The problem I have had is when using 60i footage the image seems to develop a slight strobe trailing effect to the moving image. Especially moderate to faster moving motion, like someone doing a lunge walk while exercising.

Hmmmm... what are you shooting on?

Years ago, I did some 60i work on the XL1 and slowed it down by exactly half in Final Cut Pro 1 (this is about 9-10 years ago), and I could literally see a quality drop. Then again, interlace has less overall resolution than progressive, but trying to do slo-mo with progressive video never looks good for me.

Heath

I am shooting on Sony FX1's in HDV or SD widescreen.
I have found that if I make the speed exactly 50% then the slow motion looks better. But obviously I don't want all of my slow motion to be at 50%, so anything other than 50% looks poor by my standards. As trailing artifacts appear as the subject moves.

When I use motion and Optical Flow, the image looks great at any speed.
But the frame blending in FCP leaves much, for me, to be desired.

- Media "Mangler" didn't get fixed or updated, just added "render tabs".
- No Blu-Ray authoring, just "customized" single menus and tracks-only just as what Toast offers.
- Still no native drag-and-drop compatibility for P2, XDCAM 422, AVC-Intra or RED (Apple claims "native" capabilities but when you read the specs you still have to use Log & Transfer to transcode). Both Avid and Edius has had drag-and-drop for most of these formats for over 2 years now.

This isn't a revamped version of the FC suite at all, in fact it's exactly what many of us were praying *wouldn't* happen, that all we'd get would be tweaked features and a set of new plug-ins. I'm not only not impressed I'm seriously disappointed.

Is it worth upgrading from FCS2? Absolutely not. Should someone considering which edit suite to start out with get FCS3 vs. Adobe Production Premium or something Windows based? I'm inclined to think that Adobe PP will soon surpass FCS - if Apple stays this snails-pace course of product development.

So Apple goes overboard to give the iPhone video editing capabilities, but can't even give their pro users BR authoring. Gee, thanks.

Hey Michael,

Maybe we should start a new topic about slo-mo in FCP.

Heath

Anyone notice that Apple haven't actually called it Final Cut Studio 3? Just Final Cut Studio. I printed off the pdf file on the new software - it's 32-bit.

My hunch is that they will release another version of this final cut studio after snow leopard comes out - final cut studio 64 or something like that. Seems this new version won't fully take advantage of the forthcoming new operating system. I reckon that's why the upgrade price is so palatable.

It's more of an update than an upgrade - bet it won't be another two years before the next final cut release - I'd say less than 12 months!

@Robert Lane:

Did you ever edit a serious project with Premiere?
Features is not all. Stability and workflow is more important.
Not to mention that Adobe charges a ridiculous 2260 euro here in Europe. And then you still have to buy the Cineform coded for a fast HD experience.

I switched to Mac two years ago and never regretted.

Good point, Scott. Perhaps it will be like FCP 4.5 (HD) which was a free major update for existing users (if I'm not mistaken) in 2004.

Or just an update via Software Update. I hope I don't have to mail in my disks like 5.0 to 5.1, but that was a great update and not just for Intel users, but it had more support for HDV cameras, if I remember correctly.

Heath

I really like the iChat theatre support. I often work with a director based in Paris and when doing rough cuts I have had to post compressed clips on my web page or iDisk for him to look at. Very time consuming for small changes.
If this works like I imagine it will be a great help to me

Easy Export which will export and do renders in the background is probably my biggest wish list item for FCP:

Apple - Final Cut Studio

"Delivery to your Apple devices, the web, and disc is just a click away. Choose your output format in the Share window, then keep working while your projects are rendered, compressed, and even published to the web in the background.

Use this convenient feature to export your file to iTunes for syncing with iPod, iPhone, and Apple TV; publish to YouTube or MobileMe;1 or burn a Blu-ray disc2 or a DVD, with a choice of Apple-designed menu templates. You can also create custom presets in Compressor for use in the Share window."

Heath

I think I agree. It has been a pain to have to export a movie and open it in Compressor to be able to render AND edit at the same time.

I also hope they fixed the bug where clusters didn´t work in Compressor if you exported your file from Final Cut

FCP and EX3
 

Too bad Apple hasn't kept up with Adobe in their support of the Sony EX3 clip format. Adobe Aftereffects accepts the files as native, FinaCut 7 still seems to require the Sony Transfer software ... is there reason to upgrade???

I wouldn't be surprised if EX3 compatibility is built-in.

Heath

Wow! I know some people have expressed concerns about Apple falling behind with Blue-ray and drag-n-drop file based camera formats, but for me this is the best upgrade I could have ever ever wished for.

I'd pay $300 for EACH of the following:

1) finally getting the slow-mo ripple thing correct (like in Vegas). Big one for me, majority of my stuff has speed changes and I was sick of muting tracks or copying clips to blank sequences to apply speed changes all to avoid rippling the sequence to death.

2) Finally a nice big Time Code display (a.k.a. producer can sit further away from me)

3) Easy export without hogging up Final Cut means I can edit and render on the same machine

4) Did I mention the speed changes???

5) iChat Theater will be nice since I work remotely for a few clients

6) Better integration and round tripping with Color means that I might actually use Color now instead of just going in and saying "cool, this looks nice, bye bye"

I'd venture to guess this version or one soon after will be 64bit ready.

to quote the new pro res white paper

"Apple Pr Res (LT) also makes it an excellent choice for transcoding complex camera codecs like AVCHD."

Hopefully we can choose this option for the the HMC151 on capture/log & transfer. Saves a little bit on disc space, very handy for me. I'm guessing this is their solution for us guys who wanted native AVCHD editing.