WOw that is a really really really big complicated question! Let's see, Final Cut Pro, FC Express, iMovie, and Premier. Obviously apple. That's good. I have used all 4 of these programs quite extensively. So if you have any questions regarding these that I don't get to, let me know, it's scary but I could probalby answer that kind of stuff. Well here's what I've experience with all these programs:
iMovie is the most basic of the 4 programs. It's built for easy home video editing. Best feature: SCENE DETECTION. Everytime you press record/stop record on the camera, iMovie will start capturing a new file, making editing quite easier. iMovie 4 is different than the older ones in teh way of cropping each clip. In imovie 3 and earlier, in order to shorten a clip you had to crop it. . . but now those edges are gone (unless you undo) in imovie 4, in teh timeline you can shorten, or re-expand, the clips, which is a huge reason I hated to touch it, until 4 came out. And iMovie makes it really easy to export it to the web or to tape or to DVD with just the click of a button, so for someone that doesn't want to worry about all the technical issues involved in that, imovie takes care of that for you.
Next up: Final Cut Express
This program is suprisingly powerful for it's price believe it or not. It has the same layout as Final Cut Pro, but is limited to DV only. If you have a DV camera and want to edit, no worries, final cut express delivers. It has a lot of filters for video and audio and can also do 3d text or plain. . . It's like imovie but way better, (except no scene detection in capturing, imovie is the only one with that). This might be confusing, but the thing about imovie is that the timeline is not based on physical time of the space that the clips are in, but the time of the clips themselves. If you shorten a clip in imovie, all the other clips automatically stay back to back with the shortened clip making sure all gaps are closed. This can be nice, but not really. If you have two clips both where you want them, if you shorten a clip you don't want the others to shift around usually, so FC Express allows you to edit in the time space of the sequence, and is not dependent on the clips. . .hope that makes a little sense. . . .
Adobe Premier
Yes there is a mac version. . they stopped making it though because they were having a hard time competing with Final Cut. In fact Apple let you trade in your Premier CDs for I think final cut express or a discount on final cut pro, pretty funny story. Anyway. Premier was ok, it edits decently and you can definitely get things done, it's just a little primitive next to Final Cut express as far as options go. Premier does have filters for audio and video, and capturing is usually straight forward, but you can capture more than DV. Premier you can capture a number of formats with different capture devices, such as analog composite video or component or one of the older guys. But when DV came out Premier was late to the scene. . . and is much better with handling analog in my opinion, at least for a mac now, since they don't make premier for mac anymore. . .
And Finally Final Cut Pro!
Now if you get Final Cut 4, you actually get several other programs: Livetype, where you can create numerous fancy animated titles or anything that has to do with text, at the DV or HD or Film or really tiny resolutions, whatever helps you sleep at night; Soundtrack, a really powerful music creation program. Seriously, how many of you sat with this program for hours and forget the day or time? It's cool!; Cinema Tools, great for using video shot on the Panasonic AG-DVX100A 24 camera, you can actually convert your 29.97 at the 2:3:3:2 patter over to true 24 fps, really awesome. Or for converting for film editing on computers. . .; Compressor, compress to mpeg1, mpeg2, mpeg4, for CDs or internet or DVDs, really important if you want to put your project in a lot of places; and also Peak DV, great audio editing program, even for audio recording (like narration or music or whatever). SO that's what you get WITH final cut 4, not counting Final Cut Pro itself. Now 4 is very similar to 3, just with all that extra stuff.
Ok now to the actualy Program. TO start final cut pro has the log and capture feature. YOu can log numerous amounts of media if you put in the right reel info and label everything, then hit "batch capture" and the program will ask you for this reel then that reel as it captures based on all the info you inputed, great time to go eat food while your computer captures what you told it to. Next are the formats. Final Cut can edit in any format that you have a codec for. You can modify the sequence setting and capture settings to match your media specifically, a really powerful feature that's often overlooked. If you want to edit in Cinepak, you can, natively, if you set it up right. The actual editing of media is the same as Final Cut Express, same tools, same features. EXCEPT! Final cut pro allows you to have keyframes for effects. Let's say you want the hue to change over the course of a clip, you can set keyframes for the beginning and end and it'll "animate" that effect. In final cut express you are limited to one setting, no keyframes, one setting per clip.
SO Final cut pro is the most powerful program, you can edit in any codec and do all that online/offline editing stuff that everyone talks about but doesn't really get. Once you've edited your piece you can export if from final cut into a full quality self contained file, or any quicktime codec, or just right into compressor for DVD. I would HIGHLY recommend DVD Studio 3! And yay for Variable Bit Rate MPEG encoding! Makes a world of difference the one pass (Constant Bit Rate). Nice thing about the multiple codec support is it's alreay built for HD editing. . . cause it's digital, and there's a few codecs to pick from. Don't be confused with Final Cut HD. You can edit HD with Final cut 3, I did a year ago. . . . it's just a way to sell software making it appear better. . . . . . but the difference between final cut HD and 4.1 is. . . . the new panasonic HD codecs and the "HD" put after "Final Cut Pro". . . that's about it. Anyway, those are the basic differences. There's a lot of other stuff but no time tonight, but I'd attempt a more specific answer if anyone has a more specific question. Hope this helps someone. . . .[/i]
