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“ammunition” for FCP in schools
While I’m not interested in starting a war between PC vs Mac’s, I would like to hear if anyone has found or can point me to information on the following:
1) state of the mac in post production
2) number of FCP seats sold
A local school system is giving a teacher difficulties with her purchase of macs for use in the television lab. I just need some numbers that reflect what many of us already know, that macs are an itegral part of post and desgin houses.Thanks in advance for any input.
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25 Replies
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I would suspect on Apple.com you can do some searches for this but at NAB Apple announced 800,000 Registered Users of Final Cut Pro right as Final Cut Studio 2 was being released. I’ve heard it is over 1,000,000 today, but don’t have a link to those numbers.
As for the State of the Mac in Post Production, at least in Atlanta I can tell you that FCP is probably installed 20 to 1 over any other form of NLE. If you look at that Apple pro site, you will be able to find a lot of examples of how FCP is used in Post. The biggest early splash for FCP in broadcast Post was “Scrubs” for NBC which has been cut on FCP for quite some time now.
As for us, we’re delivering “Good Eats” to the Food Network in HD (three seasons now), “Assignment Earth” overseas in HD, “The Carter Center” documentaries in HD and a whole host of other broadcast and documentary type work.
Here is the Pro section of the Apple website:
https://www.apple.com/pro/Keep in mind schools get a tremendous discount from Apple so do not use Apple’s pricing as a “ammunition” unless you get the correct educational pricing. You will need to contact Apple or your local VAR. In fact, if you have a good VAR in your area, they should be able to help you get some facts and figures directly from their Apple reps.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.comStop Staring Start Grading with Apple Color The new Color Training DVD now available!
https://store.creativecow.net/p/66/stop_staring_and_start_grading_with_apple_colorRead my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi
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Great, Thanks Walter. And your post is especially appreciated since the school district is in Georgia.
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Apple were also using those same figures in London earlier this year. And don’t forget that is just registered users – there are plenty of illegal copies doing the rounds as well.
Regardless of the NLE, Macs have been used in Post for over a decade both for FCP and Avid. early versions of Media 100 also ran on the Mac.
I know for a fact that all lot of facilities in UK use Mac/FCP. I use it for all my commercials (over 300 this year).
The Mac is the backbone of studios cutting stopframe animation shows Bob the Builder & Pingu ( i know – i worked on them).
I also use a separate mac for doing all my audio production on Protools.
adam
Editor/Mixer
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK -
[Geof Gilland] ”
Great, Thanks Walter. And your post is especially appreciated since the school district is in Georgia.”Oh, well if you want to contact me offline and tell me where your district is located, I can probably put you in touch with the proper VAR to help you get your information. You can get my email through my website.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.comStop Staring Start Grading with Apple Color The new Color Training DVD now available!
https://store.creativecow.net/p/66/stop_staring_and_start_grading_with_apple_colorRead my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi
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All of our Avid’s are Mac based. MANY of the new ones are PC based, but Avid Media Composer is still Mac and PC based. But that is Avid. You want FCP numbers.
Here in LA, Avid is still the main editing system used. But FCP is growing VERY fast. Easily used in 1/3 of the productions out here. IN FACT, besides SCRUBS, there was a recent article in VIDEOGRAPHY that pointed out that THE CLOSER on TNT used FCP. Then there are places like Bunim/Murray that does THE REAL WORLD and THE SIMPLE LIFE that have over 100 FCP stations.
So it really isn’t a MAC/PC thing, but rather an AVID/FCP thing….here anyway.
Shane
Littlefrog PostGETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD now for sale!
http://www.lfhd.net -
Geof,
Last year I looked into teaching video/editing at a local community center, here’s what I ran up against.
Macs were COMPLETELY out of the question. Compounding the problem, most people have PCs in their homes, so a PC-based solution seemed necessary. Fortunately, I found that AVID had AVID Free DV, which, while it has some limitations as to screen size requirements etc. was going to be a viable alternative to an Apple-based system. I actually downloaded it and began learning it, really not bad for a basic editing theory class.
Would I rather have them get Macs? Absolutely, but this is a government-run institution can’t fight city hall!
Just my thoughts…
Have a wonderful day.
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if you teach them to edit, then it won’t matter what NLE they use. thts my only advice.
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Over here in LA -Universal Studios, a lot of the new shows have moved to FCP. Some of these shows have not aired yet. There’s been some grumbling by long time Avid users, but it is just cheaper in the long run, and it doesn’t matter what you cut on as editing is an art, not about the tools. So they grumbled but it was cheaper to buy a bunch of FCP for everyone then just having a few Avid rentals.
Warren
Warren Eig
O 310-470-0905
C 310-560-6245email: warren@babyboompictures.com
website: https://www.babyboompictures.comhttps://www.atomfilms.com/af/content/knitwits
https://www.atomfilms.com/film/family_xmas.jsp -
[Warren] “and it doesn’t matter what you cut on as editing is an art, not about the tools.”
That’s the most important thing for all editors to remember. Everything you use is a tool, the application does not make you an editor.
[Warren] “So they grumbled but it was cheaper to buy a bunch of FCP for everyone then just having a few Avid rentals.”
That’s the most important thing for business owners. I have outfitted three Uncompressed HD systems for less than a single high end Avid Uncompressed HD system.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.comStop Staring Start Grading with Apple Color The new Color Training DVD now available!
https://store.creativecow.net/p/66/stop_staring_and_start_grading_with_apple_colorRead my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi
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Hi
I was a student at emerson college from 75 to 79 (1975),
for a place that was supposed to be a very good communications school, we had the worst gear around. mostly discards from radio and tv stations (we actually had the original mccurdy console used on the Honeymooners. it was too heavy to get up the stairs so we left it in the lobby)
we groused about the gear, but I know it taught us how to use waht we had to make stuff, and to work around limitations to get the job done.
let the students use Windows Movie Maker, (which is supposed to be better thant iMovie) then they will focus on editing, and not on which button to press.
my 2 cents
“I like video because its so fast!”
Bob Flood
Greer & Associates, Inc.
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