The New Final Cut Studio 3 Is Here

A Quick Review of An Old Favorite Made New

The Final Cut Studio 3 suite of applications has become a mainstay in every post-production office. Here’s a quick look on its new updated versions.

Final Cut Studio 3 hits the market with all new versions of the group of post-production applications. Final Cut Pro 7, Motion 4, Soundtrack Pro 3,  Color 1.5, Compressor 3.5 and DVD Studio Pro 4 all hit thr ground running in Apple’s latest version of one of their most popular application offerings.
I tested the all new Final Cut Studio 3 in a MacBook Pro that already had Final Cut Studio 2 installed. After upgrading my version in installation, the space taken by the suite of applications only increased by 2GB, which is not bad at all.

All settings were maintained in Final Cut Pro 7, except for the resetting to the default of all the scratch disks. If you had any special settings in Effects, expect to lose that as well. Old projects worked as they did in the previous version. I noticed a new tool, the Timecode Viewer. All in all, the changes were very subtle, and what is most noticeable was the addition of new Alpha Transitions.

Motion 4 had new features like scrolling text for credits and LiveType! It’s fun to play with all its features like 3D shadows and reflections, depth of field, camera framing, and might compete with (if not altogether replace) the more popular Adobe After Effects. Though it’s not there yet, it’s a fun special motion effects application.

Compressor 3.5 is not much of an upgrade. Everything works just as it did before, and the only noticeable new feature is the batch Share button. Like the previous version, it does a good job of squeezing your projects into a nice little neat package. 

Our studio has always used ProTools and I’m the only one who ever pays attention to Soundtrack Pro. It has an improved set of keyboard shortcuts, a new way to zone in on clips and Quick Look for STAP files.

My test machine did not work with Color 1.5. It’ll work with a 24” iMac, which I use. Maybe it’s a sign I should give up this MacBook Pro for those new Unibody models. 

DVD Studio Pro 4.0 doesn’t have any worthwhile updates, which is a huge disappointment. I would’ve wanted to see improvements in areas like closed captioning and subtitles. This is a sorry situation for those who make DVDs.

It may seem a little expensive at $299, but it’s still highly more affordable than Adobe updates that come every year. Out of all the updated applications, it’s Motion that is the highlight of Final Cut Studio 3. I have to say cheers to Apple for updating a program without too many things breaking apart.

 http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/
http://layersmagazine.com/final-cut-studio-3.html