Final Cut Pro vs Vegas Pro - opinions?
 

I have been editing in Vegas Pro on a PC for a number of years. I'm considering moving to an iMac. Can Final Cut Pro do the same, or better job for my finished products? By finished products I mean encoding to avi, wmv, mp4, flv, etc.?

I would love to hear from those who moved their video environment from a PC to a Mac, not just Mac fanboys/girls.

Thanks

FCP has a large learning curve. I did the mac thing (twice) and tried to get into FCP and other mac software... couldn't do it. Went back to the PC and Vegas. It just felt better and made more sense. However, others I know went Mac and will never go back.

FCP can do everything you're doing in Vegas, and Vegas can do almost everything FCP can.

IMHO, unless you plan on using After Effects along with FCP (which you can still use AF on a PC), stick to what you know. Unless you just want to learn for the sake of learning and have time to kill.

All the major editing apps including FCP for Mac, and Sony Vegas, Adobe Premiere Pro and Avid Express for pc do a roughly similar good job editing video and encoding videos, especially at the basic level most adult content is edited at. If I was a pc user, I couldn't see a compelling reason to switch to Mac just for FCP unless you could articulate some un-met need on your own. Especially since it is going to cost you a bunch of money and time and a learning curve just to accomplish the same goals.

know a guy that did just what you are considering... every few days he would tell me he found a great app to convert files for FCP for $30, it was easy etc... near as I can tell FCP is allergic to damn near every format so they must be converted.

then he tells me he's now using adobe premier most of the time because FCP is so labor intensive he prefers premier because it's quick for the simple stuff...

he could have stayed with pc/vegas and saved himeself about 14K and lots of headache $.02

great post mr gunn

Thanks for the feedback guys. My reason for considering a Mac is because I also do mainstream photography and I prefer Mac displays for photo editing. But sounds like I should just stick with a PC and spend more money on a nice monitor that can be calibrated to match the true image colors.

Sounds like you need to just buy an Apple cinema display.

Or run Windows on Apple hardware, if the display is that important to you. The iMacs are really nice.

The new FCP X comes out in June. Its going to be pretty bad ass.


I moved to Mac a while ago because of FCP. I have friends in mainstream editing and they all use FCP. One call and i am unstuck on what ever I was stuck on. Or I let them control my Mac remotely and literally walk me through what ever process i need walking through.

But I do have to say; FCP is a shit load of stuff to learn. No matter how good and experienced you are, you will always be learning new stuff.


Once you learn and understand how to organize everything, FCP can be a breeze. You can take online video classes on FCP at lynda.com.


Good luck on what ever you choose.

I have never used FCP but... Vegas is great and I love it.

I don't see myself changing...just to change.


Core i7 - 8 gigs of Ram... fast editing.

Fuck the World!

In my opinion, if you are good with Vegas and you are not planning on editing for anything Hollywood or mainstream, don't bother switching. There would be really no point or gain to switch.



But over all, with all of its options, capabilities, endless FX plugins and if you have the knowledge, FCP is the better program.:2 cents:

I was a Premiere dude from 6.5 to Premiere Pro 2.0, and then I switched to Mac/FCP, and I'm really glad I did. But all the arguments/points posted in this thread are valid.

Supposedly Final Cut is the professional's choice, and they can be very snobby about it. There's also editors I know who are just plain snobby about editing on a Mac only -- and the funny thing is, they know nothing about PC's.

Vegas will get the job done.

I'm not saying FCP is not some serious stuff, because it is -- but MOST editors can get by with Vegas video or Premiere.

Some solid advice coming out of this thread. I am personally an FCP guy. Even took the time to get certified. This however is because I have always been a Mac guy. Its what I know and what I use.

If I was set up for PC I would go the Premier route. And to be honest I may just go that way when they release FCP X (scheduled for June). By all accounts so far it looks to be more of iMovie Pro more than an upgrade to FCP. But until it is released and I get into it I cant say.

Bottom line, Jim is right, all editing programs fill the basic needs of most editors so stick with your system preference and go to the software that fits that.

Final Cut Pro is hard to learn, but once you get the hang of it it's fast and intuitive, and very powerful.

It also does 2 very cool things:

1. If you have other macs on your network, you can distribute the rendering load between all of the machines, cutting rendering time by 50% for each machine on the lan.

2. It never crashes. NEV ERRRRRRR.

sweet.

Yea I thought that too because of how its set up, but you have a choice to see the interface like Imovie or Old school FCP.

It has so pretty powerful tools coming out with it; One click multi camera color matching is going to be the big one. I hate trying to color match footage from different cameras. Its a serous pain in the ass.


I think the new FCP X is going to convert a lot of people into switching to FCP.:thumbsup

Something is fucked with this thread. Where are the people saying MAX SUX etc?

There just seems to be pretty spot on advice going on.

Is this the rapture?

I've used both Adobe Premier and FCP professionally in the past. I recently evaluated and bought Vegas Platinum to use for my mainstream business, and it gets the job done. Having used FCP for a while, there was a bit of a learning curve. There's also Pinnacle which is now owned by avid.

I'd say give Vegas a shot and see if it does what you need. Why spent a lot of coin for features you'll never use?

FCP is a great program and the learning curve wasn't that bad considering I was switching from Pinnacle Studio.

I would recommend checking out Lynda.com for great tutorial videos to get you started quickly. I watched a few hours of their videos and I was good to go.