Avid vs Premiere vs FCP, legit question…

[Mark Raudonis]

Tracy,

I’ll try to give you as unbiased, straight explanation as I can.

Since Avid was the first NLE to really achieve dominance in the marketplace, it was able to establish itself as “THE” brand. Unlike any other NLE, AVID focused on the 24fps film edit, developing software and hardware that enabled editors to easily cut on an AVID, yet finish on film. As a result of this, AVID’s were universally adopted by any editor doing a film finish. Obviously, these were the cream of the crop of the industry’s talent.

Cut forward to about five years ago. Advances in processor power has enabled other platforms to
achieve parity in features and capabilities with Avid. Specifically, FCP has now matched AVID in EVERY one of the “must have” features. Some would even argue FCP has exceeded AVID in many areas. What
AVID has maintained all these years is excellence in media management and in the process of trimming.

This “perceived” advantage in trimming is often debated by users familiar with both platforms, but users who would rather fight than switch cling to this as the major reason for sticking with AVID.

When the cost of all the other NLE’s represented an undeniable bargain compared to AVID, many people abandoned Avid despite any “perceived” quality difference. I would objectively say that now, in most circumstances, choosing which NLE comes down to “Pepsi vs Coke”. In other words, it’s really a matter of personal taste.

Mark

[Stephen Smith]

[Mark] I would objectively say that now, in most circumstances, choosing which NLE comes down to “Pepsi vs Coke”. In other words, it’s really a matter of personal taste.

Pepsi vs Coke…that’s perfect. I gave you 5 COWs

Salt Lake Video

Check out my DVD Money Making Graphics & Effects for Final Cut Studio 2

[Grinner Hester]

Avid still offers the best media management od any NLE.
OUtside of that, man the name is all your sellin’. There are still trickeling intities that think Avid is a superior product or an Avid will make a difference in theirs. I’m faster on an Avid buit that’s it. It’s DVE is primative and today Avids are buggy.
FCP grpws by leaps and bounds every year where Avid does not.
Adobe grows every year where Avid does not.
Unless you have a client asking for Avid or you are a freelancer who needs to be marketable… there is no reason to be on an Avid product today.

[Del Holford]

There is one reason to be on Avid: ScriptSync. Hopefully other editors will come out with similar products for documentarians and other long form editors.

That said, we’re moving from Autodesk Discreet to FCP next week (or should I say the install begins?)

Del
fire*, smoke*, photoshopCS3
Charlotte Public Television
del underscore edits at wtvi dot org

[Tim Kolb]

Nicely and non-religiously conveyed guys.

Some day I think Adobe’s transcript feature could develop into something with functionality approaching script sync, but then I didn’t realize that script sync had been around from 1998?

One wonders what would have happened if Avid would have stayed ten years ahead of the curve across their feature base…

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Grinner Hester]

man, they were on track for it. It was just a matter of adding firewire capabilities to the meridien line just 5 years ago. Their revolving door of execs lead them to the demise they are looking at now.
I assume all of those dudes had hefty stock in apple. 😉

[Andrew Kimery]

What’s funny Grinner is as mainly a FCP editor I look back over the last two years and, aside from the initial release of FC Studio 2, I wonder what the heck is going on. Adobe is moving forward w/CS3 and CS4, Avid looks like they are getting back on track w/MC 3.0, but Apple really hasn’t done anything to the FCS for over two years. Can we get some Blu-ray authoring? How about fixing many of the numerous problems w/Color? From what I’ve read I really like how well Avid’s ScriptSync seems to be working and being able to add a realtime TC burn would save us hours on making deliverables for our weekly TV show.

I hope Apple has a big announcement in the coming months otherwise this plateau is going to turn into a backslide, IMO. I guess the grass is always greener… 🙂 All this competition is nice though. Hopefully Adobe, Apple, and Avid will continue to push each other so that we get better and better tools to work with.

-A

3.2GHz 8-core, FCP 6.0.4, 10.5.5
Blackmagic Multibridge Eclipse (6.8.1)

[Stephen Smith]

Final Cut Studio 2 was released April 2007. Final Cut Studio 1 was released April 2005. Final Cut Pro 4 was released April 2003. I’m thinking there is a trend there and there is a reason you have not seen a new version of Final Cut yet. Final Cut won’t be at NAB so your guess is as good as mine, but I would imagine you will see a new version in a few months. Not like I know Steve Jobs or something.

Salt Lake Video

Check out my DVD Money Making Graphics & Effects for Final Cut Studio 2

[Grinner Hester]

Well if it shows how trands are going, MC is now up to version 3 and in 1994, it was up to version 4.
lol
Can’t get much more backwards than that.

[Alan E. bell]

I started in a cutting room before Avid even existed. I assisted on my first feature when the media composer was at version 4 at that time there was no media sharing. I’ve cut five features on Avid and 6 features on FCP. I just started a show on Avid recently after the last six being FCP. And I am shocked to find that other than the media codec which we are using, it’s basically exactly the same as it ever was. No positive changes at all. Same ol bugs and plenty of new ones too.

I personally think most of the feature editors out there who insist on Avid over essentially any other piece of software are doing so because they don’t want to learn a new system. For a group of people who speed all day making changes, they are some of the most resistant to change themselves. But that’s just my opinion.

Many editors call me for help transitioning into FCP and I do my best to support them. I get the same statement from the resistant ones. “Well it takes me three mouse clicks to do this on FCP when I can do it in two on Avid” In some cases that is a true statement and in others it’s just a biased opinion that when looked at objectively works in reverse as well. Each system is different.

This thread has peaked my interest in Premiere. I used it quite a bit in the early 90’s and it didn’t work too well for me then. I will have to check it out to seen how it’s improved.

Alan Bell
—————
Discreet Combustion Co-Host
LA Combustion Users Group Co-Host