final cut studio vs avid

[Steve Laramie]

I suppose I have a 50% chance geting this topic in the right forum. Just wondering what the differences were. Iv always used fcp and im about to update so im wondering if avid will take over the industry. and if I should invest in it.

 

[CaptainMench]

Actually - for what it's worth, Avid WAS the industry for nearly 15 years.

Then came FCP.

Right now, FCP has 70 percent of the editing jobs. Avid has 10-15... but those 10-15 are big budget houses. FCP cannot compete with a full frontal Unity system.

So there you go.

CaptM

 

[Scott W. Smith]

If you know FCP stick with that. If you're operating as a one-man band or a small shop embrace everything about FCP (Motion, DVD Studio Pro and all). The single best place I've found to learn all the software (unless you have a friend leading the way) is on www.lynda.com. Online tutorials you can learn at two in the morning, while on the road, or stuck in the middle of an edit session wondering how to activate some window or button.

I edited for five years on an AVID before going out on my own. Switched over to FCP because of the cost and haven't looked back. (Well, I did once.) The great thing about FCP is there are a lot of freelance editors everywhere who know FCP and can help you edit in a jam.

 

[Jason Adams]

Avid is the top tier editor for Bottomless pocket houses...But if you are used to FCP the Avid transition will be like hitting a brick wall. Avid makes logical sense if you come from a film cutting background...If FCP is your first language Avid will feel like a foreign country. I am a one man production house and I use and love Avid...BUT Avid (AXP) is a great editor and not much more...I use combustion for composites and Sorenson for encoding and Audition for DVD authoring. If you want a budget...well rounded suit FCS is a good product. FCP also has a huge following of hobbyists and self taught editors, so it seems to have a better community of users to learn from.

Most AVID editors I know are full time editors or industry pros. It does have quit the brotherly learning community. Just my opinion.



Good Luck

 

[milksac]

im wondering if avid will take over the industry. and if I should invest in it.

I find it rather odd how many posts regarding Avid versus FCP invoke the term invest. "I need to pick the right company that has the biggest market share to protect my investment". You're kidding right? Spending a quarter million on a piece of property or a half million in a new business venture is an investment. The paltry $1500 that it costs to buy either FCP or Avid (XPro) is a drop in the bucket - hardly worthy of the term investment.

Just pick one and start cutting. If it doesn't work out for any reason - buy the other one. If you planning on trying to get work as a freelance editor then learn both - you'll double your potential client base. Even with average editorial skills you could pay off the investment in less than a month.

Right now, FCP has 70 percent of the editing jobs. Avid has 10-15...

Do you have a source (link) for this data?

 

[CaptainMench]

Apple uses those numbers. I'll find...

CaptM

 

[Noiz2]

Those numbers seem way out of whack, but? I think the investment he is talking about is a lit more than the $ it takes to buy the disk. It's the hundreds poss thousands of hours it will take to learn and get decent at cutting on a new system. That makes the $ insignificant and IS an investment.

 

[milksac]

Those numbers seem way out of whack...

Of course they're out of whack - they're from a biased source. Numbers posted from Avid would be just as irrelevant.

I think the investment he is talking about is a lit more than the $ it takes to buy the disk. It's the hundreds poss thousands of hours it will take to learn and get decent at cutting on a new system. That makes the $ insignificant and IS an investment.

I get your point, but I fail to see the logic. You're saying if you invest a bunch of time learning a NLE and that company goes belly up, you've lost that investment in time. Fair enough. So what do you do? You predict which company will be thriving 5 years from now? If you can accurately predict that you're better off sinking your money into the stock market. No one can say what will happen 5 years from now - Avid could be bankrupt, Apple could sell off their Pro apps - anything can happen. That being the case what's the value in trying to predict which company will thrive. At the end of the day it's still a guess.

20 some odd years ago CMX was the king of the hill. CMX is long gone but strangely enough the editors that used CMX didn't curl up and die. They learned to adapt and move on to other systems. Like the EMC and the Immix Videocube. When those systems went away the editors still refused to die. Again they adapted and moved on to Avid and later to FCP. My point is an editor should never be confined by his tools. I suppose if you don't learn to adapt then yes you will die or at least your career will die. Transitioning from one NLE to another should not take thousands of hours. Sure it's a bit frustrating because you instinctively try to do things the way you've always done them - especially things like shortcut keys. But with a little patience you can learn a new app and become proficient relatively quickley.