FCP user looking at PremierPro CS5

E

Exact

Veteran
I'm evaluating PP CS5 for several reasons. The first one is that I'd like to avoid the transcoding time required for DSLR footage in FCP, though I know I'll still spend some time logging and organising the footage in PP prior to start of editing because it saves time later.

However, there are somethings that are kinda bugging me and I can't figure out. Maybe some PP experts know how to do this stuff?

• Anyway to take two mono tracks (which were really L+R) and turn them in to a stereo pair? I want to send them to Soundbooth as a pair, and not separately.

• Anyway to change the color of the audio (or video) in the sequence timeline? I like that the video is blue and the audio is green in FCP. It helps me view the sequence more easily...

• Anyway to re-join clips (called Join Through Edit in FCP) that were cut by mistake, but are still on the sequence timeline next to each other? While undo works, if you are two or three hours later you can't undo ;) Any way to tell that the clips are actually adjacent frames of the same clip? FCP shows this, PP doesn't seem to.

• Any way to add a cross fade between clips without having to dive in to the effects panel? FCP you just right click on the edit point and select Cross Dissolve.

• Anyway to take footage and drop it on a sequence timeline at the clip's time code position automatically? FCP you can use Create Multiclip Sequence and it drops all the clips from mulitple cameras on their own track and at the position of the clip's timecode. This makes it easy to see all the footage from a multi camera event placed at the correct time in a single sequence.

• Anyway to tell PP to take a sequence offline, or to bring the footage for a sequence online (reconnect media) without having to select those clips in the browser? Handy for only bringing online the clips actually used in a sequence.

• On a test project I had, the A1 selector seemed to become locked to audio track 5. Any idea how that happened and how I can unlock it?

Oh, there are more, but these are some of the basic ones.
 
Exact said:
• Any way to add a cross fade between clips without having to dive in to the effects panel? FCP you just right click on the edit point and select Cross Dissolve.
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I'm actually new to PP5 as well, I'm normally a Vegas Pro user. The above bugged me as well, but one way to speed that up is to make a 'favorites' bin in the effects panel and drag all your most used effects in there. I keep all the other folders closed and leave that one open, that way if I need a cross dissolve it's right there and I just drag it over to the time line. It's not as slick as a right click, but at least it saves you from hunting through all the nested effects folders.
 
• Anyway to take two mono tracks (which were really L+R) and turn them in to a stereo pair? I want to send them to Soundbooth as a pair, and not separately.
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There is a way to break out a stereo clip to mono. I don't know of any way to join two monos into stereo.


• Anyway to change the color of the audio (or video) in the sequence timeline? I like that the video is blue and the audio is green in FCP. It helps me view the sequence more easily...
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You might find this in Edit>Preferences>Label Colors. (Though it is possible that will only change the colors in the bin and not the sequence.)


• Anyway to re-join clips (called Join Through Edit in FCP) that were cut by mistake
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No. Your only option is to delete the second half and stretch the first out to cover it's place.


Any way to tell that the clips are actually adjacent frames of the same clip?
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No.


• Any way to add a cross fade between clips without having to dive in to the effects panel?
Click to expand...
Place the CTI at the cut and hit CTRL+D for a video fade and CTRL+SFIFT+D for an audio crossfade. Make sure the tracks you want effects on are targeted in the track header.


• Anyway to take footage and drop it on a sequence timeline at the clip's time code position automatically?
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No. Clip timecode and sequence timecode are unrelated.


• Anyway to tell PP to take a sequence offline, or to bring the footage for a sequence online (reconnect media) without having to select those clips in the browser?
Click to expand...
Not sure I fully understand this. Sequences can't go "offline", only media.


• On a test project I had, the A1 selector seemed to become locked to audio track 5. Any idea how that happened and how I can unlock it?
Click to expand...
Not sure I fully understand this either.


I would strongly recommend going through the Help file from beginning to end, in sequence, trying each new thing as you learn it. This is the best way to get a handle on the operation of new software.
 
Jim Simon said:
Not sure I fully understand this. Sequences can't go "offline", only media.
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Sorry for the confusion there. What I was referring to was all the media in a sequence being offline.

So, if all the media in a sequence is offline, is there a way to select the 'sequence' and tell PP to reconnect all the media in the sequence without having to find all the clips individually? In FCP I can right click the sequence and select 'Reconnect Media' and it will find all the media for the sequence rather than me having to select the clips in the browser and doing it that way.

We often have multiple editors working on the same project and bring the various sequences together as we get nearer completion. If I import a sequence that another editor used I may need to reconnect that sequence's media on my computer, or take the media offline (if they were using a proxy version) and reconnect to the HQ media instead. This is easy in FCP, not sure how easy it is in PP.

In terms of the help files etc, I don't mind reading (in fact it's useful!), but I can't seem to find a printable manual that I can browse through offline..... does one exist or is it all online 'help files' ?
 
I thank Jim for taking the time to answer each of your questions..I was in the middle of doing it but got lazy and said "screw it".

I'm still not sure if I follow the "sequence offline" thing. If you have media in a bin, you can mark the bin offline. You can't actually mark the sequence offline; only the media and/or bin. This makes sense.

As far as reconnecting media, when you launch your project, if any media is offline, you'll get a prompt to locate it. PP will then attempt to locate all media.



If you're serious about trying PP over FCP you're much better off just downloading the trial and trying it for yourself instead of asking basic questions which could be answered within an hour of testing out the trial.


Good luck. Premiere Pro is currently the best NLE on the market, especially when you consider Dynamic Link and the other products such as Encore, AE, and Photoshop. Of course people who use other programs will cry and disagree, trying in vain to defend their NLE of choice.
 
Phil1076 said:
If you're serious about trying PP over FCP you're much better off just downloading the trial and trying it for yourself instead of asking basic questions which could be answered within an hour of testing out the trial.
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Thanks for the reply.... but it's actually the trial version that's causing all the questions.... ;)

Finding things that are 'there' is the easy part. Finding things that you think should be there (based on things you already do in other apps), but don't appear to be, is much harder. You don't know if it's done a different way, or Adobe has a different terms for it and you are searching for the wrong thing.

Sometimes it's easier to learn knowing nothing than it is to have to unlearn things first.

Premiere Pro is currently the best NLE on the market, especially when you consider Dynamic Link and the other products such as Encore, AE, and Photoshop. Of course people who use other programs will cry and disagree, trying in vain to defend their NLE of choice.
Click to expand...

Of course FCP has dynamic link with all it's suite of programs too.... ;) Not everyone needs Photoshop, Encore or AE, many things can be done in Motion and DVD Studio Pro, Color or Sountrack Pro. Being the 'best' NLE is not an absolute science. There are lots of things in PP that are most certainly 'not' the 'best' way of doing things. The question is how much the good outweighs the bad, and that's what I have 30 days to find out :)
 
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Media that has gone offline can only be relinked from the bin. However, it may be possible to alter your work flow to avoid such a necessity.

It is unfortunate that Adobe stopped publishing it's manual. You'll have to print out the PDF.
 
Thanks for the link to the whitepaper. I am wondering if Premiere Pro handles native files from the new Canon XF camera?
 
There is a memory bug using the new 50 Mbps MXF files from Canon cameras. There have been a couple of posts about this over in the Adobe forums.

The stuff works, but you may experience some issues.
 
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