Most common editing software?

[Matthew Greene]

Offline on 3/4" or Avid, online on Linear Tape suite, Quantel Editbox & Henry 1990-97
Video Toaster & Toaster Flyer NLE 1990-97 (personal rig)
Steenbeck, Linear Tape suites, Avid & Premiere 97-98
Premiere, plus a bit of Final Cut & Media Composer 1999-2008 (personal rigs)
On certain occasions I go back to Quantel and Avids for some projects.

 

[Hank Devos]

Buy a used copy of Xpress Pro and upgrade to MC 3.0 for $500 + $100 transfer fee. Should get you there under $2000.

Do you need analog HD I/O to decks etc? If so, then yeah, Avid is way too expensive.



My impression is that FCP focuses on features, Avid focuses on usability.

Coming from FCP, here are the advantages I found (quick list):

1. Doing actual editing feels slightly more responsive. Trimming feels way better to me.
2. Multiple editors can read and write to the same project at the same time. Eg an assistant can be making selects etc while two editors both work on their own sequences. Everyone can have each others' bins loaded and see what the other person is doing too.
3. It has a space-conserving HD offline mode (DNxHD36) and everyone can read/write its files (Apple ProRes requires you to buy Final Cut Studio or use a read-only codec, Apple DVCPROHD codec has no PC version).
4. You have actual paint tools right in the editor (you can paint soft mattes, clone / blur, etc)
5. It can manage media better, manages the offline/online process very well.
6. It feels more stable, renders faster, etc.
7. It has less weird gamma brightness change issues, and works consistently with 10-bit footage. Does not have weird buried settings about Superwhites/etc. Does not have weird buried Quicktime gamma settings. Just works.
8. It makes better .OMF audio exports (useful when you are doing the sound mix on Pro Tools somewhere outside and usually paying by the hour), doing high end onlines on Quantel / Smoke / Avid DS & Symphony has been battle tested for years.
9. It has curves in the color corrector
10. It comes with both Mac and PC versions in the box. Super-fast and crash free on my $500 PC bought a years ago off Craigslist.
11. It allows for adjustment layers (eg you can have a video filter affect everything in the tracks below - very handy for whip blur / glow editing transitions, overall color correction, etc)
12. Can set your user interface colors to whatever you want. Corny, but actually it makes a big difference. FCP interface is a bit too bright and distracting for me. Distracts from the image you are editing.
13. Menus etc incredibly consistent across versions. I started with FCP 1.2 and am now pretty sick of everything moving around with each version.
14. Easier to keep complex project in sync. Most default operations do not pull things out of sync. Its scary to me when you do something simple like adjusting the speed of a layer in FCP and it merrily pulls everything on that video track out of sync by default.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

You forgot the part where the AVID interface is Bass Ackwards.. and is generally retarded.

Absolutely the least intuitive piece of software I've ever used.. though I think AVID is starting to agree with me these days.

I wouldn't mind using AVID if the interface wasn't such a clusterfuck.

 

[A. Bastaki]

Premiere 6 (hated it) .. Premiere CS 1.0, 1.5 & AE (loved em), Premiere CS 2,3,4 & AE... just love Adobe stuff.

Though I also used Final Cut Pro, then came along FCS, FCS 2.0..

Currently.. it's FCS 2.0 with AE, soudtrack pro for editing, and soundbooth to finesse. Used color on a project.. swore to never use it again. Color Finesse and AE are my bitches.

Now the only thing that is holding me back from using Adobe Creative Suite 4.. and I have it laying on my table btw.. is REDCINE. I can't change ISO & WBalance, in CS4.

With Ibloom's Ap. and FCP.. i can easily edit in fcp.. then go back to Redcine to adjust WB and ISO levels, then export the sequence from Red Cine... because RC seems to handle exports the best. Images that come out of RC are just astounding.

I wish there was like a RAW importer with all the bells and whistles of RC for Adobe premiere/AE. I'd really like to use the new soundbooth to edit.. cause adobe sw just rocks. Ps, Ai, AE, Sb, Lr, & Encore for Blu-ray.

 

[Matthew Greene]

Hahahha, I hated Premiere 6 too, I just dealt with it because it supported some awesome realtime hardware (at the time).

Akube, are you saying that Redcine won't run on Vista 64-bit? I've had CS4 sitting on my desk since it was released and was about to reformat my system. I guess a dual boot config (XP & Vista 64) is an option but a bit annoying.

 

[Charles Angus]

just love Adobe stuff.

I knew there must be people who like Adobe interfaces. I use AE and PS for some things because they're the best, but I contemplate destruction every time I foray into the Adobe world.