I have recently purchased Avid Xpress DV 3.5 and would like to get
some software for doing effects. I am trying to decide whether to
choose Adobe After Effects 6.0 Production Bundle (soon to be released)
or Boris RED. As I am new to Avid and all of this, the learning curve
is a bit steep for me as it is. Boris can function from within the Avid
interface while After Effects has its own interface that I would have
to learn. Anyway, I am wondering which piece of software would be the
best to go for. I am not concerned about the price but simply what the
"industry" says is the best and most useful product. I am sure that
After Effects is extremely popular, but where does Boris RED stand?
Please research this and provide sources as I need to make a decision soon as
to which one I want to go with. Although I am doing this right now as
a hobby, I might one day work with other people so learning the right
software (wouldn't it be great if we had the time to just learn it
all?!) is also important to me. Also, I will be running this on a dual
Zeon 3.06 GHz Dell Precision 650 workstation, 2GB RAM, multiple SCSI
drives, with an NVidia QuadroFX1000 opengl video card.

Thanks.

Hi bwb,

I don't have the time on hand at the moment to do the research you
need, however I can give you a basic outline.

I am currently a Film/TV school training in editing. I am very
familiar with Avid Xpress, and somewhat familiar with After Effects. I
do not have any first hand experience with Boris RED.

On balance, I think Boris tools are generally considered more like
toys in the industry than After Effects. Of course these sorts of
impressions are often undeserved.

As for integrating with Avid - I would say that may be somewhat
limiting. The plug-in workflow in Avid is quite limiting, it is
certainly not suited to compositing and the like. If you are familar
with Photoshop you should find the basic interfaces of After Effect
somewhat straight forward, and there are a huge number of resources
available online.

I will keep an eye on this question, and if I get a chance, I will do
a good bit of research for you.

Regards,
Sycophant-ga