editing software
 

Is anyone using avid with the HD series cameras, any issues? I am having a hard time choosing an editing suite. I am new to all this and have yet to do any editing. From my understanding Vegas works very well with the JVC, but in regards to the "video world" marketing myself etc. would I be better off investing my time and money into FCP or Avid, where there could be more opportunities for employment. I use an HD-100 now, but that may change down the road. My computer choice will obviously be dictated by my software. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

It really depends on whether you are looking solely to edit in your own edit bay (in which case it doesn't REALLY matter what solution you choose, as long as it does what you and your clients need it to) or hire yourself out as a freelancer using other people's/business' edit bays.

In terms of freelancing, either AVID (Media Composer or higher) or FCP will bode well for you, depending on your market and EXACTLY where you'd want your freelance business to come from.

The other thing you may want to look into is what any collaborators you may be working with can accept. If you want to move Apple ProRes based media around, ensure that your motion graphics guy (or gal) can read the files.

I've been an FCP guy since version 1.0.2 but I learned on AVID Media Composer back in media college when an AVID system cost $100k + for online. I also taught myself Media 100 and Premiere. 99% of my edit cashflow has come from FCP. Your mileage may vary.

PS. I shoot 720P60 on my 2 HD200u's. I capture to ProRes in FCP 6.0.3 as HDV capture doesn't work in my situation (ie. it just DOESN'T capture. PERIOD).

I was a Vegas user. Vegas never worked well with my HD110 footage. Lots of dropped frames and timecode discontinuities. When I contacted customer support, they told me it wasn't their problem.

After knocking around a bit, I settled on Avid Media Composer. I've never looked back. For awhile, Avid had trouble with HD110 footage, as well. I made conversion to Cineform Intermediate part of my workflow. Cineform has always worked with JVC HD110 m2t footage. Now that Avid (version 3.5) finally imports m2t files, I still convert with Cineform. I would swear by Cineform (NeoHD) as a very high quality intermediate for almost all footage.

I would also stand behind Avid 1000%. Vegas leaves much to be desired.

Bill, from what I am digging up in the forum, it sounds as though there may be some serious timecode issues, I looked at cineforms website, they suggest after converting with cineform, then convert a second time through metafuze?? It seems confusing. Do you use metafuze and if so how slow is it. Are you having any timecode issues. I have the older hd100 model, I dont know if that makes a difference either way. Thanks for the replies everybody. I may be leaning towards final cut studio 2...

We have two JVC HDxx cams. 5 editors on 5 edit bays ALL using EDIUS. Also using Sony HD1000 and 2 DVX100's.

Edius takes them all in.

Some EDIT bays use hardware cards some dont.

We assemble our own PCs.

I strongly recommend it. But if you want to conform to what "the Industry" dictates then you can try others.

P.S. The new Edius 5 takes in the sony EX series footys without problems. From card to timeline.

Second vote for Edius
 

I am going to throw in a second vote for Edius. We use Edius at my day job at a broadcast news station with P2 Media, and I use Edius at home with my HD110. It is very fast, stable, responsive. You can put any media and any format you want on whatever timeline you want and it just works, you don't have to worry about it. And it works fast with no rendering. Plus the canopus codecs it uses for processing/rendering are very clean leaving you with a great looking final product.

I think Edius has, arguably, the best programmers in the biz. It's no surprise Eddy works well with HDxxx files.Unfortunately, for my money, Eddy is a rather simplistic editor without a lot of professional features. I can do the same work in half the time on the Avid.

The apparent situation with JVC m2t files is that they do not write an EOF when recording is paused. This causes a big problem when the capturing software loses the timecode hack because it doesnt know the data stream has stopped. It seems odd, to me, that Cineform has always handled this without a hiccup, while everyone else struggles. If they can do it, why couldn't anyone else? I'm fortunate that I have never used tape in my HD110, capturing directly to an FS4HD. Conversion with CFHD and injest into whatever NLE has always been painless. I don't use metafuze. A simple "import" into the Avid media Bin is all that's necessary.

I've used a few, currently mostly avid media composer, and edius. I like cutting with avid. Part of that is probably habit- but still, apart from the short-lived "edit*" it's the best cutter I've used.
BUT. It doesn't play nicely with jvc's prohd. I haven't had a chance to try 3.5 yet, and maybe that'll be the breakthrough. And maybe even 3 is working for some, maybe it's a pal issue. But if you're shooting jvc hdv, I'd be very reluctant to recommend avid. You'll almost certainly need some work-arounds- especially, to capture in another programme, and then probably do some re-encoding, before importing to avid.
It's not, from my experience, true that "everyone else struggles" with jvc's hdv. I've heard that FCP handles it ok. And I can attest that Edius- both the cheap "neo"- (well worth the money as a tryout, it's a very handy "swiss-army knife" edit tool: cuts almost any format)- and Edius 5- capture and cut ProHD like a hot knife through butter ;-)
Edius isn't my favourite editor, but it's pretty good. I think its features compare ok to media composer, especially if you take price into account!

great info.. I havent looked into Edius. How does Edius compare with Final Cut?? I have to admit I am feeling a bit disappointed with what I have been reading. It seems that I may have to settle for an NLE that "just works" for the JVC. With the new JVC camera out, I suppose they will not be working very hard to get these issues resolved with Avid and others anytime in the near future. So it seems my choices are:
1. Edius
2. Final Cut
3. Vegas

"It seems that I may have to settle for an NLE that "just works" for the JVC."
I've been using FCS for a bit now and I must say it works with JVC just fine. Yes, it has issues with time code "brakes", but once I switched to recording on DR-100 it works without a hitch. I am using G5, which is rather old by todays standards, but it handles HDV files just fine. I use HDV on the timeline and render everything in ProRes.
I tried to use other systems in the past, but FCS is by far the most "idiot friendly" out there.

I think Adobe makes the best products for production. I have been editing HDV footage from my HD100 for 4 years now. IMO, the most complete editing package is the Production Premium. It come with Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, After Effects, Encore DVD, Flash, plus - On Location and Color Finesse for CS3 PC systems. Pretty hard to beat. Cross Platform too.

Vegas is a nightmare - don't do it.

We use Adobe w/ Cineform. Not great, but it works.

Haven't upgraded to the latest version, as we're almost done with our film, but def will as soon as possible.

john

In what way is Vegas a nightmare? So far I've had no problems whatsoever with HD110 footage in Vegas. Admittedly my edits are pretty simple and straightforward - cuts, panning and cropping, some simple color correction, stabilization with Mercali plug-in, etc. No complicated effects, etc. I've used footage captured directly as well as captured via Cineform - zero problems of any sort to date.

What should I be on the lookout for?

Thanks for all the replies. I think I am just more confused in regards to making a choice. I like the idea of FCP the only thing I dont is the added expense with apple hardware.

My favoured edit suite was Pinnacle Liquid Silver/Chrome, unfortunately AVID bought it and killed it. But it was incredibly stable and user-friendly, with big buttons you couldn't miss with the mouse, etc. and the low-cost liquid edition worked super-well with 720p

Final Cut is what we use now, and it works very well, except that I find all the commands and on-screen buttons way too small. using a dedicated colour keybord and a jog-shuttle makes it a lot easier, but you must be used to such work tools.

I would recommend Final cut anyway , but I do only occasional editing work. what I see though is that all the professional film editors I've worked with in the past years work on FCP

Oh, and the hardware... imho it's much more fun and agreeable to work on Mac anyway, for all applications ... and better-looking, too ;-)