Welcome to Final Cut Pro HD For Dummies! The Final Cut Pro digital video editing program lets you capture raw video and audio (such as dialogue, sound, and music) on your Macintosh and assemble these elements into polished productions that are ready for the Internet, a CD-ROM, a DVD, television, and even the big screen.

Thanks to Final Cut Pro’s impressive features, reasonable price, and manageable hardware requirements, it has quickly become a favorite tool among many professional editors as well as a new breed of independent filmmakers who are producing their films — from start to finish — right from their desktops.

Just to be clear: You may think that this software, with a name like Final Cut Pro HD, works only with high-definition (HD) video — that is, video that is shot on special HD cameras and can be displayed only on fancy HDTV sets that are just beginning to make their way into mainstream homes. Nothing could be further from the truth! Final Cut Pro HD can work with all sorts of video formats, from digital video (DV) shot on inexpensive consumer cameras to high-end HD. But Apple chose to give Final Cut its HD tag to call attention to the fact that this software is especially adept at working with HD video, which is a hot commodity these days in many professional circles (for example, in high-end documentaries, television shows, and even some feature films).