I appreciate your reply, and am happy to hear that this forum is not dead. I have researched both, and find very few differences. Both are attempting to be more like avid and provide realtime rendering. both have nested timlines and great audio editing. both provide some pre-packaged effects, not really what i'm looking for though. both allow for time remapping. premiere pro allows for more optimization through hardware, macs do not. final cut has everything in one package, with premiere, i would probably need after effects too. i have no hardware yet, so it doesn't matter to me weather i use mac or pc. this is what i know. i also know that i need a powerful editing station for an aspiring indie filmmaker that allows for lots of creativity and flexibility. any more information would be awesome. thanks.