NAB: Apple VS Avid

Looking at Apple's booth vs. Avid's at NAB this year...the aesthetics of each of their spaces kinda reflects the companies product lines. Avid had lots of little booths scattered all over their area with liitle or no cohesion between them. Apple on the other hand had a floorplan layout that matches their editing philosphy. Avid's booth was as convuluted as their product line.

Just my observations from Monday and Tuesday.

"Never underestimate a kick to the nuts"
Bas Rutten

Well, they have many different products with various applications. I wasn't confused at all.

I am an editor that uses both, and I am impressed with both. Avid Media Composer has the best media management in the business, no doubt. You can capture DV, HDV, DVCPRO HD via firewire and mix them all on the timeline, no rendering. But so can many other editing systems, like FCP 6, Edius, Matrox Axio, Premiere Pro. But, you can take footage captured on an adrenaline and convert all of it to DV, transfer it to a firewire drive, and edit that on a laptop. Then e-mail the cut to the other system and it opens up and links up automatically.

I love the dynamic trimming in Avid, the way the effects can be added to clips or used to create custom transitions. Animatte, advanced tracking, LOCATORS!!! EDL and OMF support is big. I like the Avid Application. But, I am still a huge Apple fan as well. They both are great editors.

DNxHD codec is huge. But now Apple has ProRes 422, also huge.

Avid has a great integrated color correction system. Apple has a very decent one, but is bundled with one that rivals DaVinci in that it can do. Mind you, it will take an expert on it to do what you can with a daVinci, but, it is there.

That brings up this point. Avid MC...$5000 for the software only solution. JUST for the editing application and color correction. But, to me, the media managment capabilities and integration with other pro apps makes it worth it.

HOWEVER....with FCP you get FCP 6, Motion 3 (avid has nothing like this bundled), Soundtrack, COLOR, Compressor, Cinema Tools and DVD Studio Pro...all for $1300. And it is very capable of editing broadcast television and feature film. Media Management is a bit behind, but improves with each release.

OH, and I edit MUCH faster with FCP. The dynamic timeline and ability to move clips around is very freeing.

They both...heck, ALL non-linear editing systems have their place in the world. I am a big fan of Avid and FCP. And would easily use both. Depending on the situation at hand.


www.shanerosseditor.com

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Shane,

I used be both an Avid and FCP editor, and agree with everything you say. In fact, Avid has been quite far ahead of FCP in many little details that just make life eaiser (eg, integrated audio normalize, for one). And for one to work in the industry, s/he'd better know his way around an Avid. However, I have always despised Avid's mode-based editing, and was the main reason I switched to FCP for everything. FCP, as you seem to agree, is much more intuitive than Avid. And it's beyond me why Avid hasn't gotten away from that model, years ago.

With that said, barring ProRes 422 and mixed formats on a timeline, I was unimpressed with FCP 6. Until I went to Apple's website and really looked into what's been done and added to FC Studio. It's a must-have, if for no other reason than Apple added the little things that make life easier (eg, normalize audio from with FCP). But there are big changes across the board that initially escaped dunderheads like me.

Motion 3 is huge. It doesn't sound like it from reports that came from NAB this year, but look at the website. Be sure to note particles in 3D, and all the cursive things that can be done in realtime. Wow.

Color is a huge deal, although I'm not sure how many pro editors will use it (since they'll be sending the work out to a finishing house anyway). Nice for the indie, though.

I won't go on, but across the board the whole package is improved and I urge everyone to spend some time on Apple's FCS site. I suspect there will be no disappointment.

thanks,

HarryD

I was pretty much underwhelmed by Avid's NAB presentation. I sat in on one Film Editor's talk and the "Independent Production Workflow" presentation. Neither one of them offered much new or impressive except for the DNxHD36 Codec and the software-only Media Composer. The promises of a committment to Open standards as the future of Avid was encouraging.

Now that Avid is offering a scaleable, hardware independent, Media Composer that will, in theory at least, work and play well with all the other hardware-based Avids, I think a lot of opportunities for streamlining workflow will exist.

I like the idea that I can work on one workstation with Media Composer, Final Cut Studio and Shake and let the applications and the work be the focus, not the hardware.

Final Cut is my main toolset, but it's nice to know that I can deal with Avid projects without having to buy a suite of expensive, task-specific, hardware.

That said, Avid needs to completely re-write their software with a modern user interface, modeless editing, and an integrated effects system that is competitive with what you can do in other tools in terms of both ease-of-use and functionality.

Agreed but they've been needing to do that for at least the past five years and haven't. By the time they get around to it, FCP will be so far ahead (in both feature set and market share) that it won't be worth the effort.

At this rate, it's more likely that FCP will get a total rewrite before the Avid range does...

Doug Luberts Wrote:
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> That said, Avid needs to completely re-write their
> software with a modern user interface, modeless
> editing, and an integrated effects system that is
> competitive with what you can do in other tools in
> terms of both ease-of-use and functionality.

Martin Baker
[www.digital-heaven.co.uk]
Unique plug-ins and tools for Apple Pro Apps

Did any of you go to Avid's party at the Hard Rock Hotel? Did you see how fast OS 6 was? =)
They weren't editing too high of resolution but it was fun to see the old system and how it ran pretty well. It was quite Nostalgic.

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Dean

"When I see you floating down the gutter I'll give you a bottle of wine."
Captain Beefheart, Trout Mask Replica.