Avid to Adobe

[Shoeless]

Just left the Monday morning staff meeting, and I really think the higher ups are considering moving over to Adobe and dropping Avid. First Avid is way less intuitive, support sucks and its hard to get anything else to play with Avid. Adobe products all do different things but all work very well together, tons of online training and they say Adobe is really moving away from the whole pro-sumer thing and going high-end. They said Disney is making the switch and they wouldn't be surprised if more high-end production houses and Hollywood make a switch.

Do you see Adobe being capable of taking the niche that Avid now fills?

 

[Necktie Boy]

First, Premiere is as good or better than FCP or Avid. It does get a bum rap. I have cut on all three and all have strengths and weaknesses. Avid is trying to change. Since Avid did away with the Xpress Pro HD, Media Composer is the entry level editing software. It's twice the cost of Xpress. So, money does come to play. Avid has been loosing some of the market share to FCP and PP. Why? FCP and PP have third-party support. And offer a better suite solution. Will PP move up the ladder? With HD around the corner, more hardware is required to play HD. Avid isn't so friendly in this part. I think the jump up with hardware with MC is $10k or so. FCP and PP with third-party hardware can be bought for around $2k. Drives and computer not included. As you mention, Avid is very picky in which computers and hardware it will work. Premiere is more friendly in that manner. If you use other Adobe products, PP has a big advantage. For news editing, you only touch the surface with Avid, FCP, and PP. Can it move up and replace Avid? With the new upgrades that allow PP to edit DVCPro HD and XDCam HD, you could see PP be the choice over Avid. In fact, that is what I am doing. I am returning to PP. The cost of the suite offers a better workflow than Avid. I do production, so I use the Adobe family often. The cost of hardware to playback HD is as low as $350 bucks. I have decided to go with the $1k card. Still way below the price of Avid MC. To be honest, all the these editing softwares are an overkill for editing news. Unfortunately, no one makes a simple Professional editing software for news.

 

[Shoeless]

Forgot to mention we are not a news outlet, so we are scratching a bit more than the surface. Thanks for your response.

 

[patssle]

Adobe does come with the stigma of low-end production. But in reality, its capable of a lot of things (and maybe more) that the Avids and FCP and others are capable of.

The greatest thing about the Adobe suite is the integration of each application with each other. I personally can't imagine a workflow anymore without it, it is so easy to use and switch between the programs and to update the content via each other. Photoshop and After Effects are industry standards in post-production, so why not use an editing program that works with them?

As per HD, Premiere natively supports HDV and P2. Not sure about XDCAM. CS3 allows me to use my HDTV as a preview monitor in real time at full resolution hooked up via a DVI cable from my graphics card. So not sure what you mean by necessary hardware playback for HD. As long as you have a powerful CPU, you are good to go (I have a 6600 Quad) for at least 2 streams of HD. If your looking for more plus graphics, then yeah you probably need some hardware playback.

 

[Necktie Boy]

Shoeless,
If you are using Photoshop, AE, or other Adobe products, PP is really the way to go. As Patssle pointed out, You can drop in and edit files from the timeline to Photoshop or AE. the Adobe Bundle is powerfull.

Patssle,
There is an udate for CS3 to be able to work with XDCam HD. 3.2. If you have an highe end card with component HD or SDI, you are monitor true HD. If you are just
sending out a HD signal, it is not a true HD signal. But I don't know what video card you are using.

 

[patssle]

Shoeless,
Patssle,
There is an udate for CS3 to be able to work with XDCam HD. 3.2. If you have an highe end card with component HD or SDI, you are monitor true HD. If you are just
sending out a HD signal, it is not a true HD signal. But I don't know what video card you are using.

I have my HDTV setup as an extended desktop with a 1920x1080 resolution via DVI and Premiere allows you treat that is a preview monitor.

 

[Chugach3DGuy]

I won't give up my Adobe CS3 Production bundle without a bloody fight! I work on both Premiere Pro CS3 and FCS 2 at work, and I would've torched the Final Cut stuff long ago if not for all the Mac-Addicts around these parts...

Everyone so far has all made excellent points. In addition to level at which all of Adobe's programs play nice with each other, I think my favorite thing out of everything is the fact that nearly all the keyboard shortcuts are the same! If you know the basic keyboard shortcuts for Photoshop, you'll pick up Premiere Pro very quickly. Same thing goes for After Effects.

I think Adobe's key to success is that it's great for small AND large operations. As someone who produces a ton of commercials and DVDs for a small production studio, I have nearly everything I need at my disposal with Adobe's Suite. I think Avid and FCP are great tools for larger shops where you have people dedicated to single tasks, but are more difficult to use for one-man-band setups. FCP doesn't give me anywhere near the same options that Premiere does when it comes to simple things like adding text and graphics. Yes, Motion is in Apple's Suite, but as someone who is used to dealing with keyframes for nearly 10 years, trying to understand Apple's "Behaviors" makes my brain hurt.

All in all, I think Adobe is the way to go when it comes to ease of learning, efficiency, and cost. My two cents...

 

[Shoeless]

Yeah thanks very much for the responses. My boss and I attended a meeting that was all about how well Adobe products interact. I know Pshop. Illustrator and a little premiere, never used AE. Sounds like a switch to Adobe may be a very practical move. Thanks again