Hi,

I just wanted to comment as a professional editor who uses any tool needed to do the job (the last 61 episodes of our prime time TV show with FCP, but have worked concurrently on other shows with Avid, Discreet Edit and SpeedRazor), that no serious company cares what software the editor uses. They hire the editor, not the software. Great films have been made for a hundred years but cutting plastic and taping it with gummy tape. FAR worse system than Avid--- yet great films.

It just so happens that Avid was the first NLE that could do the job, and the experienced editors who were already working in TV and features learned it first. Companies also made huge investments in Avid systems that they didn't want to waste. FCP has only recently caught up to Avid, but it would be very foolish to say that it hasn't caught people's attention.

I know of very few editors and very few post companies who haven't attended seminars and workshops, and gawked at the cheap price tag of FCP for what it can do. Very few Avid editors haven't tried it, and very few post shops don't have a FCP suite kicking around somewhere, even if it is a guinea pig at the moment. And if you visit the editor's home... a large percentage have a copy of FCP for home use.

As a matter of fact, the only shops I know here in Toronto (which is known to be an Avid stronghold) who DON't have FCP are ones that choose to be all-PC. It's not a software decision, but rather an IT decision.

I like FCP--- and Avid. Lightworks is great too. But then there are many days I wish I could have my trim bin back, and see the flicker of the film passing through the Moviola. When it was such a pain to get that single frame you cut off spliced back in... you made sure it was right the first time. Less efficient system maybe--- more efficient editor certainly.

Since I am writing this on a FreeDV thread, i would say if you really want to learn Avid, at least buy Xpress DV so you get a physical manual you can use, and a non-limited system you can do actual work on. But take a course on the art of EDITING... not just on how to use the software.