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theabortionator
April, 2025

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Avid media composer 7

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SamMcChesney
Posts: 2905 - Karma: 2,199
Any of you use this beast? Getting it tomorrow from a guy at my internship for my macbook pro. I have used it some and it seems freakin' awesome. Wondering what you guys have to say if any of you use it.





12 years ago
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ColinB
Posts: 1452 - Karma: 2,236
steal a RED from work and give it to me.
12 years ago
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SamMcChesney
Posts: 2905 - Karma: 2,199
hahah. dood you have no fucking idea what's going on. This internship is un-real. I gotta tell you about it man.
12 years ago
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SamMcChesney
Posts: 2905 - Karma: 2,199
well, I guess nobody uses avid then...
12 years ago
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eheath
Posts: 61937 - Karma: 126,481
I mean its a NLE they're all decently similar and people usually like one or the other bases on their opinions. I like premiere pro personally
12 years ago
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SamMcChesney
Posts: 2905 - Karma: 2,199
yea for sure, I have also been using fcp7 a lot lately. trying to decide between avid and fcp7...
12 years ago
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eheath
Posts: 61937 - Karma: 126,481
Fcp7 IMO is garbage compared to adobe cs6 premiere pro. Cs5/5.5 were okay but cs6/cc are fucking awesome my eyes hurt when I see fcp now
12 years ago
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SamMcChesney
Posts: 2905 - Karma: 2,199
really? Care to explain at all?
12 years ago
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eheath
Posts: 61937 - Karma: 126,481
Fcp7 is just slow. Its built on a program that was created 10 years ago. It doesn't even utilize more than 4gb of RAM. Its just old news, I find adobe premiere pro to work much better for me.
12 years ago
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juicedrummer11
Posts: 1960 - Karma: 1,331
i have a friend who uses avid now at film school and he was a fcp/premiere user. he says after you take the time to learn it its pretty awesome because you he made it sound like you can edit huge file types really easily by editing a scaled down version then the final edit is in its original size or somethin. im not 100% sure tho. i just know he really likes it now
12 years ago
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juicedrummer11
Posts: 1960 - Karma: 1,331
i still like fcp7 tho and am in the process of converting to premiere so i still prefer those
12 years ago
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eheath
Posts: 61937 - Karma: 126,481
Its called using proxy files you can do it with any NLE.

like I said, all NLEs are the same they're just like different brands of cameras. They all shoot photo/video at a similar levels (bare with me) but its all personal preference
12 years ago
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Jiberfish
Posts: 1041 - Karma: 310
Ive got avid studio. Not as good at all but i like it. Has some glitches but ive learned to work around them
12 years ago
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SamMcChesney
Posts: 2905 - Karma: 2,199
yea, fcp7 is running a little on the slow side but not to bad. I would try premier but I already have avid, fcp7 and X so I don't really want another editor...
12 years ago
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ColinB
Posts: 1452 - Karma: 2,236
I really don't have any experience with Avid, but I've had a quick tour of the program from a friend who uses it and I can say that it would be a step up from FCP7 and X
12 years ago
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SamMcChesney
Posts: 2905 - Karma: 2,199
yea dude for sure. It's what they use at y internship and it's really sick! I talked to a guy there for a while who's been in the business for ~15 years. he said get really good and master fcp7, then transfer to Avid because that will make it a ton easier.
12 years ago
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Holte
Posts: 10751 - Karma: 7,996
I'm not a huge fan of cutting in Avid, but MC7 is definitely the most intuitive version I've ever used. Sure wish they would've given even a few days heads up that they were going to change so much and drop the price so drastically from 6.5 to 7. And that said, AMA workflow still has a long way to go to rival Premiere or FCP. The biggest bottleneck in post production is still online conform.
12 years ago
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tomPietrowski
Posts: 7290 - Karma: 18,698
Avid used to be what all the top end editors were using. The reason was a few years ago it was one of the few program's where multiple people could work on one offline edit together. It's still used by some studios but most are transferring to premiere pro now. It's funny I never really expected premiere to become number 1 for pros but with cs6 and now cc it seems adobe have made something a bit special. Personally I think smoke is going to give it a run for its money especially in vfx houses.
12 years ago
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Holte
Posts: 10751 - Karma: 7,996
Outside the VFX industry, it's a small percentage that are transferring to Premiere. The VAST majority still use Avid because of collaborative editing ability, like you said. I'd say there's still a lot more post houses using FCP 7 than Premiere.
12 years ago
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tomPietrowski
Posts: 7290 - Karma: 18,698
^ no apparently now premiere is the most widely used nle worldwide. It has been adopted pretty much by everyone. For example game of thrones is edited with cs6 the coen brothers new film will be using cc and a whole host of other big Hollywood films are premiere now too. Avid is certainly still the second most used as a lot of post houses had it firmly implemented into the pipeline but that is changing now. The funniest thing I heard was about speed grade. Some may not know but speed grade use to be a 40k program before adobe got it. It used to need some hefty hardware but one it became part of cs people began using it on tech it was never meant for. That's why the ui change happened for cc as the program wa never meant to be run on 15in laptops.

Also just to note vfx are some of the only ones not moving to premiere. Smoke and a katanta/ heiro pipeline are more usual.
12 years ago
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Holte
Posts: 10751 - Karma: 7,996
Nah dude. I'm not sure where you got your info from, but Game of Thrones was edited with Avid. There's tons of press on how it was cut with a huge editorial staff on a Unity. I know of a handful of features that have been cut in Premiere, but the Coen Brothers' upcoming film is the only big one I can think of - and it works for them since they have a tiny editorial staff. Premiere may be the most common NLE worldwide, but not for TV/feature offline editorial.

About Speedgrade - I'm 99% sure it was a $20K application before Adobe bought Iridas. I don't know if you ever used Speedgrade before 2011, but it was the least intuitive piece of software ever. There were only a small number of good Speedgrade colorists in Hollywood since nobody wanted to learn such a confusing program, which in turn made post houses leery of investing in Speedgrade over DaVinci or Baselight. I worked at a place that primarily used Speedgrade at that time, and trust me, it was super frustrating. In 2011, Speedgrade desperately needed a new UI, and Adobe (who makes great UIs) needed an integrated coloring app, so the purchase of Iridas was perfect.
12 years ago
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tomPietrowski
Posts: 7290 - Karma: 18,698
Nah I'm pretty sure game of thrones is all premiere now. The earlier seasons were avid but they have transitioned for te upcoming season. I work in the vfx industry here in London so I have seen first hand how studios are transitioning. Iridas speed grade was a 40k software and was actually used by a lot of post houses. The reason irida sold to adobe wa they wanted a cut of the consumer market and had no way of really doing it. Adobe also needed a production proven colour solution if premiere was to be taken seriously. As I said obviously avid is still used a lot at the moment but from studios I have seen in the uk the transition is happening. Cc has been a big factor in that instant upgrades are a big deal and if new features are needed they can be written in relatively quickly. Until there is a true scripable nle like maya is for 3d cc is going to be as good as it gets. But as I also said this is only for standard editing any way both avid and premiere are not up to what is required for vfx work these days. Until you can load a nuke script into avid or premiere and render on the fly there will be demand for other solutions.
12 years ago
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Holte
Posts: 10751 - Karma: 7,996
That's good to hear that houses in London are switching over to rapidly. Wish that was the case in Los Angeles. I work pretty closely with the good folks at Adobe, and hopefully there'll be a collaborative editing solution ready for CC2 that will change some of the long ingrained Avid architecture.

For VFX review, we usually use a Nuke/RV/Hiero workflow which plays well with Shotgun. Would be rad if Premiere had Python support, but I highly doubt that will ever happen considering After Effects scripting is basically Javascript.
12 years ago
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tomPietrowski
Posts: 7290 - Karma: 18,698
Not sure if you have heard but after effects is in the process of a complete rewrite of the code. I mean from scratch so here's hoping they are making some big changes which may include python support. If they could seriuosly take on nuke with after effects then I really see a cc workflow getting adopted much more widely. But we will have to wait and see.
12 years ago
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