Attention Final Cut Editors: It's Time to Upgrade... Read this first!

Attention Final Cut Editors! Now is the time to upgrade your edit suite. Last week Apple stunned the industry with their release of Apple Final Cut Studio 3 including Final Cut Pro 7. Even more amazing is the new pricing from Apple that is definitely going to blow you away. The full Final Cut Studio 3 is now just $999, and the upgrade from any old version of Final Cut Pro, Production Suite or Final Cut Studio to the new FCS3 is just $299! And, that's not including our special prices and FREE Videoguys Bonus! Click here to purchase the full FCS3 with FREE Red Giant Magic Bullet QuickLooks for only $949.00 or the upgrade bundled with the FREE QuickLooks for just $279.00.

(Tech Note 1: FCS3 requires an Intel based Mac, so you may need to upgrade to new hardware.)

The Videoguys have put together all kinds of great bundles with Final Cut Studio 3 and the upgrade to FCS3 that will save you money and deliver you extra value. These bundles to address the needs of the video editors we speak to daily and hope they will help you make the most of your system... and save you money. Each of our FCS3 bundles include Red Giant Magic Bullet Quick Looks 1.3 - ($89.95 value) at no extra cost. Quick Looks allows you to give your footage just the right look in seconds, whether it’s a urban grunge, a desert sunrise, or the film stocks used in classic movies.

We've put together some incredible bundles that include the Apple Final Cut Studio 3 Upgrade and some must have hardware that we are sure you will want to check out.

Apple Final Cut Studio 3 Upgrade with Blu-ray Disc Bundle - $499.95

One of the coolest new features in Final Cut Pro 7 is "Share," which gives you the ability to export and burn your timeline directly to Blu-ray Disc. You can also export and burn to Blu-ray directly from Compressor. While the interactivity of the Blu-ray Disc is limited, the video quality is SUPERB! The only thing you need is a Blu-ray Disc burner like the Pioneer BDR-203.

We have put together a special bundle including FCS3 and the top-rated Pioneer BDR-203 burner with an external housing that allows you to connect the drive to your Mac by USB2 or eSata. We also include a 10 pack spindle of Verbatim 25GB BD-R media.

Speaking of Blu-ray Disc, the very best compression for delivering your content is using the H.264 CODEC. H.264 delivers the very best possible quality in the smallest possible file sizes. Unfortunately H.264 encoding takes a long time, even with the fastest 8-core Mac Pros. A one-hour timeline may take four-hours or more to encode. The Matrox CompressHD card massively accelerates your H.264 encoding. How fast is it? Faster then real-time, so the same one-hour timeline will be completed in just 50 minutes!

Best of all, the Matrox CompressHD card works with your existing I/O solution including the Aja Kona or Blackmagic Decklink. You simply install it into an available PCIe slot inside your Mac Pro. It's that easy and that simple. Not only does CompressHD accelerate H.264 encoding for Blu-ray, it accelerates all H.264 encoding including export for Flash, YouTube and mobile media.

If you don't currently have an HD I/O solution, now is the time to add the Matrox MXO2 Mini to your edit suite. With the MXO2 Mini you'll get analog and HDMI input and output for your Mac Pro or Mac Book Pro.

(Tech Note 2: Requires a Laptop with ExpressCard adapter. The very latest Mac Book Pro 15" models do not have an ExpressCard slot.)

With a quad core Mac Pro you can capture directly into ProRes via either the analog or HDMI output. Use the HDMI output to preview your timeline using an affordable LCD or plasma HDTV. Matrox even includes a color calibration tool that turns your HDMI HDTV into a professional-grade video monitor.

We also have bundles with the entire MXO family of HD I/O devices including those with MAX technology. MAX technology integrates the CompressHD features into the MXO2 for I/O and accelerated H.264 encoding.

If you need Professional I/O that includes HD-SDI in addition to HDMI check out our bundles with the Aja Kona LHi or Matrox MXO2. We've also put together bundles with these cards plus G-Tech G-SPEEDes storage solutions for even greater savings and performance.

Lets face, one of things we always need more of, is storage. As a video editor you need to add storage that offers you not just high sustained throughput, but the highest level of reliability and performance. G-Tech G-RAID drives are proven performers, used and recommended by Final Cut Pro editors all over the world.

Heat is the enemy of any disk based storage system. As heat builds up, the performance and reliability of your storage plummets. With G-Tech G-Raids this is never a concern. Unlike other external storage solutions, G-tech G-Raids are designed for video editing. They have integrated cooling fans and superior airflow that keeps them running cool, even during marathon HD editing sessions.

For even higher performance you may want to check out our bundles with G-Tech G-Speed eS. These mini-towers of storage deliver enough throughput to handle multiple streams of ProRes HQ footage. When configured in RAID5 they deliver the added protection of redundancy. If a drive should fail, you won't lose a beat. Not only is your data protected, you can continue editing so you don't lose any time either.

One of the ways to become a more efficient editor is to take advantage of all the keyboard shortcuts in Final Cut Pro. Bella Professional series keyboards have color and icon-coded keycaps that will help you learn FCP shortcuts faster. They also have a built-in jog/shuttle controller and Specialty Keys that make editing easier, giving you much more control over your audio and video clips without your hands ever having to leave the keyboard.

If you're looking for more information about the new Apple Final Cut Studio and all the latest online reviews and blog entries follow this link to our blog.

Click here for all our Final Cut Studio 3 upgrade bundles.

Or, click here for all our amazing bundles with the full version of Final Cut Studio 3.