FCE, Edius Neo2

L

LoneWolf

Member
Hi folks,

Picked up a copy of Edius Neo2 included with my HMC150, so far, not really loving it :) it strikes me as a very powerful editor, but one that is not very user friendly. Must confess that my video postprocessing skills range from entry level to nonexistent. The documentation is comprehensive but looks to be written more from a technical manual/command reference point of view, rather than a 'howto'.

On the other hand, even for a novice, FCE looks pretty intuitive. I have seen the interface, the tutorials are good, and it's pretty powerful. Lots of similarities to what I already know and like from iMovie 08 and 09. No sorry, I don't have the $ for FCP. :( The price difference where I am is something in the order of 6 times!

I am not too worried about the underlying hardware as I have both Macs and PC's of similar capabilities. Edius also seems to need lots of rendering work to playback in real time, so I figured, why not use FCE instead, transcode it and start working smoothly. I am currently using iMovie, Pinnacle 12, both have similar differences in their workflow. Pinnacle is a realtime editor, iMovie transcodes. I find myself willing to put up with iMovie's transcode.

Already I am starting to need more powerful features than what iMovie offers. For example, the ability to see my audio as two separate tracks, to be able to copy contents of one track to another, pan stereo, and mix audio amongst them.

So I am wondering whether I should purchase FCE, or try to learn Edius, painful though it has already been. Which one is more commonly used and accepted as a de-facto standard?

Also, does anybody have any rumors as to when FCE 5 is coming out? I don't feel like paying for the same software twice (FCE4 plus upgrade to 5).. FCE4's pretty old..
 
I started with FCE3 and bought FCP simply because I "needed" some of the other things in the FCP suite (Compressor, Motion, Soundtrack Pro and DVD Studio Pro) and at the time wanted to be able to import and edit HDV natively rather than using AIC and be able to mix formats in one timeline.

Since then, FCE has added extra capabilities that means it's going to do almost as much as FCP for most people. FCE is an excellent program, and unless you know you need the extra features in FCP I would recommend FCE without question. In terms of standards, FCE has an upgrade path to FCP if yo ever wanted to, which is "one" of the industry standards (there is no single standard). Learning FCE means you would be able to sit down and use FCP without much (or any) change in your workflow.
 
Not heard any rumors about a new release of FCE.

Note, that I don't believe it supports anything 24p.

May be wrong on that.
 
LoneWolf said:
Hi folks,

Edius also seems to need lots of rendering work to playback in real time,
Click to expand...


Whaaaat??? Edius will not play back native AVCHD well, but there is a free AVCHD2HQ converter that makes it like butter. I have Edius, FCP, Media Composer, & PPro. PPRO is the only one that plays AVCHD and that depends on how it is made.

As stated before the new Booster pack for Neo gives it the ability to play multiple streams in realtime and that is full frame full resolution. That is supposed to be included in the next upgrade of Edius.

Edius blows everything else I have out of the water for realtime playback on everything besides AVCHD. Not even close. It is a well kept secret that is slowly making its way out of the closet. If you need help with the editing go to the GV forum website and you will get all of the help you need. Probably the most hlepful website I have been involved with in the last several years.

AFA industry standards, the present would still be Avid and FCP. There are various reasons for that but standards are changing.
 
pjsssss said:
I have Edius, FCP, Media Composer, & PPro. PPRO is the only one that plays AVCHD and that depends on how it is made.
Click to expand...


Glad you like Edius for this capability, but RT playback of different formats is just one factor in the editing experience.
 
Thanks for the inputs. RT editing is not the only thing that matters to me true, and I find that Edius is not very RT anyway on my hardware (just a mere dual core 2.33, 4GB RAM), but since FCE 5 is a while off, I'll learn Edius in the meantime :)

My choice is a little bit simpler because yesterday I learned that a team that I need to interwork with uses FCP. As I learned from many years in the computing business, sometimes it's what your guys use and not so much technical merit alone that ends up dictating what you use. But I don't mind learning something different too. I've decided to start with Edius as recommended, then I will move across to FCE5 when it is ready.

I've heard that FCE4 doesn't support 24P, but then again, my gear can't shoot 24P either (PAL HMC152, 25fps, 50fps or bust)
 
Got this in a GV newsletter. Edius used to edit a independent feature film!

Adapted from the 1998 cult novel by Kevin Sampson, independent feature film Awaydays went on general release throughout cinemas in the UK this summer and is now available on DVD.

The film, made by Liverpool-based production company Red Union Films, was edited entirely on EDIUS.

"No other NLE could give us the same flexibility using VariCam and other acquisition formats such as 16mm and Phantom", said Producer David Harry. "Being long term users of EDIUS we were confident of its speed and ability to adapt to many different workflows, some of which were quite unique for this project, particularly when it came to colour grading". Red Union will again be using EDIUS for their next feature Powder, which has just gone into production.

For more information about how Red Union Films used EDIUS to cut Awaydays, click on the link below.

Awaydays

It's just a tool to get a job done.
 
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