FCPX going subscription

[puredrifting]

I have to cut a television episode on Premiere this spring, so I've been spending more time with it than I have in a long time... and I will say that Premiere is FAR FAR FAR more stable and performant on a Windows box with an Nvidia GPU than it is on a Mac of similar spec. I built out a 12-core Ryzen 3900X box with 64GB of RAM and a GeForce RTX 3080 around Christmas to experiment with the dark side... and Premiere is like a completely different app on that vs. my iMac Pro (10-core, 64GB, VEGA 64). I've noticed that Lightroom and Illustrator are both in the same boat. I haven't noticed the same difference in Photoshop.

I think Adobe's kinda just phoning it in on the Mac and has been for a while.

We don't have to go back too far in time to recall when Adobe and Apple were at war with each other over all kinds of things besides editing programs.
I'm sure that has permeated the culture at Adobe to where the Apple platform is the red headed step child. I'm looking forward to trying out the new
Resolve on my hot rod PC Live Streaming build, I haven't edited on a PC in decades.

For my business partner and me, we have exactly two clients who require us to edit on Premiere. It's a punishment for us ;-)
It's not that you can't edit on it, it's fine, it's just so slow, deliberate and clunky compared to FCP X and even Resolve for me.
If I knew how to use AE though, I would definitely use CC, makes sense, if you are one of those editors who is actually good at AE.

[Thomas Smet]

It's apparent that since Adobe went to the subscription model, one could observe that the reliability of Premiere has actually decreased significantly, for many generations
of bloat...er..software updates. Mostly amateurs seem to switch from Adobe because of the actual subscription charge. $50 or $60.00 per month is insignificant for
production companies or FT Pro editors for their main tool, it's something else that has caused so many to dump Premiere the past few years.

Most of the FT Pro editors I know who have switched, they tell me that it was because Premiere Pro is still built on ancient base code with many strata of new bloatware hung on it's ancient frame,
much like FCP Studio was at the end when Apple would have needed a massive overhaul of the base code to make an FCP 8, and it is crash prone. It may have changed because I
ignore Adobe now, I get invitations from them and their PR/Marketing company weekly but I saw an article a year or two ago that it would cost Adobe many, many millions of dollars to overhaul
and re-write the base code for Premiere and they didn't want to put in the money and man hours to do so. Not sure if they've done that now or if it still crashes a lot because they haven't?

I totally agree with this. When there were upgrades to be paid for Adobe had to work hard to make people want to actually pay for those upgrades. Now Adobe knows they have their users by the stones and don't really have to try as hard anymore. Once they got their regular revenue stream they just don't have to try as hard anymore.

I remember when people thought of Premiere as a joke and when FCPX came out suddenly everyone was in love with Premiere. I think that is also responsible for Adobes current laziness when it comes to Premiere. They already pulled in a larger user base then they could have ever done on their own.

Honestly the best thing many of us could do for our friends that love Adobe is to ditch Adobe and light a fire under their butts so Adobe feels the need to get creative again. The more people that leave Adobe the more Adobe will take action and do something significant again.

[Thomas Smet]

Much like Dan alluded to earlier, Iphone/Ipad sales make up most of their revenue, so I doubt that they care.

If that were the case Apple wouldn't ever bother with the M1 or building a new iMac Pro and Mac Pro. Of course they care about selling Macs. While they may not be their cash cow its still a significant part of their business. Its also about the entire eco system. There is no App Store without developers using Macs and Xcode to publish apps. Apple wants users to buy a Apple Watch, iPhone, Air Pods, MBP, iPad and everything between. Eliminate the Mac and now users have to buy a PC and might also look at alternative phones, watches and so on.

Having that full lineup hooks users for life.

[JAMedia]

If that were the case Apple wouldn't ever bother with the M1 or building a new iMac Pro and Mac Pro. .

Apple use Arm based CPU's in all their iPhones and iPads. All they are doing is bringing the Macs in line with the rest of the eco-structure. This enables them to harmonise a lot of the code and OS across their whole platform.

Of course they care about selling Macs. While they may not be their cash cow its still a significant part of their business. Its also about the entire eco system. There is no App Store without developers using Macs and Xcode to publish apps. Apple wants users to buy a Apple Watch, iPhone, Air Pods, MBP, iPad and everything between. Eliminate the Mac and now users have to buy a PC and might also look at alternative phones, watches and so on. Having that full lineup hooks users for life.

Apple wants all the iPhone/pad/watch users to have Macbooks. That is their main market not the almost insignificant number of "serious" film makers as we have seen from the last two generations of mac Pro's. For the latest Mac Pro you can get double the performance for half the price with a PC (making the low-mid range models unattractive to most people ) Then a year or so after launch and people have invested in the MAc Pro and Apple change the CPU family in the iMacs and MacBooks!

Basically Apple is chasing the mass market of trendies who want looks and fashion over heavy duty things the media industry production people need.

[DLD]

There's already an ARM version of Windows, and Microsoft is currently rumored to be developing its own ARM processor...

Both Google and Microsoft are trying to emulate Apple's "hardware & software" strategy now, with Apple probably getting a substantial head start on its own ARM based ecosystem. Cook said it might take two years to complete the transfer from x86 to ARM but it might be an optimistic scenario. However, if it does arrive onto the laptop/Mac market with a 8-16 core CPU and optimized software, it might look to make all of their software packages subscription based. In other words, it won't be just FCP but everything else too. And, much like with Apple+ streamer, they'll be giving it away free of charge as a free first year promo but, once you're in, make it very difficult for anyone to jump back to x86, Fuchsia or M-ARM.

Now, at some point, someone will release a compiler package but, as with the present M-soft-to-ARM, it won't match the performance of a one store shop. And then tons of people will be stuck with $100-$300 annual fees, albeit for the full Apple lineup. And if one multiplies a billion iPhone/iPad/Mac times $100, he'll get the idea what Apple is angling for.

[Donald Gregory]

I switched from FCP7 to Premiere and recently have mostly moved to Resolve. I know FCPX has improved greatly from where it started, but I'm too happy with Resolve to consider switching. Actually my biggest concern with Resolve is that it's too cheap and I'm afraid they'll stop improving it. I think Apple turning to a subscription model is reasonable as long as they provide value. Premiere Pro has really gotten buggy and I'd totally cancel my subscription if I found some reasonable alternatives to AE and Photoshop.

[paulears]

Buggy? My Premiere is rock solid - never have problems with it on two computers?

[Donald Gregory]

Buggy? My Premiere is rock solid - never have problems with it on two computers?

Are you on a Mac or PC?

Editing any 4k footage?

We've moved away from it about a year or so ago. It seems like the larger a project got the more the timeline would lock up and not play back or crash when exporting.

[puredrifting]

Are you on a Mac or PC?

Editing any 4k footage?

We've moved away from it about a year or so ago. It seems like the larger a project got the more the timeline would lock up and not play back or crash when exporting.

My experience has been very close to yours. But I use Premiere on Mac, have never and probably won't ever use it on PC, it will be my Resolve Studio license on my new high end PC.
I am vexed by wanting to use my old 5.1 version of Photoshop, it won't run anymore and I don't want to pay Adobe any money to use the new Photoshop. So I need to figure out a
viable substitute for it soon. My 2017 iMac on High Sierra still runs the old version of PS but this new 2020 iMac I am using more these days won't because it has stupid Catalina on it.

At least on Mac, Premiere has been VERY crash prone the past three years, not only with me but with a dozen editor friends, most of who are FT Pro editors, not dabblers like me.
That's why most of them have dumped Premiere and moved on to FCP X and Resolve. Premiere is clunky and painful compared to either IMHO.

[Imamacuser]

Premiere Pro has really gotten buggy and I'd totally cancel my subscription if I found some reasonable alternatives to AE and Photoshop.

Is Fusion not a replacement for AE, granted there will be a learning curve? Have you tried Affinity Photo as a PS alternative?