Finally, after waiting for over 6 months Apple released an update to FCE 3.5, now offering Final Cut Express 4.0. I am thrilled. In the past months I have been trying to find out if it would make sense to buy version 3.5. In many different discussions and elsewhere people said, FCE is likely dead and may never be upgraded. Thankfully they were wrong.
About a year ago I bought a nice Panasonic camcorder. I got into making movies with iMovie HD, but quickly became unhappy with its restrictions. By then it was December and I thought by myself: “Great, soon it’s MacWorld time, and there will be a new and improved iMovie coming out”. As we all know, it didn’t because it took Apple until very recently to release iLife ’08, and we all know, that iMovie ’08 was an utter disappointment as reported here and elsewhere.
After I read it somewhere today, I confirmed that FCE 4.0 does not any more ship with Soundtrack as a separate application. Download this PDF for a detailed list of features. However, instead it seems like these features are now integrated directly into FCE’s main app. While I have never used either app, I did once make a soundtrack for an iMovie project using Garageband, and I found the switching between apps rather cumbersome, so this is a welcome change. Of course the $100 price drop is also very welcome, and makes it much easier to convince the ‘Better Half’ to give it for Christmas – alas this means I have to wait one more month!