Ever since its introduction as a QuickTime-based, non-linear video-editing app at NAB in 1998, Final Cut Pro has come a very long way.

Napoleon Dynamite, Cold Mountain, Jarhead and, more recently, 300 and David Fincher's Zodiac are just a few of the many feature films that have been edited in the application, and it continues to gather momentum as more and more production studios - both film and television - buy into the Final Cut ethos.

Final Cut Studio, released in 2005 as the successor to the Apple Production Suite, brought together Final Cut Pro 5, DVD Studio Pro 4, LiveType 2, Motion 2, Soundtrack Pro and Compressor 2 - in a bundle of apps aimed squarely at the pro market. And now, two years later, we have a new version (albeit with not all applications upgraded).

Looking at what's new in Final Cut Studio 2 there's no better place to start than Final Cut Pro itself. Oozing class, power and flexibility, FCP6 has an interface so intuitive a child could use it. Okay, maybe we exaggerate, but it really is that good. Final Cut Pro 6 is at the heart of Final Cut Studio 2, and focuses mainly, but not exclusively, on video formats.

Formats in video editing can be both an editor's best friend and worst enemy. For instance, if you have many formats, say a mixture of SD, HD, NTSC and PAL, you'd normally have to convert media into one format before editing.

FCP 6's Open Format Timeline aims to solve this problem, enabling you to mix and match source material, combining different formats and broadcast standards on one timeline, without transcoding. And all this is in real time, using FCP's genius scalable architecture, Dynamic RT, where the software adjusts the amount of real-time functionality depending on the processing power of your Mac.

So, whether you're using a MacBook Pro or 8-core Mac Pro, Final Cut Pro will perform real-time processing of footage and effects according to your system.

The other big format-oriented addition comes in the form of Apple ProRes 422. Adding to the already massive format support, ProRes 422 will be, if it's all that Apple is making it out to be, revolutionary for editors collaborating over a network or individuals working in the field, wanting to maintain HD quality without huge data rates or file sizes.