So, for Christmas, I asked for money instead of gifts, so that I could purchase FCE for my mac. However, I have been finding it increasingly difficult to continue using AM V13 as it seems to be loaded with problems and compatibility and rendering issues. So here's the question, both pieces of software are pretty much the same price. Now I do need good editing software and not that crappy iMovie 9 (shudders). Now I do have a Windows in which I run Pinnacle 11 on, and it's an all right but fairly bulky program with it's massive limitations (like only 2 video tracks whereas FCE has a lot more). Now I'm not going to make my decision solely on the outcome of this vote, but please try not to be biased because this is an AM community. What do you think I need more? Especially doing this ELZ project I need both AM and FCE, but that ain't happenin

(Bias Removed)

Software will never resolve your problems (it'll only introduce more) so I'm not sure which way to vote.
If you don't already know the answer to your question I'd wait until you need the answer a little more.

By way of proof... no matter which software you choose... you'll probably have some regret of 'what if I had purchased the other'.

From a personal perspective and because you can do almost everything you can do in a video editor with A:M, if I were you I would have spent the $79 already.

I'm not sure what FCE is (I assume its Final Cut Express?)
If this is a limited version... I'd pass... and maybe save more pennies for the full version.

What is not in FCE that IS in FCP?

Too many good and often free video editing programs out there. Animation Master is rarer. I'd go with A:M.

Can you name one?

My vote is for AM, because you will need to stay current.

yeah, it's a 1,000 dollar piece of software, not saving that much. and you can't edit videos in AM, do green screening, titles etc. and the problem is i sort of need both, though i'm scraping by with what i have, so in a way i also need neither. as for keeping current, i haven't upgraded AM in 3 years and it still works, albeit glitchy like

Here's what I'd do. Buy A:M now and then once you are a student, save up to buy a student version of the Adobe Production Premium Creative Suite. This will give you After Effects, Premiere Pro, Photoshop Extended, Flash Professional, Illustrator, Soundbooth, On Location, and Encore. Just doing a quick Google search, it looks like you can get it for under $400 if you're a student. This is by far a better solution than Final Cut Express.

My vote was cast on this:

First things first. FIRST, you need footage to edit. 2ND, you need to edit. Cross that bridge when it gets there.

I would go for AM.

Go with AM and get Blender to do your post work including NLE etc. Works a treat and it's free.

Cheers

ever hear of live footage? and i do more editing of stuff then making, and i do have AM V13, so it's not like i don't have AM, oh and i've been enrolled in 2 different schools now, so as for student discounts, i've had a bunch i guess

Oh, live footage- yes- get the editor! I thought you were making animated flick, my bad! Sounds like your mind was already made up.

Isn't Premier and others pretty cheap with student discounts?
Does AM offer student discounts as well?
Why not have your cake, eat it and have some more if you can? This is a capitalistic society ya know..

well, i'd use it for all my editing, ELZ is 3d animated, but I'm not doing all of the animating, hopefully very little actually, producing is enough in itself. as for my being enrolled in 2 schools, that's all it is, I was enrolled in 1, dropped out before it started, now i'm enrolled in another and am about to drop out before it starts (I don't have 50,000 dollars to give them up front if you're wondering why) so i don't even have a student ID, and all i has is 300 dollars that I'm allowing myself to use on this

Just want to pull this quote out of the pack and dispel a few myths.

You can edit videos in A:M... but you won't have all the bells and whistle and versatility of a dedicated video editor.

You can do green screening but I wouldn't want to with A:M. (With A:M its best if you can remove the green screening process entirely) For many projects any application that gives you access to Alpha Channels may rule the use of green screening out.
The real issue here is how to prep "Live Action" images for use with A:M. Some video cameras now automatically remove the green screen area. Green screening isn't necessary with A:M but it will be with other programs that require them.

Note: If you are wasting time creating green backgrounds in A:M in order to composite your animation into other programs we really need to talk!

You can do amazing titles with A:M.

ok, what about this, AM imports one type of audio file and two types of video. That alone makes AM way too inadequate as an editing software. As fro titles, sure, maybe oh no wait, AM doesn't even do transitions such as fades even. Sure you can maybe use the material effector and get weird and unpredictable results, again making AM unsuitable for editing. My camera is over a year old and was cheap, it does not remove green backgrounds from them automatically which then requires software that does. Sure, you can do editing in AM, but definitely not full time editing. Heck, movie maker probably does a better job then AM.

As Martin Hash once said, "There are 1,000 things A:M doesn't do well... no wait, there are 10,000 things A:M doesn't do well... no wait, there are 100,000 things A:M doesn't do well..." (I paraphrase)

If you want to create a live action film with full visual effects you're going to have to invest something in it.
Gotta save up those pennies too.



Please refrain from introducing new myths. Just because you don't know how to do something doesn't mean you can't do it.
As you obviously have a more compeling need for video editing... it makes good sense to buy a video editor.
Unfortunately my gut feel is that FCE isn't going to fit all of your video editing needs either.



...and that about sums it up.

If you don't have money you'll need to find other things to invest.
For instance, my wife says "time is money".
And a valuable commodity it is.

Edit: Looks like I'm your first vote for FCE.

AM is first on my list for sure.....
i use FCP and it has some great features but mostly its just an industry standard.
on the other hand after effects is an industry standard as well.
i also use adobe master collection which gives you the whole adobe family of products.
i would have to say that by far i use the adobe stuff more often than not aside from AM which i like to use for animation.
adobe is great for making all the targa alpha decals and illustrator is incredible as well. premiere and after affects work hand in hand with the dynamic link-this alows you to not have to export back and forth from premiere to after effects which i have to do constantly with FCP. premier has a titling engine that is very powerful and blows away FCP titling.
also with adobe you get encore for making DVD's or blue ray authoring.
i do all my audio editing in nuendo, pro tools, and wavelab.

Hmm, tough decision . . . well you could have your cake and eat it too if you really want to, AM costs $79 bucks for the web subscription ( which I recently got - I think the download is more stable then when you use the CD version for some reason - but that's just me ), so that leaves you with $221, nobody says that you have to get a brand new copy of FCE do they ?

Soooooo, shop around, hit ebay / online auctions ( sometimes you can get GREAT bargains from companies which have gone under - that's :-) good for you, unfortunatly it ain't so good for the company :-( - but still it's good for you :-), and see what's on there, I would be certain that there would be second hand copies of FCE floating around for less then $221, even if it's been registered under some one else's name, it doesn't matter if you buy a second hand copy - to do the job that you need done - then buy the whole damn FCP suite if business picks up or you find that you pulled in more jobs cause you bought this stuff in the first place :-)

See, no need for a student id, and you can get all the tools, with your budget as well, if it were me, I would also budget in a pack of smokes and a can of red bull and about $37 bucks of petrol in my car, so that would mean I'd bargain the seller down to $150 for a second hand copy of FCE. Its all very possible - you just gotta look in the right places :-)

im gonna go FCE, I have used FCE before and it should suit my needs nicely. i was originally going for FCE first but then had this crazy notion for AM, and please, someone dispell this myth then of transitions between shots because i've never seen someone do it before and have looked around AM for something of the nature and didn't find anything. ANyways, all this "get AM" talk from you guys has just made me believe I need FCE more. As for web subscription, I hate the concept of it and will not succomb to it. In my opinion you're being cheated, because in 3 years time, you've spent as much as the CD, and you have limitations, ie, one computer, one year. Anyways, this isn't a thread fro me to rant about web subscritions. Thanks for your help even though it had the opposite effect

I don't know, Darkwing. $200 bucks for Final Cut Express, a limited app from 2007... meaning there's probably a new version on the horizon (and a $99 upgrade fee) or worse, it doesn't get updated and stops working at some point with upgrades to the OS... Final Cut Pro has been updated in the meantime and FCE 4 isn't even compatible with FCP 7...

OR spend $385 on a suite of current pro apps including After Effects.

I bought FCE first and really wished I had saved my money.

But clearly your mind was made up before you started this thread...

It is like always... you made up your mind first and wanted some kind of affirmation not a real advise...
And after we all talked about it you realized that you did have an opinion right away.

Anyway I would high recommend to go the Adobe-route for that kind of money... AE is very powerful, PE is okay too and all the other stuff will help you much more than only FinalCut alone...
While I can understand why you dont like to update A:M (so I think it is a good deal too and will help Hash to maintain the product), I would never go the FCE-route.

*Fuchur*

I use Nero and it does what I need.
A:M does the rest.

What kind of transition are you looking for?
I'd guess there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 of the basic and intermediate variety.

Something to make note of as well when considering transitions is how your video editor is capable of creating custom transitions.
This can take on just about any form you can imagine (for instance: a scene trapped inside the silhouette of a moving character).

As you know already, he simpliest of transitions are the basics Cut, Dissolve, Fade In, Fade Out etc.
Then its gets more complicated with such things as spinning out, spinning in, exploding, imploding...

The key to most basic transitions is black and white overlays.
The black and white would give you sharp edges.
For fading effects consider grayscale.

Then there are custom transitions that are best made with 3D geometry.
I believe John Bigboote/Matt's Fish Eye lens is a nice example that demonstrates that potential.

Then there are the decal driven transitions.
Hard to do those in a video editor!

Two basic steps:
1. Place your decaled geometry in front of the camera
2. Manipulate geometry

Extreme Zoom In/Zoom Out with infinite detail.
- Can't get this done in most video editors
- Can definitely get this done with the use of materials

Then there is A:M Composite and Post Effects.
Create Animated Transition Effects one or a combination of the following:g:
- Alias Edges
- Autolevels
- Blur
- Channel Select
- Clamp
- Denoise
- Dither
- Divide
- Exposure
- Filmgrain
- Gamma
- HSE
- Merging
- Minimum Medium Maximum
- Mixing
- Muliply
- Overlay
- Tinting
- Bloom
etc.

Did I mention... these effects can be used to create animated transitions?

What about Rotoscopes and Layers?
- Speed up a scene
- Slow a scene down
- Pan Left, Right, Up and Down
- Rotate, Spin, Reverse and Mirror
- Tile

...and what of using lights to effect scene transitions?
Can most video editors do transitions like this?
Do all video editors have fully customizable Lens Flares?

What about transitions where elements within a scene follow custom made paths?

Can only select elements in a scene disappear, reappear or fading to white, green, red or black? (and any other color for that matter)

What about animated overlays or backgrounds that can be changed without changing a single setting?

Do all video editors have built in 3D text capability?

...and can these transitions (and others I haven't thought of here) be taken out of A:M for use with other programs?

You bet.

i have very rarely needed 3d text, as for transitions, they sound...complicated, but someday if i have the time i'll give it a go.

and isn't ae like a thousand dollars? and yes, i agree about the affrmation thing. see it's just i used an older version of FCE at school and liked it, and it's much better then Pinnacle on the windows and imovie on the mac. as for upgrades/ones on the horizon, I have just spent an entire thread one why I won't upgrade my 3 nearly 4 year old version of AM

Which if true would be rather strange indeed.
I think rather you spent an entire thread on why you were purchasing FCE.
The good news... others may learn through your experience.



From what I've seen most transitions in film are the standard cuts and wipes, fades and dissolves that aren't particularly complicated. Once you set up a particular transition its even easier to use one again.
I'm not sure what the magic number for different types of transitions is in a given movie but using too many will have your audience leaving...

Most video editors take advantage of the concept of reusability and (if you think about what is going on behind the scenes) will use the same techniques. There is quite an art to transitioning from one shot or sequence to another just as in other creative things.

A useful exercise is to sit down and watch a movie with the sound turned off and take notes of what you see.
You'll find the number, pattern and types of transitions interesting.
A skilled video editor (the person not the machine) will strive to blend most transitions seamlessly into the film.
The more you notice the transition as a member of the audience the less effective the transition will be.

I suspect that if you are going into a film career (especially film editing) you'll spend a considerable amount of time sharing and discussing transition techniques.

I agree with Rodney about transitions.

As for video editing programs, it depends on what you need. Something like Virtualdub (free, Windows only) works well for simple things. If I were going to do something on a large scale, I would use Cinelerra (also free, but runs on Linux...which is free as well, you might try Ubuntu Studio) and just dual boot or use Virtualbox (free). Audio editing could be done using Audacity (free, cross-platform). For compositing, you could use Pixel (I think it's $32...it's cross-platform as well) or you could use Cinepaint (free, but there is no present Windows version...you could dual boot Linux or use Virtualbox to run the Linux version).

If you used the programs I listed, you would still have enough to purchase the CD version of A:M. That's what I would do, but that's me.

Good luck with your project!

i only ever use the basics, fades mostly, sometimes projects have required wipes, but beyond that i've never had much use for fancy transitions. as for the watch a film with no noise exercise, i have done that before. see when it comes to 3d animation, i suck and have very little skill, when it comes to things like editing and directing, i am much, much better and not inept in those departments like I am in 3d animation

I've read some nice things about Cinelerra but I've never used it. If cost is your main consideration, you can't get much cheaper than installing Ubuntu and Cinelerra and dual booting. It isn't as convenient as running Premiere/Avid/Vegas right in Windows, but then, you usually have to pay extra for convenience.

well, i'm looking for something designed for mac, and i'm not even touching dual booting, who knows what horrendous things i'll do to my PC if i try that

You wouldnt need to reboot if your using Sun's virtualbox. Keep in mind that the Virtualbox doesn't work with dual monitors with ubuntu because the nvidia drivers aren't properly supported for dual. Single monitor should be fine and Ubuntu ran very fast here under vb. I think you could probably run your mac os under it too but that might cause small riots in the streets and scattered protests if any "mac people" found out you had os x inside the evil virus riddled hacked to death windows machine.

You may not even hear the protests if they are just texting each other on their iPods so it may not be as scary as I anticipate.

i'll pass on the whole dual system thing. i just want a program for my macbook i already have pinnacle on my windows

It's too bad you have a Mac (sorry to say that - you probably think and hear this often enough), but a very wonderful editing program for Windows is Sony Vegas Movie Studio platinum. It's cheaper than FCE, and it's about a billion times better than FCE in every way. I know this won't help your particular problem, but I only post this for others in a similar situation who may have stumbled upon this thread.