Editors talk Avid, Apple, Adobe

When discussing Apple, nobody mentioned Shake, A good app suddenly discontinued.
They claim their working on a new app to replace it, do you think so! I can see Final Cut meeting the same fate.

Posted by Jason Chocianowski on Thursday, May 21, 2009 @ 07:16 PM

I agree with the Adobe comments. Between After Effects and Photoshop (which many work in), the integration with an editing app is key. Why hasn't Apple built a photoshop app and a decent compositing tool (sorry Motion)? They have Color and sound tools, but no paint, and one of the better compositing apps (Shake) could help fill that hole in the product lineup that Motion just isn't quite doing.

Posted by Erik on Friday, May 22, 2009 @ 10:20 AM

Apple would be really dumb to drop the FCP suite of apps. It was moronic of them to stop Shake, It would be a death sentence to stop FCP.

That said, we are 2 years overdue for a DVD studio pro update to remove the useless HDDVD functionality and replace it with BluRAY.

Posted by timgray on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 @ 12:05 PM

Because Apple is too busy making iPods and iPhones and iLosers out of the people that love them! I have used Avid, FCP and CS4 Premiere and Premiere (Adobe should change the name to Adobe Editor) works remarkably well. It needs more multi-user features (as does FCP... Avid is the clear winner there) but as a stand alone it is excellent. (And multi-platform.)

Posted by Clark Graff on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 @ 12:12 PM

With all due respect to the panelists, they might also want to take a serious look at Sony Vegas.

Posted by Jeffery Haas on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 @ 12:42 PM

The primary reason for PROFESSIONAL broadcast usage of Final Cut Pro is fundementally to undercut pay and hire inexperienced editors.

That is not to say that some amazing and outstanding work isn't being done on FCP or Adobe. That is also not to say that FCP editors are less.

But, having edited the highest rated television shows in daytime and primetime, and having cut on day of air intense scheduels, and having cut thousands of pieces and probably tens of thousands of re-edits... AVID wins every single time.

I cut on AVID and FCP. AVID is roughly 3-10 times FASTER, allows significantly more creativity in getting content perfect, and is infinately more of an artist's machine for off-line editing in REAL WORLD environments.

Sure, FCP is a good cheap learning tool, a good graphics tool, and allows a much larger and cheaper professional base, but AVID remains the only real practical solution in Hollywood's off-line edit bays.

I share this opinion with every high end editor I have ever spoken to about off-line.

(PS: This is not about graphics, integration, or on-line, this comment is about making the best highest rated content in Hollywood using AVID MC. Thanks, even though FCP solo editors are fuming -- this is the truth folks.)

Posted by RA on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 @ 01:26 PM

Apple signed us on to as 3 year package at the release of fcs 2. Over two years later and still no major new releases. We are feeling ripped off.

Posted by Larry T on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 @ 02:52 PM

I think posters 6 & 7 have valid points, although being a smoke/fire user I would interchange smoke for Avid.

I expected to see version upgrades last month at NAB and while we want Apple to get it right, it is equally important they get it.

Posted by Del Holford on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 @ 05:52 PM

Well RA, I disagree. I have been editing with Avid for 10 years...switched to FCP 4 years ago. I am far faster on FCP than Avid. BUT, it all depends on the situation. There are many situations that I'd opt to use FCP over Avid, but others where I'd opt to use Avid over FCP.

Posted by Shane Ross on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 @ 10:34 PM

Frankly, I'm sick of the "my editing platform can beat up your editing platform" argument at least as much as I'm sick of the Mac/PC debate. I've never watched a piece of edited video/film and said afterwards, "Wow, that could have been pretty good if only they had edited on Avid."

Here's the thing. Each of us have a bias. I'm an Adobe guy. Laugh if you want but when you take into account it's integration, Adobe CS series is a solid choice for small production facilities at local TV stations and idependent content creators where one or two individuals are doing everything from the cut to the graphics to color correction and animation. But that's how I work.

It's interesting that RA's comments are about the off-line process. Off-line?! Hollywood is the only place left in content creation that still does an off-line! But that's Avid's place. It's a place where a user can specialized. One guy does the off-line, another chick conforms, then some dude color corrects on a Da Vinci. Cooool... But most of us don't work like that.

And FCP is it's own cult of personality. A lot of people just haven't edited on anything else. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but I don't think that's a good reason to put it on a pedistal. I actually had a twenty-something kid just out of a film program tell me that you can't edit on a PC. He was serious! He had no clue there was anything else but FCP!

And no one talks about Sony's Vegas Pro, the only editing platform with truly awesome audio editing and sweetening tools. It better. It started as an audio editor.

I just want people to quit focusing so much on the tools and maybe focus a lttle more on the content. Have you seen the crap being churned out?

Posted by Chad Haufschild on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 @ 11:31 PM

I agree wholeheartedly with AR - the main reason that FCP started to seriously challenge Avid is that it was way cheaper - otherwise it would never have become a challenger.

As the owner/manager of a Post facility with 14 edit suites, in which a diferent free-lance editor may be sitting in each suite on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday - the lack of multi-user features in FCP make it a non-starter for me.

Nevertheless Avid are way overpriced and could have killed off all contenders long ago by cutting their prices drastically.

Posted by Sasha Franklin on Thursday, May 28, 2009 @ 05:59 AM

Well, I have used Avid for MANY years and as much as I love it (so robust!) I have largely switched over to Adobe CS4. My #1 reason was the integration amongst the apps, particularly After Effects and Encore but also Photoshop.

The other reason is that I'm sick n tired of paying Avid 10's of thousands of $$$ for boxes to output what we do. So now I dropped 1k on a blackmagic card that so far gives me everything I need to input and output both SD & HD (incl. HD-SDI and 2k!)

So for me, I think it's how well you use your gear regardless of the maker of the software. I can do the same edits in all the brands: Adobe, Avid, FCP, whatever... they all do the same thing at the end of day... Are their challenges and issues with each manufacturer? Indeed there is. And each manufacturer will slowly attend to the 'popular' issues and call them upgrades (and get more $$ out of us)

(and I've always found that PC's run these apps faster than the Macs... yes, I've used both platforms)

Posted by Paul on Thursday, May 28, 2009 @ 02:58 PM

I don't care what you cut on as long as it works for you and the final product looks great. I cut on FCP because that's what I know. Went to FCP about 9 years ago when retiring my PostBox system, Could not afford Avid at the time.

The new Sony Vegas looks really good, and runs well on a mid-level PC. Something that Avid still does not do well.

Posted by Bill Moede on Thursday, May 28, 2009 @ 03:43 PM

I've spent years on both Avid and Adobe. I stayed with Avid because of clients who owned systems. Now my business model is more producer/editor and I run CS4 on an HP Workstation in my home studio. And it works very well. Much of my work is graphically intense and I do that in After Effects. I use Premiere to lay out shots and cut and paste them into AE. I deal with agencies who send me logos as Illustrator files, and I use Illustrator to reformat them for animation in AE.

If I owned a Mac, I would still run Adobe, because I need Photoshop, AE and Illustrator to execute on the graphics that my clients require. If I edited on FCP, I would still have to buy all of those apps. It's more affordable to buy the Adobe suite and the integration makes it a lot easier to create content.

Many of my Mac friends have complained about not being able to author Blu-Ray on the Mac. They are wearing the Apple blinders, because Encore on a Mac coupled with a $300 Pioneer BluRay burner gets that job done.

People forget the fact that the reason the Mac became known as a graphics platform was because of Postscript, Photoshop, Illustrator and PageMaker, all applications that came from Adobe not Apple.

Adobe is the future, and when the Flash interface becomes truly "Adobeized" look out.

Posted by Chris on Thursday, May 28, 2009 @ 10:13 PM

The real question is this... Is Apple into maintaining a product that has such a narrow market that requires farily high and expensive maintenance when compared to its other more consumer-directed products? I think not. At some point the bean counters are going to recommend dropping the product entirely. The profit margin - if it exists at all - is most likely well below those of other products that Apple creates and maintains. It's a matter of numbers. Conversely, Avid's whole business is built around professional post production. As such it is in for the long-run. My bet is that Apple will drop or sell the FCP line at some point, and I'm sure that it's not a hot topic in the board meetings as it relates to pressure for constant improvement.

Posted by PM on Friday, May 29, 2009 @ 09:29 AM

RA, you are so wrong when you say, "The primary reason for PROFESSIONAL broadcast usage of Final Cut Pro is fundementally to undercut pay and hire inexperienced editors."

When we switched from Avid to FCP over five years ago we did NOT change the rate we paid our editors at all. On Friday they were using Avid... on Monday, FCP. Same rate.

You're entitled to your opinion, but it certainly is not based on fact! We've been doing highly rated, time sensitive, network broadcast material for over five years, in a shared storage environment (x-SAN) connecting almost a hundred editors on FCP.

It certainly can be done. It just requires a bit of "thinking different", that clearly you're unable or unwilling to do.

I hate it when people make blanket proclamations as if they are stating uncontested facts. Fact is, there's plenty of diverse workflows out there in all phases of the entertainment industry. There is no "right" answer... only what works for you.

Mark

Posted by Mark Raudonis on Saturday, May 30, 2009 @ 12:09 AM

I agree with poster about the offline/onlinw worksflow - a thing of the past but for cinematic. Second, I concur that Avid has been an impossible business partner for non-facility business. Third, FCP shortcomings are well-documented and accounted for, and for the record, I am MUCH faster on Avid than on FCP. But after several years of watching my bids get cut, my day rate smashed and my clients retreating to in-house solutions, I cannot afford Avid. I am open to Adobe Premier, but it cuts into my collaborative workflow with my clients ho also have FCP. I also appreciate that FCP runs on the native OS of the hardware I am using, unlike Avid MC which is still stuck on 10.4.3 or whatever. That doesn't mean it is trouble-free, but it helps. I went through the jitters of Avid abandoning Mac in 1997, and it worked itself out. I hate dealing with Avid and I will never go back. Adobe has my ear but I won't be jumping in all at once no matter what. All the FCP community needs is an alternative to Automatic Duck [what a pain dealing with their updates and serial verification - UGH!] and most of the Adobe integration issues go away.

Posted by Steve Covello on Sunday, May 31, 2009 @ 03:37 PM