Any REAL alternatives to FCP for Windows?

[John Pale]

Sorry for my earlier snarky response…just couldn’t resist.

For years Avid was considered the gold standard. It still is in many areas of broadcast and film production. If you absoultely need ProRes, you should stick with FCP. If you need a format for HD that is similar to ProRes, Avid has DNxHD, which actually was around before ProRes. Similar file size and compression ratios. It does not have anything like Qmaster or Compressor, for that matter. Avid has good chroma key…realtime on many systems, unlike FCP. Higher end systems, like Symphony have Ultimatte. With Avid, you cannot use 3rd party capture cards, you are stuck with their hardware only.

[Shawn Miller]

Just out of curiosity, what format(s)are you working in? I work Mostly with Adobe’s CS4 Creative Suite and Vegas and I have very few problems.I think it’s probably because 90% of my work is in P2 and TIFF sequences (which Adobe supports natively), so I rarely use intermediate CODECS. For the remaining 10% of footage where I need a DI, I use Black Magic’s 8 bit 4:2:2 CODEC and it works just fine (for me). I’m not sure how that stacks up against FCP and ProRes though.

Thanks,

Shawn

[Chris Fisher]

I’ll take a look at Black Magic’s codec.

I currently use ProRes because my work flow with the Matrox MXO2 mini
captures directly to ProRes then I move that around to several machines.

I noticed the Matrox MXO2 mini can capture to Matrox MPEG-2 I-frame HD/SD codec on the PC… But I have never heard of that codec, and I have no idea how it stacks up against ProRes? Anyone worked with Matrox MPEG-2 I-frame HD/SD codec before?

-Chris

(Big thanks to everyone for the feedback, reading every post twice!)

[Scott Cumbo]

I mainly work on Avid (PC) but work on FCP every once in awhile.
I’ll always suggest Avid but Premiere is closer to FCP and has an great suite of tools (after effects, encore, soundbooth, photoshop)

If “more bang for your buck” on PC is what your looking for, than Premiere is the way to go. Because a Proper Avid setup will cost you the same, if not more than a Mac pro/FCP setup.

Scott Cumbo
Editor
Broadway Video, NYC

[Andy Mees]

I use Edius a lot …. its a rock solid and very capable NLE, but like any complicated software its interface can be a little quirky, though nothing you won’t grow accustomed to. There is a whole heck of a lot I don’t like about Edius but it’s come on in leaps and bounds since TGV took ownership and there are times when I’m using it and wishing that FCP could do the same thing. Still, I’ll be glad to see the back of it.

[Eric Jurgenson]

Chris,

The Matrox I-frame MPEG codec is very similar to both ProRes and DNxHD – they are all frame-based DCT codecs based on MPEG2. Matrox doesn’t offer a 10-bit version (yet), but other than that, it is excellent (visually lossless). One nice feature is that (unlike the others) the compression is adjustable, so you can fine tune it for quality vs. storage space. It also supports alpha.

[Arc Nevada]

Like others have posted there are several options for the PC. Edius does have some great real time but the integration of the Adobe CS4 Master Collection is hard to beat. I jumped ship from Edius to the CS4 Master Collection. The RT of Edius is great but it can not match the work flow of the CS4 Master Collection.

Try the demo version of each program and chose the one that you like best.

I just built a real ass kicking Quad Core system for under $600.00.

[Dennis Radeke]

Premiere Pro can edit ProRes on the PC or Mac platform because ProRes Codecs are a part of the Quicktime player. Premiere Pro can edit Quicktime on either Mac or PC.

[David Roth weiss]

[Dennis Radeke] “Premiere Pro can edit ProRes on the PC or Mac platform because ProRes Codecs are a part of the Quicktime player. Premiere Pro can edit Quicktime on either Mac or PC.”

Actually, the free Windows decoder for ProRes is required on Windows machine, and since it is a decoder only, Premiere cannot write to ProRes files, it can only playback and edit ProRes to other codecs.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Dennis Radeke]

Thanks for making this point clear – Premiere Pro cannot record or ingest ProRes. However, it can edit it without difficulty.

As for Windows needing the free decoder, I’m not as sure about that one. I put CS4 on a new Vista 64 machine and MacDrive 7 and then proceeded to open up Mac Premiere Pro projects and import ProRes without the need of adding the decoder. I would say that users should double check, but the point is that you CAN edit ProRes on a PC if you so choose.