Is Premier the best editing software?

I used Premier for 2 years on a stout pc with a matrox rtx100. It did what I needed it to. I did learn that Premier is touchy and it has to be babied. It has jealousy issues if you try and run other programs at the same time (like AE or photoshop). I see that people are saying that they have never had any problems, but this was not my experience. The one thing I learned from working with Premier is that it is a must to save backup versions of your work every 15 minutes and before rendering.

I have since been able to get a G5 and FCP. The layout and workflow are the same, but I have to say that Mac/FCP blows PC/Premier away when it comes to stability and speed. I can have Shake, photoshop, AE, and more open with FCP rendering. I have yet to see FCP crash or do any of the strange things that Premier did to me.

There are ways to set up windows XP so that Premier will run more smoothly. Again, Premier has to be babied. I say go with Premier until you can get you hands on a mac and FCP. The Mac/FCP setup will save you heartache in the long run. Vegas is great and easy to learn, but does not follow the similar NLE workflow of the FCP, Premier, and Avid.
 
snodart,
I'm one who will say the Premiere Pro has been very stable for me. Not that I haven't encountered bugs but nothing that has blown me out of the water. And I have done some rather large projects with it. One thing that I've noticed in common with folks who say Premier crashes all the time is that they are nearly always using 3rd party hardware accelerators. You are another case in point.

I just run a straight-up PC. No special config or setup. I often have PPro, AE, and PS up and running together without stressing when the next crash will occur. I'm even running them on an Athlon 64! (I just got done reading a thread over on the Adobe forums where a bunch of Intel koolaid drinkers were saying it was absolutely impossible to have any stability running Adobe products on an AMD system and *real* pros only run Intel. Sigh...)

So I can't help but wonder if the people who talk about the stabliity they have with Vegas or FCP would be having the same experience if they were using h/w accelerators. But then they don't have that option. Fortunately, nowadays you can spec a PC or Mac to do quite well without one.

Don't get me wrong. I'll never say Premiere Pro is the best NLE known to man. I'm pretty luke-warm right now in my opinion of Adobe Corp and some of it's policies of late. But then I would have the same concerns about Apple and Sony (big corps). Personally, I'm glad there are so many good choices and happy when someone finds a tool that works well for them. The set of tools I have works well for me right now. I'm glad that FCP is working well for you.

-Dan
 
I run Premiere Pro 1.5 on my desktop unit that has a 3.4Ghz processor, 4Gigs of matching buffered ram, 5 harddrives, Matrox RtX100 card and very rarely have any problems. I also run Photoshop CS2 and occasionally AE 6.5Pro in and again very rarely have problems.
I'm also running PPro 2.0 on my Alienware laptop - 3.2Ghz, 3Gigs of ram, two internal HD's, and rarely run into any issues on it as well.
My desktop unit is strictly tuned for editing - no internet, no games, no nothing but editing related software. I beleive that is the key for a smooth running system. On the otherhand, I use my laptop for everyday use, internet, games, etc... and can't really say one setup crashes or locks up more than the other.
One thing I learned the hard (expensive) way when I built my system was the importance of matching buffered ram. Initially when I built my system I put one gig of buffered ram in it and it ran ok. I then updated the ram and added another gig. The new ram was the same speed and all but it was unbuffered and a different brand. That's when I started having lock ups and crashes. I removed all of the ram and purchased 4 - 1 gig matching buffered sticks and my issues went from everyday to every once in a while. I've edited 60 minute projects with over 15 hours of raw footage across the HD's and rarely had any issues.
Just my
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worth.
 
TeleDan said:
snodart,
I'm one who will say the Premiere Pro has been very stable for me. Not that I haven't encountered bugs but nothing that has blown me out of the water. And I have done some rather large projects with it. One thing that I've noticed in common with folks who say Premier crashes all the time is that they are nearly always using 3rd party hardware accelerators. You are another case in point.
Click to expand...

I'm glad you have had some luck with it. I guess the thing that made me switch to FCP is that there are a percentage of people that have had problems with Premier. I don't recall any like posts about FCP. If Premier works for people, then I say keep on using it! The key about the 3rd part hardware accelerators is not that they cause problems, but that they are necessary for realtime rendering in Premier. This is not the case with FCP. Yes, you can tweak your PC (as I tried) to get Premier to run nice and sweet. With Mac/FCP, you open it and start editing. That's it. No tweaking, no hardware, no nothing. I think PC/Premier is great and also a good option, but if I had to choose only one.....
 
If you think FCP is problemless, go here:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=939

Every software has its problems and little quirks/bugs - when on a big production, they run really expensive software and dedicated hardware (usually AVID) and that expensive setup comes with a dedicated Tech from the company who will get it working if there are problems.
 
soarprod said:
If you think FCP is problemless, go here:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=939
Click to expand...

I read through some of the post in the link you provided. I see mostly human error and questions about performing specific tasks. At any rate, yes all software has issues. My point however was that, in my experience, Premier has more. This debate could go on forever. My goal was to help the original poster of this thread answer the question... is premier the best. My answer is no.

Amen
 
also depends on how good your pc was. I have used both permiere and final cut for a while now and I have had a lot of problems with both. I think at my school's g4's back in the day fcp really pissed me off, it dropped more frames and needed to be restarted so many times to recapture clips(this was a g4 built for editing by the way). I also have had a lot of problems with premiere 6 at my school's pc as well but the problems were more of me getting irritated at the whole scrubbing thing...(you premiere 6 people know what i mean).

After I used a g5 and a newer version of fcp, I almost never had any problems . The same goes for when I upgraded to premiere 1.5 and now 2, I now love my pc and premiere to death and I render everything practically in real time except when i use magic bullet.

I mean people compare PC's and macs all the time but if you buy a Mac, you will be spending so much more than for a PC so I decided to build my own PC for under 2k and I have been very happy with it since.

(I apologize if this is hard to understand or even makes any sense, its getting late and I was just rambling.)
 
I have used all the major systems, FCP and Avid in college, and Premiere, FCP and Avid in my professional career. Personally my favorite has been Premiere Pro (6.5 and earlier are well documented for their issues, I am quite glad they rewrote the whole program). FCP and the new Premiere Pro are very close in design and workflow, I personally am more comfortable on a PC. AVID is AVID, sometimes I feel it's work flow is a bit too linear and keyboard based, it has always felt to me like it is still designed for editors transitioning from the old linear editing days. It has most of non-linear functionality most of us have grown used to, it just requires a different thought process than most other Non-Linear editors. For me personally never really learned how to edit on a non-linear system and find FCP and Premiere to be a bit more intuitive and easier to get started with.

I also must agree with what was said earlier, the key to a stable system is having one correctly configured. I can't tell you what a nightmare I had when I was using the RTX100, Matrox is VERY specific in their hardware requirements, if you are off by a little it has a tendency be quite unstable. It also is a bit resource hungry and did not play well when other apps were open. But when it works it was nice to have, though I wish they had integrated their effects directly into Premiere (like their Axio does) instead of using what looks like a pop-up screen plug-in.

I cannot say how much the new Production Studio has sped up my work flow, the ability to have AE, PS and Premiere open all at once, working together. Using AE comps in a Premiere timeline with dynamic updates and without rendering is a complete godsend to my work flow.
 
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I completely agree with everything you just said.

Jarheck said:
, I personally am more comfortable on a PC. AVID is AVID, sometimes I feel it's work flow is a bit too linear and keyboard based, it has always felt to me like it is still designed for editors transitioning from the old linear editing days. It has most of non-linear functionality most of us have grown used to, it just requires a different thought process than most other Non-Linear editors. For me personally never really learned how to edit on a non-linear system and find FCP and Premiere to be a bit more intuitive and easier to get started with.
Click to expand...

So true. Avid is great for the old-timers, but lacks the timeline-based-editing ease that many of us younger editiors rely on.

(I have both PPRO2.0 and Avid XpressHD on my system, and I'll tell you I do 95% of my work in PPRO.) I also work on Final Cut often, and learned that app in school for years. I find it VERY similar to PPRO, and just as good. It's really a shame that Adobe couldn't take the time to match the fantastic FCP DVCPROHD/MXF support. I'm getting an HVX next month, and am going to have to start doing ALOT more work in Avid. (Sucks).
 
I'll agree that Vegas is good (used it for about a year before Premiere Pro came out), but Premiere fits my workflow better.
 
I've tried vegas recently, and find it still feels like the cheezy "Acid" loop software it's based on. Infact, it's infuriating because it's not setup like other NLE's. Premiere and FCP are in the same ballpark. Vegas is just out to lunch in terms of useability for me. Although I did use it last year on a bunch of DVX 24p stuff when Premiere Pro 1.5 was giving me pulldown removal hell. Vegas is good software, but it's a steep learning curve if you're familiar with other NLE's.
 
what kind of question is this anyway? is PPRO the best editor? .. cmon now...

PPRO is by far and away the best duck soup recipe. I also think its the best backyard hammock, and ice skating arena. sometimes i put my PPRO into my ice cream and pretend its little chocolates.

anyway, i just cant take a question like that seriously. It's like asking if leonardo was the best ninja turtle. :)

that said, i personally use and like using PPRO. even now when shooting HVX and being faced with not having naitive support I'm still sticking to it because i know it and love its tight integration with the adobe professional suite of products. as far as HVX support, raylight or cineform.. as of this current time, im likely buying cineform when the update to supprt the HVX is in. otherwise ive been very happy with it. but is it the best editor? ...well its certainly the best non dairy creamer substitute. thats for sure.
 
ok, so lets move on to the next question. Which editing software has the best real time functions especially for color correction and effects?

For me Premiere pro is #1 for me but I still do not know which is best for real time editing with effects and color correction.

Hope I didn't open up pandora's box with this one.

-Paolo
 
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