If you can't grasp creating custom render templates, then Yes, FCP would suit you much better.

I've been thinking about this as well.

I actually did some comparing of costs and it looked like FCP was going to run me about 2 to 3 thousand more than building a new computer for Vegas. FCP is a nice system but I know the workflow and it's a bit more "clunky" than Vegas. The upside is tons of third party support and a huge user base.

A lot of people wonder if the grass is greener. I've come to the conclusion that there is no green grass :)

I sometimes work with a guy who uses a big tricked out FCP system, fiber raid, all the HD cards, etc. He's always bitching about it and I've seen it go down a number of times. I've also crashed Vegas a number of times. I've had Vegas go down in front of clients. He's had FCP go down in front of clients.

I wish I had a good answer but I'm just not finding a bomb proof solution. At this point I'm continuing with Vegas, warts and all, because I really like the work flow.

The thing I find really frustrating is that it's 2010 and not much seems to have changed. I had render problems back when mpeg-2 just came out and a DVD burner was a thousand dollars. I just got a blu ray burner for $200 bucks, but I still have render problems...

I wish they would just make this stuff work.

You are aware that the Cineform codecs work in both Windoz and OSX? The only difference is I believe the QT version does not support active metadata despite Cineforms best efforts. This really only matters if you're using their high end codecs.

I very recently somehow got myself sucked in to trying to teach someone Final Cut Express. Man was that painfull and I thought it couldn't possibly be that hard. Simple task. I'd given this guy some 720p25 H.264 that he proceded to drop into a FCE 1080i project and FCE was stuck interpreting that as 1280x720 in a 1920x1080 frame i.e. black borders. Unlike AE I could find no way to tell FCS to Interpret As. In the end we rendered it out as 1080p, bought it back into the project and then this guy could render it all out as SD PAL. What a pain, I'm pretty certain there must be a way to do this but it sure wasn't obvious.

Pretty well everything in FCE has to be rendered for you to even see it.

As for your monitoring problem the general go for high end systems that I've looked at is to use HD-SDI fed into HD-SDI monitors. This applies to both OSX and Windows based editing systems. You do need deep pockets if this is what you want. You also need to define what you want to do and you'll find you should be splitting the tasks over the right tools. Vegas tries to do everything at aonce and that does seem to me to create unrealistic expectations. Both Apple and Adobe have dedicated applications for editing, compositing and color correction oh and audio too. Get used to switching between apps a lot once you're outside the world of Vegas.

Bob.

The problem with FCE is that everything gets transcoded to Apple intermediate codec (AIC) particularly if you are working with HD. No simple way to get rid of the pulldown if you are working with 24p in 60i (Canon AVCHD for example). You can’t use CF in FCE because FCE doesn’t support the codec. FCE works great for DV but Apple does like to sell their high end products so FCE is crippled in strange and unexpected ways.

I am a very long time Apple FCE user who switched to CF and Vegas to get a better workflow with Adobe AfterEffects. With FCE, you do end up clicking render... Wait... Click render... Wait... Click render... Wait... Click render... Wait... Click render... Wait... Click render... Wait... Click render... Wait... Click render... Wait... Click render... Wait... Click render... Wait... Click render... Wait... Click render... Wait...

You get the idea. If you buy Apple, you want the faster biggest machine ($) possible so the wait part is shorter. You also want to buy RAM from a well known 3rd party vender as Apple’s RAM price markup is high. However, if you have a problem, the first thing you have to do is pull all 3rd party items as Apple products never fail Apple customers only Apple customers fail their Apple products.

I still use an Apple Macbook so the above is not flame. I just agree with the greener grass comment listed above.

Hope this helps.

Lars,

I've had a chance to try Premiere, Vegas, and Avid. I have worked side by side with people on FCP (latest two versions).

There are maddening things about each of these NLEs.

Out of the box, FCP offers more for the money than any other system. I also see it as the least flexible. It runs on only one system, and you do things Apple's way or too bad. The lack of BluRay support would be a show stopper for me as most of my external delivery right now is to BluRay, and it's also my archival format of choice.

I have not tried a recent version of Premiere. But I have read nightmare after nightmare on both Windows and Mac. I wouldn't go back to that system now, though After Effects is a very tempting carrot.

Avid was a totally new experience for me. Very powerful, and very flexible as long as you play by some basic rules. Had all the power of FCP, thought without the excellent color correction tools like in Apple's Color program. Editing was fast, and timeline performance was absolutely STUNNING coming from Vegas. It's certainly the most pricey at $2399, but to my mind, it's the most complete option. Solid editing, good color correction, seamless movement from Mac to PC, Bulletproof codec, excellent third party support, great online support, BluRay and DVD creation tools, etc.

If you're really thinking about making a jump, Check it out. You may find that the cost savings of not having to buy new hardware makes this a viable option. Avatar was cut in Avid on a machine with quite a bit less performance than yours. Transformers 2 as well. The 30 day trial is absolutely free, and fully functional. Couldn't hurt.

One of the few times I would actually agree with Perrone :)

If you're going to jump ship then I would do it the Avid way. Avid can live well on both a mac and a pc. It supports Blu Ray. The Avid codec works well. Time line play back is in fact extremely smooth, and for me one of the biggies is that Avid doesn't quite live as far off into left field as Apple does with regard to integration (both with FCE's final output and the program itself).

Avid is a bit pricey but I believe it also come with a boatload of fairly good quality third party plugins/extensions.

My only real complaints about Avid is that
A) it is not something that you can just walk into. It takes quite some time to learn the ropes.
B) DVD/Blu Ray authoring IMO is not up to snuff. Sony's DVDa is far better than what Avid offers.

Being a fan of both PCs and Vegas since day one I must admit I tire of these type of questions. They are valid though and for the the unfamiliar, the feed back that they receive will be helpful.

Golden rule to always remember... no matter what platform.... no matter how much money is spent.... a computer will crash, hic cup, frutstrate and frustrate us at the least preferred moment.

I would suggest going with what will fit the "budget" and works best for your work flow. The next time your client is with you and the system crashes, keep in mind, while they may not understand what your doing (editing, etc), they can relate to a computer crashing. It happens.

I like afforadvability (value) and options... stick with the PC platform. Keep Vegas and as suggested try out some trials versions of other programs.

Chad

Lars, there is no easy answer to your question. FCP is used by many. It has it's pro's and cons. I personally don't like it because you have to buy into Apples way and doing things, their way the highway. The few times I've used it, I find things I like and don't like. I am always disappointed in the rendering times for the extra cost of the workstation.

It performs and renders no different than other computers. It needs horsepower to render.

In regards to buying their workstations, you are paying 2 premiums. One is to get the workstation chip from intel and 2 is the apple hardware. The apple workstations are engineered and the layout is beautiful, but you pay a big premium. I don't believe you get the dollar payback from intel on the two CPU lines. I'm very happy with the cost performance of the i7 .

I did a render test on a $1000 i7 quad HP notebook this week that I'm thinking of buying. It rendered a windows HD clip in 12 min 15 seconds. (cpu at around 90%+). My q6600 did it in the same time and my i7860 did it in 7 minutes and 5 seconds.)

Every time I think about getting a FCP system, I eventually stick with Vegas because I can do so many things with it and it's not worth the extra money for a new set of problems and no performance gains.

A full blown FCP workstation sans the extra storage (same cost) is about 4-5 grand in the USA. I can build a i7 machine for around $1200-$1500 in the usa which is only slightly slower. Add on the cost of Vegas software vs FCP and there is more savings.

I also usually run with 4-9 drives in one of my workstations. Mac workstations are limited to 4.

With Win 7 and the new intel chips, performance problems are lessening. Working with proxy files would help if you can figure out something that fits your needs. In another generation or two of CPU's, I'm hoping playback problems disappear entirely. Upgrade your current machine now and then buy another when Intel launches their next line of chips.

I keep two workstations churning and use the older one with a raid 5 mass storage. I make all partitions 2 TB and backup to 2TB drives. Works well and I don't worry about losing anything other than fire or theft. Upgrade the CPU/Mem/MB every 12-16 months and make the current workstation the backup machine when I upgrade.

Good luck on your decision and let us know what you decide.

Choosing NLEs is like choosing a spouse.

Three choices:

Do you want to marry the one your parents/friends tell you to marry, or do you want to marry for love, or do you want to marry for money?

The first choice is like an arranged marriage. Can work very well if the parents' or friends' judgment of what you need is good.

The second choice is initially the most rewarding, because it's "love" after all.

The third choice, "marry for money," means picking an NLE you don't love, simply because you can work with most pros that way, without jumping through major hoops every time.


The second choice is how most of us got into Vegas. It is love at first sight, and second, and third, and so on, because it uses a paradigm that is unbeatable for lone wolves, and it has superb audio capabilities. Collaborating with other pro editors? Not so much.

The third choice, for most people, means Final Cut Pro (not Final Cut Express which is a crippled animal) or Avid Media Composer.

They are both extremely powerful. FCP has a vast eco-system of experience, information, and both hardware and software accessories (the latter also tend to be quite inexpensive when bought properly, while Avid MC is the #1 best NLE for what I call "elbow editing," i.e. fast quality cutting of larger projects where the system doesn't get in the way of your creative decisions. It certainly has the best timeline performance of all, in most cases.

I have all three and use Vegas first when I can, Media Composer for editing joy, and FCP for plug-ins that allow me to quickly do a LOT of stuff that I would otherwise have to do in After Effects.

In the end, you really have to develop your own understanding of your choices.

Even experienced professionals say "FCP is better than Avid because Avid can't do this...," and vice versa. Then it turns out when you check, that they simply didn't know how to do it just as easily in the other NLE.

FCP and Avid have about 20 times more features than Vegas (for higher level pro use), and if you need those features, the decision just got easier. Avid has serious media management that is often cursed at because it forces you to deal with clips and bins as clips and bins, without any of the file system shortcuts that tempt in other NLEs, but it has saved the day many times on TV shows especially.

I look at it as primarily a decision of which tool will be most time efficient for a given task, because time gets in the way of creative thinking.

Vegas is generally wonderful that way, because you can just pile on ideas and keep going.

Lars, if I was in your situation I would start with the 30-day trial of Avid Media Composer, running on your current machine. See if you like it (of course while reading "Avid Editing" by Sam Kauffmann). See how the on-the-fly trimming works (best in the business), and working with time code (very useful even if you don't record time code in your camera), etc.

If you feel limited for some reason, you've got a bigger decision to make: Vegas vs. FCP. For that, it just depends on your needs.

.

Really, I'll just echo what's been said before. As a LONG time solo project editor (when Corel Lumiere was the only cost effective choice), I've found that Vegas/After Effects is my preferred production workflow. I've also been on the upgrade path since version 4, so the price is right.

I haven't really had many issues with Vegas, but I count myself as more fortunate than Vegas being really rock solid. Given my choice I'd forgo any more feature enhancements and all that kind of thing. I'd urge SCS to really smooth out the kinks (and optimize optimize optimize for i5/i7/multicore), and adopt a pro video preview engine. It wouldn't look like much, but I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

In my view, I sort of view Vegas where Cakewalk was with Sonar 4/5. It was JUST about a serious contender for pro project audio, but not quite there. With Sonar 8/8.5, sonar has become a serious contender with excellent plug-in compatibility, and great features (heck, even Sun Studios in Nashville has adopted it).

Vegas is just a couple of steps from being everything anyone would need. SCS needs to expand its partner base and at the same time fix the video and stability issues (or minimize them - since the variety of hardware/software combos out there is going to be a challenge for developers).

Take a page out of Microsoft's book and partner up WITH developers to enhance the ecosystem and smooth out the annoying stuff.

If you're buying a new system as part of this decision, the answer (to me) is a no-brainer: get both. And the only way you can do this with ONE computer is with a Mac Pro. (although rumor is that there's a new model just around the corner, so you may want to wait a few weeks) With the Mac Pro, you run OSX on one drive and Windows 7 on another with Vegas 9c installed. This is my setup and I can honestly say I have the best of both worlds. For quick and simple projects that don't require work with other applications and/or post houses, boot into Windows 7 and use Vegas. When you need a beefier toolset for feature film work, professional color correction and work that requires multiple editors, boot into OSX and use Final Cut Studio and it's numerous programs.

Different tools for different jobs.

But buy or build a Windows system and you CANNOT work with Final Cut and a host of other applications.

This has been my solution and I have found that I'm happier with my Apple/Windows computer than ever. It turns out that Apple builds the best Windows computer, after all.

Of course, it's not going to be cheap:
MacPro $2500
Final Cut Studio $1000
Windows 7 $150
Additional Hard Drive $100

So, around $4,000.

But you get what you pay for. The Mac Pro is built like a tank, has fantastic support and warranty, and will last years. Go down to the Apple Store and just ask them to open up one of the Mac Pros and show you its design. You'll find it's built more like a high-end luxury car than a PC.

And remember, you are getting a Mac AND a PC for this price.

The OP made the below comment, and no one has addressed it.

================================================================
'd like to see a more flexible codec than MXF, or rather, be able to set up MXF to produce files liek 720x404 pixels and 960x540 etc. So that I could use that codec in a lap and a desktop etc. As it is now I'm sort of stuck with a few sizes.

I made the Mac Pro decision back in 2006 and, though i'm still using my dual 3.0GHz dual core system I haven't felt the need to upgrade.
Initially I bought the system to run Vegas which was my main editing platform. The choice came down to wanting a Zeon based PC and looking at the cost of an equivalent HP or even Dell system the Mac Pro was cheaper at the time.

I subsequently bought Final Cut Studio and started working with it. When I transistioned to shooting AVCHD on my Panasonic HMC-152 I found the Vegas wouldn't replay without stuttering.

FCP transcodes the AVCHD during the ingest at faster than realtime speeds to Apple ProRes and from there on the images are smooth and easy to deal with. The downside is the file size increase but with the latest version of FCS the Apple ProRes codec has been expanded to include an LT (Light) and Proxy versions as well as an 444 codec with Alpha channel support. The Proxy is about the same file size as SD DV but replays at full 1920x1080 with exceptional resolution for editing. I can edit and then re-ingest the final edit footage at higher rates if I have a storage space problem.

Vegas has a much more intuitive work paradigm but FCP offers a suite of software, Motion, SoundTrack Pro, Color, Compressor and DVD Studio Pro.

I still boot into XP and run Vegas for some jobs as I find it faster but I can choose the platform and program to suit the project. As I'm currently working on a Lifestyle series with another editor across town I love being able to call him up on iChat and play my edit straight off the timeline to him over broadband with the ability to talk and see him at the same time. If I need to make an edit change I can do that on the spot and play it to him without the need to render unless there is a complex transition that requires a timeline render. If he was a client with a Mac he wouldn't even need Final Cut I could just show him via his iChat. A great collaborative tool.

By the way buying a Mac isn't necessarily the only way to run OSX have a look at this link.
http://osx86sv.wordpress.com/2009/09/30/mac-os-x-install-on-a-usb-pen-drive/ Installing OSX on a PC[/link]
I've created the pen drive and booted to the installation screen on a home made PC with an ASUS P5 range motherboard and Q8400 CPU. Didn't go further as I need to get a new hard drive for the install but I'll be trying that soon.

New Hope Media

this thread reminds me of my barn:
I have three goats in a single stall. I have three feed dishes. I put equal amounts of feed in each dish. First all the goats run to one dish. Once becomes dominant, the other two leave. for another single dish. The goat by itself goes to the dish where the other two are. Chases them away, one goat goes to the first dish, one goes to the third. One goat (doesn't matter which) looks up & see a goat at another dish & goes to try to eat the other's food, even though it's the same food & the dish it is at still has food in it.

Goes on until there's no food left & all have licked the bowls (but when they start licking the bowls they keep doing this).

Moral of the story: it's all the same no matter what you choose but you'll still go there anyway. :p

Vegas for editing

Fusion for everything else ( compositing, titles, effects, even some 3D now ).

The rest is amateur hour. It can be done in those other apps ( didn't Robert Rodriguez edit his first movie with 2 VCRs ) , but the above is what you need if you want your grass to be green. FCP comes with a lot of apps included, but they are crap for the most part. The grass on that side can't even be seen from all the excrement covering it.

Wow... did you just call Avid Media Composer amateur hour? Ballsy. I know a few guys who released a little movie called Avatar that might disagree...

"Making a movie with....[Brand X Goes Here]", might be as simple as rendering the finished clips and paying the appropriate "product placement" fees.

Like FCP, it DOES DO the final cut, but not everything leading up to it.

HUH?

FCP comes with a lot of apps included, but they are crap for the most part.

Funny I've worked in broadcast television for the last 31 years. I've seen programs edited on moviolas, steenbecks, GVG tape based, Lighworks, Heavyworks, Avid (in all it's forms and variants), FCP even Premiere Pro occasionally across multiple broadcasters and post production facilities.

Even though I own Vegas and love its simplicity combined with power I've never yet encountered it in a broadcast or post house environment.

Most likely because it doesn't play well with other apps in the ability to collaborate, not that all the other do just that mostly they do that better than Vegas.

In a 'one man band' set up, like my home studio, I think it is fantastic, until you start to deal with AVCHD where it leaves me extremely cold. I've even won an award up against professional facilities with a 5.1 mix I finished in Vegas.

Still when I have to consider interfacing with other editors and facilities Vegas becomes the least likely NLE even if it can do the job simply because I can't pass on the components they way that I can with other apps like FCP and AVID or in the audio domain ProTools.

New Hope Media

"didn't Robert Rodriguez edit his first movie with 2 VCRs"I've done a lot of editing using 2 VCR's. I still have my Sony EVC100 & EVS7000 Hi-8 decks upstairs. The EVS7000 is a mighty fine piece of equipment.. The decks were lanc controlled and my computer would start/stop/ff the tapes based on time code. Titles were produced via a "genlock" card. The whole process was pretty painful.

Thank God for nle's, particularly Vegas!

...Jerry