Vegas versus Final Cut Pro.... Who Cares?

DGates wrote on 6/9/2004, 11:05 PM
Vegas is certainly a nice piece of software. But most of you folks spend WAY too much time blabbering about how great Vegas is, that you've turned into a self-parody.

You're like a modern-day Dungeon and Dragons group that would meet after school and make fun of the jocks or popular students. Seriously, step away from the keyboard and get some fresh air.

Comments

rmack350 wrote on 6/9/2004, 11:49 PM
Agreed.

It's like the old days when Mac users had something to take pride in-back in the late 80's and early 90's. Let's not get so self satisfied that we take our eyes off the ball.

I guess we're like the Go nerds making fun of the Chess nerds.

Rob Mack
TheHappyFriar wrote on 6/10/2004, 3:31 AM
I played DnD & never made fun of the jocks (I played football too!). :)
DigVid wrote on 6/10/2004, 4:17 AM
Besides, ALL forums (no matter what they're about) take on this air at some time or another. Good or bad, It's the eventual nature of online forums to do this. Live with it!
pike_bishop wrote on 6/10/2004, 4:18 AM
DGates I couldn't agree more, use the tools that are best for you. If I had a mac I'd use FCP, but I've got a pc so I use Vegas and very happily too.

As a note I've quite a few jobs advertising for FCP editors, but not one for a Vegas editor (in London, UK) so it can not be that bad.
farss wrote on 6/10/2004, 5:56 AM
I'd go along with the 'who cares' argument and do to some extent agree with it if it weren't for the holier than thou mentality of the FCP user community. Sure it isn't that bad, obviously heaps of excellent stuff gets done with it. But I think the real point is that it certainly isn't infallible, I'm no expert on FCP but I'd be willing to concede that there's almost certainly things it does better than Vegas, I'm certain the same goes for PP and Avid as well. Difference is that neither the Avid or PP community claim to be the only true believers.
BillyBoy wrote on 6/10/2004, 6:38 AM
There's one horrible, terrible, completely unacceptable thing about FCP. It requires a Mac. Real computer users wouldn't be caught dead with that "toy" computer that comes in an assortment of "pretty" colors. End of discussion.
GmElliott wrote on 6/10/2004, 7:06 AM
DGates how would you know how great of a peice of software it is- your still using Vegas 3. lol Seriously though I don't know if you were directing this at me or Spot. But if it was, indeed, me allow me to retort: This wasn't a "This NLE is better than the other" kind of thing. This was strictly to test the differences on how each NLE handles interpolation. If that's reminicient of a nerd in a Dungeons & Dragons circle break out the dice, I want to be Dungeon Master. ;)

On another note- re: the point Farrs brought up- FCP users are the most guilty of this crime. They DO harvest a holier than thou attitude. Final Cut Pro is the best NLE on the planet, don't believe me......just ask any Mac user. However when it comes down to comparing NLE to NLE there's no clear winner. Thus their elitist attitude in completly uneccessary.
I can't tell you how many times I've gotten into arguments with Mac users. They always make broad statements like Mac walks all over Windows working with multimedia and graphics. One question that always fouls them up is- "Really....HOW?....what does it do better?" They never have an answer- one guys, litterally, said, "It just DOES". lol I quoted him benchmark results fromm Digital Videography.com benchmark tests and the Mac guy's response was, "Benchmarks don't mean anything". lol...what a hoot! :)

Not to generalize ALL Mac users into this catagory (my assistant shooter is a Mac user) but, at least in my experience, the majority have been arrogant and elitists. Kinda reminds me of hard-core Vegans. Just just can't talk sense into them. Automatons.

Just my .02
winrockpost wrote on 6/10/2004, 7:25 AM
my bmw is better than your lexus .
flashlight wrote on 6/10/2004, 8:09 AM
Oh yeah,.....How???
jsteehl wrote on 6/10/2004, 8:29 AM
"you've turned into a self-parody."

"you folks spend WAY too much time"

"You're like a modern-day blah blah blah"

For someone who is part of the collective "You", maybe you need to step away form the soap box and get an understanding of how a forum works. You see, it is a "forum". People post and other people... now get this... have a choice to read or ignore.

If that is not clear enough, walk up stairs and ask "your' parents to explain.

BillyBoy wrote on 6/10/2004, 9:12 AM
Not to drift too far off topic but...

My experince with the Mac crowd and prior to that the Apple crowd is while not all, MANY that I've run into anyways are/were indeed elitist and snobish.

I probably go back further then many of you. I can recall the days where there were only Apples, PET's RadioShack and Heathkit personal computers and a few brands few would remember or even know about.

One of the reasons I never had and never will have a Apple anything is when I first got bit by the computer bug in the late 70's I did my homework. To make a long story short I stumbled onto a small user group on a BBS made up almost exclusively of NASA engineers back in its glory days. I asked many questions, mostly their answers were negative about Apple and why they wouldn't be caught dead with one.

I asked what they used for personal use and they came back with CompuColorII. I got one, liked it, and that was my start with PC's, aside from my Radio Shack TRS-80 which really was nothing more than a toy, then moving shortly after to the original IBM model and on from there.

Bottom line, like it or not, its a Windows world. Apple never had and never will have more than a tiny nitch of the market. It has a following, some very good software of which FCP is an example but many Mac users are more acturately described as a cult. Sometimes fanatical.They don't see clearly and don't really know the huge universe they're missing by limiting themselves to the little Mac world.
That's my two cents. <wink>
Jimmy_W wrote on 6/10/2004, 9:42 AM
Just is!
beerandchips wrote on 6/10/2004, 9:43 AM
The only debate on which is better should be the quality of the output.
The interface whether pc or mac format is just a user preference. I love final cut pro. It is a MUST to learn in this industry, even if you use Vegas. I use both. There are some things on FCP that I like better than Vegas and Vise Versa.

My opinion, and of course, they are like.......well you know.
Spot|DSE wrote on 6/10/2004, 10:54 AM
Beer, you are absolutely right. It's a platform thing. I have both, occasionally still use my Mac. I don't love FCP, but do enjoy certain things about it. I'm enjoying Shake and the new Motion tool. Apple frontlined the windows interface for us, and I'm truly grateful for that. They STILL hold the lead in design, and they still hold a powerful edge on the creative communities.
My biggest point isn't to say that FCP sucks, but rather to say that people have got to stop buying into the marketing hype and really see this stuff for themselves, and really do check it out deeply instead of taking the perspective of FCP (or Avid) is the best because of XXX feature. Look at the BASIC features and the creative flow. Vegas does both of those better, IMO.
BTW, what's really funny is that for many years, those very sexy apple notebooks were made by Sony. Many parts of them still are.
GmElliott wrote on 6/10/2004, 11:15 AM
Yeah...it's kinda like that...lol ;)
kentwolf wrote on 6/10/2004, 11:20 AM
>>...Apple never had and never will have more than a tiny nitch of the market.

Interesting: A few years ago, I saw somewhere (A PC magazine) a statistical breakdown of computer platform users.

Windows was something like 80-90+%.

As per the report, there were many fold (Something like 10-20x) more OS2 users (remember *that* argument?) than Mac users...and OS2 was a real minority.
corug7 wrote on 6/10/2004, 11:30 AM
I guess if one could use VV on an Apple that would remove any doubt, but one can't. I would certainly rather work on a MAC than on my tempermental Windows PC, but I actually purchased my PC so that I could use VV2, which was getting rave reviews at the time and was available at the local Best Buy for $175.00, compared to $999.00 for FCP2. I guess if one could say FCP's biggest flaw is that it doesn't work on PC, VV's flaw is that it doesn't work with MAC.
GmElliott wrote on 6/10/2004, 11:44 AM
That reminds me of another argument Mac folk use- they say Windows is tempermental and unstable where OSx is a godsend. Back in the 98 days I routinely had to do reformat and reinstall windows every 1/2 a year or so due to decreased performance. Since XP I've owned roughly 4 systems and haven't had a problem since. Nothing against you corug7, but I'm convinced that 99.9% of computer problems are user error. I can't tell you how many times a friend or family member has me look at their computer with concerns about it's performance only to see a dozen programs littering the windows control panel and startup. It's a wonder how the darn machines even booted up with that much garbage on it.

With a little bit of forsight and some spring cleaning from time to time you can keep your machine running in tip top shape indefinitly. Things like keeping tabs on your services, and startup items, and routine virus and spyware scans.

On the flip side my friend with a PowerMac Dual G4 has had nothing but problems. He even had a HD failure in the middle of a project in FCP express.
rmack350 wrote on 6/10/2004, 12:42 PM
Personally, I find XP to be very stable-much more so than my partner's Imac running OSX 10.02.

Then again, his imac is infinitely more stable than his previous system running OS9. That was a crash-o-matic piece o' trash.

The fact that you can buy a variety of PC systems with a variety of hardware and software means that there are an awful lot of opportunites to own an unstable system. You really do need to approach your edit system with a bit of forethought and restraint so as not to create a nightmare for yourself.

On the other hand, the lack of variety and choice on the Apple side has been the bane of many hardware dependent NLEs. When Apple changes a basic hardware function like the amount of power delivered to to a PCI slot it can leave Hardware NLE owners high and dry with no alternatives to turn to. Imagine buying a $3000.00 card for a Mac only to find that you can't upgrade your system and still use the card.

Or imagine not having enough PCI slots in the box in the first place.

Different NLE systems offer different strong points. Personally, I don't see Final Cut owning the entire low end of video editing and I do see that Vegas use will grow. But they both have their strengths and weaknesses. For someone with more time than money, Vegas is a great system offering super quality, great flexibility, fast workflow up to the point of rendering, few restictive hardware requirements, great audio tools, and on and on and on.

FCP has a nice big user base, is a mature product (since it came from media 100), upward scalability with added hardware, and name recognition.

Rob Mack
guns1inger wrote on 6/10/2004, 7:34 PM
I think this sums it up best.

http://freecache.org/http://www.fluorine.org/downloads/apple-bitch.zip

Warning : 20 MB download off a slow server
filmy wrote on 6/10/2004, 8:14 PM
I played DnD one time. They really did not like the fact i wanted to be called Sir Gumby and I tried to get killed by insulting all the characters. They looked at me like I was some kind of freak for not taking it serious.

I hate Macs. My freind is a Mac-head and looks at me like a freak because I like Amigas, Dos and Windows.

Hmmm...I see where you are coming from . :)
busterkeaton wrote on 6/10/2004, 8:57 PM
I would guess that an awful lot of people care about Vegas vs Final Cut Pro.
kameronj wrote on 6/11/2004, 5:08 AM
We didn't have a lot of money while I was growing up....I could only play Dungeon. Never got to the Dragon part.
Cheno wrote on 6/11/2004, 7:09 PM
you had more money than I did... I only had Dung

I remember that year getting a pair of overalls with holes in the pockets.. Mom said it was so I had something to wear and something to play with.

mike