I have to say, the first thing that struck me about the new Final Cut Studio 3 from Apple was not the new features.  There are many and most of them are advantageous to workflow.  As I get the opportunity to play with them, I will give you my review of each.  But have you seen the box?  Final Cut Studio 2 came in this huge box with all the manuals as hard copies.  It weighed a ton!

When I went to the Apple store to buy my copy, I also picked up a new wireless mighty mouse.  As I was standing at the counter getting ready to buy my goods, I noticed that I had what appeared to be two mighy mice.  As I looked closer I noticed that one box was in fact Final Cut Studio!  That’s right, the new program fit in a box the same size as mouse.  Now that is pretty cool, because I could actually carry it out in a bag and didn’t need a hand truck to get it to the car.

I did get Final Cut Studio installed yesterday and everything wen’t as smooth as possible!  I was doing the install on my new iMac and had the upgrade version.  At the magic point during the process, I was asked for my previous product code.  I inserted the code and the install continued.  So after a few hours of sitting at the computer and loading disks, the install was complete.

I will let you know how all the features are as I get to use them.  I am most excited about the new features in Motion and will explore those first.  If there are any specifics that you are interested in, let me know and I’ll try it out and give an update.

I have jumped on board and bought my upgrade to Final Cut Studio!  $299 for an upgrade is amazing when you consider all the apps you get for that price.  Color alone, a $25,000.00 app before Apple purchased it, is well worth the measly $299.  I am most excited about the upgrades to Motion and the additional flavors of ProRes.

I am about to install my version of the software and will give a status report when I have had the opportunity to kick the tires a little.  Stay tuned for my review.

This is the first in a series of post about creating a video editing system and environment on a Budget.  I know that many churches, schools, and non-profit organizations do not have the funds available to invest $10K and up on a video editing system.  So I want to point out a few important factors to consider when building your first editing environment.

I have mentioned in a previous post that I am a Mac guy when it comes to video production. I personally think that the Mac is a more stable platform and that Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro work more intuitively than the other guys. So I always suggest investing your dollars in a quality Apple Mac over a PC. But this begs the question, which mac do I choose?

Apple offers an array of computers to choose.  If you have between $3,000 or more to put toward a computer, I recommend going with a Mac Pro.  It is a tower machine that will give you the power and performance you need when editing and rendering those long video pieces.  They can be upgraded to fit any specific need will last you for several years.  I recommend adding as much RAM and processor speed as your budget will allow.  This type of machine, however, is generally a budget buster and so we need to look at other options.

The Mac of choice for the budge conscience editor is the iMac.  For under $2,000 you can have a robust machine that will allow you to edit and render most any production.  The beauty of the iMac is that everything is built into a simple monitor and requires a very small footprint on your desk.  I would again recommend adding as much RAM and processor speed as your budget would allow.  The iMac is a budget friendly editing solution.

I went to the Apple Storeand configured a 20 inch iMac with a 2.66 Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4 GB RAM, 320 GB HDD, and left everything else standard and it retailed for $1,699.  That is not a bad price for a budget friendly video editing machine.  With Final Cut Express and this machine, you should be able to produce 80% of all your production needs, which will more than pay for itself in savings from outside production cost.

An often overlooked way to get quality hardware is through Apple’s refurbished Mac’s.  On their store page, they have a link to refurbished machines.  There you will find all kinds of machines offered at discounted prices.  Apple offers these machines with the same kind of warranty and protection as a new machine.  So you are not taking on additional risk by purchasing a refurb, but you will be able to get more machine for your money.

Our next topic will be storage.  We will look at hard drive space and options required for video production.  Stay tuned.

Growing up in Georgia, my dad made sure that I was a brain washed to be a true CHEVY man. He has a 1949 pickup that he bought when he was a teenager. All he has ever owned are Chevrolet’s. I don’t know why he has had such an affinity for the Chevrolet, but Fords were always portrayed as lemon’s. In our household Ford meant Fix Or Repair Daily. Is one really better than the other? I don’t know. All I know is that I now drive a Hyundai.

The debate over PC and Mac is pretty much the same as the debate over Chevy and Ford. Both platforms have applications that will do the job you want. Some variations exist in methodology, but they both work. Traditionally, the argument has been PC for office/home use and MAC for video/audio/graphic use. I don’t know if those divisions are all that valid anymore, the important thing to note is that technology never replaces creativity. And since they both have

I personally use both platforms. My PC is used to do all of my graphics and web work. I have a Sony Viao that I purchased a couple years ago for the purpose of video editing. I now use it exclusively for graphic work in Photoshop or web work with Dreamweaver. My MAC is used for all of my video production and post-production work.

In my opinion, with both platforms using the Intel chip, the real deciding factor rest more on applications and budget than platform. For video editing and post-production I prefer to use Final Cut. I like the fact that I can get all the applications I need in one bundle for such a great price. It is a growing in the television/film industry and taking alot of market share from AVID. Which means that it will be around for along time and it should get attention for updates and revisions to keep up with the direction television and film are moving.

There are several significant factors that seem to make this discussion fairly volatile and heated. We will engage in some of these issues to help you make a better decision when it comes to purchasing your hardware. The purchase of a computer for video production is going to be a significant cost, so it is wise to learn all you can before making that purchase.

A common mistake that many beginners make when starting the video editing process, is setting their capture catch to the wrong drive. I have encountered many newbies who have a massive hard drive and feel that they should put everything on their system drive. This is a mistake.

If you set your capture drive to be the same as your system drive, you take a tremendous risk with you media and project data. System drives have a tendency to crash or fail and if all your media resides on that same drive, you loose hours, days or months worth of work. NOT a good strategy.

This is why Apple suggest you set you Final Cut Express or Final Cut Pro capture scratch to a seperate drive. This can be achieved by setting a partition on your “massive drive” and putting the system files on one partition and let the other be used exclusively for media projects. A better solution is to have a second drive installed in your tower or an external drive connected via firewire.

To change your capture scratch in Final Cut Express and/or Final Cut Pro. Open the application and click Final Cut Express or Final Cut Pro, depending on the application you are using. Then click System Settings. A window with the Scratch Disk tab selected will appear.

System Settings - Final Cut Pro

Click the Set button at the top of the screen and select the drive you want to serve as your capture scratch. Make sure the Video Capture, Video Render, and Audio Render boxes are checked. Once you have have made the change, click OK and Final Cut will reset your capture scratch to the new drive.