5 stars (Great Program!!) - This is a great program for your mac... I've used it in a film class the previous year and it took me a year to really get the hang of it. Because it has no tutorial I recomend you find someone who has used this and get them to give you a few lessons. 4 stars (Just starting out -- and it's daunting, but feature rich.) - I've used iMovie for several projects over the last year and a half and decided to upgrade to Final Cut Express HD when working on video of my wife's niece's wedding. Apple sells it as an a step up in features from iMovie, but -- wow! -- it give you a lot more flexibility but at a huge cost in complexity too! The Apple magic of making something simple enough to let you concentrate on the creativity and not the mechanics of the project seems missing here. IMPORTANT: An employee at the Apple Store near me confided to me that there is very little difference between Final Cut Pro HD and Final Cut Express HD. The extra $700 for the Pro version allows outputting your movie in broadcast quality -- if you don't need that, he said, you can save $700 and buy the Express version. I had just seen the employee give a short in-store class on Final Cut Pro and he said I could do EVERYTHING he did in the class EXACTLY the same way in Final Cut Express! He said the only way you could tell which is which is by the name in the menu bar! (Maybe this is common knowledge in the Final Cut Pro/Express community, but I couldn't find out exactly what was different on Apple's website.) IMPORTANT: There is NO TUTORIAL included for Final Cut Express -- and if you've never worked with "pro" video editing software, you'll probably need to buy a how-to book. I'm currently reading the Peachpit Press "Final Cut Express" book by Lisa Brenneis (ISBN: 0-321-35026-X). There are a few scattered examples in the online help, but I haven't tried them yet.... 2 stars (Unduly complex, hideous browser) - After experiencing virtually every editing product ... Apple Computer :: apple :: final :: cut :: express :: hd :: mac :: apple :: computer :: multimedia :: design :: video :: applefinalcutexpresshd(mac) 15 february :: 20 :: Apple Final Cut Express HD (Mac)
