# Now that final cut 7 is long gone which video editor should we switch to?



## ccm1495 (Aug 4, 2012)

I posted this thread after seeing another thread about adobe premier. I know that video editing may not be the best topic to get information about on control booth but I'm going to give it a shot. 

So what has happened at my school is that we where die hard finalcut pro users for journalism classes show promotions, show projections and a list of other things. Now final cut pro is realy gone and apple has stuck to there guns about final cut x. We are now wondering what program we are going to migrate to. Are choices are final cut x( which I have tried and hated), adobe premier and avid media composer. I'm wondering if any one is running into this problem and is willing to share there thoughts. I feel that adobe premier feels the most similar to final cut.

Thanks for any thoughts


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## ruinexplorer (Aug 4, 2012)

Either of those are fine programs. I like Adobe because of the suite of programs that work so well together. Avid is a well respected program as well. Since I am mainly a Windows user, I cannot vouch for differences in performance between the OS and the performance of the programs, but I can't see where you would go wrong with either of them.

What was it that drove you crazy on Final Cut X? What features are you looking for specifically?


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## Cooperhodges (Aug 5, 2012)

I was part of a similar program at my school for 4 years, becoming the director of the program, eventually. I found that FCP 7 was my favorite- I learned on FCP 7, and knew it the best. In further research, I found that Adobe's Premiere Pro was a lot like FCP 7, and, with some UI tweaks, I found that I could use it just as easily, if not more efficiently. I have not personally used Avid, but I hear great reviews on it by some colleagues of mine who use it professionally. You might want to reconsider your views on FCP X- I had similar views, but upon a few hours of trial-and-error, I found that I could use it just as well as FCP 7. It takes some getting used to the new UI, but I think you should reconsider cutting Apple out completely. They have added a lot of features they left out (such as FCP 7 render files compatibility, Multi-Cam support, ect.) and have made it a half-decent program. I still have and use FCP 7, and would choose it over any other suite I've tried, but FCP X may eventually (with some updating) become just as good.


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## EricE (Aug 5, 2012)

Cooperhodges said:


> I still have and use FCP 7, and would choose it over any other suite I've tried, but FCP X may eventually (with some updating) become just as good.



Exactly! I think many people who had knee-jerk reactions over FCP X were looking at it as a drop in replacement for FCP 7. It's not. Apple didn't help the situation by immediatly discontinuing FCP 7 and not talking for the first several months FCP X was out. There's no question they handled the whole "launch" poorly - and the group at Apple responsible for it has apologized many times and recognized they whole thing was handled poorly.

FCP 7 was old, tired and riddled with legacy code. There was no way to cleanly take it to be 64 bit - so a reboot was needed. And if your going to reboot the code, why not reboot the whole workflow to more properly reflect what the underlying technology is capable, instead of sticking with old, tired metaphores like "tape" and "clips"?

If you read the well-reasoned pro reviews of FCP X - especially the pro's that have a real connection with the folks at Apple, FCP X is the *foundation* for the next generation video editing system. It's a work in progress. As pointed out, they have added some badly needed features like Multi-Cam support. But there are others like tape support that Apple will probably never directly integrate, but rely on third parties for - indeed, tape support was available from day one from third parties. Again, not all the pieces were there, but it's not like it was completely unsupported. I don't expect Apple to support features they consider "legacy" like tape. Sure, to those with a current heavy investment in tape that may seem like a slap in the face, but the potential user base for pure digital is many times that of those who require tape, so Apple relying on third parties makes sense to me. And FCP X plus the plugin cost is still a fraction of what FCP 7 or other solutions were and are for some vendors.

If you look at where Apple is going with FCP X and metadat based workflow, and give it a chance I think it's probably the most exciting thing to happen to non-linear editing since it became popular in the first place. Yup, it's a work in progres - but I think if you negelct it, you do so at your (or your students) peril. No one switches NLE suits on a dime - and if your in the middle of a project even talking about upgrading versions is crazy. FCP 7 is still shipping and recieving minimal updates - just not new features, so one one has to rush into anyting - that's for sure.

Having said that, I did take advantage of Adobe's promotion for Creative Suite - I got Premiere and a bunch of other stuff for $100 over what just Photoshop alone would have cost me - not a bad deal! So thanks for mungling your message Apple - it saved me some serious money and now I have Premiere to play around with too.


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## ccm1495 (Aug 5, 2012)

We have started trying Premier Pro. I would have to say that it is really easy to get use to compared to fcpx . Our main complaints about fcpx was that we had a really hard time or it was completely impossible to do things that were really easy in fcp 7. Just so you know we did try the most recent version of fcpx.


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## metti (Aug 12, 2012)

I just finished up a few months working at a studio producing projection content that has been grappling with this very issue. They heavily use After Effects in their workflow and had previously used Final Cut 7 extensively as well but after trying out FCPX and Premiere CS6 they ended up deciding that the tight integration between the programs in the Adobe suite made Premiere a better choice going forward. Though Premiere is definitely pretty different then FCP7 in many little ways, Adobe has done a lot to try and help ease the transition such as building in a keyboard shortcut preset that emulates FCP7. It might be helpful to consider what other programs you guys work with and how important it is to you to have a good software ecosystem to ease file interchange.


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## jstroming (Aug 12, 2012)

Final Cut Pro 7 was for sale as recently as 6 months ago by special order from Apple. I think I had to call to order it, but it was still available.


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## Jakepugh15 (Aug 15, 2012)

ccm1495 said:


> I posted this thread after seeing another thread about adobe premier. I know that video editing may not be the best topic to get information about on control booth but I'm going to give it a shot.
> 
> So what has happened at my school is that we where die hard finalcut pro users for journalism classes show promotions, show projections and a list of other things. Now final cut pro is realy gone and apple has stuck to there guns about final cut x. We are now wondering what program we are going to migrate to. Are choices are final cut x( which I have tried and hated), adobe premier and avid media composer. I'm wondering if any one is running into this problem and is willing to share there thoughts. I feel that adobe premier feels the most similar to final cut.
> 
> Thanks for any thoughts



I personally use Sony Vegas. It's simple and has alot of tools. Plus it's really nice with sound editing to. And it's fairly cheap. But i would also consider after effects, But the problem with that is it's 1,000 dollars.


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## metti (Aug 18, 2012)

After Effects isn't really an editing environment. People do cut in it all the time but someone who is used to a proper NLE like Final Cut will end up tearing their hair out trying to edit in AE since it simply isn't designed for that.


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## chausman (Aug 18, 2012)

metti said:


> After Effects isn't really an editing environment. People do cut in it all the time but someone who is used to a proper NLE like Final Cut will end up tearing their hair out trying to edit in AE since it simply isn't designed for that.



Is that what premier is for? An NLE environment?


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## cpf (Aug 18, 2012)

chausman said:


> Is that what premier is for? An NLE environment?



After Effects is for, well, effects. Premiere is for the actual assembly of the final product. They're tightly tied together, so you can drag raw footage from Premiere into AE, do whatever, then drag the comp back to Premiere. Everything renders and keeps up to date automatically.


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