Re: Avid and FCP

Scott, that's pretty much what I said in my last post... that I came here to verify what I already believed to be true. I would love to have time to come here every time I have a problem in FCP (which could be several times a day), post and wait for a response that may or may not be helpful - but I just don't.

I simply wanted to reach out beyond my circle of editor friends to see if other pros had the same opinion. And it seems they do. I had dinner with a fellow FCP editor last night. What did we discuss the whole night? Workarounds and crazy issues we've been having. That seems wrong to me.

All 3 of our FCP systems are less than a year old. When we got them I went to my computer guy and said, "Give me the most powerful Macs I can get and put Final Cut Studio 2 on them." Many people say that an occasional reinstall clears up many issues for a while. Again, I don't have time to do a reinstall every 3 months. I don't mean to put down FCP because it's an awesome tool - and I whole heartedly prefer mac over PC (which is why I'm glad there's a mac option to Avid) - I just feel I need something more solid and reliable at this point.

I have a mentor who got me into this business and we constantly debate over tools. Whenever I would say something like, "why would we shoot with the Panavision Genesis ($6k/day) when the SDX-900 ($600/day) looks just like film?" Rather than arguing specs he always says, "Dan, there's a reason why they shoot national commercials on the Genesis and not the SDX". I think that translates into all aspects of production and post - and, throughout the process of maturing in this business, I've come to realize that there's a very good reason Avid is still the choice of pros when it comes to editing movies and national spots.

I feel like I just rambled, but does that make sense?