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Originally Posted by Thomas W. Bethe  One of my current interns says that no big studio is using PCs any more and that everything is done on FCP on a Mac. Any feelings about this or any personal experience? I did some web surfing and it seems to me that AVID still has a large share of the marketplace but that Macs are gaining.
Thanks in advance! |
Tell your intern that he/she may need to stay an intern for a while if that's what they've learned so far.
Avid runs on both Mac and PC as does ProTools. Generally I'd say more Avids are being run on the PC platform and ProTools on MAC. Avid on PC is still VERY much alive in the film and television world. In smaller markets and the ad world, Final Cut has made more of a footprint.
Final Cut is a very good product for it's price range. Your intern is correct that it did make some big strides a few years ago in grabbing market share from Avid, however a large portion of television and major theatrical releases are still cut on Avids. Final Cut dropped the ball in their last couple of releases when it comes to fixing some very practical workflow problems.
FCP has always been plagued by audio sync issues that you can work around, but you should not need to. It can also be a lot slower than an Avid in regards to real time effect handling. Networking and media management are also issues that come up often with editors who are well versed on both platforms.
There are some things about FCP that I love, I'm a Mac guy and despite all of their own marketing hype, Avid customer support still sucks. That said, if I were opening a facility where mid to large scale networking was needed and there were critical deadlines to be met, I'd be a fool not to seriously consider Avid on HP as an option.