BATTLE OF THE NLE’S: WHICH EDITING SOFTWARE WILL PREVAIL? FCP X VS. AVID VS. PREMIERE PRO

NOAMKROLL.com

The future of the three major video editing platforms – Avid, FCP X, and Premiere Pro is a topic that has been coming up a lot lately. Since FCP X was released and shook up the post-production world over two years ago, a lot has changed. Premiere Pro has developed really nicely and gained some ground with indie filmmakers and small companies, Avid has stayed on course and brought back former users despite financial trouble within the company, and FCP X has slowly and silently matured, while being given a second look by many users that had previously abandoned it.

Right now many editors are still in limbo and the debate as to which NLE will dominate the market (if any) seems to have heated up again lately – likely due to the upcoming release of both FCP X 10.1 and the new Mac Pro. This is also probably why I’ve had lots of editors asking me which of the major NLE’s are worth learning in order to stay relevant and employed as an editor today. Throughout this article I’ll touch on the current state of each of the various NLE’s and not only speculate on their future, but also give insight into whether or not they are worth taking the time to learn based on what your needs are.

I’d like to preface the post below with this - I use all of the the major NLE’s (FCP 7/X, Avid, Premiere Pro), but can’t say one is better than the other, and that’s not what this article is about. Picking the right NLE is simply a personal decision that should be made by experimenting and finding the software best suits your needs.

So let’s jump right into it and look at our options: read more...