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Final Cut Pro 5 Announced!

The latest versions of Final Cut Pro, Motion, and DVD Studio Pro were announced, along with a brand new application: Soundtrack Pro 2. This article gives you a behind-the-scenes look at what’s new.

Is Final Cut Studio Even Relevant in the Age of the iPad?

Just because the ProAps are no longer top-of-mind at Apple does not mean they are dead. Or dying. They just aren’t the darlings they used to be. And many of us are feeling the lack of love.

FCP 7: Using Media Manager to Get Rid of Unused Media

Sometimes, in spite of all your best efforts, you need to use Media Manager to delete media you no longer need. This article walks you through every step to help you avoid disaster.

Measuring Durations

Here are three quick ways to determine the duration of a clip or a gap.

Clever Matrox MXO Tricks

Following up on an earlier review of the Matrox MXO, a user contributes another application he discovered, while a word of warning on compatibility is offered by another contributor.

Hardware Review: Matrox MXO

The Matrox MXO offers a reasonably priced way to monitor and output HD video. Learn more about it in this review.

Color-Balancing Using Match Hue

Sometimes, simply color-balancing is not enough, you need to make the same object or person look the same between two different shots. This article explains how.

FCP 7: Using the Match Frame Function

This technique is very useful when you need to find the video that goes with the audio, or the audio that goes with the video.

Hiding Identity Through Mask Shape and Mask Feather

Last month, I showed you how to hide someone’s identity using a traveling matte. (Technique: Creating a Traveling Matte.) This month, I want to show you a technique suggested by Tom Wolsky, where the mask, shape, and tracking are all contained on one layer, rather than two layers in a traveling matte.

Speeding Up SmoothCam

SmoothCam is magical – but the analysis it requires is glacially slow. In this article, discover two tips you can use to speed things up.

Taking the Pro Out of the MacBook Pro

With the recent release of new MacBook Pro laptops, I was surprised to discover that Apple is removing ports from the computer, making it harder to attach the accessories, like hard drives, that we need to edit. Now, the MacBook Pro has the same ports as a MacBook — which makes NO sense to me, In this commentary, I discuss the situation and provide some ideas on how we can contact Apple to get them to add more ports on future models.

Fancy LiveType Tricks

If you haven’t worked with LiveType you are missing a treat. This article shows you how to take LiveType past bouncing TV sets and sunflower characters into creating some amazing animated text effects.

How to Create and Position Keyframes in Livetype

While most of LiveType’s effects and animation don’t require keyframes, LiveType has a powerful keyframe system hidden deep inside. This article shows you how to create and use keyframes inside LiveType to create some great looking effects.

Exporting A Final Cut Pro HD Sequence to LiveType

Michael Murray wrote in with a question about how to export a Final Cut Pro HD sequence for use in LiveType; which led me to think about one of the truly time-saving features of FCP HD — round-tripping.

Moving Files between Final Cut Pro 5 and LiveType

In researching my up-coming seminar series, I was studying LiveType and discovered two ideas which I want to share with you.

Solving Problems Caused by Audio Sample Rates that Don’t Match

I got burned by this when I was prepping my most recent webinar for posting. My audio slowly slipped out of sync. I hate when that happens. What I discovered is that the Soundtrack Pro sample rate preference setting overrides the sample rate of the Final Cut Pro project, resulting in a slow sync drift that will drive you nuts. This article explains what you need to know to fix it.

Changing Final Cut Pro’s Looping Time

When you press the backslash key, Final Cut loops around the current position of the Playhead. This article explains how to change the amount of time plays during this loop.

Commentary: A Love Letter to LiveType

With the release of Final Cut Studio (3), Apple signaled that LiveType was not long for this world by no longer bundling it with the suite of software. However, FCP 7 still supports LiveType files. This is a shame, as I truly like working with LiveType. This article details what makes LiveType fun to use, and features in Motion that would help us make the transition.

Linking or Merging Unrelated Audio and Video Clips

Final Cut allows you to connect an unrelated audio clip with a video clip, using either Link or Merge. This article describes how and how to select the right one.

The Link Selection Button is Dangerous

It drives me nuts! The Link Selection tool is right there in the Timeline. But using it is likely to slip your audio and video out of sync. There’s a better way, and this article explains it.