NAB 2011 - Day 1

NAB 2011 has officially begun. Form the post production, editing, and finishing point of view some of the leading events were...

Baselight showed their Baselight plug-in for FCP. Editors can now grade their shots within FCP itself. In place of effects controls you see the black/grey Baselight interface with its distinctive controls. What you grade can be rendered and output. So you can say, "I'm grading on Baselight". You can also export your grade as an XML to import into a real Baselight on Linux and finish it there.
Baselight plug-in for FCP will be available in a few months for under $ 1000.

Baselight also showed a new and improved grading panel - the Blackboard 2.

Resolve unveiled an update - Resolve 8. This has a multi-layer timeline, just like any editing system. Resolve now imports XMLs and builds timelines without having to import material into it's 'media pool'. It supports OpenCL, so systems like the new MacBook Pro or iMac that don't have Nvidia CUDA graphics, you can still use Resolve. Resolve 8 is free for existing users, and will cost $995 for new users, available June.

And a free version of Resolve called Resolve lite that has the Resolve interface with some limitations on nodes and GPU power. I think this will be the on set tool for most digital workflows in India. 

Free is also a smart move as most Indians feel shy to buy software. Even large post houses with offices in Hollywood often do their software shopping at the 'Torrent Mall'.

Avid showed a new version of Media Composer ver 5.5 which allows capture and output via third party hardware, currently only the Aja IO Express.
Avid also offered a FCP cross-grade. Meaning if you have an existing FCP version, you can hand that in and take a MediaComposer software for only $ 995. About Rs 45,000 for an entire Avid... software, of course.

Sony showed a 4k camera... finally. The F65 CineAlta. And they showed a short film shot on this camera at 4k.
And many more new products. Memory based recorders, OLED monitors, and of course, 3D cameras.

Blackmagic showed a Decklink 4k which can play and record 4k over 4 SDI inputs.
I have a feeling we will see more of this with the new FCP whenever its shown (like tomorrow;-). Because otherwise, there's no real use of 4k, as FCP doesn't support it yet.
Blackmagic also unveiled a range of cards and products. Including one interface that works on Thunderbolt. I'm sure there are more in the pipeline.
And there are a couple of HD uncompressed recorders for high quality 4:2:2 HD recordings over HD-SDI or HDMI. With embedded audio. These look interesting even for studio use.

Aja released a 4k mode for the Kona 4 using 4 SDI outs to play back full 4k.

Aja also announced Thunderbolt support for an upcoming product called 'Phaser'

Assimilate announced a Scratch for Mac for $ 18,000 and an on set Digital lab for conversions, preview and other processing on set. $ 5000.

Telestream made announcements on new products. Notable among them being ProRes encoding on their PC products. And enhanced RS-422 support for their Pipeline products. So you can implement a 'Virtual VTR' with a Pipeline and any Mac, even an iMac.

Matrox announced Thunderbolt support for their MXO devices. These are currently connected to systems over ExpressCard or PCIe. What's surprising is that the announcement refers to what appears to be backward compatibility with existing MXO devices using "Matrox Thunderbolt adapters for all MXO2 devices can be purchased as an add-on at $299 US (£199, €249)".

Lots more to come.

NAB 2011 - preview

NAB starts off in las Vegas in a few hours, at about 9.30 pm India time. The exhibition runs Apr 11-14. And like in previous years, new systems, software updates, 3D, more 3D and possibly some revolutionary stuff is expected.


For those who couldn't make it, a visit to the main NAB web site gives you details and movies that show the show.


In the run up, over the past week or so, some of the highlights and trends to follow...


new FCP announcement expected at 7 pm on Tuesday at the FCPUG Supermeet at Bally's.
Baselight plug-in for FCP that lets you grade Baselight style but inside FCP and send your grades via XML to a real baselight.
Colorfront onset dailies system
Canon and Technicolor will show a color management system for Canon HDSLRs
Adobe CS 5.5 with exciting developments HDSLR workflows
Thunderbolt support will be in many places for sure - Matrox for one
Some new systems (maybe) or announcements from Aja and Blackmagic


Other companies to watch out for
Editshare, Atto, Marquis, SGO Mistika, Quantel, Autodesk, Dolby...


and lots more. I'll relay stuff as I see it, hopefully on a daily basis.

Memory cards for Canon 5D/7D shoots

For Canon 5D or 7D shoots, for ad films, music videos, promos, or features, people go into long discussions and arguments about disk storage, RAID etc etc. I have always advocated getting as many memory cards as you plan on shooting. And not erasing and reusing any card, till the shoot is over. Even after transferring the card contents to hard disk for editing and post-production.
That way, one has the data available all the time on the original cards, even if any hard disks fail.

But people tell me that this costs quite a lot. I decided to find out.

First, let's see what media would cost before HDSLRs happened to film-making.

400 feet of film costs about Rs 10,000, and runs about 4 mins, so film is Rs 2500 per minute.

With a shoot ratio of 1:10, a standard Hindi film of 150 mins would shoot 1500 mins of film. This amounts to about 340 rolls of 35mm film or Rs 34 lakhs in film costs alone. Processing extra.

A 40 min HDCam SR tape is about Rs 10,000. So for the same 150 min feature, even at a shoot ration of 1:20 (people tend to shoot more with tape than film). One would use 75 tapes of Rs 7.5 lakhs on tape. And one doesn't erase and reuse tapes even after they are transferred to the edit system.

Now, on to HDSLRs (Canon 5D or 7D)

On a Canon 5D or 7D CF cards are used up at about 3 min per Gb. So, if one shot an entire feature of 150 mins, even at a shooting ratio of 1:30, and shot on 8 GB CF cards, one would use up about 190 CF cards.

        

At jjmehta.com online store, 
http://www.jjmehta.com/webshop/index.html?target=dept_19.html&lang=en-us
an 8 GB CF Ultra 200x card sells for Rs 2000. So, if one did not reuse cards, and shot to about 200 cards or 'exposed' 80 hours of video on a Canon 5D/7D, one would spend Rs 4 lakhs.

Rs 34 lakhs for 25 hrs of film, or
Rs 7.5 lakhs for 50 hrs of HD tape, or 
Rs 4 lakhs for 80 hrs of Canon HD video. 


I think its clear CF cards, as a medium, are way cheaper than HD tape or film. And if one does not erase and use the costlier film or HD tape, what reason is there to erase CF cards that cost 1/30th what film costs.

Come to think of it, if you shot with a Canon exactly like film at a shoot ratio of 1:10, you would need only about 63 cards or spend about Rs 1.25 lakhs on 'rawstock'.

So, I don't get the reason for reusing CF cards. Reuse them after the film is released and you've consolidated all your media, but please, stop shooting an entire feature with 2 CF cards erased and used 30-100 times over.

Autodesk 2012

Last week, Autodesk released new versions of their Digital Entertainment Creation software line. These are now suffixed 2012, to mean the year 2012. But the software will be available in 2011.

New software released are

in the Animation Solutions line-up, 3ds Max 2012, Softimage 2012, Mudbox 2012, Maya 2012, MotionBuilder 2012 and

in the Creative Finishing Solutions, Flame 2012, Flare 2012, Smoke Mac OSX 2012, Flame Premium 2012, and Lustre 2012

Significantly, all of Autodesk's Creative Finishing Solutions and Animation Solutions software are receiving a refresh at the same time. This is probably the first time this has happened so maybe they have managed to integrate all these groups to work together.

Also significantly, there is no mention of Flint, Fire, or Inferno. So maybe, just maybe, we won't see any more refreshes of these software packages which formed part of IFFFS which ruled in the two decades past.

And, if you see the releases listed on the official Autodesk page linked below, you won't see any Smoke 2012, just Smoke for Mac OSX 2012. If that's true, you can no longer get a Smoke on Linux on its own. You have to get the Flame Premium suite which contains Smoke, Flame and Lustre.

I haven't studied the new features in great detail, primarily because I couldn't readily find a document that details this. But from a cursory study at other sites, it seems that for Smoke on Mac OSX, there are improvements in 3D capabilities.

There doesn't seem to be a specific Smoke 2012 hardware list. They still have the 2011 list on. The only video I/O card supported is still the Aja Kona 3. No support yet for Blackmagic cards. So maybe, there's some new hardware expected that will make this list. Something from Aja, or Blackmagic after all.

As for graphic cards, for Smoke 2011 not one out of Quadro 4000, Quadro FX4800, FX5600, and FX 4500 was completely certified in the 2011 list. The closest is Quadro FX5600 which is 'Supported although not officially Certified in our lab'.

Let's hope Smoke for Mac OSX has wider Autodesk blessed support for graphic cards on Mac OSX.

On the Autodesk online store page Smoke is still listed as Smoke 2011 available online for US$ 16,990 with subscription and US$ 14,995 without. Wonder if Smoke 2012 has a different pricing.

The official Autodesk page is here…

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?id=12410802&siteID=123112

There is an in-depth analysis over at FXGuide.com here…

http://www.fxguide.com/featured/autodesk-2012-software-releases/

Aja Ki Pro

Last Friday I was to attend and speak at a seminar on Aja, here in Mumbai. It was the start of a weekend, and traffic conditions in the Western suburbs were at an all time disarray. Some said there was a large procession of some kind. Anyway, I got stuck in bumper to bumper traffic, ran out of fuel, and eventually gave up trying to reach the venue.


But I had my piece prepared, so I promised the organizers, Genesis Forte, wo represent Aja in India, that I would post it in this blog. Here it is.


Among the most innovative products that Aja makes, is the Ki Pro and it's small sibling, the Ki Pro mini. These are video (and audio) recorders which take input as component, SDI, HD-SDI, or HDMI, along with embedded or unbalanced XLR audio. And record to hard disks or SxS or CF cards. The recorded material is an Apple ProRes Quicktime movie. And you can set up Ki Pro to record as ProRes Proxy, ProRes LT, ProRes, or ProResHQ.


ProRes is described later in this piece, below.


The source for the KiPro could be almost any camcorder that has an HD-SDI, or HDMI output. So basically the Ki Pro or Ki Pro mini let's you record at a quality higher than the camera's own compressed recording does.


Two prime new candidates for using the KiPro with, are the new Sony F3 or Panasonic AF 101. The combination of Sony F3 or Panasonic AF 101, with Ki Pro or Ki Pro mini can challenge the Arri Alexa on quality and price.

But this is not what I was going to focus on. This much is well known about the Ki Pro or Ki Pro mini. I had some alternate uses in mind for these recorders.


Low res video assist recorder


Many TV Commercial makers use the video assist to do a rough cut before the film gets processed and telecined.
In place of a video assist recorder, which is usually a DVD recorder, a DV or HDV recorder, both of which are cumbersome and linear. You can use a Ki Pro or Ki Pro mini, to record the assist video as ProRes proxy. Which is good enough quality. A 250 Gb HDD in the Ki Pro records over 11 hrs. And shots are one per clip, so capture before editing is quick and easy. 


Backup recorder


If you shoot with a Alexa, it records ProRes 4444. These files are large and hard to edit on slower machines. So you can attach a KiPro which can record ProRes HQ as a backup. Or ProRes Proxy for low res editing. 


And if you are recording as Arri logC, you can take a linear video out via HD-SDI and plug that into the KiPro. So you're ready to edit with smaller files which are linear and not low contrast ones that the Alexa records.


I know I know, log files need to be colour corrected before they can be used, but try telling that to a client who's in a hurry.


The last two uses I mentioned, would need some care to ensure that time code is kept the same on the main device and the Ki Pro or Ki Pro mini.


Green screen recorder


You may have shot the rest of your film on a small EX1 or EX3 or even Canon 5D or 7D - in XDCamEx, AVCHD, DVCProHD, or HDV, But if your film has green or blue screen, (chroma key) you may run into problems with recording that on those cameras. That's more to do with the recording in these cameras, not the cameras themselves.


Chroma Key shots need clean edges for keying. Compression in those cameras makes the edge around objects hard to key. Recording as full 4:2:2 10bit on the KiPro or KiPro mini can give you cleaner keys in post. So better to shoot chroma shots as ProRes or ProResHQ in a KiPro for better keying. 
Even the keying needed for by a Colourist for secondary colour correction works better if the media is ProRes or ProResHQ.


Main recorder for HD television shows


Over the next few weeks or months at most, leading TV channels in India will transition to HD. In general, all channels will no longer require producers to submit tapes for HD programming. Some will, instead, accept finished shows and rushes as files - ProRes HQ.


So it may even be a good idea to use the Ki Pro as your main recorder even if you shoot P2, AVC-Intra, or HDCam. Editing is instantaneous, the editing machine doesn't need any capture card, and best of all, handing over of all rushes is easy.


Telecine recorder


When you need to telecine film to video in a format that's ready for delivery, like Apple ProRes that many TV channels need, the Ki Pro is a natural choice. You can even connect audio from a sound follower and embed it, so you can even get Dolby 5.1 audio along with video, all synced and ready to go.


Ki Pro


Can be carried like a recorder or portable VTR, or attached to a special exo skeleton and placed under a camera on a tripod. It has a removable 250 or 500 Gb Hard disk, or a SxS card slot to record video on.

Ki Pro Mini


Attached behind a camera like JVC, Sony, P2 etc, and records higher quality that the camera can. especially for the new Sony F3 or Panasonic AF101 that shoot XDCam and AVCHD respectively.


For those who don't yet know ProRes is a format invented by Apple for use as a high quality 10bit movie format but providing nearly uncompressed quality. Disk space and disk speed requirements are modest and feasible with ProRes. There are 5 variants yielding differing levels of quality while taking up different amounts of disk space.


ProRes is 10-bit, many other codecs are 8-bit.


Data rates for various variants of ProRes
ProRes 4444 - 330 Mbps 37.1 MB/sec at 1080p24
ProRes HQ - 220 Mbps 24.7 MB/sec at 1080p24
ProRes - 145 Mbps 16.5 MB/sec at 1080p24
ProRes LT - 110 Mbps 11.5 MB/sec at 1080p24
ProRes Proxy - 45 Mbps 5.1 MB/sec at 1080p24


Capacity of hard disks and cards.


Ki Pro records to hard disk or SxS card.


250 Gb hard disk 
- 692 mins of ProRes Proxy - 11 hrs 32 min
- 318 mins of ProRes LT - 5 hrs 18 min
- 225 mins of ProRes - 3 hrs 45 min
- 150 mins of ProRes HQ


500 Gb hard disk 
- 1384 mins of ProRes Proxy - 23 hrs
- 637 mins of ProRes LT - 10 hrs 37 mins
- 450 mins of ProRes - 7 hrs 30 mins
- 300 mins of ProRes HQ - 5 hrs


16 Gb SxS card
- 44 mins of ProRes Proxy
- 20 mins of ProRes LT
- 14 mins of ProRes 
- 9 mins of ProRes HQ


32 Gb SxS card 
- 88 mins of ProRes Proxy
- 40 mins of ProRes LT
- 28 mins of ProRes 
- 19 mins of ProRes HQ


Ki Pro mini shoots to CF card


8 Gb CF card 
- 22 mins of ProRes Proxy
- 10 mins of ProRes LT
- 7 mins of ProRes 
- 4 mins of ProRes HQ


16 Gb CF card 
- 44 mins of ProRes Proxy
- 20 mins of ProRes LT
- 14 mins of ProRes 
- 9 mins of ProRes HQ


32 Gb CF card 
- 88 mins of ProRes Proxy
- 40 mins of ProRes LT
- 28 mins of ProRes 
- 19 mins of ProRes HQ

FCP problems with illegal FCP

This is what a legal copy of Final Cut Studio 3 or FCP 7 looks like. Have one?

Of late I've been shown many instances of FCP projects that don't link back to digital files, dropped frames even with fast disks, media files present but showing as offline, and the dreaded 'General Error'. In extreme cases, projects get corrupt too. 

This seems to be happening a bit more often in recent times than previously. And, most important of all, I have not been able to duplicate or recreate these issues any any of my systems. At home, or systems I've installed by myself at friend's edit suites.

So what's going on? Is FCP 7 to blame? I think not.

One observation that I made with every reported case is that these issues happen in systems that do not have a valid FCP license. Meaning their FCP is cracked, not paid for, completely illegal. 

Some FCP users are not even aware that FCP had to be paid for. I found this out when I asked to see the box containing the original software disks. Why, even a large post house on Mumbai's upmarket Linking Road had many FCP systems without a license. Come to think of it, even TV show producers and possibly TV channels use FCP without licenses.

In another post house at Bandra I studied 5 systems and tried to recreate one particular issue with FCP 7. I could not. The systems functioned flawlessly. Users there often could not even remember the last time their systems last crashed or hung. Reason? All 5 systems had licenses which were not only valid, but registered over the 'net with Apple.

So my surmise. 

If you have paid for and purchased Final Cut Studio ver. 3. And you have registered your license on the Internet with Apple. You have nothing to fear. Your system will work without a hitch. And not exhibit any of these issues. 

If, however, you have 'borrowed' FCP, and not registered it, or have otherwise cracked it, then beware. Apart from being illegal, this is a defective method of operating FCP. And it will catch up with you somewhere, sometime.

But it still doesn't add up. So what if its 'cracked FCP', it still has to work right? 

Well, not quite. I think some person somewhere made a copy of the original FCP disks on to a hard drive. This copy, somehow got corrupted while being copied from disk to disk. And these corrupted copies are with some persons somewhere in Mumbai. And these defective FCPs are doing the rounds. Being used to install FCP over and over again.

Conclusion.

If you are an FCP system user and don't have a box with the original software and DVDs, please go out an buy one. It costs under Rs 50,000 and is worth every Rupee. Many many individual editors and small production houses in India have bought one. In fact I dare say, more people in India have actually bought FCP than have not. Be one of the good guys.

And no matter what your dealer, reseller or friends tell you, there is no FCP demo, no FCP evaluation, no 30-day trial. You pay money, you get a copy, you use it. That's how it works.

Even if the system that's being used to edit your films is borrowed, or hired, ask to see the license. And have it registered over the internet in your presence. And you will see for yourself, whatever FCP problems you had will simply go away.

Installing software without a license, is software piracy. Pirating software and pirated software are completely illegal. 

Sometimes pirated software is defective as well.

Arri Alexa Avid workflow

I keep getting asked about the workflow for editing with Arri Alexa media. Here, people mostly refer to the Apple ProRes 4444 Quicktime movies that the Alexa shoots. In India, as far as I know, we don't (yet) have an Alexa equipped with a Arri RAW recorder, hence ProRes 4444 is, for the moment, Arri Alexa media.


Most people have queries about editing Alexa media on an Avid Media Composer. Particularly Media Composer v 5 which can 'soft import' files without creating Avid MXF or OMF media, just like how FCP imports media.
Older versions compulsorily import media so that's another story.


FCP can easily edit the native files. Or you can batch convert to ProRes LT or ProRes Proxy to save space. 


So, as I began putting down points, I turned to the 'net to check if anyone had reported issues in forums. There were some issues, but these will go away with more work with Alexa and as software improves. So no point taking them up at the present.


While reading up, I came across Oliver Peters very informative blog Digitalfilms. This outlines the process in detail with pictures.


Here is the link
http://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/category/arri-alexa/


You need to try out his procedure first hand on a Avid Media Composer v 5 system to understand the simplicity and elegance of its working. 


Also, if you're working on an Avid Media Composer on Windows, then maybe you need to get the Apple ProRes decoder for Windows.
http://support.apple.com/downloads/Apple_ProRes_QuickTime_Decoder_1_0_for_Windows
That's in case your QT Player on Windows can't open Alexa files. If it can, then don't bother with the plug-in.


Peters also has an explanation for working with Arri Alexa files in FCP. And a link to Nick Shaw's plug-in to make a quick and rough log to lin conversion of Arri LogC Quicktimes. This conversion is for preview purposes only. 


Unfortunately, Apple Color does not do log to lin for QT, only for DPX, else that would have been a great workflow too. 
But if you fiddle with the curves in the Primary room (of Apple Color) as well as, try auto balance you can get a neat looking linear image. You can even get carried away and believe you can grade your media yourself. In that case, get yourself a Tangent Wave or Euphonix grading panel, and a good experienced colourist, and who knows, you can do DI at home.


More on Alexa adventures as I lay my hand on some stuff to do myself.

Sony F3 test movie

A team of film-makers shot with a pre-production Sony F3 camera. And the finished video is up at Vimeo here. Post production was done at Molinare in London. 


The camera shoots 35 Mbps MPEG-2 on SxS cards. There is a provision to output video  over HD-SDI along with recording to SxS cards. To enable recording to an HDCamSR VTR or a recorder like the Aja KiPro or KiPro mini that record to hard disk or CF card as Apple ProResHQ or ProRes QT movies. 


It may be interesting to learn how they handled the post for this test story. But the visuals in the final look stunning. Check it out. 

The new Sony PMW-F3

At a location in Mumbai recently I had occasion to see the new Sony PMW-F3 camera. This camera will be released later this year. And some features will be activated only early next year. So I'll write a detailed review only when I can lay my hands on one with a cinematographer present. 

But from the point of view of a film-maker, the highlights are...

1. Small body, interchangeable lenses.
2. Mounts for Sony lenses and PL mount lenses.
3. Super35 size sensor for 'filmic' depth of field.
4. Sony Exmor sensor for truer 'filmic' colours.
5. Records to onboard SxS as XDCamEx, same format as EX1 and EX3.
6. HD-SDI outputs so you can record to a KiPro, Convergent, or HDCamSR recorder.
7. $16,000 body and $23,000 with 3 Sony PL lenses.
8. Dual link output, and S-log shooting to be added next year.

Preliminary details are up at Sony's Pro site

Stargate Studios has done a trial shoot with a detailed report with pictures.

Studio Daily has a report.

Will this camera threaten the Canon 5Ds and 7Ds? 

On price, no. On features, usability and quality, definitely.

Will it threaten Red?

Most likely yes because it has features to compare. But the Red is 4k at about the same price with a more convoluted post process.

Will it threaten Alexa?

Resolution wise it is similar to the Alexa. Quality wise, remains to be seen. Price, definitely better than Alexa.

 

 

But maybe the F3 is in a different league compared to Red and Alexa.

I think at $7000 or even less for F3 body only, with a comparable reduction in pricing of the EX1/EX3 and Sony will have a killer range that can sell some serious numbers. Else, if and when Canon improves the 5D's video issues with aliasing, and jello cam, the F3 will be threatened back.

What's the big deal about FCP?

A little birdie asked me quite recently. "Really, what is the big deal about FCP?" Especially now, with Avid growing in leaps with every new release. So I pondered...

What really is the big deal with FCP? Is there even a big deal in FCP? Sure, here is a bullet point list of the important features that make FCP score over Avid.

Some of these differences may not apply to the absolutely latest Avid ver 5.0. But for most Avid ABVB, Meridien, or even Adrenaline owners, ver 5 is a huge upgrade. So, for them, these still apply.

So,  in India, in 2010, the big deal about FCP is...

Huge format support
Apart from Beta/DigiBeta/DV, FCP can import and edit Red, Canon 5D/7D, XDCamEx, DVCProHD, JVC HDV, P2, NXCam, AVCCam, AVCHD and many more that Avids older than maybe 2009 cannot.

Smoke-Flame quality
FCP uses the same Aja Kona hardware that Smoke, Flame and even Lustre use, so the video quality of FCP is identical to Smoke, Flame and Lustre. No offline-online with FCP, both same same.

Compositing while editing
Any motion graphics kind of stuff - DVD moves, resize, skew, keyframed moves, crops, rotates etc - can be done while editing. Avid can't even rotate a frame.

Import without convert
FCP uses most file formats without creating new media. Avid needs to import everything and create new media.

Multi resolution
FCP has no project setting as such. You can happily mix HD, SD, PAL, 24, 25, NTSC, YouTube movies, MP3 files, CD audio, BWF audio, all in one project. Even place them in one timeline. Avid needs you to make a project of a fixed setting and prohibits you from importing anything of a different setting.

'24-25 thing' easy
In PAL-film land the '24-25 thing' comes back to bites you from time to time. FCP allows you to interchange from 24 to 25 in a flash - picture and sound.

HD without tax

All FCP systems after about 2004 can do HD. In fact almost all FCP capture cards can do HD from about 2006. So, FCP has HD without costly DNExcel cards, HD upgrades, MojoDX boxes that cost lakhs of Rupees for Avid owners.

Easier to use
For the novice, FCP is easier to use. And master.

Scalable over systems
FCP is the same whether on a laptop, an iMac or a desktop MacPro. All that changes is the hardware that's used for capture or monitoring. And that's optional.

XML interchange
FCP sequence information can be exported as XML which carries more info than EDLs do. Letting you carry over multi-track edits to other systems like Smoke, Quantel eQ and others. XML works great for subtitle work too.

Online review and approval with iChat
Edit and show your timeline to someone hundreds of kilometers away whilst still being able to make changes on the fly. With iChat sharing.

Easy speed change tools
Motion effects don't need to make new media. And ramps are easy drag and drop too.

Easier to keep upgraded

FCP has a software update about every year or so. And upgrades cost less that Rs 20,000 mostly. You don't need to buy costly annual maintenance plans to get upgrades. Most Macs support the next version for at least 3 years.
By that time, FCP has made you so much money you can afford a new Mac. Most likely, your cards will work with the new version.

Final Cut Studio
Final Cut Pro is only a part of a suite of products collectively called Final Cut Studio. All bundled with FCP. They are… Motion, Soundtrack Pro, Color, DVD Studio Pro, Compressor, Cinema Tools.

Advanced colour correction in Color
Colour correction that could only be done in million dollar DaVinci and other systems can now be achieved in Apple Color. A good colorist and a 'grading panel' can make this into a full-fledged grading suite.
Sequences can be sent to color and returned without any EDLs. Even DPX, and 4k is possible withinFCP and Color.

Motion graphics in Motion
Easily send your sequence or some clips to Motion and do complex match moves, stabilize, tracking, chroma keying and other advanced 'online' stuff.

Complex title graphics in Motion or LiveType
Amazing title work within Motion or LiveType with older Final Cut versions.

Sound design in Soundtrack Pro
Pro Tools like sound design work is possible within Soundtrack Pro. Even easy Dolby surround work. FCP and Soundtrack automatically synchronize timelines so change the edit in FCP and the sound work changes automatically. Great clean up and noise removal tools too

Royalty free sound samples
Final Cut Studio ships with Gigabytes of free sound. If you know how, you can compose an entire background music, or even song track for a long film too.

DVD/Blu-ray making directly
Make a DVD or Blu-Ray directly within FCP.

DVD authoring in DVD Studio Pro
For advanced authored DVDs with chapters, menus and sub-menus and stuff that's sold in shops, DVD Studio Pro lets you make them. And send them off to a duplicator to make thousands or lakhs.

Media database and film workflow with Cinema Tools
All the 24-25 stuff, telecine logs, cut lists pull lists. Even managing Red and Canon files, is done within Cinema Tools. Frame accurate, perf accurate.

Encoding to various formats with Compressor
After editing one almost always needs to send out stuff to the web - YouTube, Vimeo, H.264, Windows media and many other formats created automatically and in the background.

Disclaimer…
I have only 6 years experience editing on Avid systems on a daily basis. And the rest of the 10 years following, I worked mainly on FCP.

I don't use Avid as extensively as I used to, therefore, maybe newer versions of Avid have addressed some of the inequalities above, which I may not be abreast with.

But you know what? Most Avid owners can not or do not upgrade when a new version is available. Because in Avid land, an upgrade can often mean new hardware even a new PC or Mac. Even two year old Avids used Avid hardware that costed lakhs of Rupees. Which have now been replaced with hardware that costs only tens of thousands.