Avid vs Final Cut Pro

[Anonymous]

avid was originally with Apple/Macintosh, stay with Avid..

[Shane Ross]

I use both. They are tools. They have their strengths and weaknesses. The project and workflow are the determining factor for me. Big advantage Avid has…very robust media management. Perfect for offline/online workflows. FCPs Media Manager is very problematic.

However, the integration with Apple’s other effects and mixing tools make FCP a joy to work with, and I find manipulating the timeline to be much easier and faster. But, again, depends on the job.

You’ll find more ex-Avid users using FCP than ex-FCP users using Avid. More Avid people out there than FCP people…FCP is new.

[John Grote, jr.]

I agree with Shane, there are more AVID editors cutting with FCP then exFCP editors.

I have been editing on an AVID since 1993 and I was so excited when FCP arrived and now I think version 5 does a good job competing with AVID, upto the Media Composer. It’s not quite the level of a Symphony or a DS, but it has some great upside with a very minimal investment.

John

[Grinner Hester]

While I know several editors that have switched from an Avid product to FCP, I don’t know any who have gone the other way. Avid’s interface hasn’t had any lovin’ in well over a decade and it shows. When FCP has a new release, it actually has new features, not just bug fixes. It’s growing by leaps and bounds while Avid products seem to just be lingering.
Today was my first in-session day with my new Adrenaline, having just come from a very old symphony v3.1. So far, I consider it a lateral move. There are many things that are better about it but just as many that leave you scratchin your head wondering how sombody in Tewks still has a job.
10-15 years ago, Avid got feedback from editors… and responded to that feedback. The dudes designing FCP, obviously do that today. I can’t say I’d be happier with FCP today but at the rate things are going, it’s getting pretty easy to predict a flavor of choice just a few years from now.

[Oliver Peters]

[grinner] “Today was my first in-session day with my new Adrenaline, having just come from a very old symphony v3.1. So far, I consider it a lateral move. There are many things that are better about it but just as many that leave you scratchin your head wondering how sombody in Tewks still has a job.”

Hey! Where’s that morning-after “glow”?

Sincerely,
Oliver

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

[Lj Corwin]

Hi,

I have been lurking on this forum and the FCP forum for many, many months trying to figure out what system to go with, Avid Adrenaline or FCP with Kona2. I’ve been a Discreet edit* owner, also cut on MC and have been playing around with FCP as well. I also took a 2 day FCP training class. Today I made my decision and plunked down a 50% deposit on a new Adrenaline. Reasons for my decision (beside edit being a dead product):

– While I like the FCP editing interface, there is no way I can successfully run my business with the FCP’s Media Manager being what it is. We do documentary films and episodic television shows with hundreds of hours of footage . Working at low-res for offline and finishing by re-batching high res is essential. We use tons of motion effects and I don’t have time to manually rebuild them. I’ve sifted through the “Media Mangler” horror story postings and after reading a recent post that fixing Media Manager would require a major software rewrite on Apple’s part pretty much clinched the Adrenaline decision. And, if one more FCP user (or instructor) who has never followed a traditional offline/online workflow tells me that “hard drive space is no longer an issue” I will lose it. The number of TB’s I would need to get through one 23 episode season would exceed the cost of an Adrenaline.

– In NYC, the talent pool for Avid editors and assistants seems a lot bigger.

– Not being able to mix codecs on the timeline is a drag.

– In general, it just seems like it takes forever for me to do things on FCP. Many keystrokes and mouse clicks and tiny, little icons and buttons. And yes, I have RTFM.

I’m not thrilled about having to buy an Adrenaline. I will miss edit* and FCP’s robust databases, particularly being able to type in a keyword and having every clip in the job come up. I like having more than one timeline open at a time. There are so many things I prefer on FCP than on Avid. But I have to be able to finish my jobs without killing myself to make air. I’ll keep FCP running on my laptop for small DV jobs.

So that’s just me. If I were cutting shortform, life might be different.

My 2 cents,
LJ Corwin

PS – I may really hate the Adrenaline once it gets here in two weeks thus making the above post meaningless. Stay tuned….

[Chris Magid]

The Avid vs FCP thing has been beaten to death. Metaphors have been tossed around like…well…like something that has been tossed around a lot. Neither is going to be all things to all people. Yes, editors are people too.

My take:

FCP is the value leader. Very cost effective and very flexible. It does support more formats and more codecs than any Composer based Avid product. Cheap I/O options deliver up to uncompressed DUAL LINK HD. Great huh.

The software is a jack of all trades. A Swiss Army Knife of sorts. By the way, why is that such a big deal, what has the Swiss Army done lately?

There are effects and compositing capabilities which Avid editors dream of, with the exception of color correction.

HOWEVER! The above does come at the cost of performance, media management and workgroups.

MEANING, FCP realtime is not like Avid realtime. You will do a lot more rendering in FCP. FCP realtime is more like pre-viz. To get to tape, you need to render to make sure all is well.

SO THE BOTTOM LINE: I think FCP is an excellent fit for the project studio workflow. One machine, one editor. The project starts and ends on the same box. Best if it is an all online affair, with no need to re digitize material. FCP can be used in other ways, but this seems to be the least problematic. The sweet spot.

Avid is more of an industrial strength solution. A somewhat restricted bag of tricks, but easier to manage in workgroups, more flexible in project management and more predictable real time performance. Troubleshooting, parts replacement and other issues seem to be easier to solve due to all components being OEM.

FCP vs AVID, really depends on what you are aiming to create and the way you are going about your work. The editor is the most important part of either system.

Chris Magid
chris@gortvf.com

[Lj Corwin]

Well said, Chris, well put. Maybe the best posting on this issue yet.

I’m stickin’ a fork in it.

[Grinner Hester]

lol
still waiting for it, man.
I’ve only had three hard and heavy days on it but so far I am just not impressed with it.
Kinda takes me back to when I had a $10k box with Premiere on it and that was over 10 years ago.
It seems to like to crash once a day so far but I don’t have to reboot or anything, just relaunch and it’s back. It feels much like a version one software to me right now. I hope it’s just new box/user syndrome that’ll iron out with more use.

[Oliver Peters]

[grinner] “It seems to like to crash once a day so far but I don’t have to reboot or anything, just relaunch and it’s back. It feels much like a version one software to me right now. I hope it’s just new box/user syndrome that’ll iron out with more use”

Grin,

It seems like the system has a tendancy to loose communications with the Adrenaline BOB. I think this is a common issue with FW devices. I’ve seen the same thing with Avid Mojo and AJA Io, though Io appears a bit more stable. The bad part is that you can’t run the MC app without Adrenaline like you can run Xpress Pro without Mojo. A shame, since that would make the interface much zippier.

Sincerely,
Oliver

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