Your Opinion: Mac iMovie 2 vs. Adobe Premier Pro 7?

Question

I have a feature length digital film to edit (total footage = 50 hours) and need to purchase an editing system. My budget is $1500 - $1700. I'd like to know your opinions & suggestions regarding a Macintosh 250 gig hd or another comperable brand pc and editing program. I need the most bang for the buck to put out the best product possible. Thanks for your thoughts!!

Answer 1

Don't go with Final Cut Pro, go with Final Cut Express HD. It costs a tiny fraction of what pro costs and you're giving up very little in the way of features. Some of the features that make Pro so expensive are tools that it has for editing film that you've digitized.
Since your project is all digital, you won't miss those features. There are a few other ultra high end features left out of Express, like integration with Apple's other Pro tools, but since you probably can't afford Shake, you won't miss it.

By the way, 50 hours of DV at your basic "standard" quality will translate into about 680 Gigs of data on a hard drive, so you may have to edit your piece in chunks if all you have is 250gigs.

Also, if you're a student or an educator, you can get Final Cut Express even cheaper. (My wife is a teacher and we picked it up for under $200.)

Answer 2

A "Mac" is a PC now that they copied our hardware layout completely. I have seen very recent tests where a less costly Gateway system beat out Apple`s vaunted Mac Pro G5 Intel based , on every test including video-encoding/transcoding. So don`t even get me started. We can make any Mac look silly for less money because we can build our own and have the greatest hardware/software support in the world. And gaming on Vista is just awesome. Mac games? hahaha
Macs are good at padding Steve Jobs bank account ;) Go Adobe Premier dude.

Answer 3

I actually have toyed with most efficient and that's advantageous for what it does, yet contained sooner or later i have used extra very last decrease. it merely works extra effective. that's overwhelming at the same time as merely exceeded a replica, notwithstanding the belongings you would possibly want to do on that is extreme. in all reality it really works merely as well if no extra reachable than any avid enhancing software and a pair human beings contained in the movie marketplace honestly use it. i have not in any respect used mac imovie. so most efficient works... notwithstanding that's merely no longer as finished as very last decrease. yet in case you do get very last decrease, purchase a handbook at a bookstall. it's going to help you launch the finished ability of this technique. strong success.

Answer 4

I would use final cut pro if you can afford it. Macs are better than pc's for this definitely. They stall a lot less when your trying to work with things. iMovie 2 won't quite cut it for this kind of project, imo.