PC equivalent of "Final Cut Pro"?
 

Final Cut Pro is for Mac only right?

What is the PC equivalent?

Is there a demo download?

Thanks

Howdy from Texas,

Final Cut Pro is indeed Mac-only, and probably the closest PC equivalent would be Avid Xpress DV 3.5. See http://www.avid.com for more info.

Also look into Sonic Foundry's Vegas Video 3
 

To be honest, I'm not familiar with other PC oriented DV editing programs. I can say that Vegas Video 3 is worth looking into. Additionally, there will soon be a new Vegas 4 program.

For more information regarding Sonic Foundry's Vegas Video 3:

http://www.sonicfoundry.com

Good luck with your search.

Ted

Vegas Video 3 is beleived, by many, to be the best PC or MAC software NLE product on the market. For my money, it is...it has worked capably, simply, and reliably for me for over a year...no crashes, no lost files....and it's capabilities continue to grow with third party plug-ins. If you're working in DV, I don't think you can do better, and VV4 is promised to be even better.

...and, yes, a free demo is avilable from the Sonic Foundry website.

The "PC equivalant" of FCP would most closely be Avid XpressDV3.53. Both are suitable (and used) for actually cutting FILM.

Avid will be releasing a "free" version of XpressDV this summer. It will of course, be a limited edition, but it will be cross platform for Mac and Pc. A good way to learn the interface.

If Film is not going to be your medium then there are many NLE's for PC that have different strong points. YOu might post what your interests are - Long form? Short Form, Doucmentary? Narrative? Music Videos? Events?

Check some of the arguments on the board about "My NLE is better than your's," to get a sense of why people like the ones they have bought.
Regards

This is the thread that Bill is referring to http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...&threadid=5622 That thread doesn't need a rehash so let's stick to new information for Glen.

Jeff

I just read much of the thread Jeff was referring to. . .

Made me smile! :)

(I learned a lot in the thread, though! Thanks!)

Cheers! :)

Ted

P. S. If I had my way, I'd own all of the software. I'm a software junky.

As of now we have to revise this thread. Avid XDV, Vegas and others are really only equivalent to Final Cut Xpress. I'd say the only app that can do what FCP does is Premiere. That does not make many PC users happy.

Sure you can get all kinds of cool RT effects and stuff in many PC NLE's but remember it's all just DV. DV is fine to shoot but delivers poor prospects when editing. DV is so compressed that it deserves 1:1 compression editing. None of that is in DVX or Vegas.

FCP equiv
 

I'd agree with parts of this post....Premiere is probably the closest in functionality to FCP...I happen to like premiere, its faster and easier to use than Avid, doesnt not use proprietary filing, and integrates really well with After Effects...I have been quite pleased with it, and I come from an Avid / Media 100 background ....
as far as compression is concerned, all digital video gets some compression in the camera as far as I know, mini DV getting the most at 5:1 / 4:1:1 / 25 mps, the same as DV Cam, and ideally, any digital footage will not get re-compressed in post. The way to avoid recompression is to stay with the inexpensive firewire(or more expensive SDI) capture products and avoid MJPG analog boards.

<<<<<<<As of now we have to revise this thread. Avid XDV, Vegas and others are really only equivalent to Final Cut Xpress. I'd say the only app that can do what FCP does is Premiere. That does not make many PC users happy.

Sure you can get all kinds of cool RT effects and stuff in many PC NLE's but remember it's all just DV. DV is fine to shoot but delivers poor prospects when editing. DV is so compressed that it deserves 1:1 compression editing. None of that is in DVX or Vegas.>>>>>>>>

I like Premiere, and have used it for a few years now, However, it is still weak in several areas, including color correction tools. For those, I turn to the Canopus software that came with my DV Storm card.

I have never had the opportunity to use FCP. This is a shame, because I would love to try it out.
Keith

Hey Keith,

Your near Orlando, aren't you? You should just stop in the Apple Store at the Millennia Mall and play. It never hurts to know what the competition is doing.

Jeff

CQ....

The penultimate color correction for Premiere is Synthetic Aperture's Video Finesse. Best on the market.

I agree, I find it better than the 3 way color corrector in FCP, just not as fast. On the Mac it works as a plugin to After Effects.

Jeff

FCP equiv
 

Yes, I have tried the Video Finesse demo, and its a very nice product, very professional in its execution...Canopus Products work well, and are real time....In the meantime, After Effects can do some nice color correction, if I need it.....fortunately, I really only end up color correcting other peoples footage, and then only rarely....I am so damn good.....Muahahahahaha......

>>As of now we have to revise this thread. Avid XDV, Vegas and others are really only equivalent to Final Cut Xpress.<<

Vegas can work with any installed codec on the wintel platform, be it directshow or Quicktime plug-in. It currently does not have
3rd party HD support like FCP does, but that will change very soon. DV is the primary forte of Vegas, not the only one. Over at the cow, I've downloaded several quicktime codecs converted from the MAC platform (from onerivermedia), and used them in Vegas and After Effects. They were lossless 8bit,10bit and 16bit codecs. No problem at all.
Not as fast as DV either, but once again, no probleme using them.
These new quicktime codecs made it easy to render high quality animations from AE and pull them directly into the Vegas timeline for final polish and inclusion into final output.
I've done just that. None of that little test involved DV25 at any point.

You can render directly to Mpeg2 from the vegas timeline if you want to. VV currently uses the MainConcept Mpeg2 encoder included with the software at no extra charge. You can also render directly to Quicktime and share with your Mac friends if you want to. Or pull in quicktime files from a MAC as long as you have the same codec.

Vegas has never been only about DV25. It is comparable to FCP except in the HD side, but that will soon change too. In many areas it is superior, in a few it is not.