Apple

Apple Final Cut Express HD

Summary

Known for its powerful DV editing tools, Final Cut Express HD is now also the ideal choice for editing high-definition video with its new HD support. Customers can edit HD video as easily as they edit digital video. With LiveType, customers can add animated text and graphics, and with Soundtrack, customers can create custom music. Final Cut Express HD is the ideal DV and HDV editing software solution for prosumers and creative business users who want true professional-quality results.

Reviews 3:
by Dale Dellinger	Monday, 16 February 2009, 09:21:18 AM
I had used iMovie for several projects over the last year and a half before I decided to upgrade to Final Cut Express HD when working on video of my wife's niece's wedding. I finished that project, but for me iMovie's ease and elegance is more important than FCE HD's power and complexity, so I have sold my copy of FCE HD on eBay and have gone back to iMovie. The rest of this review is from my original review of FCE HD from July 11, 2005 (shortly after I bought it). This revision was submitted on February 13, 2006. Apple sells FCE HD as an a step up in features from iMovie, but -- wow! -- it gives you a lot more flexibility but at a huge cost in complexity too! The Apple magic of making something simple enough to let you concentrate on the creativity and not the mechanics of the project seems missing here. IMPORTANT: An employee at the Apple Store near me confided to me that there is very little difference between Final Cut Pro HD and Final Cut Express HD. The extra $700 for the Pro version allows outputting your movie in broadcast quality -- if you don't need that, he said, you can save $700 and buy the Express version. I had just seen the employee give a short in-store class on Final Cut Pro and he said I could do EVERYTHING he did in the class EXACTLY the same way in Final Cut Express! He said the only way you could tell which is which is by the name in the menu bar! (Maybe this is common knowledge in the Final Cut Pro/Express community, but I couldn't find out exactly what was different on Apple's website.) IMPORTANT: There is NO TUTORIAL included for Final Cut Express. There is a 900 page PDF manual on the CD, but since I had never worked with "pro" video editing software, I found it very useful to buy a third party how-to book. I chose "Final Cut Express" by Lisa Brenneis (ISBN: 0-321-35026-X, Peachpit Press) because it seemed well written and had many useful examples. There are a few scattered examples in the online manual, but not enough for my taste. The online manual is all the help you get -- selecting Window -> Help just brings up the manual; no Help Viewer help here.

by S. Mcpherson "Scott in Tampa"	Saturday, 21 November 2009, 01:24:48 AM
Final Cut Express is a very powerful program, and no doubt you can make spectacular movies with it. However, there is one glaring flaw that is driving me nuts: NO BATCH CAPTURE! In Final Cut Pro, the much more expensive parent of Final Cut Express, you can run through your video setting in/out points very quickly, and then simply doing a "Batch Capture," allowing you to walk away and let the program gather all your clips. In FCE, however, it's different. You can either capture the whole tape, and then edit it later. Or, you can set your in/outs, and then capture before moving on to the next clip. My God, if you have a lot of video to work with, can you imagine how much extra time this will take. And, again, with a lot of video, unless you have massive amounts of storage, it is going to be tough to capture an entire tape and cut it up later. So, don't get me wrong.....great program, tons of tools, tremdendous value for the money. BUT, Batch Capturing is a must for me. This program would have been a solid 5 stars had Apple simply included batch capturing. For me, my projects are long enough to where I have to have it. So......I am buying Final Cut Studio (not only for batch capturing, but for the additional codecs as well). If your goal is to take your home movies to the next level and have far more features than iMovie, and the capturing issues are not a big deal for you (or you are on a strict budget), then this may be the program for you.

by NoLonger A.	Sunday, 22 November 2009, 07:06:00 PM
I am a newbie to both Apple computers and Apple software. With FCE 3.5 I have a real love/hate relationship going on here. This is probably the most frustrating software that I have ever tried to learn, but when the results come out, they are fantastic. If you want to quickly piece together a fun little video with just a few transitions, then use iDVD. If you enjoy working your tail off and feeling a REAL sense of accomplishment at making a small step, then this is the software for you. By the way, many of you will have noticed that you can get the newest FCE 4 at nearly the same price as FCE HD 3.5. You should be aware that FCE 4 does NOT have Soundtrack included nor does it have all of the features of LiveType 2. (Nearly 9 gigs is missing!) For the price difference I chose 3.5. I am still learning this, but I have no doubts that I will become proficient in its use. Besides, I have an ace in the hole. Tom Wolsky has many books out on Final Cut. He is also a regular on the Apple Support forums. There is not any question that he cannot answer about Final Cut. Also you should purchase a mini/dv camera with firewire output. USB ain't gonna cut it with Final Cut Express. Hope this helps.

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Apple Final Cut Express HD

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