General Discussion

If you do any professional video editing, do they force you to buy a Mac, or can you use the equivalent software on your PC?

@LordPraetox: The equivalent Windows software is Adobe Premiere, and from personal experience, I'd say Final Cut Pro is better.  If you're going to work for a company, it's basically up to them what you use.  In many cases, they'll provide the hardware if they require one.

I heard they edited Avatar in Windows Movie Maker.

@LordPraetox: Some studios probably do only use macs, and that's the only thing that they allow you to use internally for compatibility reasons. 
 
....although I'm not entirely sure who 'they' is.

Some use Avid and think it's great. Some use macs and FCP and think it's great as well. Others use both, one for Online editing and the other for offline.  The main thing is to get your fundamentals down, then Non Linear Editing is easy.  
 
Having only used FCP I can't really comment on Avid or anything else. I like Final Cut Studio cause of the price other apps in the package. Compare that with Premiere, you might want AE and Soundbooth and that will cost a lot more. Also the real time editing is a god send.

I would recommend After Effects no matter what you use.  It's a great piece of software that allows for "fancier" editing than what FCP and Premiere typically do.

Final Cut and After Effects, no question about it.  
 
That said, one of my friends (a Director and Editor) swears by Adobe Premier. I think its just a case of finding an interface that works for you.

@Lashe: Well, yeah.  That's just him swearing by what he's comfortable with.  For a while I did not want to have to touch Final Cut in my video editing class (Iargely because it would force me to come back to school to do my homework since I don't own a Mac), but once I used it I was pleased with how stable it was, especially compared to the horseshit known as Premiere CS4.

@fish_face_mcgee said:

" once I used it [Final Cup Pro] I was pleased with how stable it was, especially compared to the horseshit known as Premiere CS4. "

Okay, so that's not be (only) being an Apple fanboy, FCP is more stable than CS...

@Greg818: I've actually only used Premiere a few times on Mac but Premiere CS4 ran like shit on Windows 64-bit.  I haven't tried CS5 which requires 64-bit now. By comparison, FCP was amazing.  

It depends what kind of video you see yourself doing.  If you're going to make your own stuff, or edit other people's work from home, use whatever you like best - Premiere, Avid, or Final Cut.  
 
If you're aiming to get into the big leagues of commercial and feature film editing, you'll need to know Final Cut and Avid because that's the sort of equipment they'll have.  Final Cut is very in fashion but lots of places still use Avid.  They are very different systems - I learned Avid Xpress in school, but I think if you put me in front of an avid system today I would just barely be able to hack through it.
 
If you're interested in editing for cable TV stations and web networks, I can say every one I've ever worked at has had all Final Cut edit rooms.
 
Just my two cents!

who's "they"?