I know Avid would be the optimal choice for the pro filmmaker, but what about for the ammateur? I'm an aspiring filmmaker still creating short films for school. I am currently using Studio 9 and have come across many of the bugs associated with this program. Except for the Avid Liquid series which costs thousands of dollars, what programs would you recommend for the PC?

VEGAS. End of story. You can get it for a great price with a student discount, its got an easy to use interface and can do everything that Final Cut and Adobe can. Go Vegas or go home.

Paul, come help me out here.

The order I would put things in would be (bottom of the line to top of the line amateur wise)

Adobe Premiere Pro
Vegas
Avid Xpress HD

Personally I think you need to go right for Avid Xpress HD. If you want to get serious about film and editing, you need to start with the standard in my opinion. Although alot of fellows on this forum will call Vegas standard...it really isnt. Avid will be a good investment for you editing wise and getting attuned to how films are edited in the industry.

Vegas.

Vegas Vegas Vegas.

Download it, use it, never look back (until you have to pay for it.)

You can get Avid Express Pro for $295 if you are a student. I also have heard that the new version of Premiere Pro(2.0)is very good also. I have both the avid and an older version or premiere pro and like them equally.

quote:

Although alot of fellows on this forum will call Vegas standard...it really isnt. Avid will be a good investment for you editing wise and getting attuned to how films are edited in the industry.

Good point, and you're absolutely right, Vegas isn't standard, and I wouldn't ever admit to it being standard (although I do admit that the fact that it's NOT standard is a shame, IMO of course). However, if you're working on PC and are completely new to editing, I honestly think Vegas is your best option. It's FAR easier to learn when compared to Avid and Premiere Pro. Also, in my experience with Premiere, the program was very slow, and the interface was simply difficult to work with. If you want to jump right into the industry standard go for it, but I'm warning you, it's going to be one hell of a challenge, especially if you have little to no editing experience. I've heard Avid is extremely hard to learn.

NLE's are all fairly similar anyway (although I do admit to never using Avid), and the transition from one to another is not severe. I had never used Final Cut before taking a production class at school, and picked it up pretty easily because I was already familiar with the tools and general layout of an advanced NLE program. I'm going to film school never having used Avid, but I'm not sweating much because I have plenty of experience with Vegas and Final Cut.

Mark you hit the nail on the head.

Did you ever say Vegas was a standard? I don't think I did. I don't seem to remember anyone saying that ever...

hmmmmm just buy a mac get FCP. It makes the world a better place.

But why settle for under industry standard? Why not start with the standard? Sure, the learning curve will be a bit longer but it will be worth it and will never have to make a transition.

Avid is a bit different then other NLEs. It isn't near as user friendly as FCP or Vegas is. Even premier pro.

Like Mark said FCP and Vegas are pretty similar. So I recommend getting a mac and FCP and forget the PC like M. Night said

quote:

But why settle for under industry standard? Why not start with the standard? Sure, the learning curve will be a bit longer but it will be worth it and will never have to make a transition.

So you're saying that four years ago when I began my filmmaking endeavors, and had no editing experience whatsoever, I should have payed an enormously large amount of money to buy the most advanced NLE program so I could gaze at my computer for hours on end and have no idea where to start?

The point is, you've got start somewhere, and if you have little to no experience, Avid isn't the place to start. Avid is where you EVENTUALLY want to be, but definetly not where you want to start. You can't dive into the deep end before learning how to swim. You need to learn the basic tools and get a general feel for editing first. Even as someone who has about four years editing experience, I will still have some difficulty getting accostumed to Avid once I begin working with it.

With Vegas's short learning curve and user friendly interface, which is easily as advanced as Premiere and FCP once you master it, I'd say it's your best option for an NLE if working on a PC. However, if you want to make the move to Mac, then like Dom said, go for FCP.

Eh. The point I was trying to make is if you can, go for the top. It isnt an essential though by any means. I may have made it sound like that. You could cut a good film on iMovie. I have limited expierence with Avid because the friends I know who use it are absolutely MISERABLE using it. So I stopped there and went for FCP. When avid running is on a regular desktop, you spend more time dealing with error messages then the creative process of editing. In my opinion it is made more for studio workstations and powerhouse of rigs rather than our normal PCs. In that sense, Vegas does cater to the Amateur.

Vegas might "cater to the amateur" as you say, but it's right on par with Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere. I've used all 3 for various jobs at various times. Any job you get, you'll be able to do in any of those programs. Vegas has the advantage of the smallest learning curve, followed by FCP, and then Premiere, and then AVID.

Vegas has the disadvantage of not being used anywhere in a mostly AVID dominated industry. However, since I don't intend on editing professionally for anyone who requires the use of AVID, that doesn't seem to bother me. For my own projects, Vegas works perfectly, and I don't want to use other NLEs. For projects that I'm collaborating, sometimes they don't use Vegas due to the platform barrier, so I make due and use Final Cut Pro. They both get the job done, it's a matter of preference.

AVID really needs a dedicated box. I've played with it, but never used it for anything serious.

Here's the thing, I'm planning on buying a laptop. I'm and confident that Apple is better for my film uses, but I've been using windows based computers my entire life. Has anyone here recently converted to Mac? Aside from the film aspects, was everything hard to transition, I.E. some programs not working, new interface, etc..

I switched over about a month ago from a PC. And I have been using a PC my whole life. The transition was seamless. And the learning curve is near to none. You will be glad you made the swtich. Dont be afraid!

Just got Vegas today. I've been working with Studio 9 for over a year, so it might take me a while to learn Vegas. Sort of strange to be starting from scratch again, hopefully I'll pick things up quickly.

Welcome to the club . You'll be happy with it.

If you have any questions about it, feel free to PM me or IM me at MW Ice19.

I agree.... You have joined the darkside, u r now an enemy........ In a nerdy kind of tv editing way.

Get Adobe Premiere Elements 2.0. Its a very high end amature program. Pretty easy to use. Comes with a guide of how to do everything. It also prepares you for Adobe PRO. Both programs are slightly simmilar.

i cannot stress how much i hate VEGAS its not that good and adobe premiere pro sucks cuz the program crashed in the middle of finishing a 10 hour edit for a short film(trust me its not my pc fault)