Final Cut Express: A video editor softare

Final Cut Express is a discontinued video editing software created by Apple Inc. It is the consumer version of Final Cut Pro and is designed for advanced editing of digital video as well as high-definition video, which is used by many amateur and professional videographers. Final Cut Express is considered a step above iMovie in terms of capabilities, but a step underneath Final Cut Pro and its suite of applications. As of June 21, 2011, Final Cut Express is discontinued, in favor of Final Cut Pro X.

Final Cut Express' interface is identical to that of Final Cut Pro, but lacks some film-specific features, including Cinema Tools, multi-cam editing, batch capture, and a time code view. The program can perform 32 undo operations, while Final Cut Pro can do 99.
Features the program does include are:
The ability to keyframe filters
Dynamic RT, which changes real-time settings on-the-fly
Motion path keyframing
Opacity keyframing
Ripple, roll, slip, slide and blade edits
Picture-in-picture and split-screen effects
Up to 99 video tracks and 12 compositing modes
Up to 99 audio tracks
Motion project import
Two-way color correction.
Chroma key

FCE isn't built from the ground up for anything. It's stripped back from full-blown FCP. It's a leaner program with less options and less features. Honestly, the only reason I think it exists is to get students and newbies hooked on Final Cut until they can afford to make the plunge and buy the full suite. I'm guessing Apple created FCE as a way of getting high-schoolers and college kids into the FCP family. FCE is only $150 or so at education rates and runs on the cheaper machines. That's a pretty affordable entry price if film or videography is something of which you want to make a career.

Why hasn't FCE been updated in years? If you look at the FCP upgrades, they've mostly been with regard to professional application. It's these very items that are stripped from FCE, intentionally crippling it to make it a weaker program. Since the current version of FCE does pretty much what a bare bones FCP would do (even the UI hasn't changed much), there's little reason for Apple to spend a lot of development time trying to spiffy it up.