Avid vs FCP

[Bret Williams]

I wonder where Jeff Ledellaytner is? Probably trying to figure out what is wrong with his avid! 🙂

I’ll add that I love Avid’s destructive compositing. Such a better concept than FCP’s. In Avid, if you create 3 layers of a very complex effect and render it, and let’s pretend it took 20 minutes to render. THEN you decide to add a 4th layer. Something simple like a lower 3rd or a pip. Avid would have no need to render. The 4th layer would play in real time OVER the 3 rendered layers, utilizing their render file as a single layer. And if you then render the 4th track it only takes as long as rendering 2 tracks. Not another 20 minutes.

[Michael Hancock]

John–
You have Auto Monitor turned on. Open your timeline settings and uncheck the Auto Monitor button. This will leave your monitor where you last put it instead of switching it to the tracks you’re selecting.

I also hate it being turned on–it’s the first thing I change whenever I sit down at an Avid that doesn’t have my settings loaded.

Mike.

[Tom Wolsky]

This is great if you’re working in an uncompressed, fully lossless format, anything else and you’re degrading the image with every pass.

All the best,

Tom

Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 2 Editing Workshop” Class on Demand “Complete Training for FCP5” DVD

[John Pale]

Thanks. I have been annoyed for about 9 years about this. One of the best and worst things about Avid is the dizzying array of user preferences.

[promoboy] “John–
You have Auto Monitor turned on. Open your timeline settings and uncheck the Auto Monitor button.”

Apologies for temporarily turning this into an Avid user forum. 🙂

[Nick Meyers]

a note on audio track ganging:

you;re mixing with a STEREO clip.
that’s not ganging

i wish FCP had track ganging.
but it doesnt.

on day, perhaps..

so avid has no way to tag a clip as stereo and have both sides react as one?
that;s bad too.

nick

[John Burgan]

Database protection – asking whether you really want to delete an item from the browser – is an advantage of the Avid over FCP. Should be an optional setting in FCP.

John

(Avid since 1992, FCP since 2000)

[Nick Meyers]

especially for sequences!

[Joe Murray]

I miss how realtime in Avid meant realtime to tape at full quality, not “dynamic” realtime in which the graphics degrade; in FCP you still have to render everything before going to tape if you want full quality. And you don’t want to get me started about the superiority of Avid’s media management…

Joe Murray

[Oliver Peters]

This seems like a very biased comparison. It starts out by saying how frustrating Avid is, but never addresses the things about FCP, which are frustrating. This machine seems very slow compared with those I’ve seen.

Note that this FCP had no peripheral hardware. A much better comparison would have been FCP to Xpro (software only) or FCP/Aja Io to Adrenaline. I think you would have seen much fairer comparisons of responsiveness.

So some points:

1. He compares FCP bins to Avid bins, but this isn’t fair. FCP bins are more like folders in Avid. Remember that when Avid bins are closed, updates are automatically saved and a back-up is placed in the Attic. No such thing happens in FCP and information can be lost
at any point before the next project Autosave.

2. In FCP Log & Capture, he fails to mention that the bin you have selected has no relation to the Capture window unless you specifically set it as the logging bin.

3. In FCP naming, he mentions incremental updates of the clip name, but fails to say Avid does the same thing. Instead he rehashes the speed of opening and closing bins in an effort to get another slam in.

4. He makes an incorrect comparison between changing sources on Avid and changes resolution on FCP. When hardware has to be reset it is slower. Same is true if this were with a Kona card for instance.

5. His complaints about the Avid tape names list dialogue are just plain silly. Note that FCP simply has no tape name list. It is totally easy for an assistant to log the same tape as Reel001, Reel1, Reel 1, Reel_01, etc. I see it all the time because of a lack of a tape names list. Avid defaults to highlighting the last tape used. FCP always defaults back to 001 when reopening the Log & Capture window.

6. My experience in scrubbing is totally opposite of what I see here. Note that there is no comparison with media higher than DV, nor is JKL responsiveness compared, which generally is better in Avid, especially at 2X or faster.

7. He neglects to show that Avid will scroll the TL and FCP won’t. Admittedly Avid throws a lot of overhead at the TL. You can improve performance and sequence opening speed by turning off things like effects icons, waveforms, etc. and turning off scrolling.

8. He says Avid won’t do interactive mixing. Not true if you use Automation Gain. Also he implied ganged audio is the default in FCP. Again not true, unless tracks are linked or stereo pairs. With Avid you have to gang, but with FCP you often have to unlink, lock, etc. to get around the linking.

Where’s the comparison of dealing with mixed TL codecs and mixed SD and HD on the TL? What about CC, RT plug-ins, slomo effects, keying, Find Bin? What about track “soloing” (or muting track visibility) without losing rendered files? What about a DVE with 3D space? Etc…….

Sincerely,
Oliver

Oliver Peters
Post-Production & Interactive Media
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Jeff Ledellaytner]

Hey there. Thanks for all your posts. Here are a couple of replies.

1- I used this setup. MAC OSX 12.4.3 Dual 2Ghz 2.5 GB Ram / AVID Adrenaline 1.8.2
Both FCP and Avid are installed on the same machine with the same #of programs running.

2- My main point was that Avid costs almost 40x more than the desktop FCP version. Why does a little desktop program seem to glide around the interface much better than a 40k program? You’d think it’d be the opposite. Both programs have their strengths and weaknesses. I just wanted to hight light the main point of interface mobility. No one wants to wait around for a bin to open up. That’s all.

3- Oliver, how do you make Avid make incremental clip names in the digitize window? Can’t find it. Also, the automation tool stinks in Avid. Who wants a million key frames in your timeline? Setting a capture bin and a loggin bin is the same number of steps in each program. At least in FCP you don’t have to wait a year for it to open, even in large projects.

Thanks for the feedback.
Jeff