FCP X or AVID??

[Chris Conlee]

Hey Rob,

Well I’m definitely prejudiced, because Avid is my preferred tool. However, I own and use FCP 7 when I absolutely have to. My sense is that broadcasters will drift back to Avid, because Avid means “Pro” in the broadcast sense of the word, and they aren’t going to change that. No surprises with Avid, which will appeal to the people making long-term decisions.

I’d recommend sticking with FCP for your immediate projects, and for as long as it continues to work, but definitely learn Avid. It’s a different beast, and you’ll be frustrated with it at first. But if you don’t try to make it act like FCP, and learn to use it instead as it was designed, I think you’ll find it incredibly powerful, smooth, and efficient.

Chris

[Craig Seeman]

Certainly you need to learn the tools you need for freelance work and that would be Avid and Premiere. I can’t see many facilities hanging on to FCP7 beyond the end of the year as they move. I suspect it will take at least that long or longer for FCPX to work in a facility environment so I don’t expect much movement to it.

As for personal use, my main concern would be if you have clients that do revisions a year or more later (I do) you’d either have to keep a legacy FCP7 system (although Apple says it’s Lion compatible now if/when it breaks I suspect they won’t fix) or have some way to open it in another NLE. Apple has said repeatedly there will be no FCP project import on the roadmap for FCPX. There may be XML import though which would require a third party purchase and I’d expect that would lose everything but the sequence itself (no motion tab, transitions, fx, nests).