Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro 5, DVD Studio Pro 4, Soundtrack Pro, and Motion 2 all come with two DVDs—the Apple Pro Training Final Cut Studio DVD Tutorial and Apple Pro Training Final Cut Studio Tutorials—that are filled with beginning and advanced tutorials and training lessons to help you learn more about the applications. Here's a look at what each DVD offers.
Apple Pro Training Final Cut Studio DVD Tutorial
The Apple Pro Training Final Cut Studio DVD Tutorial is an interactive DVD tutorial that gives you an excellent overview of Final Cut Pro 5, Motion 2, Soundtrack Pro, and DVD Studio Pro 4 (all the applications included in Final Cut Studio). The tutorial takes you through each of the applications' interfaces and primary features, including a tour of some of the most important new features. This is an interactive teaching tool, with lesson files and media included on the DVD so you can work through real-world projects as you learn.
Even if you don't have every application in Final Cut Studio, you can still watch this DVD training disc on your computer or NTSC-compatible set-top player to learn about all the products.
Apple Pro Training Final Cut Studio Tutorials
The Apple Pro Training Final Cut Studio Tutorials are step-by-step, project-based lessons—the equivalent of about 8 hours of training—in PDF format. All tutorials come with accompanying project and media files for you to use. The disc includes tutorials for both new and experienced users, and covers Final Cut Pro 5, Motion 2, Soundtrack Pro, and DVD Studio Pro 4. Here are the lessons it contains.
Lesson 1: Introducing Final Cut Pro
This step-by-step tutorial to the cornerstone application of Final Cut Studio guides you through the process of editing two projects. As you edit, you'll discover the primary aspects of the Final Cut Pro interface, and become familiar with its basic operation, including navigating through a sequence, opening and marking clips, assembling clips, basic trimming and editing techniques, adding transitions and filters, and using nested sequences.
Approximate lesson time: 1 hour
Lesson 2: Mastering Final Cut Pro
This advanced tutorial covers some of Final Cut Pro's most exciting new features and more advanced techniques. You'll work with multiple clips to create a multi-angle montage and a multi-camera edit. Then you'll use advanced effects techniques to animate opacity, change speeds, apply basic color correction, modify a nested sequence, and composite images. You'll use all of these techniques to build a promo for the show "Capturing the eXtreme" for the fictitious eXtreme Living Channel.
Approximate lesson time: 1 hour
Lesson 3: Introducing Motion
This introductory-level lesson takes you through the process of creating a Motion project from start to finish. After exploring the Motion interface, you'll work with some of Motion's most exciting features, including animated text, filters, behaviors, and particles, as you build a 10-second promo for the fictitious eXtreme Living Channel. See the Late-Breaking News section below for a correction to the steps for importing a Motion project.
Approximate lesson time: 45 minutes
Lesson 4: Mastering Motion
This advanced tutorial focuses on some of Motion's most powerful new features and more advanced techniques. You'll learn to work with replicators, the 3D filter, image masks, generators, and keyframed animations to build a "Coming Up Next" bumper for the fictitious eXtreme Living Channel.
Approximate lesson time: 1 hour
Lesson 5: Introducing Soundtrack Pro
This hands-on tutorial is designed to give you an overview of the Soundtrack Pro interface and some of the application's professional sound design features as you build and mix a project. You'll learn to arrange audio clips in the Timeline, synchronize audio and video, automate volume and pan levels, edit audio files, reduce noise, normalize a voiceover, add effects, and create a mix. Along the way, you'll also learn some handy keyboard shortcuts and sound design tricks.
Approximate lesson time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Lesson 6: Introducing DVD Studio Pro
In this introductory-level tutorial to DVD Studio Pro, you’ll use the application’s Basic configuration to author a simple DVD containing one track, a slideshow, and one menu. You’ll learn how to modify an existing menu template to your own design, create custom buttons, and connect your assets for a DVD. By working through a few of the basics, you’ll have a solid foundation, and be ready to tackle your next project.
Approximate lesson time: 1 hour
Lesson 7: Mastering DVD Studio Pro
This advanced tutorial explores techniques for designing more advanced menus in DVD Studio Pro, including how to create motion menus, transitions, subtitles, and more. You’ll be authoring a DVD to promote a fictitious show, "Shark Encounter," on the eXtreme Living Channel. The project includes a slideshow of the production, a movie track, chapter index menus, and alternate angles.
Approximate lesson time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Late-Breaking News
While using the tutorials, you may encounter the following issues:
Apple Pro Training Final Cut Studio DVD Tutorial
After dragging the Final Cut Studio Training folder to your computer’s hard drive, it will be set to “Read Only” by default. This will prevent you from saving projects to that folder. To change this, do the following:
- Select the Final Cut Studio Training folder on your hard drive and choose File > Get Info.
- In the “Ownership and Permissions” section, choose Read and Write from the You can pop-up menu.
- In the “Details” section, click the “Apply to enclosed items” button. You will now be able to save to this folder.
Apple Pro Training Final Cut Studio Tutorials
With the Mastering DVD Studio Pro finished project, you may see a "Max Bitrate Too High" error if you try to build a DVD. To resolve this issue:
- Re-encode the AIFF audio files to AC3 using Compressor.
- Replace the AIFF files with the AC3 files in "2_Mst_DVDSP."
Correction to Importing a Motion Project tutorial steps
Follow these steps instead of following the Importing a Motion Project File section of the Motion tutorial:
- Move the playhead to the first frame of the project (press Home key).
- Click the File Browser tab or press Command-1 to open the File Browser.
- In the Media folder, click the eXtreme Living Text Motion project from the Media folder on the lower pane to see it in the Preview area.
This is a simple Motion project containing two text objects with Text-Fade behaviors.
- Click the Import button to import the selected file. The eXtreme Living text is imported to the project, at the playhead position, and automatically centered in the frame. Move playhead to frame 200.
- Play the project in the Canvas to see the new imported text elements.
- Move the playhead to the first frame of the project (press the Home key).
- Click the 4 text file in the lower pane to preview it. This Motion project contains four text objects with Fade In/Fade out behaviors. You'll place the file at the lower-left corner of the frame.
- Drag the 4 text file from the lower pane to the lower-left corner of the frame in the Canvas. Move playhead to frame 60.
