4 year old iMac- just getting into editing-stick with FCPExpress?

E

eco_bach

Well-known member
Hi
I'm an experienced stills shooter and just getting into editing.
I also have a 4 year old iMac.

If I'm serious about editing will FC Express suffice for most non broadcast work?

If I use MPEG StreamClip to transcode to ProRes, will Express work with the transcoded files?

Is the interface close enough to the Pro version so that I won't have to 'unlearn' anything if I decide to make the jump a year or 2 from now?
 
The short answer is, "Maybe."

Things you should know about FCE:

- It does not support ProRes. It has presets for DV/DVCPRO, HDV, and Apple Intermediate Codec. (It also will not work with DVCPRO 50, 100, or HD.)
- It does not support 24p (23.976) editing. Only 29.97 at 60i and 30p (25fps at 50i or 25p for PAL.)
- It does not support non-drop material.
- You cannot export audio (via OMF... or via export to SoundTrack Pro which you won't have with FCE anyway) for post-production in another program.

So it really depends on your source material and what you want to do with it. The interface is nearly identical to FCP, minus a few menu options.

FCE is pretty limited, and AIC is not the greatest codec for editing HD material. Once ProRes came out, AIC was rendered (pun intended) pretty much obsolete. But, it can work.
 
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