Steve Jobs called 2005, “The Year of HD Video Editing” With the arrival of Final Cut Studio, announced Sunday at the National Association of Broadcasters conference in Las Vegas, he is holding true to his word. The editing suite consists of Final Cut Pro 5, Motion 2 (a real-time design engine), Soundtrack Pro, and DVD Studio Pro 4.
Thats a lot of “Pro” in one suite.
Personally, I’ve worked with a few different video editing programs. Final Cut Pro is my favorite, and I believe a far more intuitive program than its main competitor Avid. The combination of these powerful tools in the Studio kit is likely to make this a top choice for professionals (and amateurs with deep pockets). At $1299 new, or a $699 upgrade from Final Cut Pro, quality doesn’t come cheap.
The most surprising feature of Final Cut Studio is Soundtrack Pro. I had heard many a rumor that this program was on its way out, due to the popularity of Garage Band in the iLife Suite. While Garage Band is a more simplistic program, Soundtrack Pro will enable video editors to add a higher level of sound quality to their videos. The audio filters in Final Cut Pro definitely left something to be desired.
I have no idea how Soundtrack Pro compares to Digidesign’s (owned by Avid) Pro-Tools, but I think that the combination of these powerful HD video editing programs, in conjunction with the easily compatible audio software, Avid is really going to have a run for our money. [Apple.com]
Geek Ladies to the rescue! Haha!
The one thing I always found amusing about Pro-Tools, was that you could sync video within the program, but it was annoying and frustrating to do. You can edit audio in FCP, but your abilities are limited. So maybe now you can do both to their upmost ability, and without any weird timecode problems. I just have a feeling that since they’re made for the same suite that they’ll function better with each other rather than importing into other programs, made by different manufacturers.
I am eager for the new suite! especially SoundtrackPro and Motion 2. In particular SoundtrackPro will give you that multitrack audio editing with video, so that you can spot your audio to the video (such as what Bias Deck does)–that’s what I am looking forward to! This is quite a week and it’s only just started. Thanks, Dorothy (we need the Geek Ladies to come forward!).