Best computer/software for editing?

A

Abinc

Well-known member
Ok, so I know people will have different opinions on this, but I recently got my DVX100B, and need to hear from people who know.
So I currently have a laptop with Vista loaded on it (but I'm thinking of downgrading and buying XP because I hear Vista is terrible for editing...which is sad).
Anyways, I've talked to several people and they ALL tell me to save up for a Mac because Mac's are supposed to be the best type of computer for editing (is this true?), and I've literally heard this from everyone I've talked to.
So here's what I'm trying to decide: Should I downgrade to XP and buy Vegas Pro 8 for editing with my laptop? OR, should I work my butt off and save up for a nice Mac desktop and Final Cut Pro? (which will take a while as it's terribly expensive, but it looks amazing)
How does Final Cut compare to Vegas? I know there's a huge price difference, but can you expect to get a better finished product out of Final Cut than Vegas? How does CC compare? And will using a Mac computer be better off in the long run?
Sorry if I asked too many questions, but I wasn't able to find much after searching the boards.
Thanks!
 
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A high end Mac Pro with FCP Studio will blow the balls off of any windows editing system. Why? Sheer power. The ability to take 16+GB of ram and the use of quad core CPUs obviously makes it.... well sexy is an understatement. Having said that, I personally hate almost all Mac products, except the iPod, iPhone, iTunes and Quicktime. What I run is dell that is a few years old, but with new HDD, RAM, CPU and other stuff. How much did I spend? so far, I have spent about 350 bucks on it, and it works GREAT with Adobe CS3 Master Collection. Heres the specs:

Intel P4HT 3.4GHz
2GBDDR RAM 400MHZ
EVGA nVidia GeForce 7300 GT 512MB
3x80GB HDDs (1 for OS and programs and like two games, 2 for media files)
WinXP Pro with SP2

Now, this is the only catch: Its NOT hooked up to the interweb OR a network, so I really only ever have to have a few background processes running. here is what it is like when I am doing work in AE:

Processes running:
AE
Explorer
Soundboot or Audition
Photoshop
iTunes (I CAN NOT work without music haha)

and that usually only takes up maybe a quarter of my CPU/RAM.

I am adding a 5.1 system and 20 inch WS LCD monter to that setup soon.

Good luck!
 
You don't need a Mac Pro to edit DV footage. You don't need a Mac for that matter, but if you choose to get a Mac (my recommendation), I'd go with the relatively inexpensive iMac 20", max out the RAM (third party) and get some external drives, FCS 2, and you're good to go.

I edited my feature film on a Mac MINI with FCS and recently sold it to worldwide distribution. Ultimately, it's not the equipment that makes the true difference, and no one watching your movie will be able to tell if you cut on Vegas, FCP, or iMovie.
 
Beeble is right, you can cut on just about anything.

But the question was "what's the best…?" I cut a bunch of stuff on a MacBook Pro, then upgraded to a fully loaded Mac Pro. If money is no object, a Mac Pro is the way to go. But I love the laptop/Final Cut solution as a mobile editing setup.

Let's meet somewhere in the middle on this… Get the most computer you can afford, but understand that likely at this point in your development, the machine is not going to be a limiting factor.

--SM
 
Thoese two make a good point, you dont need the best computer for editing, any good editor can make great cuts with just a simple iMac or a general use PC. However, it usually makes editing go faster to have a better machine, since it allows for faster render times and all that good stuff.
 
I personally use a MacPro 2.6 (quad) with 3gb of ram (soon to be 7!) and using FCS 1 it flies. While I am very proficient on Windows (had a PC up until a couple of years ago), the notion that Macs are much easier to use is an understatement. When you factor all the tweaking you need to do to get a Windows editing station working very nicely (including Dory's post about not hooking it up to the web), you'll save a lot of headache going with a Mac.

As has been stated before, you don't need a full-fledged MacPro either. You can very easily use an iMac. The only real difference between the MP and the iMac is the dual, dual processors. iMac's use Intel's Dual core chips, and the MacPro's use the same chips, they're just designed to be used in multi-processor configurations. That and the extra internal space for future upgrades. But with the super-fast FireWire 800 drives now, you can just as easily use several external drives with the iMac....

Just some food for thought.
 
This is the straight skinny, because there IS a definitive answer.

For use with the DVX100 (A, B, whatever), nothing is better-integrated than Vegas, nothing more elegant, simple, solid, or more bang for the buck, and by "nothing," I mean "nothing." I make that statement unequivocally.

I do not say that about Vegas and all cameras. But for the DVX (and the XL2), I do.

Nor do I say that Vegas is the best application for absolutely anything you might want to do. But for use with the DVX, I do.

Now, there may be a lot of other factors having nothing to do with the DVX that you might take into account, and perhaps you should. But for the simple question of what's best with the DVX? Vegas.
 
seeing that I have never really used vegas(only a demo like 3 years ago) I can say I was a Avid express pro user for about 2 and a half years until going mac (macPro quad 2.66) and FCP Studio(now I have 2) and have never looked back, I love the work flow of the mac vs. pc, and when it comes to Color, personally that is enough to buy a mac right there, though you do need some power to run it, It is one, no... the best sub 15k program for any one to use right now for color grading. Read any reviews, FCP studio is considered the "Beast" compared to everything else. I have work on some machines with PPro, its nice but nothing compared to FCP. even with my old power boog g4 1.4ghz machine with 2 gigs of ram FCP is decent on it, i wouldnt run Color or Motion in it, and there is no comparison to my macPro, but you can still cut. Also rumor is that at macworld a whole new like of macpro's are coming out including a 16 core machine dropping the price for all others below it! so the 2.66 might be the bottom of the barrel soon! lol.... Exciting!


Jon
 
K-Dikian said:
iMac's use Intel's Dual core chips, and the MacPro's use the same chips, they're just designed to be used in multi-processor configurations.
Click to expand...

Just a minor correction. The iMacs use the Core 2 Duo and come only in a dual processor configuration. The Mac Pro uses Xeons, which are a much faster chipset, and come in quad and 8 core configurations.
 
David Jimerson...can you tell me more about why you think Vegas works so well with the DVX? I know that FCP has a plugin that deals with the 24p sync issue n the 100p. Does Vegas have anything like that? Premiere? You seem very sold on Vegas, I'd be interested to know why you prefer it in combo with the DVX over FCP, Avid, Premiere, etc.
I don't have my DVX yet (just ordered) but I have been editing on Premiere for years (and have worked with Vegas in the past). I have Avid Liquid but haven't used it yet.
Please elaborate. As a moderator I take your opinion seriously, but I'd like to know more.
Thanks
MinSin
 
I'll also put in a vote for Vegas, I only use version 5.0b on a humble 2ghz Athlon with 1gb ram. It's the only video editing program I've ever used on my system that never crashes (and I mean never).

It integrates seamlessly with soundforge, a dedicated audio program, which is a huge bonus. I run preview out to a TV through the camcorder.

A bit of a cheapo setup but no problems. More processing power would be better, but we always want more ....

Having said that, the new Macs look really cool!
 
I'm in the position where I am constantly moving back and forth between the Mac and PC editing worlds, and having used both FCP and Premiere on a regular basis, I greatly prefer Premiere.

I have been a life time lover of Macs and all things Apple (except the iPod oddly enough) but I find FCP to be something not entirely worthy of the Apple name. Compared to Adobe Premiere, it is not as user friendly. Don't get me wrong, FCP has the power, but I feel that Premiere lets me flow more in my editing. It doesn't hide a lot in menus the way FCP does and just gets things moving for me.

A huge plus for Premiere in my opinion is its intigration with other Adobe apps. If I am editing and need to do some quick After Effects work or polish some things in Photoshop, I can just move export my work into that other program and import it back into Premiere without having to render anything until I am finished editing the project.

That's just my two cents. I have met people that use both and prefer FCP so it all comes down to preference I guess.
 
ministersin said:
David Jimerson...can you tell me more about why you think Vegas works so well with the DVX? I know that FCP has a plugin that deals with the 24p sync issue n the 100p. Does Vegas have anything like that? Premiere? You seem very sold on Vegas, I'd be interested to know why you prefer it in combo with the DVX over FCP, Avid, Premiere, etc.
I don't have my DVX yet (just ordered) but I have been editing on Premiere for years (and have worked with Vegas in the past). I have Avid Liquid but haven't used it yet.
Please elaborate. As a moderator I take your opinion seriously, but I'd like to know more.
Thanks
MinSin
Click to expand...

Editing 24p -- either version of the pulldown -- is as simple as it gets; you don't have to worry about any special settings, or which version of the pulldown you used, or anything at all* -- you just capture, drop, and edit. No "Easy Setups," no worries. It's 100% seamless -- and the footage you capture is still useful in any other editing app, whether it supports 24p or not. And you can still edit native 24p even if you captured your footage with a different application, even if that app doesn't support 24p.

Completely open timeline; mixing the 24p and other types of footage requires no rendering or conforming of either type of footage of any kind, whatever the timeline settings.

High-quality coversion of other frame rates to 24p, with the ability to insert either type of pulldown, or to use either field blending or field interpolation as your deinterlace method.

Full range of 24p export settings, either pulldown, either deinterlace method if you're mixing frame rates.

And of course, as others have said, it runs well on pretty much any hardware and almost never crashes; I don't think I ever had a crash when editing DV.

Plus, it does all this for much less money than anything else.

I've used all of them. I have all of them. Vegas does it best. That's why I use it. :)

But so that I'm not taken out of context, as happens quite a bit, I'll reiterate:

David Jimerson said:
I do not say that about Vegas and all cameras. But for the DVX (and the XL2), I do.

Nor do I say that Vegas is the best application for absolutely anything you might want to do. But for use with the DVX, I do.

Now, there may be a lot of other factors having nothing to do with the DVX that you might take into account, and perhaps you should. But for the simple question of what's best with the DVX? Vegas.
Click to expand...




*To edit 24p natively, you must choose a 24p timeline, of course, but it's completely irrelevant to capture (there are no capture settings) and you can switch timeline settings on the fly at any time, so you don't have to worry about "messing it up" or having the "wrong" settings.
 
All right, well I dont want to get into this really, but I think FCP is still the cheapest route, Now every one looks at me weird but what you get with studio 2 in my opinon blows all the competition away, Final Cut, Motion, Compressor, Cinema Tools, Dvd studio Pro, Live Type, Soundtrack Pro, and COLOR! When it comes to being able to drop any kind of file in the time line, V.6 does that without breathing. And when it come to exporting, FCP has the most options out of any NLE system not to mention Prores422, RedCode, XDCAM, Ect... Also MCAN, if you think FCP hides a lot of things, dont use Avid lol.\

Jon
 
dory_breaux said:
Avid is..... powerful but...... gay.
Click to expand...


Kind of like these guy's

siegfried_roy_tiger_1_r.jpg
 
I would say if you are starting from scratch, go with a mac setup. I only say this because it will make you MUCH more marketable, since FCP studio skills are much more desired out there in the freelance world than any other program right now.

I edit on a dell precision workstation running adobe production studio, so this isn't some biased remark. I love what I can do with adobe, and vegas is certainly underrated, but they don't have the same market intergration that mac does.
 
I use a Mac with Final Cut Studio, so obviously I'm going to tell you to get one because it works and you can ask a lot of people and they'll say the same thing.

Avid will set you back big time, Final Cut is the way to go with a person with a limited budget.
 
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