"I'm a financial planner and need to prepare training videos for financial advisors, where I would cut back and forth between video clips and powerpoint slides, with (speaking) audio in the background.  Would you recommend FCP for this application, or something else?"

I would absolutely recommend Final Cut Pro for what you are trying to accomplish, but the big question is, do you need that much "fire power".  Remember, when it comes to purchasing Final Cut Pro (6), you cannot buy it on its own, as it is ONLY bundled with Final Cut Studio 2.  And, one thing that you want to be very careful of in a situation like you are in, is that you don't get trapped purchasing a program that just does what you want, and then when you want to 'push the envelope' a little, you can't because you only have the most basic of editing applications.

  My suggestion for you is to pick up Final Cut Express 4.  It's not going to give you as much options as Final Cut Studio does, but it will let you do the job you need it to, and a whole lot more.  The best part is that you get almost all the bells and whistles of Final Cut Pro 6, for $199.  Also, thrown in for good measure, you get LiveType 2 to create good looking text animations like name keys (lower thirds) for your projects, and a great new feature of Final Cut Express is that it supports Apple's FXPlug architecture.  What does that mean, you ask?  It means that you can now buy third-party plug-ins like FXFactory Pro 2.02 from Noise Industries, and add even more flare to your projects.

Well, that wraps up this edition of "Ask the Expert".  If you have a question about anything editing related (editing, motion graphics, etc), don't hesitate to drop me a line at kevinpmcauliffe@gmail.com, and who knows, you might see your question in my next column.