Final Cut Studio is a professional video and audio production
suite for
Mac OS X from
Apple Inc.Components
Final Cut Studio contains six main applications and several smaller applications used in editing video. The major applications it includes are:
- Motion 4 – "real-time motion graphics design"
- Compressor 3.5 – a video encoding tool for outputting projects in different formats.
Additional applications included are:
- Qmaster 3 – a distributed processing tool.
History
Final Cut Studio was introduced at the
National Association of Broadcasters in April 2005. It is the successor to
Production Suite, and added new versions of all the Production Suite applications, as well as a 'new' program, Soundtrack Pro, which is really a new version of Soundtrack, formerly included with Final Cut Pro. In January 2006, Final Cut Studio became the only way to purchase any of the individual major applications. In March 2006, Apple released the
Universal Binary version as Final Cut Studio 1.1.
Release history
Marketing
Final Cut Studio has been placed as an all-in-one production workflow because of its integration of film, motion graphics and audio post-production tools in one suite. It is analogous to the
iLife suite, which is aimed at consumers, insomuch as
iMovie is the consumer counterpart of Final Cut Pro;
GarageBand 3 is a consumer version of Logic; and
iDVD is the cut-down version of DVD Studio Pro. Like Motion, iMovie includes
Core Image effects that can be applied in real time.
High Definition
In the
Macworld Conference and Expo 2005,
Steve Jobs –
CEO of Apple – declared 2005 to be the "Year of
HD". To this end, the HD features of Final Cut Studio were emphasised, such that a little HD logo was placed on the box for each individual Studio application, as well as the Final Cut Studio box.
Final Cut Pro supports nearly all High Definition formats (
HDV,
DVCPRO HD,
AVCHD, and uncompressed HD) and Soundtrack Pro and Motion can import these formats too, where they can be played back on an external monitor. DVD Studio Pro supports the HDDVD 1.0 specification. See
DVD Studio Pro.
Packaging
The design for the packaging and websites for each application are consistent to a demonstration video shown at the product's introduction at NAB 2005. This video also includes reference to
Shake 4 – a high-end digital compositing application that integrates with Final Cut Pro but is not included in Final Cut Studio.
Case studies
To market the Studio components, Apple compiled a set of
case studies of real-world users of the applications. For Final Cut Pro, they used
Bunim-Murray Productions' uses of the program in their
Real World reality television show. For Soundtrack Pro,
Walter Murch became their advocate – a film editor and sound designer who worked on
Cold Mountain and
The Godfather. For Motion, Apple used the example of
Mekanism and their creation of a TV spot designed to persuade
young people to
vote. And for DVD Studio Pro, the example of Relevant was used, who used the application in a unique, interactive movie called
Backwoods to Brooklyn.
Integration
The applications are designed to integrate as a suite, to form a workflow. In particular:
- Final Cut Pro sequences can be exported to Soundtrack Pro for audio tweaking or music scoring
- Final Cut Pro sequences can be sent to Compressor, for encoding in an external format
- Final Cut Pro sequences can be exported for Motion, for motion graphics overlays, or LiveType, specifically for title overlays
- LiveType projects can be opened in Final Cut Pro without needing to be exported first
- Motion projects can be incorporated into DVD Studio Pro menus without needing to be exported first
- LiveFonts from LiveType can be used in Motion.
Final Cut Pro and Motion also integrate directly with
Shake, a digital
compositing package, also from Apple.
See also
