My name is Kevin P McAuliffe, and I am currently a Senior Editor working in HD Post in Toronto, Canada. A little bit of background about me is that I started working in post over eleven years ago as an assistant editor on an Avid Media Composer, and I currently online in high definition on a Final Cut Pro, and most of the work I do is either episodic or concert work.

Some of my clients include Alliance Atlantis, Much Music, CTV, HGTV, Life Network (now known as Slice) and The Discovery Channel to name a few. Some of the artists I have done concert work for include Sarah McLachlan, Barenaked Ladies, Coldplay, Hedley, Paul Anka, Stompin' Tom Connors, Sum 41, Il Divo and The Pussycat Dolls to name a few. Even though most of my daily work is in Final Cut Studio 2, I was an Avid editor for 10 years (and still work on an Avid on a regular basis), and have been an After Effects and Photoshop user for about the same amount of time. I have also worked with so many plug-ins and programs that there are just too many to mention.

I get e-mail on a regular basis from people wanting answers to their questions, and I thought that this would be a good forum to answer those questions. If you have a question related to editing or motion graphics, drop me a line at kevinpmcauliffe@gmail.com, and you might just see an answer to it in my next column.

"I've recently taken on a project, an independent feature, with with many technical problems. And not being a fully educated audiophile has limited my ability to address some of the issues. One of which is the use of 5.1 audio. The sequence is set up with six discrete audio tracks configured in FCP as L, C, R, Ls, Rs and LFE on the timeline. In addition, each track is center panned mono at -3db. I take it from you article that "industry standard" track layout should be as follows;

• Channel 1 - Left
• Channel 2 - Right
• Channel 3 - Center
• Channel 4 - LFE (Sub)
• Channel 5 - Left Surround
• Channel 6 - Right Surround

That would be a strait forward fix for my sequence. My question is, should the tracks all be center panned? Also when I export the file to QT, do I need to open and assign each audio track so that Compressor will treat the 5.1 AC3 file properly? Also, I need to hear the six channels of audio and don't know exactly which hardware to acquire to accomplish the task. Any advice would be appreciated."

Thanks for your e-mail. Something to keep in mind is that once you start dealing with 5.1, there is no such thing a "center pan". You are dealing with 6 individual mono files. They should be mono in FCP, and a direct output to tape. If you did your mix in Soundtrack Pro 2, you can either export six individual channels to be imported into Compressor to make your 5.1, or you can just export a Dolby Digital AC-3.

If you are using a higher end capture card, like a Kona 3 from AJA, they can be set-up to monitor surround sound by taking the AES outputs of the card, and running them to a mixer that supports AES inputs. Then, you can map the inputs to the six speakers, and you are set to go. If you are working on an iMac, or a Macbook Pro, you could always check out the Roland FA-101(http://www.rolandus.com/products/productdetails.aspx?ObjectId=702). This is a firewire solution for what you are trying to accomplish. What I would suggest is checking out music stores in your area, as you could probably rent this piece of equipment, instead of buying it.

"I am a student at Penn State University who has developed a real passion for video editing, and is hoping to eventually find a career in the field. I have been using Sony Vegas for the past few years on my laptop, and would like to upgrade to a powerful desktop with new software (while I can take advantage of a substantial student discount). I was originally planning on purchasing Avid Media Composer and finding a system that could run it. However, while I am fairly good with computers, and I have a father who knows a good deal about them, I have had the hardest time trying to find out exactly what I should spend my money on in the system (i.e.. which is more important, a better processor or graphics card?). In doing research, I've found a lot of opinions favoring running an Apple system. For an editor looking to take his videos up a notch and learn some of the high powered tools used in the industry (I plan on working with HDV projects) which software would you recommend? Avid or Final Cut? Also, Apple vs.. PC? As a college student I don't have unlimited funds (quite the opposite), but I would hate to spend a lot of money on the wrong thing. Any insights or help you could give would be greatly appreciated. I know this is a completely random email related to an old article, but I have found my self so lost with all this that when it said any questions I figured trying couldn't hurt."

I am asked this question all the time! My first suggestion is buy a Mac, and I say this not because I love Mac's (even though I do), but these days with Mac, you can run both Windows and OS X, and have the best of both worlds. With a PC, it's just that. A PC. My suggestion when picking up a Mac is to get an iMac. If all you want to do is HDV, an iMac is more than capable. I use an iMac on a daily basis, and it's awesome. I even use it to do compressed 1080i HD using Apple's ProRes compressor on an external FW800 HD. My best suggestion is to get at least a 2.4 with 4G of ram. An iMac is also a great choice because you get everything in one package. Monitor, CPU, mouse, keyboard, and going with the iMac I suggested, you are future proofing yourself, at least for a few years!

As for which editing package to choose, that can be a tough one. As I always say, no one makes a better editing application than Avid, and I have used Media Composer for over 10 years. The problem is that first of all, you get only the editing application, nothing else, and it's $2500 US. These days, as I'm sure you know, editors are more than just editors!

On the flip side Final Cut Pro is not as good an editing application as Media Composer, but it is still an excellent program to edit with, especially for HDV, and you also get:

• Color (for color correction)
• Motion 3 (for graphics)
• Soundtrack Pro 2 (for 5.1 surround sound)
• Compressor 3 (to flip files for quicktime and DVD)
• DVD Studio Pro 4, which for my money, is one of the best DVD creation programs on the market
• and you get all this for $1295.

For me, for someone starting out, Final Cut Studio 2 is almost a no brainer. I edit on Final Cut Pro almost everyday, and even though there are some things that I prefer in Media Composer, I still love FCP, as it's a start to end package that gets my jobs done quickly and looking awesome. For more information on Final Cut Studio 2, you can check it out at www.apple.com/finalcutstudio.

"I’m interested in creating film documentaries and freelance wedding videography; which editing software, Final Cut Studio 2 or Adobe Premier Pro CS3, would you recommend me to purchase and why? Thanking you in advance for your feedback and time; it’s greatly appreciated."

If you are looking for a package that's strong in editing, sound design & DVD creation (FCP, Color, Soundtrack Pro, DVD Studio Pro), than it's Final Cut Pro all the way! If you are looking for a package weaker in editing, but stronger in Motion Graphics (After Effects), Still Graphics (Photoshop, Illustrator) and web design (Flash CS3), than Adobe Production Premium is the way to go. Something to keep in mind about Final Cut Studio 2 is there is no still image manipulation program (Photoshop), and in Adobe's Production Premium, there is no sound mixing program. For me, I always want a package stronger in editing, as that's primarily what I'm buying it for. Your other option would be to pick up the Adobe Production Premium, and then buy Final Cut Express. This gives you basic, excellent editing, and you get all the programs Adobe has to offer. Only downside, no sound mixing, but you could pretty much do all of that in Final Cut Express (minus surround sound).

"Can you tell me what the difference is between BorisFX's Final Effects Complete and the Cycore Effects plug-ins that comes bundled with After Effects? It seems like Boris is selling for $895 what Adobe is essentially giving you for free. I must be missing something here, but on the surface these plug-ins appear IDENTICAL with maybe the exception of the pixel chooser or other "Boris type" attributes. These were the developers of the original Final Effects and Ice FX and they are still selling additional plug-ins along with the base set they have bundled with After Effects. This is all just confusing me and I was wondering if you could shed some light."

You are not the first person to ask me this, so I went right to the source, Boris FX, and asked them, and here is what they told me!

• After Effects includes an 8 bit only version of these filters (they are called CC in AE) as a part of AE8 Professional CS3 package
• Cycore offers the same filters that are included in the AE Professional bundle but with 8 and 16 bit support and 7 new filters
• BorisFX offers the same filters with 8 and 16 bit support but all of the filters have been updated with unique new features and parameters including the Motion Tracker, the preset load/save function and of course the PixelChooser matte and masking system. The BorisFX FEC filters also come with about a thousand presets to make working with these filters a little easier.

For more information on BorisFX's Final Effects Complete, you can check them out at www.borisfx.com.