The learning curve for the Avid applications is probably steeper than for FCP and some other NLEs.

Most of the conventions in Avid can be very well explained. Because the software has developed as a film-cutting tool many things relate to terms and methods that were existing in film editing.

I many ways my feelings toward FCP mirror yours toward Avid. These days (despite first editing on Premiere and FCP) I find myself much better able to simply concentrate on the important stuff in Avid.

I moved over to FCP in May ‘09 and haven’t looked back, it seems more stable and uses much more intuitive language, it seems that where Avid says ‘Audio Clip Gain’ FCP says ‘Turn volume up’ and that for me helps me concentrate on the important stuff.

At the most basic you could export a Quicktime from Avid and use that as the source in FCP. Taking it a step further it should be possible to export an EDL of the sequence which can then be used to cut the Quicktime in FCP to make grading easier – Digital Haven used to have an App called “EDL Mirror” that did this – it’s been discontinued, there are probably other tools that can achieve the same thing.

Using that Quicktime and EDL principle it should also be possible to take an edit from Avid into Apple Color (which can import an EDL to apply as a cut list) – but I’ve never tried it.

If this is something you’re seriously keen to do, I’d definitely recommend Automatic Duck – it’s a brilliant tool, and I’d say pretty much essential in any environment with both Avid and FCP suites.

I have to say, that I am quickly falling in love with it. While the learning curve is steep, the basics are easy to get, after you mess with it for a while. The mix and match is pretty sweet, and I love it’s instant access to my XDCAM stuff. It’s RT performance is pretty nice too, even on a laptop. Overall, I am quite pleased with it, and find more to like about it, every time I work on it. The fact I am saying this, would confuse some of my former co-workers. I personally switched 2 production facilities away from MC a few years back, for FCP. Not trying to start a flamewar…

The one thing that is baffling, is a seeming inability to use some media files. I have a unique situation, I shoot 3 cam interviews, 2 in HDV 24p, another in Canon HDV 24f. This presents a strange scenario on both editors. Budget wise, this is the way it is on these…

In FCP, I “de-telecine” in compressor the HDV 24p stuff as ProRes, the 24f can stay intact as native in Final Cut. (I’m in 6.0.6) In Avid, I can’t find a good solution. In order to pull from the tapes, I have to (please, Please correct me if I am wrong…) create a project in 1080 60i to pull from HDV 24p, and it does well with this. However, in order to pull 24f footage, I have to create another project as 1080p 24, and then I can option to a 24f import from the deck controls using the XH A1 for both tapes, for import.

My question is this, how do I tell Avid, to import the media from the 24f project, into the 60i project, or vice versa. No import options seem to work at all. It keeps erroring on import attempts,telling me to go to documentation, and I have read everything I can find, and still can’t figure this out. This is even with it’s own MXF files. If I can get around this issue, (which I know is a newbie issue) without having to import and transcode around it, that will fix my only real issues with MC so far.

That said, there is something to be said for using both, and having a knowledge of both systems. Love the discussion so far… Larry

My observation from your posts and articles in the past about the process in FCP in the past have always been that the process is possible in FCP, but a lot more ‘fragile’ I guess. It’s certainly possible in a Unity environment to mess things up for other editors and break media links, but it’s pretty difficult. The FCP methods you describe require a very high level of discipline by the editors to conform to very specific protocols. Which is ideally what editors should be doing in a shared environment anyway, but in my experience is often the sort of thing that tends to go out the window as the pressure is ramped up.

I’d still say that the FCP solution to collaborative editing is not nearly as simple or ‘fool proof’ as Unity, but quite clearly it is possible when managed right. As for scaling, I can certainly see times when the simple filesystem-based method might be more efficent – a corrupt media database in a large Unity project is a mighty pain.

Great discussion. I agree with most opinions here, EXCEPT for the negative comments about “shared storage and networked workflow” regarding FCP. I hear this kind of comment often, but when I ask for details about the kind of equipment or the kind of effort put into organizing the project, I quickly learn that the “negative experience” has more to do with a lack of understanding than a physical limitation from FCP.

I got so annoyed by this casual dismissal of FCP’s “workgroup” abilities that I wrote an article about it. You can see it here:

http://www.avid2fcp.com/articles/sharing-projects

Rather than repeat the article, I’ll just say that sharing media and projects with FCP/X-SAN is just as easy as Avid, if you know what you’re doing. In fact, I’ll even go out on a limb here and say that in our case, the way that FCP sees media on the finder level and NOT in a “project” is a huge advantage for us and the scale of media that we deal with (Hundreds of Terrabytes).

We have almost 100 editors working in a shared storage, shared project workflow meeting broadcast deadlines on a daily basis.

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