Avid products, users call

[fredjeang]

Hi,

As an Adobe Premiere Pro user, I'm considering evaluating the Avid.

Thoughts, experience welcome.

Many thanks

[tho_mas]

You know my very little enthousiasm when it comes to adding more and more learning curve in the chain, so I'd like to avoid evaluating too many softwares and that is why I make this call to the Avid users.

Avid is extremely keyboard driven. You can do a lot of things with the mouse, however if you do so the software (workflow) is actually slow. So there is indeed a learning curve...
It maybe also depends on how much audio editing you will do. Audio editing is not exactly a strength of Avid. Of course you can export the audio tracks as OMF files and import it in professional audio editing software if required.

[Pete_G]

There is a 30 day free trial of Media Composer that you can take advantage of. Just download and install it and try it out. Check that your computer fulfills
Avid's system specifications, generally Avid wants Nvidia graphics cards, particularly the Quadro series, although other Nvidia's can work.

Avid isn't cheap though and you will need a special keyboard. There is a steep learning curve, but Media Composer is still considered the NLE of choice, despite
stiff competition from FCP, which many producers prefer, mainly because it's cheaper.

The trial will help you make a decision.

[daleeman]

Just wandered upon this thread. Do not know if I can be of any assistance.
I was a very early beta tester for Premiere, know it well since ver 2. Used to teach it. I currently teach FCP and use that. I do professional editing on Avid and have used that for years too.

If you are looking to make a living from this you can not go wrong with Avid as your main editor. Since you have Premiere, keep it, it is also a very gook on loaction and quick file type converter besides a professional editor.

Best of luck

Lee

[Chris_Brown]

Avid is the tool for most TV editors in the major U.S. media cities. In recent years it's lost users to Final Cut and Adobe, but with its latest version MediaComposer is looking to remain king of the hill. When you compare feature sets with that of the Final Cut Studio or Adobe Production Suite, it's much more expensive and you'll still have to buy After Effects (or a comparable program) if you want to have tracking/masking features.

A decent review is here.

In September, Adobe announced that the BBC was adopting the Adobe Production Suite throughout its organization, which is quite an endorsement.

Regardless of which program you settle on, either program will provide professional results once it's been mastered.

[daleeman]

I have no problem with sticking with what you know and the investment in it.
Final cut until 2 years ago really had only a one user workflow, they are making some real inroads into the multi user and shared drives workflow but Avid did the teeth cutting on that and remains the king there.

We opted out of helper cards and just purchased raw power. We have these Dell T7500 dual quads with a gazillion gigs of ram (32 I seem to remember) and they huff and puff through everything very well. Do a lot of multi scene animation editing in Premiere with sequential tiffs from Lightwave. Having 2 or 3 terabytes of tiffs brings them close to their knees but they keep running and rendering out. Premiere does get very winded holding that many files in its registers. Nothing compressed, all 1280X720P. Hard drives are like chewing gum, chew em up and spit them out after they lost their flavor, first time I ever worked with a scheduled hard drive replacement schedule. 10 months and they replace them, unheard of but we keep the raids healthy, staggered banks, man they get hot.

2011 wlll bring us quad quads I hope, or something better if it is out. Down right processing power is what seems to make Premiere and Avid stand up and perform. Never had the chance to beef up a FCP apple but it stands to reason it will help it a lot.

Lee