Final Cut Express 4
by Apple
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List Price: Category: Software See more product details and other editions |
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Software Reviews of Final Cut Express 4
Customer Review: best value for money, adobe premiere sucks
Summary: 4 Stars
The people who whine that this program is harder than iMovie should stick to iMovie...although I agree it would be nice if someone took the simplicity of iMovie and wed it with the capabilities of a higher end editor, but oh well. This attempts to do that, and mostly succeeds. I'm shooting HDV on tape still both because of archiving and what I've heard about AVCHD and its hassle. Plus I dont need HDs dying inside of videocams. Lets face it, if you want a hard disk camera, then you need to buy a pro setup. It is true that mac's compression format seems to be large, but you can always bust your final down to H.264, which is plenty small.
To those who push Adobe, dont go there on the Mac. When you open Premiere, you wont believe the lack of use it has compared to even iMovie, no screen view during capture, no auto-detect of scenes, miserly transitions, and its DVD burning is a joke compared to iDVD. Encore just flat out crashes and doesnt work. Forget Adobe.
Video editing is a challenging task for computers. Final Express will get you the farthest for the money, depending on your format.
Customer Review: Final Cut Express Holds Amazing Videographic Potential
Summary: 5 Stars
I am only in the first few chapters in digesting the editing and audio potential to this program.I highly recommend a companion tutorial of which there are several.Right now Final Cut Express is at the cutting edge on the Wave of the future.Imagine getting your band on You Tube in High Definition Video.You can produce and edit an excellent quality video using Final Cut Express.Customer Review: Best bang for ANY buck
Summary: 5 Stars
I spent two semesters as a broadcasting major learning how to use Final Cut Pro 6 (the "big-boy" version of this program). From the work I did, I can say that Final Cut Express 4 is virtually identical to its big brother. I may not be a "power-user" of the software, but I haven't run into anything with this program that made me want the more expensive one.
From my experience (Windows Movie Maker, iMovie, and Adobe Premier Elements), don't waste your money on anything else. Get this product. It's amazing.
*flip side*
The software is not necessarily intuitive. If you want a plug-and-play program that you can just know how to use right out of the box, this may not be for you. I had an instructor teach me for a few weeks how to use it. You can also find tutorial books and videos on YouTube. Once you know how the program works, it's seamless.
Customer Review: A great choice for reliable AVCHD editing
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm new to the Mac world. For years for my work I've edited standard definition video on a twin processor HP PC workstation using various editions of Pinnacle Studio. While the product was easy to use, it had many creative limitations and crashed frequently.
About six months ago I bought a Canon HF100 AVCHD camcorder. I knew my old computer wouldn't handle AVCHD, so I bought a Dell 435T i7 quad core machine with Vista 64 bit. I tried Pinnacle Studio, Corel VideoStudio and Cyberlink PowerDirector 7. None of these products were stable enough for my needs. Their frequent crashes (about every five to ten minutes)caused me to lose lots of work and tons of time.
In utter frustration, I bought a 2009 Mac Pro quadcore (with the same i7 processor that the Dell had). So far I absolutely love the MAC. In 25 year of computer use, I've never had such a rock-solid, stable and reliable computer. So partly this review is influenced by the stability of the operating system.
Now to Final Cut Express. First, in dozens of hours of editing, I've only had one crash. This is phenomenal. The program is more complex than the mid-level PC products, and it will take more time to master, but it's so much more capable and has so much more to offer as your skills advance. (There is no such thing as a free lunch.) It seems best suited for someone who takes video editing seriously and does it on a somewhat regular basis, at least one a month or more. The PDF manual is 1,200 pages and is very helpful; you can keep it open in a window and try out new things at the same time. I was able to get the basics in about four hours of intense playing around. At first, you'll be using the mouse for most everything, but as I get more comfortable, I've been using keyboard commands more and more. It's "project" rather than "event" oriented, so casual videos of your vacation are probably better handled with iMovie.
But if you want to really be creative, there isn't much you can't do with Final Cut. I'm sorry that severasl reviewers sent the product back without learning it and then gave it a poor review. It does handle my flavor of AVCHD perfectly, albiet with some rendering and using lots of disk space for the temporary Apple Intermediate Codec files. It will import from files you already have on your hard drive IF you have copied the entire file structure from your camera card. (This is really important but I don't know the reason it needs this.)
The finished video has a beautiful, smooth, professional look (especially in transitions) that looks and sounds noticeably better that the PC products I've used. I know this product will grow with me and that I'll like it more and more.
Customer Review: Has Most of the Features of Final Cut Pro without the $1000 Tag Price
Summary: 4 Stars
Final Cut Express is your bridge to serious video editing. It has most of the features of the $1,000+ Final Cut Studio for a fraction of the price. It is a big jump for an iMovie user. Final Cut opens up a new world of expanse playground for creativity. It has a learning curve but very exciting and a joyful one.
A big difference between version 3.5 and 4 is the omission of Soundtrack (similar to Garageband but designed for videographers) audio software; but at the same time the price was slashed from $299 to $199.
FCE is a nondestructive video editing program. Clips in Final Cut Express are just pointers to the original source material and do not affect the source files themselves in your original footage on your hard drive. It can also import multiple formats and merge it in a project; DV, AVCHD, and even NTSC or PAL.
It might be worthy of upgrading from 3.5 if you have the new AVCHD camera. Otherwise, you may want to think again.
Check out the official Apple forum for tips and tricks. I also recommend to check out lynda dotcom for some great tutorials.
Mac only; If you want a good Windows video program, check out Adobe Premier Elements.