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Avid vs. Final Cut Pro
I am probably about to start a war of words with this post. But this decision has me at a crossroads. My question is Avid or Final Cut Pro? We have been presented with upgrading our commercial production suites to new equipment (currently we are on Media 100 v8). We have been shown two systems, one running Avid Media Composer with Mojo SDI and the other with Final Cut Studio with the Multibridge Eclipse. In terms of computer specs, they’re nearly identical. Cost is not so much an issue. What’s kind of strange is the Avid system is $7,000 more than the Final Cut Pro, and our higher-ups are wanting the Avid system.
Now for some background on our workflow. We don’t have one. We shoot on Beta and DVCPRO tape. Have no shared storage, only dedicated machine storage. They won’t upgrade us to shared because it’s too expensive. These machines would serve only to do commercials and station promos. Our newsroom however uses Avid Newscutters and shoots on P2. The only time we would need to work with the newsroom is to grab footage for promo spots which we should be able to access there server from either system.
What I want to hear are some honest opinions. I’m assuming people out there have used both systems and can give me a good response. I like Final Cut, but it’s not my decision unless I can be really persuasive.
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25 Replies
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Personally, I feel that Final Cut has a stronger user community that is willing to share it’s knowledge. I just went to the Avid forum and there are about 5 post where as Final Cut Pro has well over 50. A lot more Training Tutorial as well. If you want help then Final Cut would be worth looking into. Also here is an article that is a little dated. https://library.creativecow.net/articles/inhofer_patrick/avid_fcp_update.php
In the end, I say buy them both.
Check out my DVD Money Making Graphics & Effects for Final Cut Studio 2
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Eric, our facility sounds about the same as yours. We shoot dvcpro25 and a little betacam, though these days it’s mostly used for studio work and not in the field. We have four edit suites which once ran the gamut of systems between a Grass Valley linear system in the control room, Discreet Logic Edit*6, Panasonic’s own Postbox system, and a PC box running Premiere/Pinnacle Nitro. It was hard for an editor to move from room to room to help out on projects or trade jobs, there were too many contradictory mouse and keyboard commands to keep straight, and you never felt fully comfortable on any one of them, you always felt like a beginner, never a “power user”.
We decided it made the most sense to standardize on one platform, so that the three editors could all become equally adept and interchangeable, room to room. We could then cover for each other as needed, and share skillsets.
The macs are simple to inter-connect via ethernet, so transfer of graphics and sound files is possible, (slow but we’re not fussy at this stage) but we have yet to really need to do things that way: While we theoretically could all edit on the same project simultaneously (one guy cutting, one guy scoring, one guy massaging graphics, for example) we’ve never had the need to try that out yet.
Instead, each editor pretty much stands alone, and we occasionally sneaker-net files or videos on usb drives, CD-or DVD-rom burns, or DVC Pro tape using SDI in and out when soembody neesd something in another room. If we want a SAN or NAS at soem point, the macs are already configured for it, but keepign a bunch of files spinning on central drives is not the way we work here: we still put tapes and DVDs on shelves for long term deep storage, and don’t have a need to load many terabytes into instant-access. Some folks do. Angry Bob over in the Broadcast forum wrote a neat COW online article about cheap and easy DIY central storage you can cobble together yourself, you might want to look at that as a stepping-stone to a bigger NAS or SAN.
We picked the mac/fcp route because it was a little cheaper than Avid, because I had experience with macs at home and so did the chief engineer, many local VAR’s on the PC side were bums… even though with Avid and Final Cut both, you’re still talking about essentially closed systems with one supplier, we also found the mac/FCP workflow much easier to handle and more comfortable, and that is advice I always give someone shopping for a system: they all can do basically the same things with a few specialties here and there, but the best system for you is the system that works the way you like to work, that feels transparent and simple for you, comfortable. You spend so many hours a day with the thing, you want to pick one you just plain like more. A system you like more, you get more adventurous with, you push it’s limits more and become faster, better, more creative on it, even if it may not be as powerful as some other system. The user experience and competence is an important part of the equation.
As far as reliability, well, macs are pretty good, I must say, compared to most PC’s I’ve worked with, but they certainly are NOT immortal or infallible, they break down or get deranged occasionally, usually the fix si pertty easy. We bought extended 24/7 phone support with our FCP systems and the VAR is here in town so service calls are quick, generally. One time we smelled smoke in the building, but couldn’t find the source. A week later we finally figured out that the mac tower’s video card had had a component literally burn a hole right thru the board during a lightning strike, but aside from a few gltiches in the LCD display,(not the actual output) the darn thing kept editing clean video for another week while we searched for a problem!
Avid has history in newsrooms, newscutter is very popular, and if you are a big and busy broadcast news bureau, maybe Avid is for you. The old joke about Avid is that it is a powerful database management system with an NLE attached to it. If you have, say, three stations near each other as part of a broadcast group and you’re consolidating news ops, so they shoot in three places but cut and distribute from a central control location to all three stations, an Avid system is probably what you want a demo of. If your operation is somewhat more laid-back, say, your company mostly cuts VNR’s about the medical field for syndication to many stations, then the Final Cut system may be as good as Avid for that and yes, cheaper.
Other considerations commonly include what is the most common platform used locally by others. Two reasons for that: available extra help to come in and cut for you, and a local knowledge base for the hardware. The main systems people are hired to know these days seem to be both FCP and Avid, if you know both, you should always be able to find work. A nice feature of Final cut is that you can remap the keyboard to duplicate an Avid’s key commands and so, if you’re used to cutting using hotkeys on Avid, there is little or nothign to re-learn. You can store multiple user setups and each editor can call up their own version of the interface ready to go. When you use final cut, it is the same on a laptop as it is on a tower. With Avid, you have to always wonder what “flavor” of Avid someone is talking about, they are not all equal or do things the same way.
Avid used to have a lock on high-dollar value editing for film and TV, I feel that is no longer the case and while Avid-cut shows still outnumber FCP ones, the delta is shrinking annually. Ask your higher-ups if they are wanting Avids for the cachet of the name, or for some other reason. IF the promo units have to talk to the newscutters, that may be their reason, but from your description, that doesn’t seem to be the case for your operation.
FCP works very nicely with P2, we’ve used rented P2 cams to shoot and edit HD spots.
My bias is obviously towards FCP, but really, you have the opportunity to try demos of both systems, and you really should do that. Bring a tape and cut the same project with the sales engineer for both systems and see what your heart tells you. Then consult with your engineer and manager about how to make the numbers work, or if they do.
Good luck.
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Well I will have to say that after cutting on Media 100, Avid, and FCP that FCP is my favorite. I really didn’t think it would be, don’t get me wrong, I loved Avid. I cut a few hundred spots with avid and I’m really glad that i did. The biggest difference that stands out to me technically is user friendliness. FCP beats Avid hands down. The Mojo box is probably the biggest problem i ever encountered. if you were headed to a nitris or composer system i would feel better. the mojo box caused me a lot of problems and made me hate being away from the nitris bay.
Here are the pluses that help push FCP over the top for me when it comes to an editing system.
Lets just say avid and FCP are equally good editors. some of the biggest bonuses with the FCP system involve the “other” programs that come with the studio package. namely Motion, DVD studio Pro, Color, Sound track pro, Compressor, and even Live Type. The add-ons in the package is amazing. It is true that avid does come with some additional software, but 3rd party software doesn’t allow for round trips, or interaction between each other.alright enough said, but one more piece of advice. don’t scrimp, Get a Kona 3 card for capture. it is one of the reasons that i don’t have the problems that I’ve had in the past. It works, and it works well. and if for any reason it’s not working well Aja has hands down some of the best if not the best customer service in the business.
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FCP, hands down. It’s a matter of bang for the buck and Avid offers no products with near the level of bang vs buck.
My Avid is maybe worth one of it’s payments. How’s that for bang?
Your FCP suite will grow with you as you do and you will find it does much more of what it claims to be able to do. Avid’s managing team is now their sales team, which explains the “creative” advertising. They have no staff in product development. Heck to this day, their flagship product, DS was written by a company Avid purchased it from.
In short, they have stopped trying to compete. Speaking only for myself, they have made it impossible for me to reward their failure further.
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Hi Folks,
think it`s time for me to break down a wall for Avid.
My Opinion, it don`t exist the only one perfect system, and it will never be…
Think this article from Oliver Peters very interesting.https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2009/01/11/improving-fcp-and-media-composer/
He works on both systems and and bring up a summary of advantages and disadvantages from Avid and FCP.
I know the problems from Avid and learned to handle it. Amazing for me, how many problems FCP has inside and no one of FCP users is talking about it. For a complete MAC you have to pay a lot, may be this is the reason for this. A friend of me always say: MAC user are no user, they are believer.I mean gammashifts, uncorrected framehandling at tapeplayouts are problems for consumer products but not for professional ones.
Things I love on working with Avid:
– Mediamanagement – share data between projects and systems with one click, also over networks
– working with hd and sd in one timeline with native material for xdcam ex, p2, hdcam, xdcam hd, hdv, what you want all stay native.
– change rastertyps or downconversion for hd material
– the kind of working in the timeline to arrange and rearrange the material
– realtime colorcorrection and timewarps
– DNxHD codec technology very smart for postproduction@ Stephen Smith
You must took a look at a wrong webpage. The Avid community and knowledgebase has millions of threads.So only a few things from my expierence. And sorry for my bad English.
Robert Kreuz
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I think the more even debate would have been Final Cut versus the latest version of Adobe Premiere for mac. A much closer horserace, that. But that wasn’t the question-)
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[Mark Suszko] I think the more even debate would have been Final Cut versus the latest version of Adobe Premiere for mac. A much closer horserace, that. But that wasn’t the question-)
If we are going to get side tracked then I might as well throw this in…It’s not the editing program that makes the end product great it is the user. I’ve seen awesome stuff and crap made on all three of those programs.
Check out my DVD Money Making Graphics & Effects for Final Cut Studio 2
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You’re right about that. Nobody points to a TV show or commercial and remarks about what edit system it was cut on. The last time I know of anybody doing that, it was because nobody but Newtek had falling-sheep kiki-wipes at the time, so you always knew on sight who had a Video Toaster, but lacked the self-control to avoid employing the sheep wipe:-)
I would say 95 percent of what I edit is cuts, 4 percent dissolves, 1 percent something more exotic. I have the power of Castle Grayskull at my command, but I use it only for good:-)
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Falling sheep. That brings back some memories. I guess you answered it. Video Toaster is the best.
Check out my DVD Money Making Graphics & Effects for Final Cut Studio 2
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Remember that “creative cow” is mostly mac/final cut place.
The Avid user base is over at Avid.com forums.I use mainly Avid but have worked on final cut and Like Avid better if I’m just editing.
If I needed to do everything myself (like Audio, GFX, author DVD’s, etc etc) I would go with Final cut.
I feel Avid is a more stable editor. And 1,000 times more stable and reliable when coming in or out with pro VTRs.
Going firewire and file based stuff Final cut kills avid.
Price wise, I could care less because my employer pays for the gear.
Both Avid and Final cut have their own headaches. Neither is even
close to perfect.In the end it’s about you feel comfortable. They’re just tools
and neither won’t make you a better editor
Just my random 2 cents.Scott Cumbo
Editor
Broadway Video, NYC
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