how profesional is AVID?b

I am wondering who uses the avid system? Who is it for? Is it the best and/ or most profesional system? Why?


Thanks for all your help
-Luke

Hi Luke,

I noticed that no one had replied to your post yet, and being an Avid user I thought I would respond.

As to who uses the Avid system, well, quite honestly a lot of things you see in the theater and on the news were cut on one of Avid's editing lines. Avid has very high end systems which require major support, and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars (you don't buy these, you rent time on them at an editing boutique) all the way down to you and me on the prosumer end, with stand alone systems for under $1,000. They have News Cutter programs and they also work with the government developing forensic software for analyzing footage etc.

FCP (Final Cut Pro) is making huge waves into the Hollywood scene, but Avid has, for many years, maintained a tight grip on that market.

Avid systems are all designed alike, so because I was trained on Xpress DV, I can jump onto Xpress Pro, Media Composer, or Avid Symphony, and feel pretty much right at home. Each program offers different things, and is targeted for different users.

There is a lot of debate about which program is better than another (FCP for example), but the two programs accomplish the same thing (for the most part-I don't want to over generalize) but really are very different. As I understand it, Avid was created for the Editor alone. The completed edit was sent down the production line to an effects editor, and on down the line to someone else. In contrast to that early model, and in my opinion, and in my experience with FCP 3 and 4, FCP is designed as a stand alone editing/effects all in one package. It does this really well. Don't get me wrong, there isn't much you couldn't do on either program, they just have a different approach to accomplishing that task.

I have cut on both systems and like them both for different reasons.

To answer your question, Avid is a professional system and is used by a lot of industry professionals. But it is really up to the user to determine which program is best for them.

Hope this helped...
and good luck!

I was also kinda wondering about that myself. I'm going to be a student later this year at full sail and I was thinking about taking advantage of the Avid Express Pro student price for $300. Right now I'm using Premiere 6.5, so my question is, is it going to be a huge step up? Like is it totally different from premiere's layout and controls? I know its alot more powerful than premiere (or so I hear) so I've pretty much made my decision to buy it, but I'm just curious as to what learning curve I may be approching.

Hey BMXbum,

Most non-linear editing programs are similar in their layout, although jumping to a "higher end" software program will have a learning curve. Try and think of it as an opportunity to diversify your talents, as it is better to know more platforms (Final Cut Pro, Avid Express Pro, Primere, etc.) If your school offers some introductory courses to get you going on Avid, you should have no problem finding your way around. Again, the lay out will be different, but very similar as you have the standard source/sequence monitor set up, some buttons underneath and the time line beneath that. You'll be more rounded in the end by learning as many editing programs as you can, including Avid!

One last thing: for a few hundred dollars, it is an amazing program to get your hands on and as I mentioned in the other post, Avid is relatively the same as you move up in price 300-300,000.

good luck
nathaniel