I am soon to switch platforms but find myself lost in regard to finding a close match for Final Cut Studio 2 & Shake.
Whilst cost is a factor, minimizing the learning curve is the most important consideration here.
I’m leaning toward Nuke as a replacement for Shake as most of my work centers around compositing.
Suggested alternatives for FCP, Motion, Logic/Soundtrack, Livetype & DVD Studio plus compression software would be most helpful.
Thanks
BB
I don’t know any alternative for FCP, if you don’t like the Avid family, you might try liquid(though it’s owned by Avid now, its workflow quite different compared to Xpress or MediaComposer). For DVD Authoring on a PC I used Encore, for he compression stuff Sorensen Squeeze.
For FCP: You also might want to give Sony Vegas a chance. For Logic/Soundtrack… maybe Cubase/proTools…?
Ah. And Nuke is the way to go.
-k
The Avid stuff looks good although pricier than Vegas. Nice that it works on both platforms making the transition to Windows a bit easier.
It might be overkill for the work I do (as is FCP Studio) which is architectural viz/animation plus some live footage eventually authored to DVD.
Thanks for the suggestions
BB
Why not just get the Adobe video suite? That covers most everything in FCS. And if you want nodal compositing, you could go with Fusion also.
Are you switching for application compatibility? You’ll end up dropping $3500-$5500 alone on a new nodal compositor (unless you consider Combustion at $1000) which could easily buy a new Mac and a new PC.
I’m looking for the shortest learning curve & as much parity across platforms as possible.
The cost of an Avid suite & Nuke is indeed expensive & I will probably have to run both Mac & PC for a while until I can eventually meet the costs of a new editing suite.
The reason I want to move away from Mac is after more than 10 years with the platform I am completely fed up with the pain of constantly shifting architectures and software issues with every point upgrade of OS X. Limited choice of graphics cards & peripherals is another factor.
Mac OS X is a joy to work with but it is now time for me to cross over to the dark side.
BB
Not that you’ll get shifting architectures and software issues with Windows? Plus the whole set of issues Vista brings to the table? I haven’t noticed the pain you’re talking about - once my Mac is working I don’t update any software until I know it works right. I do the same thing with Windows. And I backup before a major update, just in case. Plus, their architecture’s locked into the x86 processors at this point and for a long time in the forseeable future. I bought Leopard, but still haven’t upgraded because Nuke is not 10.5-compatible yet. That said, Leopard doesn’t necessarily have anything I need anyway, so why mess with my setup if it’s working?
Is there one software issue in particular that’s a problem? Or a peripheral available for Windows PC’s that’s not available for Mac’s?
Just trying to get you to truly examine your position and what you want to get out of it. If OSX is a joy to work with, why not just stick with it? The grass may seem greener on the other side of the fence… but when you land their you’ll encounter a whole new set of problems. And without Apple’s standardized hardware system troubleshooting is not as easy.
You’ll also spend the same on Media Composer alone as you’d spend getting a dual-2.66ghz dualcore Mac with the ATI card, plus a Blackmagic card, plus Shake, plus Final Cut Pro. And odds are you won’t edit any faster or run any more stable anyways, plus you’ll have to deal with Avid’s whole expensive-proprietary workflows.
I do archviz as well, and run all my video stuff on my Macbook Pro from within OSX. For $1200 you really can’t beat the Final Cut suite for video (although Adobe’s pretty close)… and I’ve recently been switching over to Modo in OSX for some work. That said, I do have a bootcamp partition for 3ds max, Vray, and Fusion (although I use Shake as well). This gives me the best of both worlds, and has been very stable for me.
Anyway, if you write down the plusses and minuses and find yourself moving to Vista (which you’ll ultimately have to do anyway), then my Windows software votes would be:
Adobe Production Studio Premium (or whatever it’s called now) - that will cover everything in FCS2 except Color
Eyeon Fusion (it’s more at first but the maintenance is much cheaper than Nuke’s, making it less expensive after 3 years) - the particle system is invaluable, and unless Nuke 5 brings better painting abilities Fusion is much stronger in paint and touchup
Thanks for the detailed reply. You are right about Windows & Vista and I have worried about the wisdom of exchanging one poison for another. Pretty much all the frustration I have with OS X is outside of video editing and comp work. For Archviz I use Lightwave with the usual bunch of plugins, Onyx tree applications and a few other bits and bobs all of which have been hit very hard with the move to UB and again by Leopard. I’m very close to renewing my hardware currently 3 PCC Macs running Tiger. Now obviously I’m sitting on the fence a bit here but it seems less painful to stay with my current 3D software on a different platform & suffer a bit of relearning with the video end.
Currently my thoughts are with either Avid Liquid or Xpress HD & Nuke, but this is mostly because they work on either OS. I really have no experience video & post outside of Apples suite and After Effects which is why I’m looking for something as close as possible. I will pour over the Eyeon Fusion tutorials etc as it does look a good alternative to Nuke.
If it sounds odd - my worrying about Leopard & UB.
None of the Onyx tree software is likely to make it to UB, half of my Lightwave plugins require UB & the other half CFM (PPC) & then there is ZBrush.
My apologies if I have seemed overly critical of Mac OS - For editing etc it’s been great but for 3D it’s been much harder.
Sorry to go OT here, but Nuke 4.7v5 update that was released back in early December works just fine under Leopard.
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