fcp user-still on the fence-adobe suite yeh/ney?

R

robfilms

Veteran
fcp user-still on the fence-adobe suite yeh/ney?

i am a producer who often does the first and even second level edits in fcp and then brings ithe cut to my "regular' editors to finish these longer form projects.

the short pieces i cut myself in fcp.

i'm a decent editor. i'm a better producer/director/writer/cameraperson because i've done all of those skills over a much longer length of time.

i want/need to continue to grow my edit skills.

i deal w/sd footage-dvx100m .mov files, p2 files, avchd files, and will soon be employing the canon 7d so i believe spews out h264 files.

i work on a mac platform with a 2008 mac pro 8 core 2.8 w/12gig ram.

as to the query:

i have been reading up on the adobe switcher promo and apple's lack of growth in the fcp platform-fcp x might be considered a step back- and wonder if adobe would work for me.

easy learning curve?

do i have to swap graphic cards -xt8800- to a cuda card to fully employ premiere?

what other programs do you love/tolerate/dislike in the full promo production suite?

anyone think the adobe promo will be extended beyond september 30th?

thanks in advance to those who care to share.

be well

rob
smalltalk productions
 
I have tried making the switch and I hate it. Though it still may be the best option in many ways, I'm going to stick with FCP7 for most things.

Some of my work needs quick turnaround of concerts shot on AVCHD, which is why I tried it out. The free demo doesn't include Encore, so I had to buy it to try it. Encore SUCKS. Much more work than DVDSP, with more limited features. The need to jump back and forth between Encore and photoshop for menus is really counterproductive. Chapter markers and DVD markers are separate in Premiere, so if you turn out different versions of things (e.g., DVD and Quicktime files), you have to put in markers at least twice, in different programs. FCP7 will burn a DVD with chapters and a Quicktime file with chapters directly from the timeline, in the background while you work on other projects... to do the same in Premiere suite needs a great deal more time, three or four separate programs running (Premiere, Encore, Media Encoder, Photoshop), and (some redundant) steps that need to be worked in each. Ugh! And on top of that, for long clips, the promise of instant editing of AVCHD off the cards doesn't deliver... there's a period of a few minutes after dropping clips in the timeline during which the files are being analyzed and I get no audio... so itas not too far off from good ol' transcoiding. Not many people seem to be reporting this, so it might be more of an issue for the long clips (over an hour each) I tend to work with...
 
I have been an FCP 7 user for about 3 years but have been using the Adobe suite since CS4 and just recently got Avid Production Suite. Since I have all the major editing suites, I make a judgment call per project which NLE will be more suited for my needs but have used Premiere on 3 major projects. Haven't had an opportunity to use Encore yet but Lynda provides training on it which in my opinion allows for more creative options than DVD Studio Pro. If I were you, I would keep FCP 7 on your computer and purchase the Adobe Production Suite CS5.5. In the next year, Adobe is going to be a powerhouse with all the recent acquisitions. I run Premiere on my 2008 iMac without the Mercury Playback Engine and it works fine. My project workflow has me using After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator and Media Encoder more than the Final Cut Studio. Maybe one day FCP X may be an editing app that doesn't alienate half the industry or maybe not but I would give Adobe a try. It has potential that I haven't fully tapped into and many editing gurus have provide videos and literature to make the transition smoothly.
 
I've been editing AVCCAM, H264 and P2 footage on my 27" iMac at work for a few months, and it all runs quite smooth. As long as you have the specs (which it appears you do), the footage will work fine. Graphics card doesn't matter for decoding, it only matters for a few of the video effects and things like scaling. Most of the Mercury Engine features just use 64bit CPU optimizations to speed things up, so even without an Nvidia card you'll see great performance.
 
okay.

all good thoughts and a start to the conversation.

other than encore, what are the negatives?

thanks in advance.

be well

rob
smalltalk productions
 
In my market (D.C), I'd say a good 75% of the editors and post places I know are switching to CS5.5, and for good reason.

I love the dynamic link workflow between premiere and AE and being able to editing almost any format natively has definitely spoiled me.
 
Multi-cam is limited to four cams.

There may be some initial disorientation, but FCP and Premiere are fundamentally sister programs and there's a preset to change all the shortcut keys to FCP 7's.

.mov files have to be handled through Quicktime which is still 32bit which creates a performance bottleneck. If the footage is H264, Adobe recommends changing the file name to .mp4 because then Premiere uses its own decoders and bypasses Quicktime. I think they may be working on having Premiere do that automatically for .mov's.
 
robfilms said:
okay.

all good thoughts and a start to the conversation.

other than encore, what are the negatives?

thanks in advance.

be well

rob
smalltalk productions
Click to expand...

I've not used DVD Studio... but I did not find Encore to be that horrible. In addition, one can generate Bluray disks... which unless there's been an update, was not a part of DVD Studio.
Can't say that I've been batting out Bluray disks, but when a Fest has that as an option, I can submit.
 
I wrote a post on my blog about switching - covered some of the fundamental differences I encountered with functionality - what FCP hotkeys to be careful of because they do something else in Premiere... If you're interested click the link in my signature on go to the section called post

edit:
I'm astounded at my laziness and hereby I correct myself - went and retrieved the link for you
jdmax.com/basics-of-switching-from-fcp-to-premiere
 
i appreciate the continued sharing.

there are several good points to be noted.

yet no one has mentioned any negatives (aside from encore)

i've been associated with final cut for 12+ years and folks always had something to say that was less than positive about a particular aspect of fcp.

what bothers you about premier/abode suite?

thanks in advance.

be well

rob
smalltalk productions
 
Performing a razor edit in Premiere while the timeline is playing is non existent. I liked that feature in FCP. No crop tool instead it's a plugin which I hope they add in CS6. Track patching can be tedious at times if you aren't paying attention and it can mess up how you perform an overwrite and insert edit. There isn't a tab to see audio waveforms instead you have to click on the 3 color button in either the source viewer or Canvas window and select Audio waveform. Despite some of Premiere's shortcomings, Adobe CS5.5 has made some great strides in being a viable replacement to FCP 7. You can't beat the dynamic linking it has with other Adobe apps. Also, the title tool in Premiere is by far the best title tool I used in any NLE. Doesn't have a lot of the issues you get with the FCP title tool with aliasing and such
 
I think the silence you are hearing may be answering your questions.

While I don't have what you are looking for, I can give my perspective. Of the 20+ industry professionals I asked *all* of them are switching from FCP to Premiere. Even those that were originally Avid users.

For me, this tops the cake:

http://prolost.com/blog/2011/9/27/what-adobe-should-do-with-iridas-speedgrade.html

I teach editing at a film school. We are making the switch form FCP exclusive to an FCP/Adobe/Avid mix. 3 Edit classes: Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced. Each one will be a different platform. You can imagine which software will be taught at which level. Just some perspective.
 
ullanta said:
I have tried making the switch and I hate it. Though it still may be the best option in many ways, I'm going to stick with FCP7 for most things.

Some of my work needs quick turnaround of concerts shot on AVCHD, which is why I tried it out. The free demo doesn't include Encore, so I had to buy it to try it. Encore SUCKS. Much more work than DVDSP, with more limited features. The need to jump back and forth between Encore and photoshop for menus is really counterproductive. Chapter markers and DVD markers are separate in Premiere, so if you turn out different versions of things (e.g., DVD and Quicktime files), you have to put in markers at least twice, in different programs. FCP7 will burn a DVD with chapters and a Quicktime file with chapters directly from the timeline, in the background while you work on other projects... to do the same in Premiere suite needs a great deal more time, three or four separate programs running (Premiere, Encore, Media Encoder, Photoshop), and (some redundant) steps that need to be worked in each. Ugh! And on top of that, for long clips, the promise of instant editing of AVCHD off the cards doesn't deliver... there's a period of a few minutes after dropping clips in the timeline during which the files are being analyzed and I get no audio... so itas not too far off from good ol' transcoiding. Not many people seem to be reporting this, so it might be more of an issue for the long clips (over an hour each) I tend to work with...
Click to expand...

He's asking about Premiere, not Encore. Encore is fine...the interface is a little difficult to just jump into, but it's pretty powerful and also does Blu-Ray authoring.

As far as editing AVCHD, no one in their right mind would ever edit straight off the SD card -- you're limited to USB 2.0 speeds/the speed of the card, plus it's just a bad idea as that's your original footage right there.

When the files are dragged into Premiere, they are "conformed"....In no way does this conforming process take anywhere near as long as transcoding. All files, regardless of format, are conformed and the process usually takes only a few seconds per clip.

Premiere is the best NLE on the market and the only "limitation" off the top of my head is that it only supports multi-cam from 4 cameras.
 
robfilms said:
apple's lack of growth in the fcp platform-fcp x might be considered a step back
Click to expand...

you might wanna get a 2nd or third opinion on that from FCP third party developers and not disgruntled legacy FCP users, most I'm assuming have not spent enough time with FCPX.

Since FCPX came out, I have used it to earn 8-9 times what I paid for it. Nuff said.
 
There some minor drawbacks - as with any change. Over all APP is very similar and you will not have much probs the first few edits. Go for it!
 
VMT said:
you might wanna get a 2nd or third opinion on that from FCP third party developers and not disgruntled legacy FCP users, most I'm assuming have not spent enough time with FCPX.

Since FCPX came out, I have used it to earn 8-9 times what I paid for it. Nuff said.
Click to expand...

Then you are in the minority of professional colleagues of mine who have found it lacking.
 
lack of a native editing i-frame codec (like prores is to fcp and dnxhd is to avid)
Click to expand...

Funny, that Premiere Pro doesn't need such an Intermediate transcode step is what most people like about Premiere Pro.

I guess some folks want what they're used to, even if it's inferior.
 
Jim Simon said:
Funny, that Premiere Pro doesn't need such an Intermediate transcode step is what most people like about Premiere Pro.

I guess some folks want what they're used to, even if it's inferior.
Click to expand...

even if you have long gop codecs in your timeline it won't store it like that in memory, it will calculate each frame as if it were an iframe and play it to the canvas. so you must ask yourself is disk space cheap? or is processing power and memory cheap? an iframe editing codec need not be an inferior thing. long gop is a delivery codec, not an editing codec. especially if you're 45 minutes+ on a timeline and a few layers deep

edit:
then again maybe I'm just old fashioned and stuck in my ways. If premiere can handle it then sure why not
 
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