Best editing software

[horseradish]

Hello.

I'm curious to know everyone's thoughts on which editing software is the best. And by best I mean which software allows you to be the most creative? Which runs the smoothest? Which offers the most options? And so on.
A coworker today gave me a brief introduction to Final Cut Pro. He raved about the program, saying that it is the best the best. However, I have a Dell, not a mac. So I ask: Is Final Cut Pro so good as to be worth selling one's pc and replacing it with a mac?

Sincerely,

Barf Barf.

 

[Will Vincent]

Is Final Cut Pro so good as to be worth selling one's pc and replacing it with a mac?

No.

Basically any NLE is going to do the same things.. ultimately what the "Best" software is, is subjective. Personally I will say for me the best is Premiere pro. Other PC people will likely say Vegas, and some may even say Avid.

90% of mac people will likely say Final Cut, though for some people iMovie may well be more than enough, or again, Avid. (I think it still runs on mac??)

Anyway, both Vegas and Premiere will do everything that Final Cut can do with ease.. there is absolutely no reason to sell your PC.

Use what you've got. Anyone who tells you differently is seriously mistaken.

 

[EvsFX08]

Very true, I've used both Vegas and Premiere, I find Vegas a little easier to use, but Premiere has more filters and Plug-Ins. I've seen Final Cut Pro used and like the workflow on it as well. If I had an extra 5K-8K lying around, I'd probably get the FCP and get Motion for Special Effects as well, but like Will Vincent stated, they will all do pretty much the same thing and it is truly subjective. Allegedly, MAC's are suppossed to be better working with video than PC's, I don't know if that really pertains to video or if it's just the better quality machine of MAC's ( I don't own one yet, but am impressed enough with MAC's to want one). I've never known anyone to have FCP crash in the middle of a project, however, I have experienced quite a few crashes to some degree on my own PC with every editing software I've used. Premiere was simply finding the right settings. Only had 2 crashes with Vegas, but I think that was due to hardware configurations if I remember correctly. Avid, well, I don't have enough space to write about my experiences with that. Personally, and this is only my opinion, I would stay away from Avid, I'm not impressed with the workflow and stability of some of their products, but many major companies do use Avid, so I guess it works for others. You can find strengths and weaknesses for each NLE system, so it's all up to what you are comfortable with, your budget, and what you expect you will be doing with your film (shooting HD; adding SFX; multi-cam editing; etc). I'm no expert in video editing yet, but I am an expert in what hasn't worked for me!

 

[horseradish]

Cool, thanks guys. This is all very reassuring since I wasn't too keen on the idea of having to purchase a Mac in order to achieve optimum editing performance. Now that I know it's all pretty much the same, I'll definately just go with Premier Pro.
However, I do have one other question: The same guy who I'd mentioned introduced me to FCP also lent me FCP's thick-ass user's manual. He encouraged that I read it in full so as to familiarize myself with the editing process. I was eager to do so when he first gave me the manual, but after posting this thread I can't help but wonder if doing so would be a complete waste of time. So, my question: is FCP similar enough to the other editing programs (premier specifically) such that reading the user's manual would educate me in a way that would allow me to better grasp and make use of all brands of editing software?

Thanks.

-Barf Barf

 

[oakstreetphotovideo]

If I had an extra 5K-8K lying around, I'd probably get the FCP and get Motion for Special Effects as well

What country are you living in? A Mac Pro with 4 cores and 4GB or RAM + Final Cut Suite is only $3700. That would include Final Cut Pro, Motion, Sound Track Pro, Compressor, Color, and Cinema Tools. That's a far cry from $8,000. I've used MS Windows for editing, and now I use an Apple. You couldn't pay me enough to go back to Windoze. Even if the editing software were flawless, the system is too hard to maintain. Oh, and before you go off and tell me I'm ignorant, I write software for MS-Windows. I keep Windows XP and the Microsoft development tools nicely isolated in a virtual machine under Parallels. Its really easy to backup and restore a virtual machine image ... unlike the real thing. About the only time I see a Windows PC is when someone brings me one that is broken. I'm pretty handy in the recovery console, when I'm being paid by the hour. For my money, and my time, give me Apple OS X, any day.

Doug

p.s. It's not just better hardware, it's a rock solid operating system built on a Free BSD (Un*x) kernel. i.e. No Registry

 

[Will Vincent]

Cool, thanks guys. This is all very reassuring since I wasn't too keen on the idea of having to purchase a Mac in order to achieve optimum editing performance. Now that I know it's all pretty much the same, I'll definately just go with Premier Pro.
However, I do have one other question: The same guy who I'd mentioned introduced me to FCP also lent me FCP's thick-ass user's manual. He encouraged that I read it in full so as to familiarize myself with the editing process. I was eager to do so when he first gave me the manual, but after posting this thread I can't help but wonder if doing so would be a complete waste of time. So, my question: is FCP similar enough to the other editing programs (premier specifically) such that reading the user's manual would educate me in a way that would allow me to better grasp and make use of all brands of editing software?

Thanks.

-Barf Barf

I wouldn't think it would be a complete waste of time, as most of the functionality will be similar, though the specific commands and tools would be very different. The Adobe "classroom in a book" series are good for learning the ins and outs of adobe software. If it's specifically the editing process you want to learn, I would think there are better sources than the user manual of a specific NLE to learn that, but I've not read the FCP manual so I can't say.

I will suggest this though, the book The Eye is Quicker is a great resource for learning the principles, methods, and strategies of editing. It doesn't cover the technical how this button works in this program, but it does cover, in great detail, how to make your edits invisible -- which is what any good editor strives for with every cut.

This authentic "how-to" guide -- adaptable to all tools and technologies -- is the most comprehensive book available on the principles, methods, and strategies vital to the creative art of film editing.

Pepperman's vibrant approach uses dozens of terrific sequences from a wide array of films to teach you how editing can make a good film better. He defines what is constant in all great work and gives you all the tips you need to achieve greatness.

This indispensable guide for screenwriters, directors, and film and video editors:

• Makes clear what is practical in editing theory
• Is filled with tips on quick and simple editing techniques
• Provides a guide to "what stays" and "what gets left out"
• Offers specific strategies to "find" scenes and sequences
• Illustrates how to enrich a film actor's performance
• Presents a concise understanding of "beats" and "rhythms"

"The Eye Is Quicker will benefit future generations of film editors... it is also a very good read for film lovers." - Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times

"A brilliant 'splice of life' from a visionary teacher and film editor! The book is filled with illuminating insights and delightful anecdotes." - Joan Brooker, Director of Award-Winning Documentary, We Got Us

"Reading this book is like attending a master class in principles, concepts, and techniques of post production." - Vincent LoBrutto, Author, Stanley Kubrick: A Biography

 

[EvsFX08]

What country are you living in? A Mac Pro with 4 cores and 4GB or RAM + Final Cut Suite is only $3700. That would include Final Cut Pro, Motion, Sound Track Pro, Compressor, Color, and Cinema Tools. That's a far cry from $8,000. I've used MS Windows for editing, and now I use an Apple. You couldn't pay me enough to go back to Windoze. Even if the editing software were flawless, the system is too hard to maintain. Oh, and before you go off and tell me I'm ignorant, I write software for MS-Windows. I keep Windows XP and the Microsoft development tools nicely isolated in a virtual machine under Parallels. Its really easy to backup and restore a virtual machine image ... unlike the real thing. About the only time I see a Windows PC is when someone brings me one that is broken. I'm pretty handy in the recovery console, when I'm being paid by the hour. For my money, and my time, give me Apple OS X, any day.

Doug

p.s. It's not just better hardware, it's a rock solid operating system built on a Free BSD (Un*x) kernel. i.e. No Registry

whoaah, dude, chill out, let's be nice about this. First, sure, you could get a bare bones Apple system for 3700, but there's no way you could get the whole package to include all of the editing and special effects software with that price. I just went to Apple and priced a decent system, it can't be done for 3700, but of course, your requirments may be a little different than mine, I do a lot of high end professional graphics and special effects, I couldn't afford the system I wanted from Apple, so I built my own customized PC for about 35% less than a comparable Apple system (price doesn't include software, I bought that separetly). But at any rate, if you read my post carefully, i'm actually an advocate of a MAC, in fact, I even stated that I would eventually own one. There's not one thing I disagree with you on your post other than the price. But again, it's all a matter of perspective, but for the author of the original post, both systems would work fine for his needs.

 

[oakstreetphotovideo]

EvsFX08, you said you'd get a Mac, FCP and Motion. You'd have no problem running FCP and Motion on a 2.8Ghz quad core PowerMac with 4GB of RAM and the video card that comes standard. I would hardly call any Mac a "bare bones" system, since if you order a "bare bones" PC, it doesn't include an operating system, keyboard, mouse, hard drive, or RAM. It sure isn't going to include a high end graphics card.

For what you described, $3700 ($2400 for the PowerMac with 4GB + $1200 for FCS 2) would be everything you'd have to have for editing, assuming you already own a display. I do a lot of editing on a dual processor G5 with 4GB or RAM, which is antiquated by today's standards.

You may be on my side regarding Apple products, but saying it costs $5-8K for an FCP editing system is simply not true. It's misleading and it reinforces the myth that Apple hardware is more expensive than PC hardware. If you look at total cost of ownership, the Apple is a better deal; especially if you are a heavy computer/graphics user.

Finally, I was answering the original post. Given the number of people that bring their Windows PCs to me because one day they go no further than some cryptic message, and the fact that those people don't use their machines nearly as hard as I do, compounded by the fact that they can't simply back up their system and restore it in the event of a total failure, I disagree that all systems are created equal and therefore it doesn't matter which system you learn. If you're starting from scratch, learn a system that is going to give you good service.

And trust me, I've worked with and programmed almost everything. I started out writing machine code on a Commodore in 1980. I went to work for IBM in 1985, at which time I was writing mostly assembler code. I learned "C" and worked for IBM Headquarters programming everything from mainframes to minis, AIX workstations and PCs. I became one of IBM's leading advisers on C and C++ programming before I transferred to research for a few years, and eventually left to start my own business. I know systems better than most people will ever know them, and I know Windows internals better than any Windows power user. I wish I knew the Apple APIs as well as I know MS-Windows APIs. I wouldn't use Windows for any serious work, and I could not in good conscience tell anyone that OS X and Windows operating systems are equal; not when it comes to reliability, recoverability, and security.

My advice is simple: If your time is valuable, spend it learning something that isn't going to leave you hanging in the middle of a big project.

Doug

 

[Will Vincent]

My advice is simple: If your time is valuable, spend it learning something that isn't going to leave you hanging in the middle of a big project.

I've never had that problem, and mac's CAN be (inherently are not, but they CAN be) just as instable as a Windows machine, and a well configured Windows machine can in fact be equally or more stable than a mac. I've seen macs crash repeatedly (humorously immediately following a "my mac is uber stable" diatribe).

So --- use what you have. Unless you have a pressing need to get something different, none is "better" than the other. period.

 

[oakstreetphotovideo]

Hardware problems can create instability in any machine. However, I'm not talking about whether or not there will be problems, I'm talking about how long it will take to be back up and running after a major hardware failure. If you've never experienced a hard drive crash, then you're just lucky.

Can you make a bootable clone of your system drive and work from it after your system gets clobbered as if you had not lost a thing? Can you move your home folder to another machine and pick up everything exactly where you left off, including all of your software preferences, etc.?

I would agree that "better" is a matter of opinion, but as a systems person, I have implemented and tested recovery procedures on every mainstream platform. My conclusions are not entirely subjective.

I'll leave it at this, because I know this will turn into a useless argument. I hope someone understands that I'm not talking about my experience with a couple of computers. I'm the guy they call when nobody else can fix it, so I get to recover systems after all sorts of catastrophes. You can either believe me, or ignore me. It makes not difference to me.

Doug

 

[VPTurner]

...

Can you make a bootable clone of your system drive and work from it after your system gets clobbered as if you had not lost a thing? Can you move your home folder to another machine and pick up everything exactly where you left off, including all of your software preferences, etc.?

...

Yes. It's called RAID. I run RAID 1 on my editing workstation (RAID 0 on my gaming system). With E-SATA, you can even have your mirror drive external. If you really want to get serious, have a stack of drives in a larger array with mirroring and parity striping.

The chances of both drives crashing simultaneously are slim, and there is zero downtime. I can still work until I plug in a replacement drive to rebuild the mirror, and it does so in the background.

 

[oakstreetphotovideo]

I had a customer with an 8 drive raid array configured with redundancy and striping. They lost everything on it due to a Windows Server failure. Raid does not protect you when the O.S. decides to overwrite directory tables.

Don't you ever wonder why there are so many recovery features in Windows?

Doug

 

[VPTurner]

I had a customer with an 8 drive raid array configured with redundancy and striping. They lost everything on it due to a Windows Server failure. Raid does not protect you when the O.S. decides to overwrite directory tables.

Don't you ever wonder why there are so many recovery features in Windows?

Doug

True. But that's why you have a tape backup.

I'm not saying a PC is as good as a Mac. That will probably never happen. But I have seen more problems caused by user error than I've ever seen from hardware failure. And that's the biggest differentiator between Windows and Mac - user friendliness. Microsoft tried to fix this with Vista but failed miserably. Let's see if they can finally get it right with Windows 7 because I am not switching to Mac anytime soon.

EDIT: Incidentally, if Macs are so perfect, why is there a site dedicated to solving problems with them? http://www.macfixit.com/

 

[oakstreetphotovideo]

Silly, nobody said Macs were perfect. I'm going on hard, cold numbers, here. I use what gets the job done with a minimum of pain. I can use anything I want; I choose to use Macs, and I've never regretted that choice.

The client had a tape backup, but before we could use it, we had to install the entire OS, reinstall the tape backup software, figure out how to configure the tape backup software, recreate the domain controller, and some things I've already forgotten. The tape restore could not restore the system registry, so virtually everything had to be reconfigured. Before we could start any of that, though, I had to use a good old custom made Linux boot CD with drivers for the RAID array to boot into the system and recover as much as I could. The entire process to 2 weeks (it took a few days on the phone with Dell and Microsoft to determine the system had to be rebuilt because some of the active directory files had been damaged). It was my idea to use Linux to mount the NTFS file system and recover what could be salvaged (the customer wasn't sure exactly what was on the backup tape, and we couldn't check without first returning the system to a bootable state).

Long story short, that would have taken hours (a day or two, tops) with OS X server, not weeks. That entire fiasco cost that clinic 2 weeks in downtime and $4,000 in consulting fees. The client really did nothing wrong, although the people who configured the system were braindead (which serves your point about user error, but the NT Server is not forgiving when AD gets trashed).

This is getting way off topic, but if you won't take my word for it, then I must give details. Keep in mind, now, that we had Microsoft top level support involved and they could offer no solution. The clinic had a gold support package, some very expensive software and a server with redundant everything that cost $16,000. That story is the worst, but it's not the only one. Keep in mind, that I'm not a hardware or repair guy. They don't call me until everyone else has given up. I don't advertise and I can only be dragged in on a job like that by referral. Unlike the Microsoft Certified techs, I have a Linux background, and very low level systems knowledge. Linux has saved my butt on several occasions. I'd love to see a MS Tech carry a Linux rescue disk!

Doug

 

[VPTurner]

I started my study of Linux only a couple of years ago, mostly in the last year. Still very much a neophyte. Believe me, when I found out you can mount pretty much any file system including NTFS, I was hooked. Needless to say, my laptop drives are encrypted now after this revelation. If not for my MSDOS days and being comortable with text-based OSes, command line operations (gads, not to mention Netware CNA/CNE - yes, I was in the network installation and server recovery business for awhile, too, back in the 3.11 days), I probably would not have picked it up very quickly. I've been primarily playing around with Debian/etch.

Yes, we are waaaay off topic. Now back to our regularly scheduled program...

On PC, best editing software in my experience is Adobe Premiere. In combination with Photoshop and AfterEffects, it's a very powerful suite. There is a steep learning curve, though, especially for AfterEffects.

 

[EvsFX08]

Poor guy, Horseradish, all he wanted was ideas on which software was best for editing....I hope we all didn't confuse the guy even further. We can talk specs all we want, but the bottom line is it's all a matter of opinion, use what you feel comfortable with. I'm just glad he didn't ask which program was best for compositing and motion graphics, there's no end to that debate and I use several of those programs.

 

[Nick Head]

I'm not sure about all this apple vs. pc stuff, but I know I like the Adobe series of products. Just a couple years ago the integration of all their products was a tad on the loose side, but more and more it's becoming an insanely similar environment over multiple programs with good integration. I just think you can't go wrong with some good solid video tutorials, An intense bundle of adobe products, and a WHOLE LOT OF TIME. It's worth it...and ALOT of fun.

At the moment not all the Adobe products work on Apple I do believe....so if you want a range of products all made by the same people, with the same layout, the same general concepts, and at times even similar plug-ins over all the products....then go with Adobe on a PC, cause it's the one place where you can do it all, learn it all, and not have to re-learn TONS of stuff with each program.