Most people Ive talked to feel like FCP is superior to Premiere on a mac. Actually, I use Vegas and am very happy with it, but if I were to buy a mac, Id definitely go with FCP based on all of the positive reviews an success stories. Now I think HD is possible on most platforms so I would definitely go with FCP.
Regarding what this thread was originally about and my first post I have found out some things.
First, it does appear I am going with the 16mm > HDtelecine @ Bono > edit in blackmagic 10bit > Master in D5, dub to HDCam. For a short, the overall cost should be less than $1k or slightly over including my no budget production costs (producer is supplying all props and costumes and actors). But for a feature, there are some serious considerations. At around $750 an hour for transfer of 1 hour of run time, plus the drive rental fee, a 3:1 shooting ratio (which is optimistic) all transferred will mean $3-5k out of pocket AND THERE IS NO GUARANTEES FROM BONO LABS ABOUT HOW CLEAN THE TRANSFER IS. Mr. Bono himself says there is still the high likelyhood that there will be dirt on the film despite cleaning. This works for my retro silent short (Made to look like 20's silent 35mm B&W), but not for a clean HD transfer of a feature. And the cost alone, although I dont have the actual costs yet, I assume for 4-5k I could actually go the old school non DI way of a low res TC, EDL, and conform negative back to 16mm film, apply soundtrack and master on HDCam. If cost is no concern, obviously doing one's own DI is great, but no guarantees vs. working with just the negatives and coming up with a film print is awfully tempting still.
Now as for the costs of doing a real DI in a post house, whether HD, 2k, or 4k, is insanely expensive and really only viable for features with at least a 100k budget, for the 2k or 4k you are talking 200k-1m (Ive heard 4k going at 250k just for the DI). So on the cheap, for a feature, unless you are talking 1:1 (not going to happen) or 2:1 or 3:1 (usually they say plan 5:1 to 7:1), cost for low budget AND the additional risk of dirt on the film makes the HD telecine/DI at this point not viable.
Not to mention, while HD is a good res to scan 16mm, for 35mm HD or even 2k is killing 1/4 - 1/3 of the res. 4k is the only real way to go to pull out the max info on the film. For 2k or 4k though, there is not really a cost effective solution for editing at home either so you're still talking about doing your EDL and then doing the DI in the post house.
In conclusion, for shorts that dont need perfect dirtfree quality, it looks like HDTelecine @ Bono may be a very good choice, even less expensive quite possibly than conforming the neg and you still end up with projectable HDCam tape. But for features until I am informed otherwise, the cost should be around the same price for the old school conforming, you may end up with a slightly nicer graded image and you never leave film and you end up with a 16mm or 35mm print or even HDCam if thats all you want.
If you have a 250-500k+ budget and really desire the added benefits of DI, that may just work for a feature, but you probably at that stage will be better off going into a post production house to do the Di and not your home system.