Comments on: Avid vs. Final Cut Pro. My take.

By: Final Cut / Avid, which is better? « TechMedia

Final Cut / Avid, which is better? « TechMedia — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:40:35 +0000

[...] are pretty similar except for Avid’s superior media management, and I have to agree with Scott Simmons that its trim tool is intuitive and easy to [...]

By: Avid vs. Final Cut Pro | fulFilmit

Avid vs. Final Cut Pro | fulFilmit — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 19:46:22 +0000

[...] it out: http://www.scottsimmons.tv/blog/2006/02/18/avid-vs-final-cut-pro-my-take/ Filed under: Articles, Editing, Interesting & Inspirational, Post Production Leave a comment [...]

By: admiralkymia

admiralkymia — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:17:31 +0000

I currently use both FCPS 3.0 and Avid Xpress Pro. Avid by force, FCPS by choice. I have noticed that Avid does seem to shine in linear editing. It tends to be the favorite of the, shall I say, seasoned veterans of the film industry; the guys (and gals) that have been doing this since before Jobs even hatched the Apple egg. It does seem to cater to that crowd. Whereas FCPS seems to be more oriented on the point-and-click “non-linear” generation. This is why you see it used more in Indie films and why it is gaining in popularity. The article I read seems to be fairly dated to some of Final Cut Studio 3′s features. Final Cut Server, for example is an excellent way to manage projects across multiple stations and watching the import of a sequence has been in there since FCPS 2.

Additionally, an Avid workstation tends to only have the editor. Multiple other brand’s software is often included to do some of the other work (i.e. AfterEffects ((which every film-maker should own and know backwards and forwards)), Fireworks, or Avid’s own: Pro Tools). Whereas FCPS seems to be more oriented to an all-in-one solution with FCP, Soundtrack Pro, Motion, DVD Studio Pro, Loops Creation Tool, etc.

I prefer FCP, just because I belong to this point-and-click generation. However, I will not diminish, in any way, the merits of the seasoned Avid system.

By: Charlotte.

Charlotte. — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:47:04 +0000

Dave S. In regards to your question on applying effects on V2 with a P-I_P; it’s because you need to use P-I-P as your ‘top’ effect and put all the other effects inside by nesting them (stepping in). If you don’t, whatever effects you put on top of your PIP, will affect any layers below. Picture in Picture is just that, a picture in a picture, and works as an overlay.

By: editblog-admin

editblog-admin — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 23:28:47 +0000

Lindsey, since there’s no built-in tool in Avid like the Log and Transfer in FCP I think you are out of luck. But since you can edit native .MXF from P2 cards maybe you import them natively and make some notes like logging and then bring in the clip to media later?

By: Lindsey

Lindsey — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:31:55 +0000

What I really miss is the logging work flow in Final Cut for P2 media. We log everything, but in Avid we haven’t found an equivalent process. Any suggestions? I know there’s a logging program that comes in the pack, but it doesn’t seem to work for P2 media?

By: editblog-admin

editblog-admin — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 19:23:15 +0000

Phil, you need to turn on Sync Locks. There’s a button near the bottom of the timeline to turn then on and they will put a little mark in the patch bay of the timeline. Kinda hard to explain where so look up sync lock in the help and you’ll find it. I always work with them on. You can think of it like, in FCP they are always on and you can’t turn them off. In Avid you have the option.

By: Phil Allen

Phil Allen — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 04:59:28 +0000

I am fairly new to AVID, I have used FCP since 1.0 in 1999. While editing on an Adrenaline I seem to keep getting my timeline out of sync when trimming. Is this a common problem with the AVID? Is there an easy way for me to avoid this? As long as I was working in a linear fashion nothing went wrong, but when I started working on elements within the timeline everything after a certain point would go out of sync.

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:45:47 +0000

Dave,

I have encountered this situation as well when building multi-effect heavy sequences.

There is a way to monitor other effects above the level you step-in at.

1.) Step in and add the effect or effects
2.) Step out to the full timeline
3.) Select the segment tool and doubleclick on the clip with nested effects

The clip layers should uncollapse within the main timeline view. Now you can keyframe each effect individually while monitoring the result of all effects. To re-collapse the effect layer, just doubleclick it again with the segment tool.

Hope this helps!

I do wish Avid used a similiar effects workflow such as After Effects in which effects were assigned purely on a clip by clip basis; however, one of the powerful things about Avid’s approach, is being able to instantly effect all video globally if the need arises. Maybe they can reconfigure the effects system to allow for isolated track effects and global effects without all the stepping nonsense.

When working on another editor’s timeline, I sometimes find myself going “That doesn’t seem right” only to discover upon stepping in that there is 6-layers of effects on a clip. This is not very obvious from the timeline display.

By: editblog

editblog — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 18:20:53 +0000

Dave, I think that’s correct that you would have to step-in to make it work. The downside to the way Avid does effects is that if you apply more than one effect to a clip you have to “step into” it to change the parameters and then you can’t really reference audio or what is in the timeline. But it shouldn’t effect what’s on V1 if you have applied this effect to a clip in V2. It’s kinda hard to say as I’d have to see it. I’ll try it myself when I get back in Avid world next week.