Final Cut Express vs Premiere Elements

[laurakaye.livejournal.com]

So I've been wanting to get back into vidding for some time now, and now thanks to tax refund time, I have some money to spend to get some supplies. My main two needs are a nice big external hard drive and some editing software.

Background: I vidded on a PC using Adobe Premiere 6 in, like, the stone age. Now, I have a bright shiny iMac (the basic model, but upgraded to 2 gigs of RAM, running Leopard) and I want to make it my new vidding machine.

My question for you, Mac vidders, is this. Do I spend $100 on Premiere Elements or $300 on Final Cut Express? What does FCE have to justify the extra $200? I know FCP is supposed to be the Holy Grail of Video Editing, but I haven't heard as much about the little sister program.

I don't have any other multimedia stuff that didn't come with the Mac, but I do plan on getting Photoshop Elements as well.

Apologies if this has been covered already - I found plenty of stuff about both in the memories but didn't see any compare/contrasts.

Comments

[klia.livejournal.com]

FWIW, after switching from Premiere Pro to Final Cut Pro, I'd never, ever go back to vidding on a PC. FCP is far less crashy/temperamental than Premiere, and, at least for me, a lot more intuitive to use.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

IMO, the main thing Final Cut has over Premiere is that it isn't Premiere.

Seriously, Premiere is so unstable and miserable to work with in comparison. Final Cut is aces! Express is more limited than Pro, but not terribly so -- the main difference is that you can't keyframe filters. But there are work-arounds.

[blitzed451.livejournal.com]

One suggestion I have off the top is to DL a trial version of the Adobe Program - i'm fairly sure that Premiere now comes for both macs and PCs. That's the best way to get a handle on that program's capabilities.

I had used FCE HD prior to upgrading to Final Cut Studio 2, and for almost the entire time i vidded with it, I never felt that i was using an inferior product. I learned it by constant reference to "Final Cut Pro 4 for Dummies" and there wasn't much in that book that I couldn't do. Also, FCE was stable and seldom crashed, and came with a fairly complete complement of features. And all in the same exact interface, so that when I made the upgrade I totally knew where everything was.

I finally upgraded when I decided i wanted to play around with variable speed changes, and nesting complex sequences - both t hings you can't do in FCE...and which i seldom do in FCP either!

good luck!