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Top 7 pro editing applications?
Ok I’ve been searching around a little, and as far as I can tell these are the 7 most popular professional editing applications (no order)? Do you agree?
Avid Media Composer
Final Cut X
Final Cut 7
Premier Pro CS6
Sony Vegas
Autodesk Smoke
Edius -
19 Replies
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Why are you looking for the 7 most popular professional editing applications?
Stephen Smith
Utah Video ProductionsCheck out my Motion Training DVD
Check out my Vimeo page
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TBH, to get a meaningful answer you need to define exactly what you mean by “professional”.
For a general professional = as used by people who earn their livelihood from it I expect all of those you mention would be in use but I wouldn’t like to speculate about how extensive each one might be.
For a more specific professional = relied upon by people who interact with others in the making of mainstream tv and/or film then the list will only have 3 or 4 contenders in it.
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Good question, actually the number 7 is not important, these 7 just seem to be the major contenders for the majority of all editors (from broadcast to independent filmmakers)…I wanted to see if I was correct or missing something (eg. I’m unsure about Edius)… I’ve been running my own small business for a while (and working as a freelancer) doing all types of post-production work (from TV shows to weddings, haha), personally I use final cut 7 and PPrCS6 full time (as well as AE and Blender), but often hear that avid is considered ‘industry standard’ and see smoke advertised everywhere, but then again have met some guys that talk edius up. haha… it can be confusing.
I do realise that they are not directly comparable as they have their own strengths and weaknesses, but as far as I can tell these seem to be the most popular apps covering the post-production world. I’m interested partly out of my own desire for clarity, but I’m also refining an idea I have for a website (which is not limited too, but includes some info and clarity on the popularity and usage of the major pro post-production applications).
appreciate any opinions!
Cheers
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Yeah I had the same thought when posting, curious as to how you split it though… what are your 3 or 4 contenders for a specific professional?
Thanks
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Well, I’m making programmes for mainstream broadcast in London (mainly BBC, Channel 4, Discovery, Al Jazeera, etc), so I use systems which have established workflows, i.e., the same ones used by facilities here.
Avid Media Composer is top of the list, I keep expecting each job I do on FCP7 to be the last but I’m still being asked for it. I know a few people who have used Adobe CS (more for the effects than for cutting though) and a couple who have used FCPX for the odd thing. That’s the “3 or 4” in order.
For onlining in facilities, you can add Avid DS and Symphony and Smoke, but that’s quite a narrow market, a few of us freelancers use one or more of them but I’d say that at the moment it’s more likely that we’ll be using facilities’ kit than owning them ourselves.
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Don’t be unusure about Edius. It’s amazing. Of the options you list it’s the most stable, the most powerful*, works with seemingly all codecs without blinking and has the most comprehensive colour correction tools of the lot. Throw in cool tools like the ripple mode and it’s one of the most flexible as well. I came to Edius after editing for a few years on FCP and it was such a revelation I was kind of pissed no one had told me about Edius in all that time.
The interesting thing with Edius is they seem to have no advertising budget or else are keen to keep their software a secret.
If you’r ejust listing all the professional options then I’d add Lightworks to the list. I couldn’t get it stable on my system but from the toying I’ve done it’s pretty powerful and has edited its fair share of Oscar winning features. More than FCP anyway.
*An elastic term but I use it to describe the system that can do the most without rendering.
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[Dominic]
*An elastic term but I use it to describe the system that can do the most without rendering.What can it do with out rendering that Premiere and Avid can’t?
Stephen Smith
Utah Video ProductionsCheck out my Motion Training DVD
Check out my Vimeo page
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I have Premiere and Avid on my system as well. They’re not bad for real time performance they just start to choke a lot faster than Edius.
I tend to have at least 3 layers of colour effects on every clip. In the project I’m doing at the moment I frequently have four or five such clips in a single frame all of which are in motion using the Layouter- a very cool Edius tool where you can keyframe the motion of your clips in a similar manner to AE- and rarely have to think about rendering. Actually its really only when there’s two or more masks in the frame as well as all those colour corrected layers that I have a need to render.
Mind you my system might just be in the sweet spot for Edius. I recently sat down in a studio that had Edius running on a machine with 24 processors and massive graphics cards etc. They weren’t getting a lick more performance than I was on my humble home PC.
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Premieres performance is effected by the graphics card. Be sure to us a supported card or at least add the hack.
Stephen Smith
Utah Video ProductionsCheck out my Motion Training DVD
Check out my Vimeo page
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I’ve got a nVidia Quadro 1000. That’s supported isn’t it?
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