1. I've edited on Macs and PCs for years using Premiere (pre-Pro), media100, Vegas, and now my day job uses FCP5. I have to say FCP 5 is great, but I do miss a lot of things about Vegas. I find that for straight-up assembly, it's great. Its speed was wonderful, and this was on a low-end (by today's standards) machine! I also miss its Track FX, letting you apply a crop or filter to an entire track, rather than having to apply to all clips or nest/render.

I do like FCP's multiple timelines, that fits how I work. The XML support opens up a lot of possiblities (e.g. Traffic). Motion integration is nice, but leaves much to be desired.

I think I'd like using FCP better if I had a realtime card, like a Kona or Blacklink. But Vegas sure was quick, and easy to use.

Posted at 5:16PM on Jun 9th 2006 by Allan White

2. Not sure where you live? FCP is not remotely close to "industry standard" in any major market I know, unless you're talking about indie film, colleges, etc. If you're talking paying work for ad agencies (for TV spots), studio work (i.e. movies), broadcast television for networks or even local news, cable TV, etc. Avid is still king. Corporate video is a toss up, but most I know use Avid.

Yes, there are a lot of small shops who use FCP (and some bigger ones too), but most are self-employed folks who do their own thing. Not that many places who hire editors. It would be very, very hard to make a living as a freelance editor in most markets only knowing FCP.

Posted at 7:02PM on Jun 9th 2006 by Blake

3. Hmm, maybe I went a little too far with "industry standard." :)

But here is what I mean, there was a time, if you were going to get an editing gig, it was almost required you had to know Avid. Because even if you did edit on FCP, you had to at some point touch an Avid. But now, you can finish on Final Cut.

Most documentary houses have Final Cut. Check on the editing houses, a few years ago, they were strictly Avid. Now Final Cut is all over. The last project I worked in NY (where I worked as an editor till 2 years ago when I moved to NC, btw), I edited a promo, rented a editing bay in one of these post-production places. There were Final Cut editors all over the place. Just a year before, or two, it was not the case.

So the industry has embraced it. And there is no doubt in my mind that more editors are FCP capable than Avid. I frankly don't know what Hollywood "Hollywood" uses. Because I have never been part of that. Docs, commercials, promos. Final Cut is all over the place. A company I was a partner in worked with ad agencies, most of them were beginning to rely on in-house editors. Almost always they chose Final Cut.

It is not just the self-employed. Far from it.

Posted at 8:24PM on Jun 9th 2006 by Ajit Anthony

4. If you want to know how much FCP has emerged as a widely used editor in all markets just go to the NAB. I work in a 36 tv market and only one of the stations uses Avid. Two stations us FCP and one is still Liniar.

FCP is quite widely used in every market and is much more stable. The work flow of Avid is great but if I was going for looks FCP is king. Even on the high end Editors Avid offers you have to buy plugins to take the product up a leave. Although Avids motion tools can not be beat.

Posted at 1:08PM on Jun 10th 2006 by Ben

5. Have you ever looked at os-x vs xp on the same hardware? Lots of things where blown away by the optimization xp has over os-x. Its sad too bc its unix based... But steve and his team have made it so bulky that it just doesnt matter. Hes also said his computers are for familys, not for a poweruser. Hes not trying to target the gfx(general term) market. Its a sad word of mouth rumor thats gone around since I don't know when. Its never been tru. Google the benchmarks though, I know youll find them easily. I do admit though some of the benchmarks are close but in some cases. Tenfold! And thats just ridiculas.

As for Avid vs FCP. It depends what your using. Avid has an amazing line up of products trying to tackle the all in one name. But if you wanna go str8 up between Xpress Pro and FCP. After using both for a while. I think I've been an FCP user since version 2, and Yea it's easy to use. But theres so much more power behind Avid. The accelerators to be literal. Amazing integration between unders of file types. A well thought out interface, even though it doesnt look like it, the way it is couldnt really be better. There are alot of things you can do very well with Avid comparted to using FCP(and fcp is what i grew up on) But their power for example. Mix eiditing between shots that are in 24p, 60i, 1080 res, 480, 720... All in the same timeline, running in real time. I've seen it done! With effects over! And thats just xpress pro vs fcp, I could go on for hours about the suite intergratoin.

Posted at 2:57AM on Jun 11th 2006 by Chris

6. I am an editor in Oklahoma City, and despite only being 20, I've been to a lot of different markets and edited in a lot of different environments. I think both FCP and Avid are great, and both are widely used. Anyone who wants to really call themselves a professional editor better know how to and use both. Oh ... and don't forget Premier (what I originally learned how to edit in) and Premier Pro 2 ... there's an awful lot of people that use PP2 as well, and it's not bad.

Posted at 3:07AM on Jun 11th 2006 by Mike Jones

7. I work in television in Los Angeles and 95% of cable and network shows cut on AVID. SOme houses try to use FCP, but the Mac's Xserve is nowhere near the Avid unity in terms of shared media stability and flexibility. Until FCP has a powerful Unity of its own, no pro houses will make the jump. It's on its way, but not nearly as quickly as people think.

Posted at 3:07AM on Jun 11th 2006 by Charles

8. there is no real difference at this point. its software preference. (no os, but software) i love finalcut pro

Posted at 3:10AM on Jun 11th 2006 by Cliff

9. Re: FCP, Avid, and Vegas -- We might see a real third contender in Vegas if Sony made Vegas cross-platform (instead of only Windows based). Vegas is amazing for 5.1 surround editing, HD workflow, and ease of use. However, since many in the pro field are Mac users, Vegas has limited reach.

Posted at 3:23AM on Jun 11th 2006 by Dan Lundmark

10. Quote by Ajit Anthony:
--------------------------------------------------------
I frankly don't know what Hollywood "Hollywood" uses.
--------------------------------------------------------

At least one person in Hollywood is using Final Cut Pro: David Fincher.

http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/profiles/?profiles/apple_fcs_profile-fincher_h640

I recently started working as a local news editor. We're still using tape-to-tape editing equipment, mostly. We do have one FCP bay and will be making the transition to Avid-based equipment later this year.

Posted at 3:26AM on Jun 11th 2006 by David Wells

11. Mac is better cause you can have both avid and final cut on one system. PC, your stuck with just avid, and that's always going to be a more expensive solution. The post house I worked at was always avid, until we started getting hd work. We waited half a year with the news of an HD upgrade to our mac Avid Adrenaline's (which an avid sales rep contacted us about). The upgrade was released for pc, but not mac... our whole setup is mac based. Meanwhile we spent a lot of money outsourcing the finishing of our HD jobs to expensive Smoke and Avid DS onlines, still waiting. When it started to look like Avid was never going to release their HD upgrade for mac (which, 2 years later they still say "coming soon for mac"), we went with final cut.

To get HD on Avid it's a $13,000 upgrade to the additional $15,000 cost of the adrenaline. And it only works with Avid's compressed HD codec.

For $8,000 we got Final Cut, a brand new G5, kona 2 card, and a SATAII Raid, all of which handles uncompressed HD.

Being raised on Avid, I'm actually starting to prefer final cut now, even though it doesn't feel as solid as avid, it's a speedier program, and is more intuitive and quicker to use. However, it's edit to tape tool is completely broken and totally unreliable. You cannot always trust it to be in sync when laying off to tape. Sometimes it randomly will be off by 1 or 2 frames, and there's nothing you can do to correct it, but just keep laying off again until it's on. If there's a mistake in what you layed off and you try to insert edit, it's even more chaotic... you basically can't insert edit, you need to layoff the full sequence again.

Once final cut fixes it's lack of working professional features, I could finally be rid of avid's overpriced strangle hold. Rumors have it that final cut will also be ushering cheap 4k editing and finishing in the future.

Unless Avid get's cheaper, I think final cut will take over, especially since most film students now are coming out of school knowing and owning final cut.

Posted at 3:30AM on Jun 11th 2006 by Swarby McNibbons

12. What's the color of the sky on your planet? There are waaaayyy more gigs for an Avid editor than a FCP editor. Especially high paying ones! If you want to count "spec" student films or uber low budget indie pics perhaps you're correct. But in the current and I repeat current editing climate (at least here in LA) learning Avid is the way to go.

PS.
These comments come from a devout Avid hater. I am a freelance Discreet (Fire, Smoke, Flame & Inferno) artist with over 15 years experience in Los Angeles.

ML

Posted at 3:33AM on Jun 11th 2006 by Michael Landon

13. If you ask me, Adobe Premiere Pro is a clone of Final Cut Pro.

I once did a side by side, feature by feature comparison of Adobe Premiere Pro and Sony Vegas. Sony Vegas was the better app hands down!

Posted at 3:43AM on Jun 11th 2006 by reel2reel

14. As a tech/editor certified in both avid and final cut as well as unity and Xsan and emersed in the hollywood culture I find it hard to believe that final cut is "relplacing" avid in the editing world. Although final cut does have it's many fine points and beating avid to the punch to HD was big, both still have issues with a true universal HD workflow and being able to incorperate everything for HDV to 1080p6o. However, my experience is that although final cut is gaining a foothold, avid is still the staple of the "Industry".

Posted at 4:22AM on Jun 11th 2006 by Mike

15. "The hardware was decent but with Mac going Intel, the hardware issue is a moot point."
If they had gone to AMD it might be a moot point because at this point AMD has the clear advantage.

Posted at 4:58AM on Jun 11th 2006 by joerogan

16. FC is doing great on the professional market lately. A couple of Hollywood productions were made using it, and here in Belgium, there are a lot of docu's done on FC and a few very good movies... . They said that FC was more stable than Avid ever was. Can't comment that since i've never really used Avid :)

Posted at 5:26AM on Jun 11th 2006 by CV

17. This is not an Avid vs. FCP war. And just because Avid has entrenched itself in broadcast does not mean its better. But Alas I digress. The War here is Mac Vs PC. from a hardware standard now that Apple systems can run full blown Win XP software wise the Mac Platform Wins. And in direct respoce to the "PC has more hardware" where did you come up with that bull.... Up until the support from Voodoo/Bluefish and AJA and Blackmagic the Windows Platform on had Avid as a SDI solution. Yes there were truevision boards and Targa 3000's. But where are they now. Plus I worked o those systems they were a Beast to keep up and running the PC platform was totally the wrong way to go. The Mac has done quite a bit to help the Video editing world. One shining upstart in the software area is Vegas from Sony. It totally goes against and breaks down all the editing walls that have been put up by Avid. Avid is not the best its just the most popular.

Posted at 5:46AM on Jun 11th 2006 by slackpacker

18. You sir, are a fool.

Posted at 5:51AM on Jun 11th 2006 by Ramble

19. FCP is a great solution for Broadcast. News stations use them for quick speed edits for late breaking news and the like. Working in a Broadcast Studio i have spoken to a lot of freelance editors and i'd say 95% of the editors know how to use Both and are getting more and more FCP editing jobs.
Avid is good and has been in the industry for ages and thats why a lot of places still use it. Studio heads arent editors or tech guys, they are suits and only know the buzz words like "avid", hence why we see still a strong hold of Avid in the UK market and rich countries like the USA. but small markets like South Africa, Australia for example are using FCP because its inexpensive to run and gives the same output for broadcast.
I know of at least 3 Feature films that used FCP as well. The problem with avid is that its in a constant betaware cycle (or so it feels like with every release) and im always seeing editors finding work arounds to getting the job done. FCP seems to not suffer from that issue.
They are both good system, but FCP is defenitly the future. Avid will lose more market share but im not worried about avid with the prices it charges they have a while to go before going out a bussiness..... now if only they would concentrate on SOFTIMAGE and get it back to its former glory. looks like Avid let MAYA take the 3D market from them, just like FCP is doing now.

Posted at 6:03AM on Jun 11th 2006 by Mickael

20. Forgot to mention i used to work for Softimage when it was owned by Microsoft. Which Microsoft pretty much gave to AVID with one condition, to start producing AVID for the PC. At that time AVID was only on the Mac platform. Microsoft where desprate to get a Pro level editing system on windows. I guess Avids choice was get a pretty much "get a free leading 3D system (at the time)" or open yourself a possible Microssoft buy out. Either Microsooft got its way and AVID moved to the windows Platform. So lets not make this a PC vs MAC issue. Its just great to see the MAC has two professional options FCP and AVID plus with the new XP bootcamp option , all the others editing goodies. Who could ask for more. FCP is still my favored choice for editing hands down.

Posted at 6:12AM on Jun 11th 2006 by Mickael