A lot of things in the editing world have changed in the past few years.
Final Cut 7 was a dominant and preferable piece of non-linear editing software for most of the professional Mac OS editors for a long time.
On the other hand, Adobe and Avid offered cross-platform solutions successfully through the years and many Windows users switch between them. In 2014 the dominance of the three brands is still obvious.
However, the latest Media Composer still lacks the support of 4K timeline which is a bit of a shame and many editors hope that this is going to change in the near future.
Furthermore, customer policies of these companies have drastically changed over time as well and now they adhere to different business models.
For instance, Adobe vends most of its content creation software only through a Creative Cloud subscription, Apple’s software sells through the Mac App Store while Avid and a few others still follow a traditional software ownership model.
The release of Davinci Resolve 11 was another pleasant surprise for the editors in the beginning of this year. The ability to edit, color-correct, finish and deliver in only one application is quite appealing, in deed.We can’t miss the fact that the lite version is free too.
All the applications are good at handling a variety of source media codecs, frame rates and sizes. However, If you want the most fluid editing experience in 4K, then probably the best way is to transcode to an optimized codec within the application such as ProRes. Unfortunately, DNxHD still doesn’t support higher resolutions than HD.
Adobe Premiere CC has an advantage here. By design, the editor imports files in their native format without transcoding or rewrapping and works with those directly in the sequence. A mix of various formats, frame rates, codecs and sizes doesn’t always play as smoothly on a single timeline as would optimized media, especially on a 4K timeline. Premiere Pro CC handles such a mix the best.
Then again, FCP X’s performance was optimized for the new Mac Pro and dual GPU processing. By design, this means improved 4K throughput, including native 4K support for ProRes, Sony XAVC and REDCODE camera raw media files. Clearly Apple wants FCP X to be a showcase for the power of the new Mac Pro, but the hardware is a bit pricy so it’s not the best possible solution for most of us.
Another interesting option that deserves editors attention is the Grass Valley’s Edius 7 which also supports editing of 4K footage natively.
Here are some of the main features of Edius 7:
- Superior 4K workflow, including support for Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink 4K Extreme and EDL import/export color correction interchange with DaVinci
- Open to third-party I/O hardware from Blackmagic Design, Matrox, and AJA
- Editing media files with different resolutions—from 24×24 to 4Kx2K, as well as real-time conversion of frame rates on the same timeline delivers more efficient editing into the hands of editors
- Fast, flexible user interface, including unlimited video, audio, title, and graphics tracks
- Support for the latest file formats (Sony XAVC/XVAC S, Panasonic AVC-Ultra, and Canon 1D C M-JPEG) as they are released
- Work natively with many different video formats, such as Sony’s XDCAM, Panasonic’s P2, Ikegami’s GF, RED, Canon’s XF format and EOS movie format
- Fastest AVCHD editing in the market (up to 3+ streams in real-time)
- Multicam editing of up to 16 different sources simultaneously, with video output support
- 64-bit native processing with maximum memory access for streamlined real-time editing
- 3D stereoscopic editing
Nowadays, 4K editing is something that we all can do on an average home gaming PC. Choosing the right piece of software is only a matter of preference and making a personal decision. What you guys editing on? Let us know in the comments below.
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