Adrenaline HD vs. FCP – Don’t want advice, just comparisons

[Michael Phillips]

I think it really depends on the kind of work you are doing as each system has advanatages and disadvantages for different types of work.

I work in film and 24p – nothing touches the Arenaline (or Film Composer) for metadata managent, control over all pulldown cadences, frame based work, in conext tracking of keykode (allgauiges) and all timecodes on a per frame basis, integration into a downsteam workflow for managing changes, audio, EDL with pulldown cadence for tape to tape color correction, autosync, autosequence, 1/4 frame audio resync, read audio timecode, are all features that I depend on for every project I do. Things atart evening out if these type of features are not of a concern or a priority.

Michael

[Scimmy]

I have relied on the Avid market for work for 11 years. In lean times during the early 00’s, DV was king & FCP running on the Mac G4 I use at home really saved the day, doing low budget stuff without having to cut rates too much. The app was always scary when projects got big, due to no real file management system. I actually have had project files sieze up & refuse to open, unfortunately this was before the “Autosave Vault”it now has. When biz picked up in the market I happily retreated to the Avid work & then got an Mac/Adrenaline in late ’04. The box has integrated perfectly with a Meridien house, the software is still shaky at times but overall I’m very happy due to the G5 speed, price & general ease of use that Avid is so good at. Now I have HD needs & Avid is late with the HD expansion for Mac side, which I can’t afford anyway. Re-enter FCPHD & the Kona2 capture card. I offline at DV rez, then convert the finished sequence to HD for online. FCPHD still has project instability issues with apparently the same causes & effects. There is a lot more stuff “under the hood” that you have to learn with FCPHD to get things done. Still a lot more rendering than Adrenaline and the interface still is no where near as well done as Avids. I have been starting & finishing in FCPHD up to this point, but will do my first Avid offline to FCPHD finish job shortly. I will use AutomaticDuck to move projects. I will update with results. Definetely wondering what will happen when I start having to tranlate 24p jobs this way. For daily bread, I will stay pretty close to the Avid due to market demands & stability. Hope this helps, TS

[Les Kaye]

In case the first one didn’t come through, thanks Michael and TS. Just the kind of feedback I’m looking for.
-les