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Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/4631
MacDirectory 129 REVIEW Soundtrack Pro 3 Soundtrack Pro 3 also has a number of improvements in capability, performance and productivity. Our favorites are the improved accessibility of the waveform- editing tool, which you can now call up with a double click on a clip in a track. There are a number of keyboard shortcuts that should make editing even more intuitive for Final Cut Pro users and if keyboards aren't your thing, Soundtrack Pro 3 has substantially improved integration with Euphonix hardware. Soundtrack has also caught up and in some cases surpassed Adobe Soundbooth's innovative post processing with features like voice level matching and cleaning up extraneous sounds. After learning some of the tricks, Soundtrack Pro makes the process quite intuitive. There have been a number of under-the- hood changes that have made Soundtrack a far sleeker application. With its huge and easily expandable loop library for building your own scores, the program remains a great one-stop-shop for audio post. Color 1.5 Color timing (now better known as "grading") has always been one of the darkest of the dark arts of theatrical film production. Even though a color corrector may be perfectly adequate for fixing minor color issues in a shot or sequence, color grading is what sets the tone and mood for a scene or even an entire film. It's an art. For those with sensitivity to understand its nuances, the dedication to learn its intricacies and the perseverance to master its unquestionably un-Mac-like interface, Color 1.5 can open up new horizons of visual expression. This version offers some modest improvements in the interface and the ability to round-trip footage between Color 1.5 and Final Cut Pro. Better still, Euphonix and Tangent now offer reasonably affordable hardware control surfaces that will let you work with Color 1.5 with greater precision and ease. Compressor 3.5 This may not be a major update to this already-powerful application, but the update contains a number welcome productivity-related improvements. For example, Encoding Templates cannot only compress and transcode but export video in a single step. Your compressor batch settings, including these export options, can be transformed into droplets that can even batch process multiple files. And yes, you can finally burn directly to Blu-ray. Paperless Help This release of Final Cut Studio represents a somewhat questionable move to entirely paperless documentation. On the up side, the HTML-based documentation lives in the application package, making it local (unlike Adobe's Web-hosted system and offers very fast search and access. Gone is the portability of printed documentation and the serendipitous discoveries of features while you're skimming a manual looking for something else. Fortunately, several updates to the top-notch Apple Pro Training Series were ready to ship at the same time as the application. The entire Final Cut Studio series should be in bookstores by the time you read this. With major improvements to productivity and the ability to handle the latest HD formats, File Cut Studio Pro will be an essential upgrade for most users. If the previous version did not provide quite enough temptation to move up, it's definitely time to upgrade. Name Final Cut Studio Made by Apple (Apple.com) Price $999 ($299 upgrade) Pros Improved HD support, numerous productivity and interface enhancements Cons No hard-copy documentation available Rating ★★★★★