We’ve been using Final Cut Pro X for all of our editing for a couple of years and for the outlay, it has performed admirably. With the complimentary programs Motion and Compressor, the total package is reasonably powerful and does all that we need it to do. The total dollars spent is around $500.00 and it hasn’t missed a beat.
Final Cut Pro X Performance
We do our editing on MacBook Pros, with upgraded RAM (16gb) and external hard drives (4tb). There is plenty of grunt from this set up and we have been more than happy. I haven’t pushed the envelope too far with any of the editing that we have done to date, with basic shots, inserts and audio being the order of the day. Honestly, I’m not getting anywhere near the best performance from FCPX.
Increasingly, however, there have been some issues arising that I need to keep an eye on. For example, when I wanted a video denoiser plugin, most of the software has been written for Premiere Pro. In fact, most of the good aftermarket ad ons are exclusively written for Premiere Pro. The guys on Film Riot (whom I follow religiously) have all of their tutorials for Adobe stuff, and After Effects looks like fun.
Adobe CC
The Adobe Creative Cloud is $50.00 per month for the full kit and caboodle. For this, you get Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition, Photoshop and a whole host of others that I don’t even know what they’re for. The main thing is you can get the full suite from Red Giant to assist in post.
As we look to increase what we do, it might be a good idea to get Adobe CC in addition to FCPX to give us the chance to do differing projects with various levels of complexity.
Plus, it’s something new to learn!
