PC Premier or MAC Final Cut?
 

I currently have a PC with Premier, but all the other students (I'm in a film production class) all hail MAC and Final Cut.
Are their some significant differences between the two that I should know about before I get heavy into Editing?

Should I even be worrying about what platform I am running?

Thanks,
Brian

The BIGGEST single issue is: do you want to be a freelance editor OR do you want to edit your own stuff? The market for FCP editors on a freelance basis is MUCH larger than Premiere editors.

If you are looking to edit your own stuff, stick with Premiere for now (because you said you already have it) until you have STORY editing down (as opposed to "which button do I push to do THIS...", which is what I call "technical" editing) and then reevaluate your needs/wants. It's a spendy buy in. Well worth it for me and I made that choice 11 years ago when my choices were AVID Media Composer for $40k or FCP and Mac for $8k. Premiere wasn't the same tool back then.

So in the future when I do have the money and some experience do you think the transition from Premiere to FCP will be fairly seemless? Or will be like picking up a computer for the first time? I am not worried about the transition from PC to MAC, to me I can use them both pretty seamlessly.

Transistioning shouldn't be that much of a problem. I find the actual NLE's themselves to be very similar in use, while the packaged programs with each respective editing suite to be more different from each other.

Greg

Greg is pretty right on with that.

The idea here is to grasp editing CONCEPTS here that will be portable. The methodologies and contextual stuff will be the pinch point in the transition.

Imagine it as going from driving an '88 Ford Tempo automatic to a Formula One race car - the FUNDAMENTALS are the same (don't hit stuff, turn the wheel, push the brake or the accelerator...) but the BUTTONS and SWITCHES and performance are different and will take some getting used to.

premiere pro gives you the option of linking with photoshop, after effects, flash and encore. These are much better (actually they are the best) than what FCS has to offer. to get fcp timelines into after effects, you'll need another software.

Also, when you use FCP, you'll have to have everything transcoded into a mov wrapper, and the only option you have is Prores (which isn't anything to complain about but is limiting). Plus, you'll always have to use a mac and not a custom-made PC. After having used both FCP and PPro, I hardly find any difference in either, and whichever path you choose, you won't go wrong as long as you just stick to editing. If you want to do grading, compositing, motion graphics and various export options to flash, blu-ray and DVD, then go with Premiere.

This is hardly accurate. There are MANY options within a .mov "wrapper", some of which are Mac only.

This is hardly accurate either. Color, Motion, Cinema Tools, Soundtrack Pro, Compressor, DVD Studio Pro, etc, are all bundled with FCS. Blu-ray output, does, I concede, require tools external to FCS.

motion, cinema tools, soundtrack pro can hardly be compared to after effects and audition. They are all good programs, just isn't good enough when compared with the scope of what Adobe has to offer - you forgot to mention photoshop and flash.

As far was the mov wrapper is concerned, I'm not very impressed with Apple's lame effort at trying to keep its customers to stick to macs. It does not really help with trying to send files to people with different systems, etc.

Both are good programs. No let me correct that, both Adobe and FCS are great programs...just that Adobe beats FCS hands down in price, compatibility, codecs and exporting options (flash) and not needing additional software to mix and match.

Personally, for editing I use FCP. Everyone else around me is doing the same. With a milliion FCP users it's relatively easy to collaborate with other editors. When it comes to exchanging projects with people who use PCs I haven't had a problem.

Moving an After Effects project from Mac to PC and back is easy, as long as both sides know what they're doing and develop a proper workflow. But that goes for just about any aspect of production regardless of platform.

For color correction and grading it's Color. For audio I'm using Soundtrack Pro. For compositing I'm using After Effects.

And, yes, Photoshop can't be beat. Same goes for Illustrator.

Nothing wrong with Quicktime except that it's not yet 64-bit native.

Flash is fairly universal but eventually HTML 5 is supposed to change that.

Hi Brian,

I was in film school back in '99-'00 and the school edited on Discrete (was that integrated by Vegas?), but most of my classmates edited on a Mac; so that's what I learned off of mostly.

Flashforward to '06 when me and my wife finally went into business for ourselves. We had a budget for production equipment including post stuff, so we went ahead and bought the Adobe products. So I had to learn Premiere Pro, and all the other stuff. (My wife is a wiz at Illustrator and Photoshop already, which she learned on a Mac :)

Continue to '09 and we get hired for a yearlong project for a nearby university. We get to use all their brand new equipment, including a brand new shiny Mac! I had to "re-learn" Final Cut (but they have a subscription to Lynda.com, which is a great learning resource, and I continue to use for Compressor, Motion, etc).

But the bottom line is: use what works for you. And, like Shaun said, if you're planning to be a full time editor, use the NLE that's being used most in the industry (whether it's Final Cut or Avid). It really wasn't that complicated switching from Final Cut to Premiere, and vice versa.

Good luck,