "Editing Timebase for a sequence. (A sequence is a container for editing clips together in a chronological order. This process involves deciding which video and audio clip items to put in your sequence and what order the clips should go in.) Once a sequence is created, its editing Timebase can only be changed if in it contains no clips.
Capture Presets tells you what preset you are working in like DV NTSC 48 kHz it gives you warnings if your device is missing, what quality you have it set to like Best Quality, the Bits Per Pixel, what type of Input if its coming off the first two channels, if the speaker is On or Off and what's the volume set at and if there is any gain.
Device Control Preset tells you what Protocol you are using such as Apple Firewire, the Time Source such as DV Time, the Frame Rate, the Pre and Post Roll which is about 3 seconds, the Capture Offset, the Handle Size and Playback Offset.
Video and Audio Devices tells you your Playback Output what your audio is set to and gives you different Output for Edit to Tape/Print to Video. You can also check or uncheck for Final Cut to alert you if your External A/V device is not connected when it launches.
You can change these settings at anytime as you get more familiar with the program and according to your work habits. Also bear in mind any changes you make while you are working in an opened project will affect only future sequences to make changes to the current project you will need to use the "Sequence Settings Command".
There are four main windows in Final Cut that you use to edit your project:
- You have the "Browser" where you organize your clips, import music and graphics. You can view items in the "Browser" in list view or icon view. List view provides detail clip information in columns while icon view gives the first frame of your clip or the "In" point of the clip. You can either make the icon display small, medium or large, large tends to work best with 20 inch or greater monitors.
- The "Viewer" is where you preview and prepare your clips for editing. You can define "In" and "Out" edit points for clips, adjust the audio levels and panning, add filters and adjust filters applied to the clip. Adjust the motion parameters in your clip to modify or animate such parameters as scale, rotation, cropping and opacity. You can also adjust transitions such as a dissolve or a wipe or page turn from an edited sequence.
- The "Canvas" is where you view your edited sequence as well as perform a variety of editing functions like straightening out that slightly off kilter clip, or slow panning and zooming in on your clip, the Canvas works in parallel to the Timeline it displays the current position in an open sequence.
- Next you have the "Timeline" which displays the clips in your sequence. The "Timeline" shows the chronological arrangement of clips and layered video and audio items, while the Canvas provides a single view that allows you to watch your sequence just as it will appear on a movie or TV screen.
The last two small windows are the "Audio Meters" which allow you to monitor the audio levels and the "Tool palette" which contains the tools for selecting, navigating, performing edits and manipulating items.
You can of course setup this workspace the way you work best and save it for future projects.
A quick glance at how hard volumes are broken down:
Volume 1-Covers the Interface, Setup & Input for Final Cut: It explains the basics of the Final Cut interface and the elements of a project, it also provides instructions on setting up your editing system, capturing footage to your computer and importing files.
Volume 2-Editing: Discusses each part of the video process, including organizing your footage, creating a rough edit, fine-tuning your edit using advance trimming techniques. It also includes the instructions for multicamera editing using the new multicamera editing tools.
Volume 3-Audio Mixing and Effects: Provides instructions for mixing audio and enhancing your video using the effects of Final Cut Pro such as adding transitions, filters, creating motion effects, composting & layering, creating titles and color correcting your footage. It also covers real-time playback and rendering.
Volume 4-Media Management and Output: Gives information about managing projects and media files, exchanging projects between editing systems and outputting completed projects. It also contains detailed explanations of settings and preferences and information on video formats, frame rate and timecode. Vol. 4 also contains the index for all of the other volumes. It directs you to what volume contains the information that you are seeking.
There is an interactive DVD tutorial include in the package. It gives an excellent overview of Final Cut Pro 5, Motion 2, Soundtrack Pro and DVD Studio Pro 4. The tutorials take you through the applications interfaces and primary features. There are lesson files and media included on the DVD so you can learn as you go. The DVD's are equivalent to eight hours of training in PDF format. There are tutorials for both beginners and more advanced users.
One very important note when using this program and any other program is to Save, Save, Save and did I mention Save. While the program does do an "Auto Save" I like to save about every 15 minutes or so, or if I just made some major changes. There have been times when the program will not like something and suddenly just quit. After having to rebuild two rather large projects I now save religiously.
Every time I use this program I learn something new. With the new changes in the program my work is becoming more streamlined and creative. My projects are maturing the more I use Final Cut. I am also noticing that I am able to put together a project faster each time and that each project comes out with something new.
Get more detail about Apple Final Cut Studio (Mac DVD) [OLD VERSION].
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