The AGE-OLD avid vs finalcut debate

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
so where are we on this now? avid or finalcut? my cousin is an apprentice editor for SkyTV new zealand, and she's thinking of setting up her own rig. so wise appleinsiders, i humbly beseech you to bestow thou insights upon me: avid or final cut? yes, HD and SD to be considered.



bonus points to you that says BOTH (macintel dual booty action )

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 19
    I was under the assumption that Avid was on the way out. They are the SGI of video editing.
  • Reply 2 of 19
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Both platforms are good. People that tend to go with the Avid systems do so because in their local videographer community there is a preponderance of Avid users and they want to make sure their skillset with Avid is up to par.



    In many pockets you'll find large groups of FCP users and thus it may be more beneficial to utilize FCP. FCP overall will likely do more for the money especially if you're looking at the Final Cut Studio.



    As a newbie looking to get into video editing I'm going with FCP..but then I'm an Apple guy too.
  • Reply 3 of 19
    andersanders Posts: 6,523member
    Both.



    dingdingding.



    But please know I am only in the game for the points...
  • Reply 4 of 19
    cool.... thanks for the input so far. got an email from my cousin, she plans to start out in SD then move on up to HD as costs come down.



    yeah, a dualcore 2.3ghz powemac g5 rig (7800GT of course), 2gb RAM, 250gb or 500gb sata 7200rpm... will be sweet with twin 20" cinema displays. (man these crazy artists spending all their money on computers and shite!!! )



    she can run Avid express pro 4.6.x SD for Mac

    and then also

    FinalCutPro5 HD/ FinalCutStudio with DVDStudioPro and stuff... Motion!



    so for personal projects and getting some editing "street cred" avid and fcp skills will both be handy.



    no need to dual boot mac/pc, mac is fine. i reckon avid express 5 pro for mac should come out by middle of next year, anyway there's FinalCutPro5 or even FinalCutExpressHD for all tha HD stuff.



    yeah, i think the installed base of Avid and the videography community associated with that is not something one can dismiss that easily, if one wants to keep options open.... hmmm... intriguing.



    anders, and all, thanks for playing



    other contributions still welcome at this stage.



    i did the math though, looking at 10,000 NewZealand dollars. and no, that's not the equivalent of 10,000 sheep for a powermac g5

    1 NZD = 0.69 USD it seems....
  • Reply 5 of 19
    Quote:

    I was under the assumption that Avid was on the way out. They are the SGI of video editing.



    They've actually been doing better than ever.



    Quote:

    my cousin is an apprentice editor for SkyTV new zealand,



    I don't know about New Zealand, but here in NY it seems like there are an awful lot more jobs for Avid editors, though I'm sure knowing both would be good. I also think it is a lot easier to bring a project that's been edited on an Avid into a post house if necessary for outputs and such.
  • Reply 6 of 19
    a_greera_greer Posts: 4,594member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by sunilraman

    so where are we on this now? avid or finalcut? my cousin is an apprentice editor for SkyTV new zealand, and she's thinking of setting up her own rig. so wise appleinsiders, i humbly beseech you to bestow thou insights upon me: avid or final cut? yes, HD and SD to be considered.



    bonus points to you that says BOTH (macintel dual booty action )




    It would probably be best to use the same stuff she uses at work if possible...it lessens possible confusion
  • Reply 7 of 19
    hmmm....... the NZD 10,000 price tag is a bit of sticker shock. but she seems to be handling it well, for now we might browse around to get a NZD 3,000+ or whatever hopefully 3CCD SD DV cam
  • Reply 8 of 19
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by sunilraman



    bonus points to you that says BOTH (macintel dual booty action )




    Um, Avid works on normal PPC OS X.
  • Reply 9 of 19
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Placebo

    Um, Avid works on normal PPC OS X.



    yes oh great Placebo, see one of my later posts above, i found this out already. ppc Os X avid is only SD though, no HD support (yet).
  • Reply 10 of 19
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    I thought they had announced HD and CoreImage support in their next release.
  • Reply 11 of 19
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Placebo

    I thought they had announced HD and CoreImage support in their next release.





    sorry if i sounded nasty.... hmm... okay i read about HD support promised in the next release, i did not read about coreimage but that would make sense. no specific target dates have been announced though for the next release of avid express pro for mac ppc, afaik.
  • Reply 12 of 19
    celcocelco Posts: 211member
    sunn dude asking this question is like asking about an apple PDA or the iPhone... kina redundant... I for one FCP all the way Avid kinda didn't seen cost friendly back in the day when I switched to FCP... ANYWAY APPLE HAVE SHAKE!!! AND SOOO DO I !!!! I GO ALL GOOEY AFTER PLAYING AROUNG ON THAT APP... Now if I could only get a flame suite.....
  • Reply 13 of 19
    Hey guya I have a question I've been using FCP for a long time at home. At work I've been using a PC with Vegas 6(AMD 3400, 512 RAM, 200gig HD) It just seems that Vegas it a lot faster ut gives realtime previews on all effects even when you have a bunch stacked up. Now I've mostly use FCP on my 12" Powerbook 1.33 mhz and 768 RAM. I just received my DC G5 and haven't had time to play with it. Why is Vegas so fast? Also I did do a basic slideshow in FCP on the G5 and why do I have to render some jpegs and not others. The jpegs came from the same CD. Granted it renders fast but in Vegas you can put any type on picture or video with mixied formats without needing to render.

    Don't get me wrong I would not use a PC for any of my personal projects. I just FCP could handle mixed formats in the timeline without needing to render.



    About the JPEG's in the a way i'm supposed to process them for use in FCP?
  • Reply 14 of 19
    when you use your dualcore g5 everything should be realtime. what graphics card in your dualcore g5? get a 7800gt

    sorry to hear but i think your powerbook 12" is underpowered for realtime stuff on finalcut, by the sounds of it.



    also do you have the *latest* finalcut and mac os 10.4.3? because that, alongside a 7800gt will make sure almost all your basic stuff should be realtime rendered via gpu (coreimage)
  • Reply 15 of 19
    Quote:

    Granted it renders fast but in Vegas you can put any type on picture or video with mixied formats without needing to render.

    Don't get me wrong I would not use a PC for any of my personal projects. I just FCP could handle mixed formats in the timeline without needing to render.





    Kris, you've just highlighted one of the remaining complaints that FCP users have. Using different formats in the timeline. Apple's certainly listening and I think they'll have a fix for that in April and NAB 2006 because it's pretty silly not to have this feature.
  • Reply 16 of 19
    Thanks for your response it is pretty silly for FCP to not be able to mix formats without rendering. By the way I have the 6600 with 256vRAM.



    How would the 7800 help in FCP? I know it would do wonders in Motion but I don't think FCP takes advantage of the GPU. Correct me if I'm wrong.
  • Reply 17 of 19
    hmmm... the RT Extreme engine should benefit from a faster GPU but i haven't seen benchmarks or anything to be certain, to be honest. if someone else might shed some light on this, as to how important core image is in final cut pro 5, that would be useful.
  • Reply 18 of 19
    500GB 7200rpm is not adequate for serious HD editing. if it's simple news pieces we're talking about then that might me fine, but if you want uncompressed HD in realtime with effects, you need RAID and a fibre card and GPU hardware acceleration (not core image stuff) . Believe it or not, Adobe premiere on the PC side has a nice solution with Matrox. Basically, if she's getting and HDV camera (thus, not real HD), final cut is fine and consumer level hard drives are fine. If she's really pro (in which case she wouldnt be asking other people for advice on editing systems) then a much more powerful solution is needed and you're not going to find all of it at apple.com.
  • Reply 19 of 19
    thanks dude.... oh yeah, which part of "apprentice editor" did you miss i agree anyway with all of what you said. we're talking HDV or DVPROHDsomethingorother (the 100mbps one) if she does get into HD.... think different, think indie. premiere? f*** me, who uses that anymore
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