I use FCP all the time to assemble my studio's demos for our website and for our DVD. I've used it for some professional stuff and some home movie stuff. It's pretty easy to learn and very legit. I know of a couple editors who have ditched the big dog Avid Composer systems in favor of the less expensive Final Cut Pro systems. Have you seen FCP 4.0, soon to be released? It looks slick.

Another vote for FCP. 4.0 was released on Saturday and is a GREAT upgrade. The thing I love about FCP is that Xpress DV only does DV, where FCP is hardware independent. You can start off with just DV support, but you can do anything from Beta SP and 3/4 to Digi-Beta, SD uncompressed all the way to 24P HD.

Ok cool I will probably do FCP, but what is going on with the whole MOJO thing. Also, what about Final Cut Express?

keep in mind, that many Pro Tools situations require the Pro tools system to accommodate whatever system is being used by the film maker. This could be avid, fcp or media 100, premiere and quite often includes antique versions of any of those and others. So if your main task is transferring footage/video into Pro Tools to do the audio work, you sometimes have to deal with whatever you are tossed. The fact that Avid is now offering a free Avid DV, means here is a free way to get that stuff into your pro tools system. I have been using FCP and although there have been issues, it has worked. I did need to transfer a media 100 project via Beta to get it to stay in sync. but once digitized into FCP, (two passes since the film maker only had 1 hour tapes) I used Quicktime Pro to edit the two passes together with out any render time. In other words, Capture in FCP as a clip, Open clip in QT, cut and paste two passes together and save. Open this Ref file in Pro tools. I wish FCP would allow the same video seq output that Avid DV has, but like I say, it is moot if your client has Brand X you have to deal with it. however, the arguments from Jon are compelling if your are planning in house audio/video system.

as with all things digi and Avid...read their compato docs very, very carefully or be sorry.