It seems ironic that people think HitFilm will topple Abode. Adobe is not who they need to topple. They need to topple the user base.

To say that HitFilm is more professional is sort of pushing it. Hitfilm uses OpenGl to render, which means that a render engine that uses Cuda, ATI Stream/Mantle, or PHI, (or a combination of all 3) will blow OpenGl's doors in. Even more so on a server with lots of gpgpu's on it. If a gpgpu does not know how to do an OpenGl call, it reverts to the cpu. IE slow as a snail.... Not all OpenGl calls can be done on the gpu either. Home users can build an 11 gpu system, and that is per box with off the self parts from most computer stores.... (1 onboard, Four 2 gpu cards) Surf Ebay, and you can get server boards with 8 PCIe slots and onboard graphics. That is up to 17 gpus per blade....

There are other players in that market that have superior software to both Adobe and Hitfilm..

Eyeon: Fusion, not cheap, used by lots of studios. Fusion uses the gpgpu for far more than just rendering

The Foundry: Nuke Studio, again, not cheap. Node based and very easy for a Houdini user to learn and integrate. Nuke uses the gpgpu for more than just rendering as well.

There are plenty more as well.

So where does that leave the Adobe After Effects? Depends how you look at it doesn't it.

That basically leaves Adobe with the people that are familiar with using it in their pipeline. In the end it really does not matter what Person A thinks about what Person B should use.

All of us should use what we are comfortable using. And if you are on a team, you will have to use what they use.

It won't do much good to be a Blender/HitFilm expert if the team uses Houdini and Nuke, you would be completely lost and unemployed rather quickly.

If you can get away with using the free stuff out there, more power to you. Knowing how to use all of the above is even better for your portfolio

Bottom Line:

Use what you want too, use what you have too.

The Cloud argument is a moot point if all you use it for is checking a subscription and getting updates, etc... 

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