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what would YOU do
am down to the final weeks of having to decide between final cut and avid…i have spent a lot of time reading pros and cons of each, spoken to some who love one and hate the other and vice versa,,,and am more confused than ever – i have been cutting documentaries on my discrete edit 6.o for the past several years…and as easy as this has been, i am getting quite bored with waiting 10 minutes as my boris fx does a 10 seocond zoom in on a photo, or waiting forever to do a blur effect – but beyond that, i have also never used a mac and am not very computer literate beyond what is necessary to get me by – this forum has been an invaluable resource…and any thoughts are welcome…ive heard fcp is more “intuitive” and since whichever machine we purchase(after the basic training) i will be carrying right along with several projects – so i cant afford a long learning curve…so – knowing these fascinating facts – any of you have thoughts about this?
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3 Replies
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What types of projects do you mostly work on? What is you main method of delivery? What environment do you work in (ie are you needing to work with others on Avid, on FCP)?
Scott Davis
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The biggest thing you should do is plant yourself in front of both of these editors before hanging your future dreams, edits, and career on one. Avid offers FreeDV as an introduction to the “Avid interface”. And FCP is becoming ubiquitous as Coke, so you should (hopefully) be able to find an editor using it. You may find giving up some intuitiveness worthwhile to gain stability, flexibility, robustness, and Media Management.
Before going the Apple route, be aware that you’ll need to transcode your existing footage into an FCP friendly format. Also, are you prepared to purchase Mac versions of your graphics creation software? Or will you wear your network out shuffling graphics between computers.
You should also consider the rest of your post-production workflow. Do you finish with your editor or will you be transferring and finishing elsewhere. I can’t speak for FCP, but Avid’s offline/online workflow is well known and very mature.
If the decision is big as you portray it, it deserves more hands-on input than forum crawling and reading the opinions of other well meaning editors.
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After 8 years with Discreet Edit* (finally with 6.0) I made the leap to Avid Xpress Pro HD a year ago. I miss Edit*’s clean interface and very direct access to trimming. But I don’t miss Edit*’s audio keyframe problems.
My big reason for going with Avid was the offline-to-online workflow. Since making the move, I’ve been very impressed with the ability to send my project file to the Avid finishing house and find all the information on the computer doing the conform. This includes font information with TitleTool and Marquee.
I’d recommend the Xpress Pro HD route for offline if you are moving to Avid Symphony/Nitris/whatever for online conform.
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