So far I have been using Premiere 6.5 and After Effects 6.0 for SD editing, and all my stations are still run on Windows 2000 (antique?) systems.....
The thing is: these old systems satisfy my SD editing, I never felt the need to upgrade until recently when I upgraded my camera to HDV, so I feel the urge to get 2 workstations for HD only. Since I am a Windows guy (started 3d animation a dozen years ago with Power Animator on SGI Indy Machines, later to Maya on Windows NT4), I just feel more comfortable with Windows. But it seems that more people are using FCP. Now I have the chance to get new Macs, I just wonder if FCP really is more powerful than Adobe system? Do I have to force myself to swith to Mac in order to use FCP? Thanks for any input.....

Well you will have to go MAC if you want to run FCP, yes. It will not run on a PC.

I know. I mean, which is more powerful, premiere or fcp?

From an admitedly prejudiced standpoint, I would say that you would not be "forced" to switch to a Mac, rather that you "get" to switch to a Mac.

I used PC at work and Mac at home. My boss told me when I was first hired that a Mac would never enter our doors. Well, that changed this January when it was decided it was time I had a new computer. Much to my surprise (and delight!) they bought a Mac Pro.

Truth be told I can't tell you much about Premiere, since at the time I was looking for an NLE Adobe had stopped supporting Macintosh. This made my decision much easier and I have to say that I LOVE using FCP.

Regardless of personal opinion, it is interesting to note that Adobe saw just what they were losing (and likely have lost for good!) and has only very recently reintroduced Premier for the Macintosh platform. FCP has indeed chased them hard and more than given them a run for their money!

Hahaha, nice one, Frank!

I have a PC and I'd go with FCP; Apple really knows a thing or two about UI design. The latest Final Cut Suite looks wicked good, though After Effects CS3 ain't bad either.

I edit with Sony Vegas before you ask.

Juni,

If you have a choice, go with Avid! What other programs do you use? Do these programs work well together? It really depends on your workflow. FCP or Premiere will basically do the same job but they themselves are not the end all be all. What camera are you using? Is the camera supported by the editing app? Are you using After Effects, Maya? There are a lot of questions that need to be answered before you decide wether you choose Adobe or FCS. FCP will will be the first to support the RED camera. Adobe is the first to do Blu-ray. I personnally use Adobe CS3, but I feel it is right for my workflow. Adobe may not be right for you. My suggestion is to evalurate your workflow, then go from there.

Or get one of each?

I'm also kinda a FCP partisan, having been with it since 1.0.

That said, it might be sensible to consider this.

Why is FCP and Studio not just still "hanging around", but thriving?

On the face, it had virtually EVERYTHING stacked against it's success.

It runs on an OS that has a fractional market share. It runs on hardware, that if you're already a PC user, you MUST switch to in order to run it.

And in spite of both those "should be fatal" market disadvantages - it's managed to attract more than 700,000 worldwide PAID seats. And nobody knows how many more unpaid seats.

I personally think the ONLY thing that explains it's success is because it's really just that good.

There are certainly a handful of other VERY good NLE programs. Premier, Vegas, Avid - they all have loyal followings with good reason.

But here's my personal take on them. Your mileage may vary.

Vegas may be and certainly SHOULD be every bit as good as FCP. But the Sony corp infastructure has NEVER done software well. Never. Which is a pitty since Vegas was always so amazingly strong in audio. A class act, but don't bet on it's future in a company where they can make 10 times the money selling a plasma screen as they do with any software package. Vegas is always going to be a stepchild in the giant Sony corporate universe.

Premier is also a quality program and unlike Sony, Adobe 'gets" software. The last rev of Premier was excellent. Unfortunately their corporate view killed the Premier momentum the moment they left the Mac platform and went all PC. Dropping mac development, in hindsight, was a terribly poor business decision, because even tho they were still developing the software, the innovation and stability level started to mirror the wider PC hardware world. So, for a long time, Premier was just an OK software program running on an OS fractionalized into Windows home variants, XP, etc. and on hardware that the average buyer had to work too damn hard to properly configure for video. Those decisions left the robust and hungry "below Avid" market entirely to FCP. Which GLADLY gobbled it up. Now nobody I know wants to move back since a huge market slice is already experienced in, and comfortably happy with FCP. Whoops.

Avid is Avid. Their history has always been "We're AVID. we'll tell you how to buy, use and equip your computers to use our stuff and if you don't, F-you." That might have been a viable view back when NLEs were developing and trouble prone. Now it's insane. They still think the badge is enough. It's NOT. Not in this universe of choices. They are probably STILL the best choice if you wallow in the Hollywood trough of unlimited funds/budgets, but look around, the really great stuff below the Hollywood level (and increasingly AT the Hollywood level) is increasingly coming from the smart and talented young men and women who OWN their tools. Not those who toil in the cathode ray ghettos pushing buttons on on someone elses hardware. The hot creative shops - ad agencys - indy film folks - and now even the corporate, government, and industrial users in creative areas - mostly own and use FCP. Pulled along by a smarter breed of managers who finally seem to be "getting" the fact that forcing creative people to use expensive tools exclusively at work for 8 hours then go away and not continue to grow, is a dumber plan than giving them tools they can afford to both work with with AND live with keeping their enthusiasm and learning going.

In my analysis, THAT's why FCP is kicking butt. You can own it. You can live with it. It's grown and expanded and Apple has understood the importance of both the hardware/software connection AND human user side like no other company.

For FCP to have succeeded with all that stacked against it, it, IMO had to be that much BETTER than the competition. Particularly in terms of constant innovation. And I think it has been. That's why it's still going strong.

That's been my experience, for what it's worth.

My 2 cents anyway.

YMMV.

In terms of what you can do effects-wise, After Effects is really really strong. There's lots of stuff you can do in AE. Most broadcast design work is done in AE. From what I've heard about Motion, it's not as powerful but more user-friendly.

IMO Final Cut has a lot of market share because (in no particular order):
A- Premiere 6.5 and its previous incarnations were extremely buggy. The interface was also tedious... you take about twice as many keystrokes/clicks to do tasks.
B- Apple is really good at marketing. Final Cut has the benefit of some mid/high-end work being done on it. For example, it is a really cheap uncompressed HD editing solution. And a handful of Hollywood films are cut on it.

2- Final Cut by itself is not powerful. It can't do advanced audio, can't do paint well, is ok for compositing, is mediocre at color correction. The other applications in the suite fill in these gaps, mostly. Motion (from what I've heard) is not nearly as powerful as AE.

3- IMO, learning OS X is pretty easy. There are just some annoyances (crtl and alt aren't crtl and alt) and some pitfalls to watch out for (Mac file system is different).

4- Personally I prefer Sony Vegas because you can get work done quickly inside it. I've been using FCP a lot, but still prefer Vegas slightly. I haven't used Premiere Pro that much; been burned by Premiere 6.5 bugs.

5- IMO, what should drive your decision is what formats you shoot on and what type of work you do. Pick the system that gets work done the fastest for you.


Vegas may be and certainly SHOULD be every bit as good as FCP. But the Sony corp infastructure has NEVER done software well. Never. Which is a pitty since Vegas was always so amazingly strong in audio. A class act, but don't bet on it's future in a company where they can make 10 times the money selling a plasma screen as they do with any software package. Vegas is always going to be a stepchild in the giant Sony corporate universe.
Sony has many divisions that don't always talk to one another (e.g. some Sony computers come bundled with Premiere). I wouldn't assume that Sony Creative Software (formerly Sony Madison Software) behaves like other parts of Sony.

Juni,

since you're admittedly a PC person, and unless you're fed up with Windows, you should stay with Windows and upgrade to the new Adobe suite. You know the basics of Premiere and AE and unless you lived under a rock for the last few years, you know you will be delighted by the interface of the latest suite.

And since no one mentioned it yet, I will: think integration. Think moving your project from one application to another for audio work, special effects, DVD creation, etc.

As mentioned above, Adobe woke up and is developing good software. You can even run it on a Mac if you wish (but sounds like you're happy with PC stability).

Bottom line is (would be for me) if there is something you can't do in Adobe, then go FCP - but I doubt it. Unfortunately you can't download a trial version of FCP and run in on a PC, you have to buy a Mac for that. This would be the ultimate test for you... try it and love it or hate it...

To switch just because x number of people are using any particular software, would not be wise IMO.

Hi Juni,

I use Premiere Pro 1.5 and recently 2.0, and I also used Final Cut Pro.
Both have their advantages.
I should go with the one that you feel best with.

Premiere:
- has GREAT integration with Encore, After Effects, Audition and Photoshop!
Very important!
- has pretty powerfull effect tools and many options!
- real time playback (if I'm not mistaken)
- I do hate about Premiere pro, that if you want all the audio unlinked from the video, you have to do it piece by piece, while in FCP, it's only one button away for your complete timeline.

Final Cut Pro:
- has more high end options (RED, uncompressed HD, Betacam,...)
- I have the feeling, once you get used to it, it works a bit faster
- don't know enough about computers, could be this is purely dependent on your hardware, but if I do effects on my Premiere timeline, I immediately can see the results, even if I have to render afterwards. With FCP, even a fade and black bars for widescreen had to be rendered first before I could see them (or maybe that was only for the external monitor, could be, was at film school, don't remember too well).

Bottom Line: you really can't go wrong with either, check what your needs are, and then upgrade to what you feel is best.
My opinion is: if you feel at ease with PC, why change?
There is also the Vegas option, but I don't have experience with it.
And if you DO would go for the FCP option: it's a fantastic program also ;-)
Most important thing: first check your needs! With what format/camera will you work now? And in the future?
What WILL YOU NEED?
Can both platforms suffice for you?

I do hate about Premiere pro, that if you want all the audio unlinked from the video, you have to do it piece by piece, while in FCP, it's only one button away for your complete timeline.


True, but there is a way around it; alt-select all the audio clips you want to unlink, rightclick on one of the audioclips, uncheck "enable".
Then you can, or just press "delete" to clear all audio clips, or cut and past to move the audio clips further down the timeline for later or other use, you only have to check enable again.

I know it's not the easiest way but it works.

and Juni, if you feel comfortable with premiere and windows and if it does what you want why change? One remark though, I never worked with version 6.5 but I think you might be in for a surprise. I have heared other 6.5 users complain when they switched to 1.5 or 2 that the interface and way of editing was developed in a different way and that it took them some time getting used to.

I would download a trial of cs3 and see how it works for you.

True, but there is a way around it; alt-select all the audio clips you want to unlink, rightclick on one of the audioclips, uncheck "enable".
Then you can, or just press "delete" to clear all audio clips, or cut and past to move the audio clips further down the timeline for later or other use, you only have to check enable again.

I know it's not the easiest way but it works.

Thanks for the tip!
(still not as easy as in FCP, but better then doing it one by one ;-))

I used to be a big Mac fan but moved away from them a few years ago for various reasons, and haven't found a compelling reason to buy a Mac since. However, with the recent option to buy an Intel-based Mac and run both Mac and Windows software well on one computer, today's Macs are very tempting - and I know several people who are using them to run Windows-based video production software (plus some Mac stuff).

Final Cut has a great reputation but has been slow to adopt some significant features, with the latest oversight being lack of Blu-ray authoring support in the new version of Final Cut Studio. I'd guess that Apple is busy working on that and will release it when they feel it's good and ready, but until then some Final Cut users are buying the latest Adobe suite just to get Blu-ray support. Bottom line is that there's no one right solution for everyone, but it's hard to go wrong these days with any good Mac or PC computer and any decent video production package. If you want to 'play it safe' just buy a newer PC and an upgrade to your Adobe software; if you want to experiment with Mac software buy a Mac...

P.S. My favorite editing application for working with HDV material is Edius, but I'm looking at Adobe for the Blu-ray support.

I can't thank you more for your generous help, and I read every single reply carefully. I think I will stay with PC, the reasons are:

1) I want to keep Adobe, coz I am so familiar with Adobe, for 10 years on daily basis, I have dealt with Adobe programs.

2) I like Windows, coz this is the only operating system I have used for 14 years, besides SGI Unix in early time. I can do all networking, system repair, and maintenance by myself.

3) There are so many third party utility programs that are only compatible with PC, I have more than a dozen of them, for example, batch file renaming, ReaConverter (for batch image conversion), Cinema Craft Encoder Premiere plug-in, DVD Maestro, etc....

4) I already have 4 Win2000 PCs, if I get mac I may bump into some difficulties moving files around in the network.

The reason I asked this question in the first place is: People I come across always boast that they have Macs, and use FCP, their pride in Mac makes me wonder if there is a lot more steam in Mac than PC, I feel like an amateur stuck with inferior PC when I see the way they talk about Mac :-)
But now, I think it's more a preference thing than a better-worse matter.
But more input is welcome....

2) I like Windows, coz this is the only operating system I have used for 14 years, besides SGI Unix in early time. I can do all networking, system repair, and maintenance by myself.

3) There are so many third party utility programs that are only compatible with PC, I have more than a dozen of them, for example, batch file renaming, ReaConverter (for batch image conversion), Cinema Craft Encoder Premiere plug-in, DVD Maestro, etc....

It's absolutely the same for me, I wouldn't like to switch to Mac privately (although on the new Intel Core2Duo Macs you can easily run Windows as well).
I am really a Windows guy, I know all my tools and programs here, and so on and so on.

However, when it's about editing I can only say: Final Cut Pro Studio is definitely the one program that I would buy a Mac for. I'm using FCP at work, Premiere Pro at home and I've also tried Avid a dozen times or so. FCP is the clear winner in my opinion.

However I'm not much of an editor, I like to leave the editing to others as often as I can, that's why I don't have a Mac at home. But I can surely say if I was more into editing, I'd be writing this on a Mac instead of a PC for sure :)

The reason I asked this question in the first place is: People I come across always boast that they have Macs, and use FCP, their pride in Mac makes me wonder if there is a lot more steam in Mac than PC, I feel like an amateur stuck with inferior PC when I see the way they talk about Mac :-)

I can give you an example which is more or less the same:

When I bought my dvx100b when allready owning a vx2100 everybody (dvx owners) were also telling me how much superior the dvx was compared to the Sony. Now I have it, and since I film weddings, I prefer my sony because it's much better in low light and has a much better build in mic. Both cameras have their pro's and cons but for my needs a sony is just better.

Panasonic dvx owners have created a same sort of closed community like mac users and they all rave about their camera in the same way, on the dvxuser.com forum some time ago there was a discussion about the newest David Lynch: Inland Empire because it was filmed with a Sony pd150. They couldn't understand why David choose a "video" like Sony over the Panasonic dvx? Actually it's very simple, you can make a crap movie with a 20000dollar cam and you can make a masterpiece with a 2000dollar cam. The only thing that counts is what you want to achieve and who is behind the camera, based on that you buy the tool to achieve your goal.

If your nle does what it needs to do, you will only waist time and money switching to another platform or nle.

With all respect for Premiere, and assumed that it's not the gear but the artist that makes the difference, FCP has a way more linear WORKFLOW.
FCP is transparent, you don't feel it, you concentrate on your work, because of the design of this wonderful app.

I recommend strongly to go for FCP, because it's the standard (sorry Avid) and because to get more power than a FCP has you have to spend $$$$$$.

I use daily FCP in my work and i ingest, edit, put graphics, post produce and finalize 12' of appealing (that's subjective) tv shows every day.

Look like avid is really dead meat right now. I got all A1 canon camcorder. Now even with avid media composer not support the camcorder and not even 24f editing at all. I give avid another 6 month if they don't update with something support 24f soon in media composer I will get a mac or stick with Sony Vegas. In the mean time I have to stay with Sony Vegas. I only love Avid because so easy to use for me. The way avid manage the big project so stable and good. But if they don't come up soon with some 24f support and canon camcorder I will throw them out the door.

AVID will never be dead, many post houses are heavily invested and it allows them to charge more money for their rooms and their work. At the end of the day, AVID is not really better for most projects but I can tell you that a skilled FCP editor will not be able to edit a project as fast as a skilled AVID editor. The gap is closing however.

I use Premiere and FCP every single day. I highly recommend an Intel Mac with a dual boot set-up. I have a Macbook Pro that runs Premiere great in Windows and FCP great in OSX. Premiere is great for DV and image manipulation and is WAY less buggy with timecode, glitches, etc. FCP is great for uncompressed, DVCproHD and multiple codecs as well as third party cards for outputting to Beta, etc.

My general feeling is that if you are editing native HDV, Premiere handles it better.



ash =o)

Avid is perfect if you want to rent your studio and make money with it.
FCP is perfect if you want to make money with your film.

First, thanks to all who took the time to share their knowledge in this thread. It's been extremely helpful to me, a newb, learning about the pros and cons of the different systems.
Ash- why do you say Premier handles native HDV better? I've got a Macbook Pro (latest) and am frustrated with render times. Installing Parallels and buying Premier would be a whole lot cheaper than buying a desktop.

Native HDV editing is inherently demanding in any current video editing program, but some are better than others. Sony Vegas is worth considering for this, and I happen to like Edius myself. If you run BootCamp or Parallels you can test all the Windows-based editing software and compare it to Final Cut for HDV editing, then decide for yourself what suits you best.

I'll look into Edius. Sony... I've been treated so poorly by that company that I only buy from them when there are no other options. Been looking into Premiere this morning- Adobe is suporting hd and my camera (XH-A1) so they got that going for them. Price of CS3 is half of Avid Express Pro too.

I'm very surprised at some of the coments above, especially the guy who claims FCP is a poor color corrector. Even before the high end grading programme Color turned up it was light years ahead of the Adobe version. I used Prem Pro for several years before switching to final cut and it was the best move i ever made. The only thing i miss about PP is the wonderful Trim Edit Window which is far more user friendly than the Final Cut version, but otherwise its a no brainer.
Of course if you're in windowsland and will have to buy a new mac it may not be worth your while to make the change. All i can say is that IMHO going mac was the smartest thing i've done in years.

Sounds like you have it figured out. But I am writing this to you so you might learn from my mistake.

I run a small production company, and I do pretty well with local stuff. I use Premiere Pro on a PC system. Excellent program, interfaces great with other adobe programs. But I want to grow my business. I want to edit full length movies, and have a national cliental. And I am tired of seeing all the freelance jobs on Craigslist that I know I could do if I just had gone with Macs and FCP.

I don't know if people are ever going to give up their insistence on FCP. I believe they are, but I think it is at least 5 years away. In the meantime, I want to make some bucks and do what I love to do. So my plan is to switch over to an HD camera and Mac editing system in 2008.

Here's the hindsight: I should have paid the extra cash (and time) and went FCP and Mac in the first place. I would be making more money now.

So is FCP editing what your clients want? If not, don't sweat it. But if they want you to use FCP, then switch over to be marketable. And keep in mind that most of those Adobe Programs you like so much are also available for Macs.
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Excellent points Alfred. 80% of the freelance gig's i see advertised (in the UK) are for FCP. Clients also like the fact that asuming you both have the source footage you can just send them a project file by email. Of course if you're not into freelancing its neither here nor there, however there is a perception (probably unfair) that Premiere is a prosumer product whereas pros user final cut. Depends what kind of work Juni is doing/wants to do in the future i guess.

The truth of the matter is I've already got FCP-- on a Macbook Pro, which I was led to believe (by the salespeople in the Mac store, as well as others) that it would be great for hd editing. Well, after using it for a few months I'm very disappointed. If I shoot sd it works pretty well, at least for an hour or so, then I have to shut it down, delete the plist, cache, etc., reboot and work for another half hour to an hour and then reboot. Add any effects and render times go thru the roof.
So, time for a desktop and after my experience with this Mac I'm looking for a PC solution. In my case clients aren't an issue because I don't have any... I make a living doing production soundwork and photography- hopefully I'll earn some money in the future with editing but for the next couple years I just want to be able to create watchable projects with video I shoot myself.

Greg: I'm running Edius on a Dell Latitude D820 laptop and just finished editing a wedding video involving several hours of source footage shot with three HDV cameras. Performance is marginal but consistent using the native HDV format, and performance can be improved using the Canopus 'HQ' intermediate editing codec. I'm rendering finished sequences back to HDV using the Speed Encoder option in the output settings, and that only takes about two minutes or so per minute of timeline. The rendered HDV files can then be played directly on a Sony Playstation 3 from an external USB2 hard drive and look great on a 1080p LCD display - no disc authoring or other further effort required to watch your finished work at HD resolution.

For what it's worth, I know several Edius users who are running it via BootCamp on MacBook Pros. You might try giving that a whirl before giving up on the MBP, which is a fine piece of hardware.

Greg, Not sure what's going on with your setup but i am having none of the issues you mention working with HDV from my Canon XHA1. The only time i've had to trash preferences in recent memory was when i upgraded to FCS2 and had temporary problems with Color which happily have now been sorted.
The only bad editing experience i've had lately was last month when i found myself having to use Prem Pro for the first time in ages (3 crashes in an hour)for a client. It brought back unhappy memories and reminded me how lucky i was to jump ship to FCS. Of course other people will have different experiences, so whatever gets the job done i guess.

Don't want to hijack the thread but my experience with FCP and this laptop have not been good- mediocre screen, poor performance and a very hefty pricetag...

Are you editing HDV or DVCPROHD?
HDV is acceptable for HD news, or anything that doesn't need any rendering, effects, transitions. HDV is a long GOP codec, it stores only 1 frame of 15, render time is huge for any little change you do, it's a nightmare.

Greg, your experience is rare. I have edited a mountain of things on FCP on my Macbook Pro and it has been ROCK SOLID. I have even been doing 8 stream DVCproHD multiclips on a recent project, all color corrected and have no issues at all. You must have a hardware problem. I have the glossy screen and it is very good, I generally use a 24" 1920X1080 monitor for my second monitor, all driven by the MBP. This is a GREAT set-up for multicam editing.



ash =o)

Great for you... bad for me. Wanna buy another Mac? :)
No disrespect meant, but I've given Mac the old college try and it just doesn't live up to it's rep. In fact, I'd be disappointed if I'd paid half the price.

HDV is acceptable for HD news, or anything that doesn't need any rendering, effects, transitions. HDV is a long GOP codec, it stores only 1 frame of 15, render time is huge for any little change you do, it's a nightmare.

With the right hardware and software HDV editing isn't too bad, and if you convert it to an intermediate editing codec it's quite manageable. Some complex effects will definitely take longer to render because of the greater amount of data involved, but it's not necessarily a "nightmare".

The truth of the matter is I've already got FCP-- on a Macbook Pro, which I was led to believe (by the salespeople in the Mac store, as well as others) that it would be great for hd editing.

Good for cuts-only editing would have been the more accurate description. Please don't be upset at me for suggesting you should have done some tests before buying. I always test common tasks out on a Mac at the Apple store before upgrading...to see if I can get done what I need to get done on the hardware I'm considering.

Remember, even the best PC laptops have limitations similar to the Apple products...it's not like the latest killer Core 2 Duo Dell is going to render native HDV any faster.

If I shoot sd it works pretty well, at least for an hour or so, then I have to shut it down, delete the plist, cache, etc., reboot and work for another half hour to an hour and then reboot. Add any effects and render times go thru the roof.

If you can only get an hour of work done at a time before you have to go digging or rebooting, then something is wrong, period. I've had FCP systems go almost 2 years before needing re-installing, or needing OSX to be reinstalled, and at one time, I was maintaining about 4 systems.

FCP has quite a few shortcomings, but stability is not one of them. I'd urge you to find somebody to straighten out your rig to save you some money.

Perhaps there actually is a hardware problem- I'll bring it back to Apple before I sell it. I'm extremely frustrated with this computer though- it was delivered months late, the screen is mediocre, I'm lucky to get 75 minutes out of the battery, the hardware doesn't work as promised and the price was very high. I'm just a beginner and this has nearly turned me off from editing altogether but I'm going to give it a go on a pc, one that will be easy to get fixed if it does have issues, plus it'll cost about a thousand dollars less than the Mac.

Sounds like there may be a hardware issue, combined with some inexperience. Make sure you are working efficiently, cleanly and smart. Make sure your clips are small, not entire tapes. Make sure you do an A roll edit before you begin to add effects, color correct, etc.

I highly doubt this is really a Mac issue. For the record I own 3 Macs and 3 PCs and have an editing system and laptop of each (also have an iMac in the kitchen and a media server PC) so I am not a "Mac" guy at all.



ash =o)

I'm sure inexperience plays a roll too but I've gone thru all the settings a million times- capture settings, real time settings, pretty much everything I could think of, plus I asked a teacher at Video Symphony to go over the settings (I took an FCP class there last year). In response to your comments Ash- very small clips, rarely more than a minute, and when I say effects I mean... crossfades- nothing fancier than that. I did use some Boris 3d text once... man that was a lesson in frustration.

Greg, what are the specs on your Mac Book Pro? is it a core 2 duo? 2.2Ghz? 2.4? and how much Ram do you have?

At the very least, remember this Greg:

I don't think many people ever have claimed that a PC edit rig is easier to maintain/troubleshoot than a Mac rig. Or in other words...if you jump ship, you'll likely have to straighten out some kinks there as well.

Which brings me to something I learned earlier this year while trying to help a friend transition from Media 100 to FCP...most of his problems were of the learning a new program variety. Old ways of working and assumptions were what was giving him grief.

For instance, in Media 100 when you import media that the system doesn't support, it will transcode it to something that it does, making it a very long import process at times. He couldn't fathom why FCP wouldn't do that for you...that putting unsupported media on the timeline would make you render.

Anyway, I find that new users often have problems of the same variety. Incorrect assumptions about how FCP works often cause weirdness and unhappiness (I think this goes for any NLE, btw).

I appreciate your thoughts about this. I hear you Nate- and I'm sure my inexperience is adding to the frustration level... but I gave it a lot of effort. I'm to the point where I'm convinced getting a laptop was a mistake so I'm getting a desktop specifically to edit with (no internet, no other programs, just edit). I feel that I was misled by Apple people (not just the Apple salespeople but other Apple users who all said this new laptop would fly!) and so do not want to give Apple any more of my money, hence my going Premiere.
This was (still is I think) the latest greatest MBP- core 2 duo, fastest cpu they offer, 2g ram (was going to upgrade to 4 but when I saw it was nearly $700 I decided against), fw 800 drive on the side and a shiny brand new FCP program... which is now old... 5.14. Actually, I bought 5.12 and got the update a few months ago. The 17" screen is probably one of my biggest complaints, and I've read many others are unhappy with it as well. I do a lot of Photoshop work, but not on the laptop :(

The other problem (and it's the main problem) is that HDV has the same bandwidth as DV. It's too compressed and finally you don't really shoot in HD, just a pseudo HD, not to mention that it's interlaced (maybe this is a problem of camera design, not the HDV codec itself)

The other problem (and it's the main problem) is that HDV has the same bandwidth as DV. It's too compressed and finally you don't really shoot in HD, just a pseudo HD, not to mention that it's interlaced...

HDV is a fine entry-level HD recording format and is being used for several popular TV shows plus a lot of independent production work. It's at least as much "real HD" as the signals received by broadcast HDTV viewers and what's on HD movie discs: the main limitation of HDV is the quality of the cameras and lenses designed to record it. And there is a progressive-scan version of HDV produced by the JVC series cameras, using full 720p resolution at up to 60 frames per second. So while it's true that HDV is heavily compressed, it's still a very usable compromise and a remarkable accomplishment for the price.

The other problem (and it's the main problem) is that HDV has the same bandwidth as DV. It's too compressed and finally you don't really shoot in HD, just a pseudo HD, not to mention that it's interlaced (maybe this is a problem of camera design, not the HDV codec itself)
HDV is a tool - once you learn to use it properly, it yields a spectacular picture! But you have to go through the learning curve and know it's strengths and weaknesses.

I opted for DVCPRO HD, less pain, more quality, but of course, twice the price...