I will never tired myself to point that F.C is probably the best hoax Apple ......................
Fred,
You sound kind of new to this motion image thing, but you should know that when Final Cut Pro came out it was a revelation. The world then was media 100 and avid both very limited in what they did, both very expensive.
FCP was a breath of fresh air and has developed into a system than can do almost anything in 2 dimensions.
That's kind of the problem because with a NLE your not suppose do do almost everything. You suppose to tell and cut the story, leaving blank spaces for titling and effect pieces.
Then once the cut is approved and only when the cut is approved, you send the edl out either to color or a stand alone device and/or service for grading, sound sweetening and then insert the corrected footage and score back into your cut.
When fcp falls down is everyone tries to do everything at once. Keying, color correcting with filters, complex transitions and effects. Then FCP gets slow.
Where apple falls down recently is they aren't sure what they want to be. One week it's ipods, the next it's business systems, then they drop business systems, then the graphic arts, though the software kind of stands still (fcp and apeture), then Apple goes silent because they NEVER announce before it's on the shelf.
Still, for what it's intended use is, FCP is still a very good system.
IMO
BC