I don't know if you've already tried FCPX or not...if not, I think the biggest adjustment you'd be dealing with is FCPX's "trackless" interface and its tendency to "snap" things together on its own (cut a section of video, delete it, then the part after moves by itself to fill the gap). The solution to that is to do all the editing above the "storyline", then things behave more as you'd want for normal music video editing.

If you're already well-versed with Premier, maybe using the Mac version of that is your best option. I'm not too fond of the "rent for life" software idea though, maybe that's why you're also considering FCPX.

I get a lot of use out of MPEG Streamclip and Episode Encoder. The latter is so far the only Mac software I've found that does a decent job of IVTC. Still have to do some manual editing where cadence-breaks in the source video cause IVTC hiccups for a second or so, and of course interlaced video crossfades are always going to be an issue.

Comparing the older FCP7 to the current version of FCPX for editing... I find FCPX much nicer to work with. There were always a lot of odd little glitches with FCP7, and trying to do any precision audio editing in it was kind of a nightmare. I usually edit audio beforehand, but it's nice to be able to do that easily within FCPX if needed.

Mark,

Thanks for the info. I appreciate it. And yes the "rent for life" plan with Adobe is basically why I would give Final Cut a try.

I moved from Premiere for the same reasons. If you have $50 to throw around, I highly recommend an intro course from www.rippletraining.com - they are even listed on the Apple FCPX page.

Helped me get myself thinking in the flow of FCPX.

been using FCPX for a few years now
i do all my video edits using FCPX with Compressor
for de-interlacing, there is a button you can click, its a bit tricky, but seems to work ok
as Rebelguy mentioned, i also do all my editing 'above the timeline', so nothing is sliding/snapping over...
also lots of cool plugin effects are popping up from guys like Pixel Film Studios

Actually it was me who mentioned that. And yes, lots of plugins coming out for FCPX, though some of the Pixel Film Studios ones I've tried don't actually seem to work correctly.

I would NOT use FCPX for deinterlacing, it's about the worst-quality deinterlace you can do. When I have to deal with deinterlacing I usually use MPEG Streamclip, much better looking results.

What do you guys mean by editing "above the time line".
I use FCPX and it drives me mental when I try to delete a video section and it moves.
I'm talking when I separate audio from video and I want to replace a portion of the video without affecting the audio

Right-click on a clip, select "Lift from Storyline".

Now you can edit without it moving around by itself.

Thanks DJ Mark!

Wealth of knowledge here is infinitesimal

Infinitesimal means extremely small. Maybe you mean infinite or immeasurable.

Since your in NorCal, BAVC (Bay Area Video Coalition) has some great classes for FCPX and others if you want to try it out before committing to anything. Great people there.

I'm still on FCP7 but will probably go either Premiere or Edius in the next year or two as the program gets more difficult to use with the newer OS releases. I won't be going with X...

*you're* in NorCal.

Damn. Bloody autocorrect there.

GRE

thanks for the info, i will give MPEG Streamclip a shot, i edit a ton of 80s music videos and older videos and several of them always need to be deinterlaced to get rid of the pesky lines...
i see a lot of comments about guys going straight to premier, is the software good for music videos guys like me? i know i always hear great things about Sony Vegas, but im not a PC guy...

As a whole, Premiere has a lot more users on both Mac and PC. You'll find the most help, forums, et al to answer questions.