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The new Open Format Timeline in Final Cut Express 4 allows users to mix and match DV, HDV and AVCHD material, all in realtime using the same industry-leading editing and trimming tools found in Final Cut Pro. Supporting both 1080i and 720p HD resolutions, Final Cut Express 4 automatically performs the necessary scaling, cropping and frame rate adjustments. When starting projects from scratch, the new simplified setup automatically configures everything based on the first clip dropped on the Timeline. Final Cut Express 4 makes it easy to import iMovie 08 projects and enhance them with advanced editing capabilities such as multiple layers of video and graphics, picture in picture effects and animated titles. It includes over 50 new FxPlug filters, including Soft Focus, Vignette and Light Rays, with hundreds more available from a rapidly expanding FxPlug developer community. With enhanced audio controls, users can automatically raise any clip to its maximum level without distortion using the new Soft Normalize and Gain controls. Final Cut Express 4 also features LiveType 2, which provides an intuitive environment for creating dynamic and fun animated titles and includes an extensive library of animated fonts, textures, templates and effects.
What's New in Final Cut Express 4? Ability to import iMovie '08 projects; Editing of AVCHD, HDV and DV ? NTSC and PAL ? in a single Timeline; AVCHD support (Intel-based Mac computers only); Support for FxPlug third-party plug-ins.

Amazon.com:
Discover powerful video editing for DV, HDV, and AVCHD. Final Cut Express 4 delivers a single, open format Timeline where you can edit all three, mixing formats and frame rates using the same pro-level editing tools available in Final Cut Pro. Import video projects directly from iMovie '08. Take advantage of LiveType to create dynamic, animated titles. Built-in audio controls let you mix up to 99 audio tracks--even add a narrative voiceover. Perfect your movie with professional transitions and effects, including optional third-party FxPlug plug-ins. The affordable moviemaking package.

Powerful video editing for DV, HDV, and AVCHD. Advance your moviemaking skills with Final Cut Express 4.

More Powerful Video Editing for DV, HDV, and AVCHD
Capture clips from your camcorder over a single FireWire or USB cable, then use the new Open Format Timeline in Final Cut Express 4 to edit together DV, HDV, and AVCHD material, even if they have different frame rates. Fine-tune your choices with professional ripple, roll, slip, and slide editing functions, either in the Timeline or a dedicated Trim window. And when it comes time to add effects, Dynamic RT lets you instantly preview effects, filters, transitions, and multistream composites in real time without rendering.

A Workflow That Grows with You
Final Cut Express is designed to provide a simple, straightforward workflow. Capturing video, editing clips, and adding transitions or effects are all a click away in the intuitive, drag-and-drop interface. In addition, you can customize the interface by setting window configurations, adding shortcut buttons, and resizing track sizes and asset thumbnails to fit your preferences and streamline your workflow.

Expanded Creative Capabilities
Adding professional finishing touches to your video is possible through fine control of more than 200 transitions, filters, and effects. Combined with compositing, titling, and keyframing, they give you the ability to create visually rich, dynamic video projects. Get ready to expand your creative options too, because Final Cut Express 4 supports third party FxPlug filters and effects, the same plug-in architecture used by Final Cut Studio. And audio is not forgotten, as Final Cut Express provides 99 audio tracks with powerful sound editing tools and more than a dozen audio filters.

With the bundled LiveType 2, you can add sophisticated, HD-quality, animated text and motion graphics to videos quickly and easily. LiveType includes animated LiveFonts, over 200 preconfigured text effects, and a variety of customizable templates, backgrounds, textures, and objects that can be added to any Final Cut Express project.

More Than One Way to Show Off
Make sure everyone gets to see your finished project. Whether your final product will be output to videotape or QuickTime for distribution over the web, iPhone or iPod, you're sure to find that Final Cut Express delivers the power, quality, and features that make it the ideal choice for advanced moviemaking.

With Final Cut Express 4, you can Log and Transfer AVCHD video files quickly and easily to your Intel processor-based Mac over USB.

Selected New Features


Use Movies Captured from AVCHD Camcorders
With Final Cut Express 4, you can Log and Transfer AVCHD video files quickly and easily to your Intel processor-based Mac over USB. The Log and Transfer window allows you to review and select specific clips you want to transfer, saving you time and hard drive space. Once the clips are transferred to Apple's Intermediate Codec on your hard drive, you can start frame-accurate editing in real time, complete with multilayer video, text, or graphic compositing. Want to check your handiwork? Preview it full screen whenever you'd like using your primary or secondary display.

Mix Different Formats in a Timeline
Whether you have DV, HDV, or AVCHD content, the new Open Format Timeline in Final Cut Express 4 lets you mix and match clips, even if they use different frame sizes and frame rates. Freely edit a combination of HDV, AVCHD, and DV, including NTSC and PAL, all in real time using the same industry-leading editing and trimming tools found in Final Cut Pro. Set your sequence to an HD resolution and DV clips will be scaled to fit automatically; conversely, if your sequence is set to DV resolution, HD clips can be cropped or letterboxed for a perfect fit.

Expand Your Effects for Visually Rich Looking Movies
Final Cut Express comes with more than 200 transitions, filters, and effects including over 50 new FxPlug plug-ins. These include standard effects like dissolves, wipes, and blurs to more stylized FxPlug effects like Light Rays, Line Art and Insect Eye. When you need even more creative options, expand your effects palette using optional third-party FxPlug effects, the same plug-in architecture used by Final Cut Studio. Many FxPlug effects use your graphics card for accelerated rendering--so the better your graphics card, the faster your FxPlug rendering.

Bring Your iMovie '08 projects into Final Cut Express 4
Moving from iMovie '08 to Final Cut Express is easy: iMovie projects can be exported directly to Final Cut Express--with all of their cuts and dissolve transitions intact. All you do is open the Final Cut XML document and start using the advanced functions of Final Cut Express to enhance your iMovie '08 projects.



Powerful Editing with Final Cut Express
Final Cut Express puts professional-style editing controls in your hands, allowing you to drag clips directly to a track or use the overlay controls in the Canvas. And because editing in Final Cut Express is nondestructive, you can experiment with changes without modifying your source footage. The editing palette contains tools to cut and modify clips in the Timeline: Cut clips into two pieces, change the duration of a clip, change the duration of two clips simultaneously, move In and Out points, reselect a new range of frames within a clip, and resize or extend an edit.

Managing windows is also flexible and easy, so you can tailor the workspace to suit your needs.

Trimming is used to fine-tune a sequence by adding or subtracting frames from the In or Out point of a clip.

Use color correction to create contrast or special effects.

When working with large projects or sequences that contain repetitive effects, filters, and motion, it is often convenient to copy and paste the attributes from one clip to another.

Make Professional Edits
Once you've captured some or all of the clips that will go into your finished movie, it's time to begin editing. You will find a way to edit that is comfortable for you; Final Cut Express is extremely flexible. When you have assembled an edited sequence, you can trim your edits and modify your sequence in several ways as well.

• Using visual controls in the interface
• Directly manipulating your clips using the mouse in the Timeline
• Using keyboard shortcuts

True nondestructive, nonlinear editing
Final Cut Express 4 provides true nonlinear editing capabilities for the DV, HDV, and AVCHD formats. All editing is nondestructive to the original footage on your hard drive. Clips in Final Cut Express are merely pointers to the original source material, so any deletion or duplication of clips in the project, trimming changes, effects, or other alterations you make do not affect the source files themselves.

Editing tools at work
Professional-style editing means frame-accurate control over trimming your clips, more flexibility in making edits in the Timeline, and unlimited editing creativity. The editing tools in the palette include the following:

• Razor blade. Cuts a single clip into two pieces. This can be useful for quickly rearranging pieces of your sequence, deleting a section of a clip, applying an effect to a specific part of a clip, or moving a piece of a clip to the same location on another track.
• Ripple edit. Changes the duration of a clip. It moves the location of either the Out point preceding or the In point following an edit point. The duration of the clip to the left or the right of the edit point is shortened or lengthened to fit the new edit point without changing the location of the edit in the sequence.
• Roll edit. Changes both the selected clip and an adjacent clip. This type of edit adjusts the location of an edit point shared by two clips; the Out point of the first clip and the In point of the second clip are moved or rolled. This changes the location of the edit in the sequence as well as the duration of each clip. Roll edits are useful when you want to match the action of one clip with the action of another and need to find the right intersecting frames.
• Slip edit. Moves the In and Out points of a clip simultaneously while maintaining its duration and position in the edited sequence. Surrounding clips are not affected, just the range of frames in the clip. This is useful for adjusting footage you've edited into your sequence without moving it in the Timeline.
• Slide edit. Moves an entire clip along with the edit points to its left and right. The duration of the clip being moved stays the same, but the clips to the left and right of it change duration.
• Resize edit. Extends or shortens a clip by moving the In or Out point.
• Extend edit. Allows you to move an edit point between two clips quickly. This edit moves an edit point to the position of the playhead in the Timeline.

Refine Your Edits with Trimming
After you have made your initial edits and assembled your footage in the Timeline, you can refine your sequence. Trimming is used to fine-tune a sequence by adding or subtracting frames from the In or Out point of a clip. These small adjustments to your initial edits help to create smoother edits.

Trim Edit window
This window provides very precise control while trimming. It displays both sides of an edit--the outgoing clip before the edit point and the incoming clip that appears after it--allowing you to adjust your edit with frame-level accuracy. You can also use this window to trim a group of edits in multiple tracks at once (only one edit per track).

Dynamic and asymmetric trimming
Final Cut Express includes dynamic trimming in the enhanced Trim Edit window. When dynamic trimming is on, keyboard controls allow you to trim on the fly. Move the playhead using the J, K, and L keys to find new Out and In points for the selected edit point. If dynamic trimming is turned on in the General tab of the User Preferences window, the selected edit point moves to the new position of the playhead whenever you stop. In addition, Final Cut Express supports asymmetric trimming--an advanced technique that gives you a fast way to trim multiple clips in opposite directions.

Add Transitions and Effects
Final Cut Express gives you a suite of powerful tools for adding cool effects. And since you can use third-party FxPlug filter effects, your creative options are unlimited as well. Add a transition between clips. Use the Color Corrector to fix and match clips or to create a dramatic look. Control all effects and motion parameters with keyframes for professional looks and precise timing.

See it now with real-time effects
With the real-time engine in Final Cut Express, you get superb results quickly, without rendering. RT Extreme is an enhanced multistream, real-time effects architecture that lets you view your projects without rendering as you experiment with effects, transitions, composition, and filters. Final Cut Express 4 includes Dynamic RT, which adjusts resolution and frame rate on the fly for maximum real-time performance, letting you set it and forget it.

RT Extreme leverages the strengths of Mac OS X and the Intel or PowerPC processor to support a scalable number of video streams and real-time effects: The number of available video streams and real-time effects increases as processor speeds increase. Real-time video transitions and filters appear in bold in the Effects tab and in the Effects menu to indicate that they will play back in real time. The RT Extreme pop-up menu in the Timeline gives you several options for effects processing. You can choose between various modes that deliver either maximum simultaneous streams and real-time effects or guaranteed playback without dropped frames.

• Safe. In Safe mode, Final Cut Express provides guaranteed playback of real-time effects. The number of streams and effects is based on the capabilities of your system.
• Unlimited. In Unlimited mode, Final Cut Express uses every bit of processing power available, allowing you to stack up multiple streams of video. When Unlimited is selected, you can use nearly all of the more than 200 effects, filters, and transitions in real time.
• Dynamic RT. In Unlimited RT mode, you can choose the Dynamic setting for Playback Video Quality, Playback Frame Rate, or both. In Dynamic mode, resolution and frame rate are adjusted automatically, on the fly, so you always get the optimal real-time performance at the maximum quality possible. For example, Final Cut Express will play back your project at Full Frame Rate unless it recognizes a section of the Timeline that requires a lower frame rate for real-time playback. It will adjust for that section, then automatically return to Full Frame Rate once the section is done. Dynamic RT lets you set it and forget it, confident that you are always leveraging the maximum real-time performance of your CPU.

Smooth out your transitions
A transition is a visual effect used to change from one clip in your edited sequence to the next. Transitions, especially dissolves, generally give the viewer an impression of a change in time or location. Final Cut Express comes with a variety of transitions from which to choose, including cross-dissolve, page peel, cube spin, and gradient wipe.

Use color to create better images
The color correction filters in Final Cut Express provide precise control over the look of every clip. You can adjust the color balance, hue, saturation, black levels, mids, and white levels on individual clips. Check flesh tones and other key elements for consistency and accuracy in color. Evaluate and manipulate the brightness and color levels of clips in preparation for output to tape. All the tools needed to analyze and color-correct clips are included.

You can use the two-way color corrector to adjust the angle of hue and overall balance of an image. This filter can be combined with Image Control filters as well as Matte and Key filters. The assortment of filters makes Final Cut Express exceptionally powerful and flexible for corrective finishing work. The Color Corrector has numeric controls as well as visual user interfaces. All parameters can be changed over time through the use of keyframes. Both interfaces have Limit Effect controls, allowing you to isolate color correction operations to specific areas of an image based on chrominance, luminance, saturation, or any combination. There are a number of reasons to use the color correction filters included with Final Cut Express:

• Ensuring that a project's key elements look the way they should. The color correction tools let you make whatever adjustments are necessary to ensure that the colors and the flesh tones of people in the final edited piece look the way they did in reality.
• Balancing all the shots in a scene to match. With careful color correction, all of the clips in a scene can be balanced to match one another so that they look as if they happened at the same time and in the same place, with the same lighting.
• Correcting errors in color balance and exposure. The color correction filters provide an exceptional degree of control over the color balance and exposure of clips, allowing you to perfect your adjustments.
• Achieving a 'look.' With color correction, you have control over whether your video has rich, saturated colors or a more muted look. Such subtle modifications can alter the perception of the scene being played, changing its mood.
• Creating contrast or special effects. Using color correction, you can subtly accentuate differences. You can also create more extreme effects, such as manipulating the colors of an exposure to achieve a day-for-night look. You can even keyframe color changes over time; for example, gradually changing a clip from sepia-toned to full color.

FxPlug filters and effects
Final Cut Express comes with more than 200 transitions, filters, and effects, including over 50 new FxPlug plug-ins that use GPU-accelerated rendering. Bundled filters and effects range from standard items like dissolves, wipes, and blurs to more stylized FxPlug effects like Light Rays, Line Art, and Insect Eye. When you need even more creative options, Final Cut Express lets you expand your effects palette with optional third-party FxPlug support, the same plug-in architecture used by Final Cut Studio.

Copy, paste, and remove attributes
When working with large projects or sequences that contain repetitive effects, filters, and motion, it is often convenient to copy and paste the attributes from one clip to another (or others). Similarly, you can remove attributes from a clip or clips. You can paste keyframes as is or scale them to fit the duration of the clip on which they are being pasted. The following attributes can be copied, pasted, or removed from any clip.



Compositing and Titles
Final Cut Express provides powerful tools to manipulate, animate, or combine images. You can achieve impressive results by layering video clips or graphics files, such as multilayered Adobe Photoshop files, to create rich visual images and animations. You can also create outstanding titles with filters, effects, and compositing.

By combining two or more video tracks, also called compositing, you can create excitement with sophisticated special effects and visually rich imagery.

Final Cut Express supports a virtually unlimited number of video, text, and graphics layers.

All parameters of an object--such as size, rotation, corner distortion, and any applied effects--are also controllable using keyframes.

LiveType 2 is a full-featured, professional-quality titling application that allows you to create dynamic, animated titles quickly and easily.

Use Multiple Video Layers
Using multiple video layers is one of the simplest and fastest ways to add a professional look to your projects. By combining two or more video tracks, also called compositing, you can create excitement with sophisticated special effects and visually rich imagery. Using the virtually unlimited number of video tracks, make dynamic, composited video--like picture-in-picture, split-screen, and video collages. A sequence can be nested as a clip in another sequence, and any changes in a nested sequence ripple through all sequences that contain it. Edited sequences are fully changeable and can be nested for reuse again and again in multiple Timelines.

Seeing your effects and compositions in real time instead of waiting for them to render lets you experiment more and spend less time editing. The RT Extreme engine intelligently scales to the capabilities of your hardware, providing dramatically more real-time effects, transitions, and video layers--even when you are using HD footage or editing on a laptop computer. Dynamic RT adjusts frame rate and resolution on the fly, so you always get the maximum real-time performance.

Professional compositing results
Final Cut Express supports a virtually unlimited number of video, text, and graphics layers. You can import Adobe Photoshop files directly into Final Cut Express either as a flattened image or with all layers maintained on separate tracks. You can then combine your Photoshop graphics with video, apply animation and effects to the layers, and add additional titles and animated elements from LiveType.

Complete control of all effects, including motion
All video layers in Final Cut Express can have motion attributes added to them for dynamic compositing. Bezier and numeric controls enable you to change the position of layers, create motion paths with or without a curve, and adjust the acceleration of objects along a path, ensuring smooth, highly sophisticated results. To create motion for an object or video layer, you create a keyframe by clicking the Add Keyframe button, move to a new point on the Timeline, and then drag the object to a new location. A path is automatically drawn. Changing the spacing of the points along the path adjusts the acceleration of the item. Adjustments are made right on the path itself, providing direct feedback on how the animation will work. All parameters of an object--such as size, rotation, corner distortion, and any applied effects--are also controllable using keyframes.

Speak with Titles
Titling provides a finishing touch, and Final Cut Express has all the tools necessary to create beautiful titles, using the built-in tools or the bundled LiveType application. Keyframe and animate titles like any other object. Make text crawl, scroll, or appear in the lower third of the screen. You can even create animated type on effects or spin text in 3D space using the Boris 3D title generator.

LiveType
LiveType 2 is a full-featured, professional-quality titling application that allows you to create dynamic, animated titles quickly and easily. With LiveFonts--fonts with their own animated behaviors--plus full support for all system fonts and a way to create new effects, LiveType is simple enough for the first-time user and powerful enough for the professional.

LiveType comes with integrated LiveFonts, as well as easily adapted project templates, customizable keyframed effects, and a library of animated content. It also includes alpha channel support, dynamic individual character control, and frame-accurate registration with Final Cut Express projects. Professionally designed templates get your project off to a fast start (you can build and save your own templates as well).

LiveType templates combine the various elements available in the application, including LiveFonts, system fonts, and animated textures and objects, into ready-touse, customizable projects for your video.

LiveFonts
Developed specifically for video and designed by professional animators, LiveFonts let you type out sophisticated animated font styles as easily as you'd type out a system font. And because they're created with an alpha channel, LiveFonts key right over video.

Royalty-free content
LiveType comes with broadcast-quality animated textures and objects that you can use in your projects, allowing even nonanimators to produce professional-level content right out of the box. The textures can be used full screen, matted inside text or objects, or scaled down for use in lower thirds.

Customizable effects
Effects in LiveType are like digital building blocks--modular behaviors that include movement, transformation, and timing parameters. The more than 200 prebuilt effects that come with LiveType give you the power to add fades, zooms, rotations, and motion that ripple through your letters, and you can create your own styles by adjusting these effects in the LiveType interface. You can also use LiveType to create effects dynamically on the fly and even save them for use in future projects. Its unique approach to keyframe animation makes creating effects quick and easy.

Timing is everything
With LiveType, animation is easier than ever before. Each keyframe in an effect contains all the parameters for that moment in time, eliminating the time-consuming hassle of long keyframe stacks. And since LiveType treats every character of the word as a separate layer, powerful timing features such as sequencing give you the creative freedom to move single characters in a text block with individual timing elements, so you're not limited to blocks of text that fly around the screen as one image. The wireframe preview lets you see your work in real time.

Flexible and compatible
You can import clips from Final Cut Express complete with markers, so it's easy to synchronize your titles to important video and audio transitions in your video projects. LiveType also imports and exports all QuickTime-supported file formats, including Adobe Photoshop, JPEG, TIFF, and PICT.

A wide range of options
Final Cut Express supports direct Timeline file placement of LiveType projects, for a smooth and easy workflow. LiveType can create a QuickTime movie that you can import into your Final Cut Express bin like any other file, and creates files with or without an alpha channel, making them available to your Final Cut Express projects.

In addition, LiveType allows you to set up your own project size and resolution, so you can work in a custom setting of your choosing. It also supports all of your system fonts, including PostScript and TrueType fonts, making it possible to create an even wider spectrum of titling effects.

Audio
With Final Cut Express, you can edit, enhance, and adjust a video's audio tracks. Final Cut Express can mix up to 99 tracks and play back up to eight audio tracks in real time. You can add multiple tracks of music, sound effects, or voiceover quickly and easily.

Capture audio directly to the Timeline from a built-in or external microphone with the Voice Over tool.

Real-Time Audio Filters
Audio filters can be adjusted in real time as the track is playing, so you can hear your work in progress. This helps you experiment more and exercise more creative control over your projects. Final Cut Express includes a number of filters for adjusting your audio clips to be as strong, clear, and noise-free as possible. Filters can also be used to blend the clips in your audio mix to prevent the sound quality or tone of a particular clip from standing out.

• Soft normalize filter. This nondestructive filter scans the audio for the peak (loudest) sample level, then applies a gain filter that brings the peak to the level you request. This is ideal for achieving consistency in your audio soundtracks.
• Equalization filters. Use equalization filters to correct unnatural-sounding audio recordings by adjusting specific frequencies. For example, if your audio was recorded in a room that accentuates treble or bass, you can reduce those frequencies.
• Compressor/limiter and expansion filters. These filters allow you to adjust an audio clip's dynamic range after it has been captured. The compressor/limiter filter lets you adjust the dynamic range of an audio clip so that the loudest part of the clip is compressed to within a specified range of the softest part of the clip. The expansion filter raises parts of a clip that are too low.
• Hum remover. The hum remover lets you get rid of 'cycle hum' (a low buzzing) that may have been introduced into your audio recording by power lines crossing your cables or by a shorted ground wire.
• Vocal DeEsser. This filter is essentially a specialized equalizer that reduces the 'ess' sounds produced by a speaker with pronounced s's or a microphone that accentuates high frequencies.
• Vocal DePopper. The Vocal DePopper lets you attenuate the harsh 'p' sounds that result from puffs of breath bursting into the microphone.
• Echo and reverb filters. These 'effects' filters help you match foreground audio clips to the background in which they appear.
• Noise gate. The noise gate eliminates all sound below a specified volume threshold.

Precise Controls
There's no fumbling when trying to edit audio with Final Cut Express. Subframe audio editing down to 1/100 of a frame gives precise control over audio edits. Dynamic audio level meters provide instant visual information on the range of an audio track as it plays, and audio pan controls make it easy to work with stereo tracks during playback. In the Timeline, solo and mute controls allow you to isolate individual audio tracks. And no re-rendering is required when muted tracks are reactivated, so you save an incredible amount of time as well.

Voice Over Tool
Capture audio directly to the Timeline from a built-in or external microphone with the Voice Over tool. Create quick scratch tracks or voiceover work while editing a project. The Voice Over tool provides a countdown cue, and records before start and after stop to provide the recorded sound with handles.

Finding Your Audience
You've used Final Cut Express to put the finishing touches on your movie. You're done with editing, compositing, and color corrections. You've added effects, transitions, and titles, and you've created professional audio tracks. Now you have several options for sharing your finished project.

Print to Video
The Print to Video command sends your project out to videotape. This is useful when you want to record back to DV, create backup copies of your video project or connect your device to your home or other theater system for direct playback.

Create a DVD
Create named chapter markers in your video project. Use these markers to divide your video into navigable chapters in iDVD. Final Cut Express includes a workflow document that outlines the simple one-step process of bringing your movie into iDVD.

Export Video for the Web
Export projects using a wide range of QuickTime-supported codecs, including MPEG-4, for distribution via email or the web.

Whatever your chosen method of distribution, Final Cut Express has the features and power you need to advance your DV, HDV, and AVCHD moviemaking.









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Rating: - * Just the thing ... I had been wanting to do a video or two for fun and to see if I could use the creative potential of video. The iMovie that came with the computer never wanted to work right. This software is so simple yet strait forward enough to learn in a few hours. And still give great high end looking results. (As high end as I need anyway). Very cool. Rating: - * Excellent service ... My Final Cut Express 4 software came as promised: new and unopened. It also came faster than promised which was a great plus. It is nice to finally find a company which delivers what it promises. Rating: - * Perfect for Advanced Users and Amateurs Alike ... I've been on the Final Cut Express (FCE) bandwagon since the very first version, when I needed something bigger than iMovie to do an amateur movie. Well, now it's at version 4, and I've gone from Amateur to Advanced Semi-Pro, partially because of FCE. The editing tools in this software are amazing. Not only do you get FCE for extremely powerful video editing, but it also includes LiveType for creating really great titles. Some people have complained that SoundTrack not being included in this version, but if you have a Mac that can run this, chances are you have the latest version of GarageBand, which in my opinion does the job in a much cleaner fashion. There are a couple little nit-picky things that I dislike, such as the lack of project consolidation tools, but these are minor and really unnecessary if you're just looking for a relatively inexpensive video editor with more power than iMovie. Recently, I've started to eye Final Cut Studio for it's larger feature set and motion graphics tools, but for now, FCE is my editing suite of choice. Rating: - * AWESOME!! ... What an incredible piece of software Final Cut Express is. I'd been using iMovie on some simple video projects, but FCE has allowed me take things to a completely new level. The program is very powerful and lets you do all kinds of interesting stuff. It's somewhat analogous to a Photoshop for video in that it allows you to blend together different video sources and perform all kinds of effects on each individual component. The "key" functions where you shoot a subject against a blue or green backdrop and then extract the subject and insert it into other video/photo sources is particularly versatile. The program is definitely more complicated than iMovie, but I've been able to become proficient at it by just trial and error and use of the .pdf manual that comes with the software. Using FCE and Garageband, my iMac has become a sophisticated engine for making all kinds of multimedia projects. What you can do with some cheap software and a home computer is absolutely incredible compared to what was around when I was growing up. Really, these tools give you a lot of power, and your imagination is the only limit. Rating: - * Movie Wow ... I have this running on my MacMini. As long as the movies are short YouTube clips or home movies it handles it ok. But large chunks of video can drag the poor mini down. Im sure it will work just fine on my iMac when I get home to it. More than enough program for the novice movie maker.