Apple Final Cut Express HD (Mac)
by Apple Computer
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List Price: Category: Software See more product details and other editions |
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Software Reviews of Apple Final Cut Express HD (Mac)
Customer Review: Can't live without Final Cut Express HD
Summary: 5 Stars
Final Cut Express HD is awesome. But don't try to learn how to use FCE on your own - buy a book such as Final Cut Express for Dummies and spend some time working through the concepts. I had previously used Adobe Premiere, so making the switch to FCE was not quite the hurdle that is going to be for others. If you make the jump from iMovie, do realize you will need to spend a lot of time learning how to use FCE.
If you are going to edit simple home movies, probably stick with iMovie. iMovie is quick and simple. But for professional results, definitely use FCE. But do realize there is a fairly steep learning curve. Once mastered, editing in FCE is quick.
I use FCE for professional quality editing work when I need to edit down multiple cameras shooting simultaneously (a feature that Final Cut Pro now makes automatic, but not FCE), and complex editing involving numerous audio and video tracks. I routinely re-arrange my audio from one clip and overlay over another. I also routinely adjust audio levels and mix multiple audio tracks. While FCE HD comes with the Soundtrack application, most of my audio editing is done with the FCE audio tools directly. LiveType is a titling application that also is bundled with FCE HD and enables the creation of broadcast quality titling and titling effects. LiveType is worth the price of FCE HD alone! FCE also includes a huge assortment of both audio and video filters to adjust or clean up original content, or color filters to match the colors between multiple cameras.
Except for simple home movies, where I still sometimes use iMovie, I use FCE HD for everything else. I could not produce the type of material that I create without FCE HD. I strongly recommend FCE for anyone wishing to produce professional quality video results, especially those who need to synchronize and mix multiple video and audio tracks and/or use advanced titling features of LiveType.
Like most video applications, more RAM is better. FCE sort of runs on my 640 MB RAM Powerbook G4. But it flies on the my dual 867 Mhz G4 with 2 GB of RAM (but 1 GB would be plenty). If you are going to be doing video editing, a GB of RAM will be very desirable.
Customer Review: Too complex for "Express"
Summary: 2 Stars
Isn't this a Mac product? I thought Mac products were supposed to be (A) stable, and (B) easy to use. This product is stable, (once I upped my RAM to 2GB) but at 512MB it brought the system to a crawl.
But as far as ease of use--I'm not a dumb guy (although my kids may argue the point) but this product is really a victum of itself. It is too hard for the "Express" audience and is really intended (in my opinion) ONLY for profression Final Cut Pro users. In other words, if you use Final Cut Pro at work, and want something on your home-Mac, the Express version is a great value. You already know it and people have paid you to get used to it.
But if you're a iMovie user, Pinnacle Systems Studio user, Adobe Premiere Elements 2.0 user, this product seems like I'm trying to fly the Space Shuttle.
How do you output WMV with this product? You can do it in any of the PC-based products, oh, and they also output Quicktime so why does Apple have a hangup about WMV?
I recently asked in an Apple forum "How do you do Picture in picutre?" I got a great response from an experienced user. "It only took a couple of minutes, just do these 6 steps..." Great, in Premiere Elements or Pinnacle, I click on the PIP icon and its done. I didn't have to do 6 obscure steps.
The product is also one of those old fashion "Million Windows all over the place" applications. You try to minimize the thing by pressing one of the tiny little minimize buttons (like all Mac apps have) and it closes only that window of the app, like the preview window, not the timeline, not the browser.
Bottom line... if you already use, know and love Final Cut Pro, this is a low-cost way to get a similar product on your own PC (although the Academic version of the Pro version is pretty affordable too).
I don't see the point of this product unless its just to provide a low-cost entry into Final Cut Pro for people who use Pro for a living.
Customer Review: Great Program!!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a great program for your mac... I've used it in a film class the previous year and it took me a year to really get the hang of it. Because it has no tutorial I recomend you find someone who has used this and get them to give you a few lessons.Customer Review: Going back to iMovie!
Summary: 4 Stars
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.
Customer Review: unbelievable video production program
Summary: 5 Stars
If you've only worked with iMovie or Windows Movie Maker, you may be intimidated at first, but the end results speak for themselves. It is true that Final Cut Express HD isn't necessarily intuitive and the options are innumerable, but you will emerge from the other side of the learning curve amazed at how polished your works have become.
You can update old iMovie projects easily; just import them into Express HD and add high quality titles and credits and an attractive soundtrack. If you want to take it further, you can experiment with an astounding variety of professional quality transitions, filters, and effects to deliver the full visual and auditory impact you desire.
If you already have a previous release of Final Cut Express, the inclusion of LiveType and Soundtrack alone justify this upgrade. For a bonus, GarageBand musicians will love the hundreds of Apple loops included in the Soundtrack package.