AVID or FCP?!

A

adambrochu

Member
Note to Admins:

I'm not trying to spam post, I want to have post on both AVID and FCP forum to get insights from both FCP and AVID users to get a objectional and hopefully unbiased opinon. Thank you for your understanding!

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hey guys, I've been fretting over this like crazy.

I'm currently a college media student. Everyone is being trained on a Final Cut Pro systems, so i'm feeling that with all the new generation being familiar and comfortable with FCP, it just might replace Avid in the future.

However, AVID is the industry work horse system, it's defintely extremely built and suited for broadcast industry, and probably all networks most professional companies have invested in AVID systems though I could be wrong.

So what the heck to do?!?!?!

Solutions?

Learn/Master both - might be a pain in the butt, but obviously main editing concepts etc is the same, just different interface

Workflow wise which is better?
I'm probably going to be a freelance, guriella media dude - but of course I might end up working for a production or network company, who knows?!



I need to decide because I've saved up finally enough to get either a FCP suite or a Avid Xpress Pro suite, then also goes into question platform is better, MAC or PC? but MAC can do PC, and they also have AVID for MAC.. and since MAC can do FCP, is MAC the best?...

Anyhow, please share your arguments/reasons/insights
Thanks you again for your time!
 
At this point, indie folks are going FCP and you will probably be most in synch with everyone else by going with FCP. If you wanna work as an editor at a broadcaster, start learning Avid. Avid has a number of superior features over FCP, but FCP has advantages over Avid Xpress or Media Composer (software only version) in handling uncompressed HD, and FCP is cheaper! Hard to argue with that. I do think Avid will regain some of the ground it's lost but I guess if you're just starting out I'd lean towards FCP. I think Avid will catch up and surpass FCP in the next year or two. (as an avid Avid user that's what I hope!).
 
From a purely pragmatic point of view I'd sat get FCP (but wait until after NAB to see what new goodies are announced). FCS is cheaper than Xpress Pro, you get other helpful proggies in the bundle, and the big advantages Avids have don't really apply to no/lo budget indie filmmakers.

If you want to follow an editing career path I'd strongly suggest learning both though, but I wouldn't sweat bullets over it being a college student. Once you graduate you'll have plenty of time being a PA and an assistant editor in which to glean the proper way to use FCP and Avid in the "real world."


-A
 
To me you can't really compare Avid and FCP, at least not the high end Avids. High end work is going to be done on Avid, main reason is color. FCP is 8 bit color except for 4:4:4 uncompressed then you can get 10 bit. The high end Avids (if I'm worng here please correct me) can go up to 16 bit color. So where does it matter, well the HVX is 8 bit color, the Varicam is 12 bit color, so if you import Varicam footage into FCP you lose color information. However if you want an affordable platform to learn on I'd second what was in the other thread, Adobe's new CS3 suite. If you're a student I think it's a 1000.00 for the master collection which includes everything. Premiere is 10 bit color and After Effects is 32bit color. The tools in after effects are probably somethng every editor should know. Secondly it will give you photoshop(still image manipulation), illustrator (graphic Art), dreamweaver(HTML editor) and Flash (internet animator) just to name a few. As a learning tool don't see how you could beat that. Oh and now it comes with On Location (DV Rack), the best tool a shooter has ever had.
 
I have both and like both for different reasons. Mostly when I get a project I look at what the project will need and which editor will suit it best. Example: Anytime I'm working with 1080 footage shot with 24pA from the HVX I go Final Cut because I don't like the way Avid handles that's footage. 720 24PN footage goes to Avid because they handle it well. I'm to the point where I'm proficent enough with both systems that I just pick the one to do the best job.

But I second the suggestion of not worrying about it until NAB. I have a sneaking suspicion that FCP is going to make some serious strides in closing the gap between FCP and Avid. The problem there is that I haven't heard any rumblings about what Avid is presenting at NAB. One amazing year from FCP and one lackluster year for Avid at NAB would be a serious nail in the Avid coffin. For what it's worth I hope Avid keeps up with Apple's strides.
 
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