This is an overview of what’s new in the Final Cut Studio 2 suite from Apple. This originally appeared in the Mac MediaCast episode 2.

Click Here to view the tutorial video in a pop up player. Click “Read More” below for the full transcript.

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Final Cut Studio 2 – Apple’s award-winning suite of creative tools has received a major overhaul. Here’s a look at the highlights of what you can expect in the big black box, shipping now:

Final Cut Pro 6 — New to the core program of the suite are some great features.
Open Format Timeline lets you mix source material from different formats on the same timeline in real time.
Apple ProRes 422 is a new codec that gives you 10 bit HD-quality video at Standard Def file sizes.
SmoothCam uses Shake’s powerful optical flow technology to smooth shaky shots
Soft Normalize and Gain controls give you more control over your audio

Motion 3 comes of age and further establishes itself amongst heavyweight motion graphics programs like Adobe’s After Effects
Finally a 3D environment with cameras and lights
With that come 3D text behaviors and particle emitters
Vector-based paint strokes
Point-Tracking and match moving
and Integration of Shake’s professional Retiming, Image Stabilization, and SmoothCam

Soundtrack Pro 2 offers nice enhancements to an already-solid multitrack audio editor
Surround sound mixing made intuitive and easy – the Apple way
Automatic audio conform, which tracks changes in your Final Cut Pro Project and keeps your audio up to date
Podcasting features, such as easy enhanced podcasts
and Professional audio post production features such as advanced take management and the multipoint spotting display

and the brand-new program Color, bringing the color-correcting power of thousands of dollars worth of software to the affordable Final Cut Studio suite, featuring
support for Standard Def, High Def, and 2K film project resolutions
Intuitive workflow through Color’s “rooms”
Dramatic Color effects and Cinema-Quality signature looks
and, best of all, tight integration with Final Cut Pro 6

Last, but not least, some nice upgrades in Compressor 3–
A new interface and expanded format support,
Dynamic Video filters and and new geometry controls
And the same optical flow technology we mentioned in Final Cut Pro and Motion for use in sophisticated retiming effects.

Going in-depth into all these features and the new ones I didn’t mention here are beyond the scope of this quick highlight trip.

Stay tuned to this podcast and the website for more in-depth information over the coming months.

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