With the start of 2007 I move to editing on Final Cut Pro (version 5).
I have spent the last 15 years editing primarily on Avid Media Composers. I suppose this is the beginning of a new era of work for me. Right away I can tell some significant difference between the systems. Avid was designed by film and linear tape editors and as such has hallmarks of both environments. Final Cut seems to be engineered as a file based editing system much more comfortable with mixing formats and file types. Avid handles files O.K. but lives and dies by timecode. Final Cut can handle timecode, but it clearly was something that got added to the mix rather than used as a basic building block. Avid could be quite constrictive with respect to formats and interfacing with other programs, but as long as you are creating standard NTSC television, the program keeps you on track. Final Cut seems wide open with respect to flavors of video providing plenty of opportunities to hang yourself as an operator if you aren't paying attention. My current one liner..."Final Cut maybe an easier program to pick-up, but its a much more difficult program to run correctly."
