I feel required to write something quick about this release. For all those using this popular software, here are my quick impressions.
Positives:
- Improved Speed Control in Final Cut (they have been lacking)
- Greatly improved integration with Color (1st version of Color was somewhat of an eyesore compared to the suite)
- Greatly improved 3D capabilities of Motion (still not After Effects)
- Burn DVDs and Blu-rays straight from Compressor
Negatives:
- STILL NO BLU-RAY MENU OPTIONS OR BURNING FROM DVD STUDIO PRO (sorry about the yelling, but this bugs me)
- No other upgrades to DVD SP. Random prediction, but I think Apple is looking to dump this program completely. It has not been seriously updated in like 6 years (not cited).
- For those of you that liked LiveType – get used to Motion. It looks like LiveType has been removed as a stand alone program. (this is actually a plus in my book)
- 50 GB load of entire studio with the extras. For those who think Adobe is bloated…if you have this and Creative Suite on the same computer you better have a lot of storage space.
Final Verdict: *shrug*
If you use Motion for your motion graphics, I would definitely say upgrade. The same goes if you are doing FCP workflow and use Color to do color correction and grading. Otherwise, not sure how worth it it is, though at $300 for the upgrade, I suppose you might as well. Would have definitely liked to see some improvements to DVD SP and maybe some other features like the audio transcription that Adobe has been putting into Premiere/Soundbooth/Media Encoder.
I am a little interested in jumping back into Motion, since I have not really seriously used it since the first version of the program.
Let me know if you have any questions or comments. If you get it and try it, let me know if there is anything really big that I am missing here.
Here is the official Apple site: http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/
