Thinking of Avid Xpress Pro and ditching Final Cut Pro.

[John Pale]

If you are familiar with the Avid interface you will be comfortable on the current version of Xpress Pro. Older versions did not use the Source/Record paradigm that both Media Composer and FCP use (they used pop-up windows for source clips). Avid deliberately removes some conveniences from the interface that Media Composer has, but overall it works the same.
The big thing you lose by going to Avid is flexibility. With FCP, you can buy a capture card that suits your budget and workflow. There are many options from AJA, Blackmagic and Aurora. With Avid, if you want to work with more than DV, you have the inexpensive Mojo (a clunky little box with non-pro connectors) and thats it. The next step up is Media Composer Adrenaline…much more expensive.

[Mike Most — account bouncing, bad address]

>With Avid, if you want to work with more than DV, you have the inexpensive Mojo (a clunky little box with non->pro connectors) and thats it.

Not true. XPress Pro can work with a number of different formats, although it can’t digitize all of them. However, as of the most recent version (currently available only on PC, Mac version is forthcoming) you can bring in DV25, DV50, and DVCProHD (at least at 720/60p) over Firewire, just like Final Cut. You can also work with other formats, provided they’re captured on a bigger system (Adrenaline, Symphony, etc.). One thing the most recent version also does that Final Cut doesn’t is remove “standard” 3:2 pulldown from NTSC sources on capture, in software – something which requires a separate pass through Cinema Tools in the Final Cut world, unless you’re using a capture card that supports it. I agree it’s a bit more clunky, but the truth is that something like 98% of Final Cut users never cut anything but DV anyway, despite what is often written here about scalability.

[Bryce Whiteside]

In the spirit of this is a real post–since I noticed that this is a cross post in the Avid Editing forum–typing “Xpress” in the Search function of this forum would have produced these two threads of many:

Re: NO WAY WOULD I EVER BUY ANYTHING FROM AVID AGAIN!!!!! by Chris on May 12, 2005 at 8:34 am
https://www.creativecow.net/forum/read_post.php?postid=111589047957187&forumid=8&highlight=Xpress
OR
https://tinyurl.com/aj9uk

FCP vs. Avid by Chris on May 11, 2005 at 8:19 am
https://www.creativecow.net/forum/read_post.php?postid=111580314585544&forumid=8&highlight=Xpress
OR
https://tinyurl.com/b42mh

HTH,
Bryce

PS One thing I have noticed that FCP users know a great deal about AVID and AVID users generally know very little about FCP.

Don’t worry Mr. B. I have a cunning plan…

PowerBook 1.67 Ghz ATI 9700 128 MB 2 GB
Final Cut Pro HD
DVD Studio Pro 3
Motion

[Aaron Neitz]

Xpress Pro is a great little app… I known it’s been used to cut a couple studio features films not too long ago. As an offline cut station there’s no reason to waste big $$ on the high-end Avids. But it suffers from 1) if you’ve never cut on Avid, the interface and editing workflow seems VERY antiquated and mechanical, and 2) we’ve found it to be VERY picky about the exact setup and software versions of your computer.

Don’t let Avid’s PR buzz about “industry standard” sway you. Their reign of terror is fading away. We had 6 full blown Media Composers in house, now we have 1 and 5 FCPs. If I were you, I wouldn’t even think twice about staying FCP.

[Nigel]

Thanks very much guys. It is a genuine post. I was just at the Broadcast Production Show in London and although I’m a total Machead and FCP/DVDSP/Shake/Logic nut I thought the Avid system, meaning Xpress Pro looked interesting. Your last line about “Don’t let Avid’s PR buzz about “industry standard” sway you” is an interesting statement; this was one reason I was considering the switch.

At the show in London I met a professional Avid Off-Line editor who works in Soho (London’s equivalent of Hollywood post houses I guess). She told me that she has used FCP recently and she says that FCP has more multimedia type features, Avid on the other hand is an out-and-out professional editing package.

[Donato M. rondinelli]

In my eyes for my needs, right now they’re pretty much the same. I still like Avid for all the freelancers I know. I like the support & stability. For FCP, I like how it can handle multiple layers. Again, lets just call them the same. If this is true, look how long Avid has been doing this & look how long Apple has been doing this? If Apple stays in it, five years later we’ll have something twice as good as Avid.

Look at NAB (the big video tradeshow). This (for alot of Avid editors) was the final ditch effort for Avid to keep them. What did they demo? Not much. Did the slash prices? No. In the last 6 months I have been amazed who now has FCP. Avid still may be the standard but not for long. Have you seen the job posts lately ? https://www.creativecow.net/forum/view_posts.php?forumid=70 . Most of the editor positions posted are for FCP, not Avid. Have you been on the Avid forum lately? I seen you post there & you got two responces telling you to stay with what you got. If you would of posted that before NAB this past April, 6 people would of pounced on you telling you that Avid is it & you need to switch. Times are changing.

BTW, I have a used $90K Symphony & a $40K Adrenaline that I’m willing to get rid of. The Symphony will never do HD & the Adrenaline will do HD for a $10K upgrade.

HTH,
-dMR

[Scott Witthaus]

Dont think Xpro is the main competitor to FCP. I recently had an Avid rep tell me that Avid now considers Media Composer Adrenaline as the main competition to FCP5. He put a demo in my shop and the list on it was $57,000. I said thanks but no thanks.

Xpro is a great little machine, but as I have been discovering more and more about FCP, I would choose FCP. Bang for the buck, FCP is all over Xpro, and FCP’s integration with other software is far superior to any Avid product. Both have thier problems but more and more, if I were to decide again on Xpro and FCP (I have both), I would have just gone with FCP. There is just not a big enough difference in the softwares to justify the price that Avid charges.

[Aaron Neitz]

Dude, it’s all hype and hot air. She was pimping Avid as a “pro editing application” because she probably hasn’t spent a lot of time in FCP. Our Avid editors who switched took the good part of 3 months to really understand the new way you approach media and management (lots of cursing in those days). Getting out of the Avid mindset takes time – especially if you’ve been cutting with it for 10 years. Just chuckle at people when they pimp how “superior” Avid is; like they’re missing out on the new media revolution.

[Jeff Walker]

It is hard to compare FCP to Avid in the sense that Avid has multiple editing aps in its lineup. FCP is scaleable. The little guy doing DV can use it as well as the big guy using HD. FCP is basically all things to all people. I don’t think its accurate to say that Avid is the industry standard anymore though there is no doubt they maintain a very strong grasp of the high end market, especially features. This being said FCP has made a lot of progress in the last few years in gaining the respect of high end editors and producers. FCP cuts a very high percentage of movie trailers out there. FCP cuts more and more television (and no, not just Scrubs.) Many a music video is being cut on FCP as well as commercials.

With FCP 5 Apple has shown they are very serious about gaining more marketshare. One of the limitation in the past for FCP has been its lack of good asset management on large, multi edit station productions. Now with Xsan and Xgrid (and a some 3rd party solutions too) the guys working on features can’t complain that there’s no Unity Server like asset management.

I can’t imagine why you’d stick it out from FCP 1.2 to now just to switch to avid when things are getting so good for FCP. If you ask me Avid has splintered their own market, made unclear upgrade paths and has really played catch up to FCP in many ways. It also costs 2-3 times more to put together a high end Avid system than FCP. And just when you get that Avid system all together god forbid you need to upgrade. It will cost you dearly. I’m much more of a fan of Apple’s more open approach than avid’s proprietary system. Plus I just plain like FCP better. I can’t imagine going back.

[Misha Aranyshev]

Feature-wise it is FCP vs. MC Adrenaline, not Xpress Pro. What I wonder is why ” ditching”? If you feel cutting in Avid would get you more jobs which might be the case just buy Mac version. Composer was a Mac-only product before 1996 and half of Avid products are dual-platform.