Diana Weynand traditionally writes Apple’s Training book on Final Cut Pro. She did it again with version 5. The new book covers the new features of Final Cut Pro 5, of course. But it also has better (or nicer) source material on the included DVD-rom.

Weynand is a leading lady in the entertainment industry. She is an online editor for ABC and a supervising editor for the Barbara Walters Specials. She received an Emmy nomination for the PBS series Cinematic Eye which she directed and co-produced.

The Final Cut Pro 5 training book is a traditional Apple Training in every sense of the word. Within its scope, it is the most complete tutorial for getting started with Final Cut Pro. The book covers multicam editing and all of the other new features of Final Cut Pro 5.

However, I found a few omissions that I find hard to understand. For example, there is no reference or discussion of the “Send To SoundTrack Pro” and “Send to Motion” commands. You could argue a simple menu selection is hardly worth the paper on which the instructions would have been written, but there’s more to these commands than meets the eye --especially for newcomers to Final Cut Pro.

Weynand does cover LiveType and workflow in separate chapters that are to be printed from the included DVD.