Considering FC Studio Purchase & Need Some Info

[Steven Gonzales]

Question 1 depends on a lot of things, such as what quality of video you are editing, how complex your timeline is, and how fast your system is.

Question 2 is answered here:

https://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/specs/

[Mark Job]

Thank you for your input Steven 🙂

Mark

[Arnie Schlissel]

[Mark Job] “1. Some editors have commented on there being too much rendering required to apply effects and modifications to the time line. Is this in fact true ? One editor refered to FCP as “render cut pro.” Is this really fair ?”

This is largely a matter of how your system is set up and your work practices.

A faster Mac with a better graphics card & faster drive array can play a lot of effects at medium or better quality in real time. If that’s OK by you, then you can work very quickly, and let FCP render on bathroom/lunch breaks or overnight.

If you’re in a client driven situation, however, you may need to render much more often to show the client what the real quality looks like. This may help some (not all) clients make up their minds faster, especially if they’re paying by the hour! 😉

Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
https://www.arniepix.com/

[Mark Job]

Hi Arnie:
I’ll tell you what – I really like the iMAC design, but only the new top model. I am a hard core PC person who has worked all my professional career (so far) on desktops and PC power laptops. I have never even used a MAC once ! There seems to be so many advantages from first glance of design, flexibility and total integration of multiple applications talking to each other, that I have been considering a move to MAC and FCP. I have been reading all the threads on the Avid website (Their user forums)about how bad FCP is and how terribly long the rendering times are, etc, etc. Many Avid users also have FCP now.

Perhaps the single greatest aspect of FCP which intriques me is its interface. I built my post production company on a fast drag & drop DPS realtime editing system. I was as fast as a gedi on the old DPS timeline ! Over two years back we were hit with a bad storm, which caused a slow brown out, then power out (The surge protectors didn’t porotect my system). My system was totally fried right in the middle of a major project for my biggest industrial video client ! I then went out and purchased Avid Xpress Pro 5.6.0 at the time. Using the new editing interface of Avid was like hitting a brick wall ! – Talk about a non-intuitive interface ! Holy smokes was it ever hard for me to not try and use my Avid like a drag & drop interface ! I’m not saying Avid isn’t a great application, because it is ! I upgraded to Media Composer and it was much better, but I really miss using a drag & drop interface.

You wrote, “let FCP render on bathroom/lunch breaks or overnight.” Now what you wrote here kind of scares me away. I don’t have time to wait all night for stuff. I was looking at an all dressed Mac Pro, but then again, we’re starting to put out some real dollars. I’m not saying this isn’t a worth while investment either. This is especially true if it will make us some bigger bucks later.

[Shane Ross]

Well, consider this…

Your Avid is running on a high end machine with a high end Avid card like the Adrenaline or Mojo. And the storage is nice fast drives. You are talking about getting FCP on a consumer that at most can power firewire drives. FCP will perform OK on that, but not stellar. If you had a full on high end FCP setup with good RAID drives, it will mix formats very well.

Put the Avid software on your iMac and see how that performs…not as well as the Avid’s at work, I guarantee.

Shane

GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Frank Philip]

I’ve been editing DV25 material on a iMac 2.0ghz with 2gigs of ram and the standard graphics card that came with it. Motion and color runs fine for me for wedding and small corporate stuff. The reason I mentioned those programs are because they are the most taking on the graphic card. Rendering in final cut using the dynamic button is fine for me, but maybe not when a client is expecting close to 100% quality at all times.

The reason I choose the iMac was for cost versus Mac Pro, but also a trial run to work with FCP, and I must say that the interface is much cleaner and intuitive.

I come from about seven years working on a custom made pc running Premiere Pro 1.5 on a Matrox RTX100 system. My main reason for leaving PC was the constant crashes, blue screen of death.

http://www.greenirisstudios.com

[Mark Job]

So Shane, do you use your FCP for professional work, or is it just a compliment to your main Avid application ?

[John Pale]

I’m a big supporter of FCP, but I will say with certain types of programming you will have to render a great deal more types of things that will happily play in real time on an Avid.

If you do sports or news programming with lots of lower thirds, clocks, popups and other keyed items, you will quickly want to throw your FCP system out the window. Basically all Avid systems can do at least one layer of real time keying (matte keying in Avid lingo)…most sold today can do more than one. FCP cannot at present do ANY realtime keying (okay…low resolution Unlimited setting aside)…and since the rendering involves creating a new media file from the top down, you may also chew through tons more disk space. Its rather odd, considering even a relatively inexpensive FCP system can do multiple layers of picture in picture…but a fully decked out FCP system cannot play a simple keyed lower third in real time. Apple has simply not designed their RT Extreme engine to handle this type of material in real time….I’m pretty sure the hardware can handle it (as Avid runs on Mac and happily does it)…its just the software has not been optimized for this purpose.

If you do more narrative work, with only a few lower thirds….or conversely more intensive layering, that would need to be rendered on both Avid and FCP…the difference in platforms may not be that significant to you.

[Mark Raudonis]

[Mark Job] ” I have been reading all the threads on the Avid website (Their user forums)about how bad FCP is and how terribly long the rendering times are, etc, etc. Many Avid users also have FCP now. “

I have to give you credit for coming here to get a second opinion… but if you’re relying on an Avid website for an opinion about FCP, what did you expect to hear?

If you have a valid reason to switch, then go ahead and do it, but only YOU can decide if FCP’s gonna work for your workflow/clientbase/format etc. You can collect multiple opinions and research all you want, but there is no substitute for trying FCP out in your own, unique environment.

And… if you do try it out, please don’t fall into that trap of comparing twenty years of Avid experience to twenty minutes of FCP. It takes awhile to learn the differences and how to apply the strengths of the FCP interface to your advantage rather than your frustration.

Mark

[Mark Job]

@ Mark:
Thank you. I understand what you mean about getting advice on how good or bad FCP really is. Don’t forget many users on the Avid forum also have FCP now. We do industrial-kiosk and narative work. (Much less now in this present economy) We also do allot of delivery on WMV and now in Flash as well as DVD. I find media composer excellent as a cutting machine, but next to useless as a finishing machine ! It would seem Adobe CS3 & 4 and FCP have a total solution for cutting and finishing. Our delivery on DVD is not in AC3. It would be nice to be able to cut in Avid MC, then export a QT Ref or a QT Movie and import into FC Studio and author a nice Dolby Digital AC3 5.1 audio SD DVD or a BlueRay DVD. The grand majority of our stuff is shot on HDV. We also produce a web Tv show called Please Stand By, which is now being shot in 1080i HDV with our Canon XL H1. (Episode One was shot in AVI 720p 30 on a tiny TX1 Power Shot camera)
I think I need to go try out FCP on a demo machine to see how I like it. If it’s drag and drop, then I’m sure will at least like that !