Selecting an editing suite

PerroneFord

PerroneFord

Deals in Lead
For many of the users here, nearly any editing suite will suffice for their needs. Many are happy with consumer level apps like FCE, Vegas Platinum Pro, etc. However, for others, those of us who earn money doing this, we typically need something more robust.

Some years ago, I selected Adobe Premiere Pro as my editor. I purchased it together in a bundle with the Canopus DVStorm2. It was a fine program and served me well for the most part, but it was awfully proprietary as I was to come to learn.

Eventually, I made the jump to Sony Vegas 6. That opened my eyes a lot, but was a real bear to learn. I wasn't very good at editing, and didn't know enough to actually understand what I wanted to do. I've stuck with Vegas through version 9 now. And while Vegas has grown, some of it's underlying roots are becoming terribly limiting. I have decided to jump ship in 2010. I'll probably keep Vegas 9 around for certain capabilities (like REAL DPX support and true RED support) but with the machine I have it on, I feel like I should be getting far better performance.

Over the past few months, I've been talking to folks who cut on Edius, Avid, and FCP. I've seen pros and cons for each system. Avid continued to draw me for a lot of reasons. So this past week, I spent some time with a FCP cutter, and then did the online tutorials at Avid's site. And watched the videos of people cutting on it. And I read. A lot.

One of the things I kept hearing both on this forum and others was how FCP was now dominating the market. How it was taking over in broadcast and especially indie film. And then I'd read stuff from Avid folks. And I'd read up on how all my favorite movies were cut, and my favorite shows. And nearly all of them were done on Avids. Something just didn't jibe.

Tonight I ventured over to the ACE site. I'd been asking for the statistics from folks who claim that FCP is now more prevalent in Hollywood and Burbank than Avid. Well the ACE does a survey each year of professional cutters. And the numbers that came back were interesting to me. You can see them at this link:

www.ace-filmeditors.org/blog

June 21, 2009 has the statistics. The blog post is most enlightening. There was something very interesting though that I noted. The survey asked ACE members what they wanted to say to Avid and Apple. Members put their comments and those were sent to both companies. I'll quote the blog post here:

Both Avid and Apple were sent email messages, with an attached document that had all responses to the above question. Each company was asked to respond in any way they’d like. The caveat was this magazine article had a deadline.

In just over a week, Avid sent two letters by Kirk Arnold, President of Avid’s Video division. The first was a reply to the general themes in the comments. The second was a specific answer / response to each comment from an ACE member.

The response from Avid was impressive by its detail, its breadth, and its timeliness. The ACE Board of Directors was impressed enough to send copies to each ACE member by mail and email. The letters are also posted on the ACE Tech Blog.

The essence of the reply was that Avid is listening to its customers, especially ACE, and is changing its products to meet the needs expressed by the comments they read.

From Apple? After two and a half weeks, the exchange of several emails with a senior products manager and their PR department, Apple had not responded to the ACE comments before this magazine’s deadline. If they do respond, it will be posted on the ACE Tech Blog. If….
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That to me, is very telling.

Thanks for reading, and comments welcome.
 
I can't speak to Hollywood, but there are four news stations in my town (well, five if you consider that one of their parent companies owns a regional 24hr cable news channel). One just switched to FCP. The rest, to the best of my knowledge... including the one I work at... is Avid (on a PC). In fact, almost our entire operation is Avid based, from the editing, to the news writing program (iNews), to the on air playback servers. It's all Avid.
 
And in my town the two stations I deal with (PBS affiliate and the City) are both FCP. The local AP affiliate is Avid. I don't know what they are using at the other stations. Doesn't really matter all that much to me.

I see FCP making huge inroads on smaller shows, and in indie film. But I still see the big shows and big features mostly on Avids. After watching the "render" stuff in FCP this week, I understand more now.
 
Not sure if there is a question here or what, but Apple has always kept to themselves about everything and probably always will (or at least until Jobs is long gone from Apple and everyone who was groomed by Jobs is long gone as well). On the flip side Apple still provides the best bang-for-your-buck by far. I mean, Color used to cost $25k but after Apple bought it they bundled it w/FCP at no extra charge.

The 'old Avid' wouldn't have responded to the e-mail either but since Avid has had FCP dominate the low and middle markets and steadily encroach into the high end as well Avid has turned into a much more customer friendly company.

As for which to choose, that totally depends on your individual needs, budget and comfort levels w/each piece of software.


-Andrew
 
No, there was no question. Just an observation. And I agree, the "old Avid" would not have responded this way. Nor would you be able to buy Media Composer for $2295.

FCP offers good bang for the buck if it fits what you need or want. Avid clearly scales better, and the hardware assist stuff (if you need it) is a clear winner.

Looking at it's software only Avid solution versus my Vegas system makes me wince. Watching the superior MC performance on lesser hardware than I have just irks me. And I just paid for my Vegas upgrade too.
 
I've used $30,000 editing machines - I've used Premiere Pro on a $500 computer. And everything in between. I can't see any editing software being labeled as "best", especially considering the fact that they all do 90% of the same thing.
 
patssle said:
I've used $30,000 editing machines - I've used Premiere Pro on a $500 computer. And everything in between. I can't see any editing software being labeled as "best", especially considering the fact that they all do 90% of the same thing.
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Best is VERY relative.

That 90% of the same thing though... it's that 10% that really bends you over.

Vegas is terrific... as long as I don't need to hand off an EDL or collaborate with Pro-Tools sound people.

FCP is great, as long as I have an Apple and don't have media management needs.

Premiere is great, as long as you don't need real time performance.

Edius is great, as long as you don't need the sophisticated tools that you get with AfterEffects or Boris.

Avid is great, as long as you have deep pockets and time to learn.

I've found absolute show-stoppers in all of them. And some things in certain programs is just really clumsy.
 
Wel I have come full circle.

Been on AVID since 1991. Edited on it and *smoke until I went out on my own.

Been on FCPro for 6 years now and love it. The fact that the FC Suite actually works together is great.

AVID always cobbled together 3rd party tools for everything and it showed.

Final cut also accelerated in the graphics department as well.

AVID definitely has media management down, but at the sacrifice of submitting to it renaming all of your meida files to its proprietary system.

Media management in FInal Cut is not a problem as long as you do your part.

My .02
 
And the local news where I live uses tape based linear editing done in a hurry. I'm not sure if that was one of the options, though.
 
Wow, and I thought when I spoke to the local PBS producer last week and she told me that they are all FCP, except for one linear, that they were just dinosaurs...
 
As to Apple/Final Cut not commenting, I can speak from a manufacturer's POV, if you know your product is good and needs no "defending", why comment?

Not saying they shouldn't have, but if you have a good product that is making you money, there is no need to "sell" it. It does that by itself, along with word of mouth.

So their not commenting should not be judged as anything other than the fact they chose not to comment. And, yes, I run FCS.
 
These aren't people they need to sell to. Pro editors often work by the job and rarely make purchasing decisions. This was from a community of professional USERS. The people who influence your sales.

It's an issue of looking responsive versus looking uncaring. In the end Avid might have read all those comments and said "Stuff it. We're not doing any of that." But by addressing this most professional of audience, they looked responsive and caring.

There's an old saying... Perception IS reality. The NEW Avid has embraced this. The stuff I've seen and read about them sitting down with editors at their place of business to study their workflow, sending engineers in on loan to help with problems, polling customers, having a forum with at least a dozen employees monitoring and answering questions, one section of which is SOLELY dedicated to getting online responses from Avid employees....

In the grand scheme, they may not be doing it any better than FCP. My impression is that they are, but that's immaterial. The PERCEPTION of Avid right now is very high among a lot of pros.

I know I sound very pro Avid right now. And frankly I am impressed with the product, and the company after spending several months researching this. I think Edius is doing well also, but I don't know it's future. One thing is certain. If Edius can get their After Effects Bridge out of Beta and solid, a LOT more people are going to take them seriously. Vegas has improved a ton in recent years in terms of features, but it's too slow and cumbersome to find it's way into these large markets. I have no idea what Adobe is doing.
 
PerroneFord said:
I have no idea what Adobe is doing.
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Adobe recently unveil the Mercury playback engine that's going to be incorporated into future Premiere versions, possibly as early as CS5. With the right graphics card (as low as $300) you can get real time performance on pretty much anything you throw at Premiere, including Red 4k footage. This includes multiple streams of footage and transition effects.
 
Huy Vu said:
Adobe recently unveil the Mercury playback engine that's going to be incorporated into future Premiere versions, possibly as early as CS5. With the right graphics card (as low as $300) you can get real time performance on pretty much anything you throw at Premiere, including Red 4k footage. This includes multiple streams of footage and transition effects.
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Well there you go. So that will leave Vegas and FCP as the only non-realtime NLEs left in the major market.
 
I've been using Premiere since version 6 and am very happy with it.

Like PerronFord, I too "earn money from doing this" so I'm constantly looking at my options.
I picked up Avid Express a few years ago, with the thought of switching. I wanted my skills
to be "industry standard" if there is such a thing. Unfortunately, any plugins or support
software was very expensive. With Premiere, it all came in one package.

With FCP, I must admit to being tempted to switch, though that has more to do with their
sexy Cinema Display Monitor than functionality. Plus I'd have to switch from PC to Mac which
doesn't appeal to me.

Premiere Pro is an excellent program for a great price. It does everything I want, plus with
CS4, it's bundled with Photoshop, AfterEffects, Illustrator, Soundbooth, etc. Also, regarding
PerronFord's comment about "realtime performance", I think that will be dealt with in CS5. The
new Mercury Playback Engine their using (at first glance) blows every other NLE out of the water.

http://www.directorforum.com/showthread.php?p=33240

Peter

Final note: Even with the Mercury Playback Engine, I may still switch this year to FCP. Why?
Because I'm hiring more and more young editors, right out of university, and they've been
taught FCP and Avid. That's a difficult tide to fight against.
 
ATL Media Group said:
NBC Station Group deploys Grass Valley EDIUS editing


Hartford's WVIT Goes Green, HD



"The material is edited in the field in most cases, using Grass Valley Edius equipment, then completed stories are sent back to the newsroom from laptops using a BitCentral wireless transmission system. They land on BitCentral’s Oasis server and can then be pulled into the station’s new Grass Valley K2 Media Server storage area network for airing."
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I think Grass Valley shouldn't be overlooked. My station uses Grass Valley's Ignite automation system. For the uninitiated, it's basically an all in one system that replaces the director, TD, audio guy, and chyron operator (and optionally the camera operators) with one person running a pre-programed automated newscast. I hate it, but it paid itself off in the first year in saved payroll costs. It currently can integrate with Avid's iNews newswriting/scriptwriting program, Deko graphic system, and Airspeed playback servers... but if Grass Valley is coming up with their own playback server system and can make some inroads with Edius and develop a newswriting/scriptwriting program and graphics system, with more and more stations looking at their bottom line and moving to Ignite, there is nothing stopping those stations from going the whole kit and kaboodle and doing one giant Grass Valley package. And if you suddenly have a huge customer base in broadcast, there isn't anything stopping you from using that as a spring board to get Edius into other markets.
 
@ATL - Yea to me this is where Edius shines. But it's not a workflow that most of us deal with. I don't have agents in the field cutting and sending back stuff to make deadline at 5pm. AVID employs a completely different setup for that segment of the market. But I do see Edius making inroads with their AVCHD Booster software for the "rest of us".

@Me Myself &I - I came from Premiere and I agree that it's bundle is one of the best around. But I've just heard so many horror stories about it being unreliable. We use the other big CS4 suite in my office.. the one with Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. I don't think I've read a single article in ASC, HDVideoPro, Videography, etc., about anyone cutting in Premiere. It's always Avid or FCP. And shipping off to AE for effects work (or other high end tool).

There's a lot out there at different price points. But I can tell you right now, if someone handed me $50k and said, "Go buy an editing suite to cut my feature," I know exactly where my money would be going. :)
 
Huy Vu said:
Adobe recently unveil the Mercury playback engine ...you can get real time performance on pretty much anything you throw at Premiere, including Red 4k footage.
Click to expand...

Just as a quick aside, getting realtime performance out of REDCode isn't that impressive to me. It's built to do that. All the wavelet based codecs are. They have their own built-in proxy. So if you lay a 4k file on the timeline, and your source display is set at 1280x720, then you'll get a proxy suitable for that size.

Jpeg2000 is the same way. One of the reasons I chose it for our governmental video archive.
 
Premiere is pretty realtime as it is.

Born and break on Premiere pro and have tried Edius and FCP.

FCP is immesns but i'm not willing to spend on an expensive mac and hoving to learn a whole new operating system is not appealing alothouhg it is very good.

I couldn't get on with edius.
 
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