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The point is this software is all pretty much the same. It can cut and splice and overwrite. It can do comps, it can transcribe audio. It is the motor memory that really makes you faster on one or the other. You wanted features…I gave you features…I talked about cost, I talked about shared projects, I talked about vfx handling g, I talked about rendering, I talked about reliability…what else do you want?
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There is no such thing as “better”. All programs have their pros and cons, which includes price.
If we want to look at Oscar nominations, than it is only fair to point out that most of the Blackmagic nominations were for grading not editing. Avid is still by far Hollywood’s choice as an edit platform.
Does that make it a “better” editor? No it does not. A lot of the idea of “better” comes from experience, and familiarity with the software you use.
I have been on Avid since 1995. I love it. Yes it is pricey, but its media management is second to none. Its interface might not be as fancy as some others, but that means nothing to me. There is nothing I can’t do in Avid, that can be done in Premiere or Resolve, but it may take a bit of extra work to get there for some things. Again, the same statement can be said for the other programs in discussion. They all handle editing, one way or another in the same basic context.
I have been using Resolve for colour correction since around 2010 or 2011?..whenever it first came out as a $1000.00 software rather than $250000.00. It is fantastic at that job. I bought Fusion when Eyeon still owned it, so I’m very comfortable in that program for effects.
As for editing, i have cut a couple of corporates on Resolve, but i use Avid for series and features. The reason i would jump to Resolve for a piece would be because of a need for some multilayer graphic/edit/multibox items. Resolve is very fast at this. Avid can do it, but there is usually a lot of rendering, and the manipulation of dve boxes is not nearly as smooth in Avid as it is in Resolve. For long form editing, i do not like Resolve’s interface. It is just not designed to be highly adaptable. Avid and Premiere both allow the user to setup the interface the way they want, putting panels pretty much anywhere you want.
Premiere…while i am not an expert in Premiere, I have recently cut on two seasons of a series, where we were forced into Premiere. I did not like the experience. I found the program buggy. I would be cutting along, and all of the sudden, something would stop working, and I would have to relaunch the progam. This would happen several times a day. We were working in a Production environment, which is Premiere’s way of mimicking Avid’s shared project environment. It is clunky, and no where near as nice as Avid’s way of allowing multiple editors to work on multiple, or the same project using the same footage at the same time. That is one area where Avid shines. I personally will not work on Premiere anymore. I have already promised myself to turn down season 3 of the aforementioned show if it should be offered to me. That is how much i enjoyed my Premiere experience.
In the end, I cut on Avid, I colour in Resolve, and I finish back in Avid. If i need to jump to Resolve, or stand alone Fusion for some fancy effects during the edit then i do so. I don’t lose sleep over using what ever tool gets a particular aspect of the job done correctly, and then bringing those elements back into Avid to complete the edit.
If you can afford an Avid license, I think it is well worth learning the program, and as Mads pointed out, if you can afford a Premiere license, than you can probably afford an Avid license. The costs are actually pretty close, although most people assume Avid is much more expensive, but Adobe has a bad habit of sucking you in with a cheap introductory price, and then blackmailing you with a 2x price increase when it is time to renew.
Obviously Resolve is the least expensive way to go, but I am not a huge fan of it as an editor.
In the end, if you want to run a business, spending money is part of the game. Hopefully you can get it back with some paid jobs, and hopefully you will get to the point in your career where the idea of 5 or 6 hundred dollars a year for software is not that bad of a business cost.
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Check out the shure mv6 gaming microphone. i recently bought this one from amazon. I’ve gone through a few mics over the years, and this is by far the cleanest sounding one i’ve had without breaking the bank.
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For a newbee to resolve, I would suggest an old school oval shape on the person, that tracks with the person. Circular power window, track them, then either brighten the node with the circle, or invert it and darken everything else. I would suggest you could freeze the shot, highlight the person, so everyone knows who to look at, then go back to normal for the play. Doing an actual outline would not be that difficult in fusion, using a magic mask, but if you are just learning resolve, Fusion may be a bit too intimidating at this point, as you would be looking at a few different nodes, and mask adjustments.
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Resolve doesn’t float many (if any) of their windows. The UI is pretty locked down.
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if you want to mask something on v2 to make it keyable over V1, you need to add an alpha output to the V2 node tree. (right click on the open space around the right hand part of the node tree and add alpha output) Then make your mask and drag the blue output from that mask to the alpha output plug. This will give you a keyable layer on V2
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call up the gradient window tool, and set the softness to zero, or do a box, and place the box on screen so it covers either the top or bottom half of the screen…invert if necessary.
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It’s an interesting idea. I’m curious as to how you made your edl. Did you painstainkingly go though each clip and type up the inpoint and outpoint, and create all the other columns manually?
Where did you get your outpoints from? Unless your transcription does a timecode for each word, you would have to figure out the outpoint manually wouldn’t you?
It sounds like it would be much easier and quicker to import the clip, let avid transcribe it, and then do a transcription based edit. That’s how i do it, and i believe is essentially how simonsays used to work. Most of these 3rd party companies have lost their usefullness with Avid, Premiere and Resolve all doing their own version of assisted editing.
Perhaps your edl would work by using a more detailed relink procedure, using the “different source” options.
Again, interesting idea, but i’m not sure how it would be implemented in a reasonable fashion.
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sounds like a graphics card issue. What are your system specs?
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I’ve been on Avid since 1995, and have had many practicum students come through my facilities.
My number one rule to all of them is “learn how to map your keyboard” and “store your keyboard mapping in the cloud, so it is easy to transfer around.”
My most frequently used buttons are F8 (add edit), F7 (match frame) and F6 (Find bin). These 3 get used constantly. My “magic” button is the esc button, which I have mapped to the Overwrite command. My rational has always been, it is arguably the easiest button to find on the keyboard, and can be pressed without ever looking down at the keyboard, so you can perform an edit without taking your eyes off the screen. I’ve had that mapped for at least 20 years, and will never go back.
Other than that, i have 3 stream decks wired up with pretty much every function i could ever need on them. My stream decks travel with me, and i’m lost without them.