Is Avid good?

Dario D.

Dario D.

I once heard a film student say that everyone in his class HATED Avid, and that the only reason it was used was because it was heavily entrenched in the industry, and big movie studios had expensive Avid equipment that they didn't want to throw away...

Does that make any sense? I never trusted the teacher (really bitter about everything), and thought he might have just passed this view onto everyone, before they had a chance to really understand for themselves what was what.

I use Premiere, btw (PPro CS5), and have messed around with Sony Vegas, but never tried Avid. I've poked around for some online reviews, but they are strangely few and far-between.
 
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Hmm, I just ran into this. They certainly don't rate it POORLY. (btw, it's easier to find reviews now that I know it's called "Avid Media Composer" and not just "Avid".)
 
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AVID is diffidently really good. AVID was for awhile the only industry standard digital NLE platform that was really solid. But FCP is super solid as well, so its all about preference.
 
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One is never "better" than the other because it is 100% preference.

AVID is decent, as good as any other. It was 5-6 years ago the industry standard. Now Final Cut Pro is one equal footing. Adobe Premiere Pro is making headway, but is no where near as entrenched in film or television on the professional side where FCP and AVID are.

Remember, it's the artist, not the brush that counts.
 
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Most Avid NLE systems, like Digidesign/Pro Tools HD systems (BTW, Avid owns Digidesign) are proprietary hardware systems, so are not reliant exclusively on your computers processing power.

I would assume that Avid hardware reduces rendering/processing time, a key factor when working on huge projects with scheduling constraints.

And yes, I didn't like Pro Tools at first - I was a Digital Performer user - but once I began to find my way around and started to appreciate it's audio post capabilities I really dug into it and now cannot live without it, not to mention the huge number of third party applications exclusive to PT.

I don't know much about video and NLEs, but Pro Tools has a lock on large scale audio post since, besides the fact that it was there first, mixing is done in real time. Every EQ, compressor/limiter, reverb, etc. plus the automation uses a percentage of the systems processing power. On my personal Pro Tools LE set-up I start maxing out my system with one 7-band EQ on each of 30 channels and two reverbs on busses. Pro Tools HD systems take over the processing chores allowing the computer to run just the software. A "Hollywood" mix will use 1,000 (that's right, one thousand) audio tracks with multiple EQs, limiters and compressors on each channel and dozens of reverbs. In a recent article on the audio post of "Inception" five (5) Pro Tools HD3 systems ("maxed" to the limit with processing "farm" cards) were used for the mix; one was used exclusively for reverbs and sub-busses. Figure about $250k in hardware alone, the mix console another $250k.
 
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I've used AVID, Premiere and Sony Vegas. Although I've never tried FCP I'm very curious to try it because I hear all this rave about it.

To be honest with you, and this is just my opinion, I did not like AVID at all! I was pulling my hair out trying to figure this program out. I had the instruction book and I still couldn't do it. It took me hours to get this footage. I was so frustrated I just quit and pretty much gave the program away. Thank god a teacher had given it to me.

On another note, I disliked Vegas as well, not as bad as AVID but still.

Maybe I'm just used to Premiere or something, but I still want to try FCP and from what I hear, that is where the industry is turning to, which means we should be too.
 
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Just use the program you are good at as that is the one you would make the best results with in the least time. None of these are much different. Vegas or FCP have a price advantage if you are not buying a CS master suite (if you are, and I do) then $1899 / the number of useful programs in that group probably takes your costs down especially if you like After Effects. You really can use any of these to do the work. If you have a PC now and not a mac you shouldn't even worry about FCP though no reason to buy a mac for one program.
 
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