FCP or Avid Media Composer???

[Vicente Nogueira]

Considering the recent improvements for RED use FCP (R3D, Color, etc), and with Avid Media Composer (Metafuse, etc), and I would like your oppinion:

If you were purchasing now a new hadware and editing software platform for use with RED footage for the next few years (suppose you had no knowledge of either software package), would you choose Avid Media Composer or FCP?

Thanks in advance.

p.s. Question also posted in the Avid Workflow section.

 

[Greg M]

If you are buying today and it was exclusively for Red footage- Final Cut.

IMO Avid is a far superior system, but if you are Red only you will enjoy FC more as its much easier to edit Red proxies on.
Avid has Metafuze...but it is far from ideal. Until they solve this Red footage is a pain to edit on Avid (unless you have a Clipster )

 

[Steve Sherrick]

Is budget an issue? If not, then it comes down to a few things.

1. Support. If you are a full functioning post house that needs to be a well oiled machine, software/hardware support is key. If the day before a deadline something breaks down, can you get on the phone with someone and have a replacement in time? I would check out the options for support on both platforms and put a high priority on which one offers better support.

2. Integration with other tools. Do you have a lot of FX work that you have to integrate with? Which system will offer the best collaboration with those other tools.

3. Media management. How well can you track footage and resources? Are you able to efficiently and robustly consolidate and archive projects? Can you retrieve those projects easily?

4. Do you have a core group of editors that you use and do they have a preference of one platform over the other?

5. Based on what's available for RED workflows on each platform, does one have any advantage over the other for the type of work you do?

There's a lot more to this than just which editing interface is better. It really comes down to the whole pipeline. Quite honestly, I think it wouldn't hurt to have both available and tied into the same storage and network. It gives you the most flexibility and allows you to put the right tool to the right job. But then, that comes back to my original question, is budget an issue?

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

dont know if this move from avid is that smart.

avid ds can read red files natively, so why not MC.

dont know what happens when adobe start to handle well the 64 bit enviroment with premiere, ergo the power of 16 ram or so and when they have a small tool to read TC/autosnyc BWF files to red files.

 

[Vicente Nogueira]

Is budget an issue? If not, then it comes down to a few things.

1. Support. If you are a full functioning post house that needs to be a well oiled machine, software/hardware support is key. If the day before a deadline something breaks down, can you get on the phone with someone and have a replacement in time? I would check out the options for support on both platforms and put a high priority on which one offers better support.

2. Integration with other tools. Do you have a lot of FX work that you have to integrate with? Which system will offer the best collaboration with those other tools.

3. Media management. How well can you track footage and resources? Are you able to efficiently and robustly consolidate and archive projects? Can you retrieve those projects easily?

4. Do you have a core group of editors that you use and do they have a preference of one platform over the other?

5. Based on what's available for RED workflows on each platform, does one have any advantage over the other for the type of work you do?

There's a lot more to this than just which editing interface is better. It really comes down to the whole pipeline. Quite honestly, I think it wouldn't hurt to have both available and tied into the same storage and network. It gives you the most flexibility and allows you to put the right tool to the right job. But then, that comes back to my original question, is budget an issue?

1. Budget is an issue. Focus on indie documentaries. No need for instant support.
2. Not critical
3. Nice to have
4. No
5. That's what I would like to know. I would not like to have both.
Thanks.

 

[Noah Kadner]

I'd work with a reseller that dealt both and try both out first. Some folks find FCP more intuitive than AVID and vice-versa. They are both fully capable of completing RED projects, though each takes different paths to the goals. Do a lot of research but above all test-drive. There's no definitive answer here.

Noah

 

[Brian D. Goff]

Considering the recent improvements for RED use FCP (R3D, Color, etc), and with Avid Media Composer (Metafuse, etc), and I would like your oppinion:

If you were purchasing now a new hadware and editing software platform for use with RED footage for the next few years (suppose you had no knowledge of either software package), would you choose Avid Media Composer or FCP?

Thanks in advance.

p.s. Question also posted in the Avid Workflow section.

It seems Apple is not that interested in it's pro FCP customers. FCP is not were it should be in terms of handling r3d data. After many years of using FCp, I am now going back to Adobe Premiere, simply because it handles r3d files so great. Actually, you can through any file format at PP and it keeps realtime playback, were FCP just collapses.

 

[Chris Reynolds]

dont know if this move from avid is that smart.

avid ds can read red files natively, so why not MC.

dont know what happens when adobe start to handle well the 64 bit enviroment with premiere, ergo the power of 16 ram or so and when they have a small tool to read TC/autosnyc BWF files to red files.

Avid DS does not read the R3D Natively, it transcodes them to it's own format .gen and does a bad job at that (Funniest log looking file I have ever seen!)

Cheers, Chris

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

Avid DS does not read the R3D Natively, it transcodes them to it's own format .gen and does a bad job at that (Funniest log looking file I have ever seen!)

Cheers, Chris

even worse

 

[Vicente Nogueira]

Hey guys,
I would like to thank everyone for your valuable input. It is clearly not an easy decision, but considering on my focus on indy documentaries and limited budget, in view of what I read it seems to me that FCP will serve me better, even thought AVID MC is superior in some aspects.