Whats the FCP for PC users ... ?

[shadow]

I guess the PC equivalent of FCP is Premiere Pro. I believe I heard somewhere that the first version of Final Cut Pro was build upon an earlier version of Premiere. Ofcourse both programs have grown in their own direction and personally I like Premiere Pro over Final Cut Pro.

But because you have to learn another NLE anyway (NLE's are as different as they are the same), you might want to check out other NLE's: Vegas, Avid or ...

[beaker]

I would look at Avid Xpress DV. It a little closer to the abilities of FCP then Premiere. Premiere Pro would be a close second though.

shadow: FCP head programmer is Premiere's ex-head programmer from about 8-10 years ago. So that might be where you heard the rumor that FCP is based on Premiere(which it isn't). You can look him up, the guy's name is Randy Ubillos.

[FunBucket]

What about Avid Xpress Pro? Would you say it's a little more capable than FCP?

[beaker]

Avid Xpress Pro is a 7-10k app that is hardware dependant. I'm guessing that he is looking for something at home more in the price range of FCP

[FunBucket]

Avid Xpress Pro is a 7-10k app that is hardware dependant.
Really? On the Avid store website it shows Xpress Pro for $1695. I guess if it's hardware dependent though you'd have to shell out for mojo or adrenaline or one of their... boxes... :eek:

[beaker]

gutterboxkid: Doh, you were correct originally. Avid changed their naming scheme since I last used it. Xpress Studio used to be called Xpress Pro and Pro used to be Xpress DV with the productivity pack.

[FunBucket]

Ah HA! I didn't realize they changed the names around.

Anyways, since we're on the subject... I was curious as to why exactly FCP is turning into an "industry standard" right now. What exactly can it do that the others can't?

I have a student license of Premiere Pro and it seems pretty powerful, but I haven't gotten a chance to play with FCP yet. I'd love to hear anyones thoughts on this since I'm in the market for one of these.

[beaker]

The two big reasons were price and features previously only availible in $50,000+ Media Composers. Premiere and Avid both were very stagnant in their devlopment. No one was listening to customers because they had pretty much cornered their piece of the pie. Avid had very little competition in the highend price range and same with premiere in the sub 1k area. So their was no reason for them to innovate.

FCP has driven both Adobe and Avid to become competitive again. Even better they bought INDIA and Cinematools and integrated Sountrack into it, added 24p support, and recently added HD over DV. Every new version is like frickin Christmas. Everything is stuff you would never ever see in a 1k package, only an Avid Symphony/Film Composer or DS. The really cool thing is instead of being an ignorant bastard(which they did for the first 3 years of FCP), Avid has followed suite and added many features from their highend stuff to DV and Studio. The next version is bound to have a bunch of GPU fx like Motion to make everything even faster which Avid will gladly copy. :)

Premiere Pro is having the issue of comming out of the gate too late and previously really pissing off it's customers. Before Premiere Pro, it sucked ass and was horribly bug ridden. 5.0 was nice gui changes over 4.2 but there were bugs that Adobe would blatently ignore and claim the 5th. Shit like "We can't reproduce that bug even though countless people had the problem on the msg boards." It was production killing bugs like random white frames would pop up when you were laying stuff to tape.

FCP came along and then Avid decided to compete with Xpress DV and then 3 years later Adobe was like: Me too, me too. Also it doesn't help that they decided not make an OSX version because on the editing side Hollywood is a pretty Mac centric place(I would say 85-90% at the least). Though I don't blame them at the same time because their market share had severly dwindled(they are only to blame for that). From a numbers point of view it sorta made sense to not support it.

[Paul Moran]

hey guys,


thanks for all that and sorry for the delay ...server has been down...no mail and i totally forgot to check this thread ...

So, i have played with avids free dv version and it looks kinda cool (albeit limited...but its free :) )

So, im going to take a gander at Premier Pro too ...its a pity i dont have a lazy $5k lying around ...a g5 and FCP would do just nice ;)

cheers again

Paul

[SalaTar]

"Adobe Premiere creators Randy Ubillos and Tim Myers began developing the software a few years ago while they worked for Macromedia. Realizing its hardware platform was a perfect fit for the capabilities being incorporated into Final Cut Pro, Apple purchased the software from Macromedia"

I dig Avid at home Paul,
Its very speedy when you get going(plugs ...plugs and did I say plugs), I also like Blade (fast edits,,little buggy).

[Jozvex]

Hi, I'm basically in the situation of needing to get an NLE program for PC too. I'm setting myself up to be more or less a self contained freelancer, because in my part of Australia there is a lack of CG studios for TV and film in my opinion, and I can't move house for complicated reasons. Anyway, my list of apps so far that I use and own is:

Maya Unlimited 6
Motionbuilder 6 Standard (soon, currently upgrading from 5.5)
Digital Fusion 4
Syntheyes (matchmoving app)
Photoshop CS
Quicktime Pro

So, I think I've pretty much got everything graphically covered except an NLE app. At the moment all I'm doing in that area is capturing DV footage from my Panasonic mini DV camera, then editing it with a combination of Digital Fusion and Quicktime Pro. While that combination works, I think an NLE app would be much better suited for adding simple transitions, sound and fading etc.

What software am I using to capture and output the DV? Ulead Video Studio 7 SE........HAH. Not exactly in the league of the rest of the software I have. It came free with my DV camera. Sure it works, it captures and outputs, but it's a bit clunky. For example I just edited together 5 minutes of footage using the QuickFusion combo, resulting in a Quicktime DV file, only to discover that Video Studio can only output AVI DV....so I had to convert it all over then add the sound again.

Here comes the point of my post, do I spend $1350 AUD on Premiere Pro, or through the price-cut-upgrade-deal get Ulead Media Studio Pro for only $199 US?? Is Premiere Pro going to give me a whole lot more? Another thing is that I imagine my camcorder will definitely be supported in Media Studio if it is in Video Studio, but I hear that Premiere Pro is a bit more selective in what it will capture/output to?

THEN there's the possibilty of Fusion 5 having DV capture/output! In which case I might be able to just skip NLE and do everything through Fusion.

I need advice! Help!

:thumbsup:

[maxx10]

FCP is great because it has a bevy of features like cinematools, livetype and soundtrack it has a wonderful interface, editing with "contextual drop wells" and 3-point editing allows you to become extremely productive, and the new suite (FCP+Motion+DVDStudioPro) is great....

... but to go back on subject, a friend of mine edits on a PC with Sony Vegas, and it seems to me the closest you get on the PC in terms of power and features

[altered]

I have used both Premier Pro and Sony Vegas and Sony Vegas is very impressive. It's very stable and easy to use.

[xbreaka]

i actually liked premiere better than vegas althought vegas has better audio tools

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