Avid Xpress Pro vs. Final Cut Pro

[Jon Zanone]

What are your projects like?
What is your budget?
Is it a corporate network environment? Will the network mgt. weenies flip out if you put a Mac on it?
Research some of the Avid v. FCP threads on both forums and choose.

Jon

[Dennis Kutchera]

My first bit of advice is to let go of the way Media 100 does things. Neither Avid nor Final Cut Pro are Media 100. I have used all three. There are things I like about each, but overall, Avid works out best for me. But…being familiar with all three, I would say that you may find the transition to Final Cut Pro easier because it is more Mac than Mac Avid and some of the tools may feel more comfortable to you. Eg, the ablility to trim on the timeline by dragging on the transition with no special trim mode. Realistically though, FCP and Avid are more like each other than Media 100 and FCP. If you have not used Avid, you will not miss the features that keep me in this camp.

Have you considered the new and improved Media 100? There are probably attractive upgrade paths. Or on second thought, maybe not. I own a Media 100 still and I have received no communications on upgrades. I used to get offers all the time under the old regime.

Yeh, I suspect you’d like Final Cut Pro.

Best Regards,

Dennis Kutchera
Avid COW

[Zman]

I have to use both just about everyday, I do have to say I love FCP, not only for its price but because anything you can do on an avid you can do it 3 way on FCP. avid hasent changed much in many years, actually it’s become more cumbersome in the last years and still major dollars, fcp makes stuff so easy it’s scarry and it’s fairly inexpensive, give it a real good look cause many people are switching to it.

[Dennis Kutchera]

I don’t care who switches to it. They have to match or exceed the media manangement of Avid and come up with a better integrated real time colour corrector. Avid has more than one way to achieve many things and with fewer keystrokes than most.

Best Regards,

Dennis Kutchera
Avid COW

[Alessandro]

[Dennis Kutchera] “They have to match or exceed the media manangement of Avid and come up with a better integrated real time colour corrector.”

Dennis,

maybe you’re right for the CC, but for the media manager… guys, the media manager in FCP is the Finder itself!
FCP keeps all the media organized by project and files have a transparent name that is the name of the clip. Not the messy and meaningless strings of the Avid file names.
I can browse my media from the finder and even reimport in FCP by simply dragging into the bin. I can search them with Spotlight. Simple, useful, elegant. So should I really need a media manager?
Let’s face it. Avid architecture is 12 (or even more) years old and doesn’t benefit of the Apple amazing integration between HW, OS, Application, Quicktime… Only Apple can do this because they do every component, and they do it well.

My 2 cents.
Ale.

[Nick Brenner]

For me it’s a no brainer. Going to FCP from Media 100 is the way. I cut both FCP and Avid, and presently all Avid Adreneline doco series and it just doesn’t cut it for me. I can make better looks in faster time on FCP. I left Media 100 at Version 8.