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corrections;
Avid has had software only tools for quite a few years. Xpress DV was Windows only and then became OSX capable in 2001. That was followed by Xpress Pro in 2003.

Avid is an example of a company that stagnated for a number of years like the big 3 auto makers, in addition to their hugely overpriced products and lacklustre upgrades. With their new CEO and lower pricing it is too little too late. Pro tools has floundered for years, and the user interface of Pro tools 8 is still cluttered in comparison to Logic, and it relies on proprietary hardware like Avid's high end video offering. Avid will only work with their Unity SAN which easily costs 2x per gigabyte the cost of their nearest competitor, and you can't use it for anything else while you can use Apple's Xsan in any environment - science, business, creative. In order to remain competitive, they have to drop the vendor lock-in and the USB dongle- vendor lock-ins and dongles are anti-consumer. As a result, AVID has lost a lot of market share to Final Cut Studio/Final Cut Server/Logic/Xsan and for the last two years there has been huge year over year increases in the number of feature films edited in Final Cut and a lot of post facilities are migrating to Final Cut when their AVID systems are EOL'd. Names like the Coen Brothers, Steven Soderbergh, Peter Jackson, David Fincher, Alex Proyas, Peter Hyams - and all the next generation of filmmakers going Final Cut.
My final conclusion: Invest in a Final Cut solution - it can do everything Avid can do, plus more at a much lower cost.

I edit network episodic television, feature films, and large format films. I've used Avid and FCP systems. FCP would never be my first choice as an editing tool because of its severe problems with media management, rendering, and integration with Pro Tools (the television and feature industry standard in Los Angeles). I am very happy with Avid's 3.0 update, and the new director the company is going. Having the software version, fully capable, at home is great.
A previous commenter points to several filmmakers who use FCP. With a couple of exceptions, none of these people are editors. They are directors. I know several editors with pretty good credits (IRON MAN, ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, MATRIX, TERMINATOR 2, TRANSFORMERS, INTO THE WILD, BONES, FRINGE), and none would chose FCP over Avid.

I also edit for my bread and butter, and use both FCP and Avid. I'm in Vancouver where there's not as much big feature work as LA...my perspective:
FCP has jumped ahead for adoption and Avid's lagged behind for sure but in terms of the actual raw editing, solidity and stability, Avid's knocked it out of the park with Composer 3. It's snappy and precise, a delight to use. Frankly, it makes FCP feel like a toy. Avid have decided to get the basics right first, add features later. This is great as FCP 5 and 6 are getting to be more of a resource pig on the simpler tasks.
I'll give FCP the edge if you look at the suite, the whole studio app has some great stuff like Soundtrack Pro, but for raw editing Avid really is the way to go. Especially on big productions where you need to manage tons of media and deal with weeks and episodes of footage. And for speed, I've seen FCP experts cut and they don't quite move as fast as the Avid experts.
I don't agree with Avid 100% as a company, and Pro Tools feels cluttered to me as well, but that's beside the point of the review. Avid is doing some excellent stuff here.

it would be really nice for AVID's public image if they maintained that Free DV thing especially after iMovie 08+ but I suspect it is a PPC only programming issue. Could be really hard to convert it to Universal.

I also Edit for a living, and for me it's Avid all the way. I do own the latest FCS, but I use it for Live Type, Motion, and DVDSP only. FCP is a toy. If I had to render every clip to view a timeline in real time, I would be out of business.

Huh? What version of FCP were you on? FCP Timelines with mixed codecs may require rendering, as will third-party effects, but the FCP timeline is realtime if you set it correctly. (There are RT options for Safe, Unlimited, etc.) The main problem with FCP is: Too many choices. When effects rendering is necessary, I find that rendering on a 4 or 8 core MacPro is very quick.

LOL... Avid is SO dead. A big "Thanks!" to them for their pioneer work in the 80's and 90's, but as it was said already: waaay too little, waaaay too late, sorry. Just a mere look at that, to this day, consistently clunky and just plain UGLY 80's interface pretty much speaks novels about the company's overall mentality.

And ya gotta love the guys that are quite obviously full fletched and (the typical) inflexible AVID users. Especially the ones that try SO hard to defend the only thing they know (and probably needed YEARS to even half way master, therefor there's NO chance they could possibly admit to other products being superior, since that would mean having to learn something new and BE FLEXIBLE. Not in the Avid users vocabulary). This becomes painfully obvious with comments like "If I had to render every clip to view a timeline in real time, I would be out of business."

What dung. Quite obviously NILL clue on FCP, sorry. The most superb irony being, that I'd LOVE to see an Avid editor move ANYTHING to or from the supporting apps such as ProTools and/or Sonic WITHOUT rendering first! LOL! Wake up guys! Drop the very worn and utterly outdated shibboleth such as "you have to render!" and inform yourself properly first.

I'm not only an Avid AND FCP editor since day one (of both products), I'm also a certified trainer and therefor have also had the "pleasure" of training Avid switchers (amongst others) and they are truly the worst learner's. 90% because they just can't and won't let go of their so comfy fluffy Avid world that made them feel so superior for so long and just can't face reality. Much like the company itself, if you look at it's history of misplaced, short-sighted arrogance.

I'm the last one to claim that FCP or rather FCS 2 is in any way perfect, but I'd even take Premiere and IT'S workflow with it's surrounding products ANY day over those from Avid. It's just too bad Premiere's surrounding apps (aside from AE of course) are overall horrible in comparison to those of e.g. FCS.

You wanna know what's going to put you out of business?? That is, if you don't reach retirement first... is your NOT learning and/or switching to FCS. The mere fact that Avid has a marketshare of 20% as opposed to FCP's 60% in the pro market should pretty much be a big enough hint, no?? Oh wait, I guess not if you're the classic dogmatic and hellaciously CHANGE-fearing Avid editor.

And FCP's media management is horrible?? LOL... try just plain different, okay? Since I sure as hell am happy as can be that I'm NOT told by Avid anymore how to "organize" my media (whereby using ONE folder for absolutely everything can hardly be considered organized). Which i.e. entails making Avid flavored COPIES of everything that didn't come from tape! Such as PS files etc. ... plain boneheaded if you ask me.

But then again... DO stay with your Avids. My workload may be enormous because of it, due to lack of competition, but at least I'll HAVE work for a long time to come, thanks! ;-)))

eatapc said:

Nope, not even THEN. Assuming you are using FCP 6 with it's mixed format timeline and QT-native codecs. But even if not, on a PRO level machine FCP will even give you a minimum of a real-time during the edit via RT Extreme, which you correctly noted.

And I can hardly see any "advantage" or some huge difference to having to conform mixed footage as it comes IN, as an Avid has to do 9 out of 10 times, since it's it's own little inflexible closed-codec-island, as opposed to when it goes OUT, as with FCP. In fact FCP's approach will, 99 out of 100 times, obviously be FASTER since no unneeded footage is ever actually transcoded, which is by far the biggest time killer.

Oh but hey... why think logically? If you did, you'd ruin a perfectly good, but unfortunately irreverent, rant! ;-D

And it's still beyond me how alleged PROS can actually defend an allegedly PRO company for finally supporting various PRO formats a mere YEARS after everyone else... ouch.

Time to let go, dontcha think?

;-)
l2l

lin2log, you seem to be ranting at me, but I was defending FCP. I switched from Avid to FCP a year and a half ago. I love FCP. It is faster than Avid (at least all the Avids I had worked with as of late 2007).



What did I say that made you think I was defending Avid? I thought I was (politely) challenging the previous poster, who made inaccurate claims about FCP.

eatapc said:

I didn't. I admit, since my response was a direct response to your post, you could think I was speaking to you the whole time, sorry. In fact I really only was addressing you/your post with the first paragraph. The rest was aimed at your "foreposters" and/or the likes.

cheers,
l2l

Amateurs and semi pros always called AVID "dead" one way or another but top 10 movies keep to be assembled on AVID setups rather than FCP/Adobe Premiere.
When will people learn not to comment on things which doesn't target their market?

Define "top 10 movies." Last year "No Country for Old Men" was edited on Final Cut. This year "Benjamin Button" was edited on Final Cut. Not to take anything away from Avid, but FCP does target several professional markets and has taken a healthy market share.