Can't afford Final cut whats the best editing program for pc

David Shapton said:
Well, Lightworks has been through a chain of owners, including Fairlight and Tektronix, Gee Broadcast and now Editshare, who acquired Gee Broadcast in 2009. So, yes, there's Heavyworks in the genes, but it's no longer the same company. Editshare's main business is shared storage and end-to-end workflow solutions, but Lightworks is becoming an increasingly important part of the plan. It's been worked on continuously since Editshare took it over, attracting developers from Quantel and Avid, as well as the original ones.

It's now thoroughly modern, with a multi-core media engine, very wide codec support, and will soon be available in 64 bit form across Windows, Linux and OS X.

Over 250,000 people have downloaded the Beta version - with 500 new downloads every day.
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Very interesting David. I'll have to check it out. Thanks for the info.
 
Personally, even though I'm heavily invested in Production Studio 5.5 (mostly because I'm a big After Effects user and love the Premiere/AE integration), I still keep Sony Vegas for quick projects that don't require the more complex workflow.
I've found that Vegas can often get the job done faster and more efficiently, and I keep coming back to it when I'm able to pick between the two installed on my workstation.

I thought I was alone in feeling this way, until I found a story circulating around the internet a couple of years ago when the Pope died. Some network TV station (I don't recall the details) had minutes to change their scheduled content and quickly throw together an appropriate montage. They ended up cutting it in Vegas Pro, and broadcasting live off the SDI port of the workstation. After praising Vegas for saving the day, and gloating about its efficiency and workflow on the studio's production blog, the guy was fired and the post removed. Supposedly something about the network being an investor in Avid, and enforcing a strictly Avid workflow.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, just because it isn't as popular as FCP or Premiere doesn't mean it isn't as good. That being said, this lightworks product seems pretty interesting as well. I've never tried it so I can't say one way or the other, but would love to hear the opinion of someone who has. David, no offense, but you sort of represent the company so... ;)
 
I will reflect M. Gilden's opinion - for me, there's no software that is as intuitive, efficient and fast as Vegas Pro. Everything just feels better. The Pope anecdote is very interesting, and something I relate with. On many an ocassion I have had to "secretly" work on Vegas to avoid being discriminated against. When it comes down to it, every individual has their own preferences and I believe with no caveats that this opinion must, at all costs, be respected. "How many Hollywood blockbusters are edited with Vegas?" is quite an irrelevant argument. Why should an editor be forced to use Avid or Lightworks if they can do better work on Vegas? Thelma Schoonmaker may feel at home with Lightworks, and that is a significant endorsement, but we are not all Thelma.

Do you have any more information about the Pope / Vegas bit? Would love to read up more about it.
 
@m.Gilden said:

I've never tried it so I can't say one way or the other, but would love to hear the opinion of someone who has. David, no offense, but you sort of represent the company so... ;)
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No offense taken, and, honestly, it takes more than a recommendation from me to make people give up their existing platforms. In fact, all of the NLEs out there are very good. We have respect for all of them. Lightworks is an alternative approach that is less from the "IT" world and more focused on the way that editors think.

Feature-for-feature, it compares very well with the big hitters, and indeed it is one itself if you take the ability to edit Hollywood blockbusters as a measure, but the strength of it, I think, is whatever it is that makes users say this sort of thing:

I want to say I was thoroughly impressed by how much faster I could edit with Lightworks and how much more creative you can be when you don't feel like it will be too much of a pain to try out an idea. With Lightworks I was able to try any crazy ideas that crossed my mind and not have to breakdown my current work area and build a new one just for the idea and then put the original things back up and start working on them again. Waaaaay too much work editing that way now that I've seen how Lightworks works.
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This is a quote taken today from a user on the Lightworks Beta forum.

I guess the point I'm making is that if you take the time to learn how to use Lightworks, it may change the way you think about editing, and since you can try it for nothing...

BTW - if you do look at the Lightworks support forum, there are plenty of negative comments as well - but if you follow the threads, these are almost all either from people who haven't learned/understood the interface, or who are struggling to import/export with the limited codec support in the Beta version. The version to be released on 28th May will have codec support for virtually all common camcorder formats.
 
jcayole: are you talking about the Old Final Cut or the new Final Cut Pro X?
If you talking about the new version then that's $300. I'm not sure about all the software mentioned in this thread, however the ones that do know (Premier Pro, Vegas Pro) are a lot more than that, unless people are talking about the cut down versions, like Premier Elements....

Maybe I just missed something in this thread, apologies if I have.

Satpal
 
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