Fcp vs cs4

S

superhardrocker

Active member
Hi yall, I need some help choosing the right software. I am using snow leopard, with mac pro, 6gb of ram(i can add more if needed) I will be burning my videos to blue ray and also dvd. I've searched for hours, and have this so far. Please correct me if I'm wrong or add.

FCP: (edited)
-Must Transcode your hmc150 footage(takes a long time, but saves time in the editing and output.
-Lose a little quality when you transcode.
-After transcoding the file sizes become humongus, about 7 times the original size (buy lots of hard drives)
-Well known software that many people use and have grown to love(like myself)

CS4: (edited)
-You can start editing right away, no need to transcode. Save tons of hard drive space.
-Glitchy and slow editing
-Ram won't make CS4 run any smoother, you need a super graphics card and super processor (i'm guessing a $10,000 custom mac or a $2,000 custom pc)
-Avchd works well with blue ray
-A respected editing software, but not as prestigious as FCP.
-Great option if you use a PC, not so great if you use mac.


The space thing kind of bothers me. If I'm shooting for a short 1 minute video, my hard drives should be able to handle it. But, if I'm working on big projects, such as a documentary or feature. I'll probably have 20+ hours of footage. Easy to handle if I work natively, but If I have to transcode I would need to go to walmart and steal a case of hard drives. Or I have to work frugally, be selective, delete unused batches, all in all a pain in the buttocks.
 
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The CS4 package is a much better value in my opinion, CS4 works seamlessly with Photoshop and After Effects, both of which you'd probably want to end up using no matter which way you go. And they are included, among other things, in package deals. I haven't used FCP on my home computer, so I can't offer advice on the space thing, but have you tried both to see which one you like more?
 
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I use FCS for editing. It doesn't have AE or PS, but those are essential parts of the editing and compositing process, so I buy those separately.

FCS3 includes a world class color correction app, Compressor which facilitates basic blu ray authoring and encoding, Motion, DVD SP for SD DVDs, SoundTrack and Cinema Tools, etc.

To me editing is more than straight cuts.

AVCHD with CS4.1 on a 8 core Nehalem MacPro with SL in CS 4.1 is not fun.

HDD space is so inexpensive now.

The quicker you get to a 4:2:2 color space or intraframe editing, the better to me. FCS3 now includes a 4:4:4 pro res codec
 
you're not gonna get anything close to acceptable realtime editing avchd raw with cs4.
processing avchd relies on processor speed, not ram.
ironically, i've heard of people having better realtime experiences in 'lesser' NLEs.
also, i always want to do more than just straight cuts, so i think you'll have to resign yourself to transcoding no matter which direction you go.

my main comments are that i've had nothing but headaches and crashes with Adobe Premiere while FCP seems much much more stable.

if you're looking at buying FCS or CS4 then why can't you afford $100 for a 1tb sata2 harddrive??? or are you planning on stealing your NLE too?

get a good fast big hdd to use as a scratch disk. then get another one for temporary archiving.
 
I wish Matrox or whoever would make an ACVHD processing card that would take care of realtime AVCHD editing. They have some sort of encoder card, which seems to be just if you make a lot of Blu-ray discs.
 
If you're using CS4 on Windows, with an nVidia or ATI Stream-enabled graphics card, there's already AVCHD hardware acceleration going on.

Apparently not on the Mac platform, but on Windows it does. The better/more firebreathing your graphics card, the more realtime you get.
 
Appreciate the help guys, from reading all your comments I think I have come to a conclusion.
-Ram won't make CS4 run any smoother, you need a super graphics card and super processor (i'm guessing a $10,000 custom mac or a $2,000 custom pc)
-For mac users FCP will work better.
-For pc users CS4 is a great option.

Me, being a mac user, I'm better off with FCP. So I will suck it up, transcode and use fcp, after I go steal a case of hard drives from walmart.
 
Go with the program your more familiar with. I am an Adobe editor, but even on my not soooo powerful machine I still transcode and I have transcoded and I have also worked with FCP as well. That aspect of it really isn't that bad. The transcoding process is still faster than capturing tapes and like David said hard drives aren't too expensive anymore.
 
If you have a MacPro, transcoding should be fast on FCP, if you're on the Mac side FCP is by far the best NLE... soo you say you have 20+ hours of footage. if you do ProRes you're looking at about 1GB a minute, so 60GB an hour, 1200GB for 20 hours, I seen 1.5TB harddrives for $115. Thats really all you need. So no cases of hard drives from walmart (and please don't buy your drives from there)
 
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