Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review
Final Cut Studio-Bleeding Edge for HD, January 31, 2006
By
B. Self (Seattle, WA)
I purchased the Final Cut Studio upgrade for the sole purpose of edit high-definition video from an HDR-HC1 Sony camcorder. For editing standard definition, I was quite content to stick with version 4.0 indefinitely.
Once installed, it became apparent that 5.0.4 was bearly ready for high-definition primetime. Inexplicable bugs remained with the all important "Print to Video" command. Apple's free--but unwilling and useless--"Installation Support" team would not/could not answer my questions. Most of these support representatives couldn't answer even the most basic questions, and were in some instance flat out insulting. A bit odd for Apple.
Buyer beware: "Installation Support" is NOT tech support. They WILL NOT help you get it working. Make sense? Me either.
I digress. If I bought a new car, drove it off the lot, got home and experienced transmission trouble, I would expect the automaker to fix it under warranty. Right? No-brainer. Of course. But instead what if I call the dealer and they ask:
"Is the car running?"
Yes.
"Then we've done our job. We only help you get the car running, we don't make it ready to drive." Crazy right?
Well welcome to Apple's so-called "Installation Support". Once the splash screen whizzes by and the menus are up. They're done. Period. Doesn't work. Too bad.
REAL tech support costs $199 and up for ANY question beyond installing the program running on your machine.
So the fact that I bought Final Cut 5.0 for the specific purpose of editing high definition video and having already spent $650, and the camcorder is on the Apple supported devices list, but it doesn't work, doesn't matter. I get to pay an additional $200 to get to ask ONE question of Apple Tech support, when I'm not sure they even know the answer themselves. This is complete nonsense.
(One "Installation Support" member seemed at liberty to imply that since Final Cut is a "professional" product and since most users will probably be making millions on their Indie films, that "professionals" can pony up my royalty payment... er... ah ... tech support fee for Tech Support. Nevermind that Final Cut Express users are considered equally "professional" paying $199 at Tech Support too.)
After consulting the "tribal knowledge" being shared on all the forums I discovered that dozens of other users were experiencing the same problem with the "Print to Video" command not exporting to the Sony HDR-HC1. After discovering that one user found a way to make it work, I did some additional trial-and-error experimentation of my own and got it to finally work. A single checkbox in "Edit to Tape" dialog box which has nothing to do with "Print to Video" enabled this function. This took 3 days off-and-on. Clearly there is an actual bug in Final Cut 5.0. But Apple perhaps has found it profitable NOT to fix it. Nice try Apple. I'll keep my $199.
(Alienating Apple users who've purchased Apple products for 17 years doesn't exactly create good will.)
Apple should offer complimentary 90-day REAL tech support on all it's software products like it used to. Good customer service used to be what differentiated Apple from its competitors. Evidently, not any more.
Additionally, don't use Compressor unless you believe in reincarnation (I don't) because your life isn't long enough to wait for it to finish compressing files. Because of the estimated completion times, I moved the project to my slow but trusty iMac 800Mhz where it could whir away for days if need be. Unfortunately, need be.
A 20 minute high-def video sampling down to standard DVD is scheduled to take 55 hours to compress to 6.2Mb/sec DVD. It started a day ago and will finish sometime tomorrow--unless the wind blows the power out for a minute--then I start over.
OK you're thinking what do I expect from an iMac of all things? But even with a machine 4-5 times faster, you're still looking at 10 hours for 20 minutes of finished material. That's still a bit ridiculous, bordering on useless if you have a deadline, or have multiple projects to finish.
Soundtrack Pro was an unexpected surprise. Thinking it to be a slouch piece of software just tossed into the bundle, the program actually rescued otherwise unuseable soundtracks on some key videos. The noise reduction features when dialed in are no less than amazing.
Motion is still in the box, thought I'd like to learn it. I haven't switched over from After Effects yet.
Overall Studio works, but was a bit of a disappointment. You may feel like you've done some trailblazing through the brambles by the time you get it working. (Your actual scars may vary.) If Studio is a must-have and you don't mind the bleeding edge, keep those hundred dollar bills handy in case you need to call Apple to bail you out.
Recommendation: The Universal Code version is coming out in March, 2006. Apple plans to charge a gotcha-$50 "crossgrade" fee for users who upgrade now and later want to migrate to the Intel-based machines. Unless you need it right away, or the $50 is incidental to your annual budget, wait. Maybe Apple will fix some of the bugs too. We can only hope they throw in 90 days of real tech support.
Outstanding, especially if upgrading from very old versions of FCP., September 18, 2005
By
Malignate (Ashburn, VA United States)
The short and sweet of it is that every upgrade in this package seems like an improvement. From Final Cut Pro's multicamera editing addition to Soundtrack Pro's audio cleanup tools, I've found an abundance of tools and features that will soon become essentials for me in an editing package. The package seems to need a fairly high end computer with a fair amount of RAM and OS X Tiger to really utilize of lot of it's new features such as the Core Image/Video features to their fullest extent, but renderless previews are worth it. I'd recommend it to anyone seeking to upgrade FCP and add all the other programs incredible functions.
