PPro 2.0 vs. FCP?

M

malmsteen

Active member
Hi all,
It might not be the best question to ask, but let me know what you guys think.

From what I know, Premiere has been known to be more 'home video editing program' rather than 'professional', I guess there are reasons why professional editors don't use Premiere so often.
I've been a Premiere and FCP user (at school) for about a year now, and noticed that FCP has a lot more features, and qualities of edits are better. Basically it gives me more option to mess around with footages.

Now, for those who have used Premiere Pro 2.0, how much has it got better since the PPro 1.5 version? Would it have any chance of becoming a so called 'industry standard' editing software like FCP or Avid?

I was just about to get a Mac for FCP, but I am hesitating since the release of PPro 2.0. I wanted to try the demo for PPRO 2.0, but it wouldn't run on my computer, I'll have to upgrade it because of SSE2 thingy. I have the money to invest on Mac for FCP, would it still be a better choice?

Your opinion would be appreciated.
 
Hmmmm...I resent Premiere being inferior to FCP. If you use Hollywood editors as the ultimate guideline - they use Avid a lot. Avid has been in the game longer so all the files and workflows are Avid based. People don't like change so they stick with what they know...Avid!
I played around and studied FCP a bit using a friend's Mac and I have to say there isn't much FCP does that Premiere doesn't. You just have to know how to use it correctly, like all software. FCP is a great program for Mac, Premiere is a great program for PC based computers but I can't say one is much better than the other.
Ask yourself the questions:
1) what am I more comfortable editing with?
2) am I trying to get my foot in the door with Hollywood/mainstream studios?
if you answer yes to 2) you'll want to get into Avid. Even FCP is not nearly as widely used as Avid is from what I gather.

I understand this doesn't answer your question about Premiere Pro 2.0 but since I find 1.5 to be a great program that rivals FCP in every way (if you know how to use it) I can't help ya there :)
 
I'm not usually on this forum hanging out mostly in the JVC and HVX forums but we're all here on this board to help others out so I can't help but comment on your post. And my general response is don't let fashion dictate your own parameters.

We are currently shooting 3 shows, all in HD through new JVC HD100s, for network distribution. The move was made wholesale to HD because of network direction and one of the things I had to contend with was editing; our productions are provided in the can ready for broadcast and thus produced to their established standards. The result was I had to outfit my company with not only 5 new JVCs but two new complete HD editing suites as well. Never have I been asked what editing system I was using and to the best of my knowledge, no one watching the shows has ever said, "Hmph. That looks like it was edited in Premiere. Now I'd have cut that in Avid." The point being is that it's the results people are interested in, be those people network execs or television viewer, and not the vehicle use to get those results unless of course you're asked to provide the native to the studio that your distributor will then modify or if you have to go out to post for polish. Avid, seemingly forever, has been the "standard" and thus alot of post houses and studios required Avid becuase they were Avid houses and didn't have FCP or Premiere. Today, however, times have changed and alot of houses also have Premiere and FCP systems sitting right next to their Avids enabling them to take in your native files and massage them to network direction.

Premiere has been a good editing program for SD for a very long time, ever since Pro came out and that's what we've used successfully. Before Pro, I'd agree; it's "home video" monikker was well-deserved but Pro changed all that. Now we've swithched to Premiere Pro 2.0 because of the move to HD and our distributors are fine with it because of the results it gives us and them. Plus, it's tightly integrated with a number of high-horsepower allies like After Effects and Photoshop so the bottom line is choose the one which gives you the best results. Chances are, if you need polish, there's a house around you that can take in your native files and return to you the finish your distributor demands.
 
Thanks for your insights.

Well, I always thought it is more important how you edit it than what you edit with, and I know that it is true.

However, I've noticed in Premiere Pro 1.5 that the color correction is a little weaker than FCP or Avid. I'm not much of an Avid user, but I heard that Avid has excellent color correction tools. Also, when I do the slow-mo and stuff that affects the look of the footages, I noticed FCP does a bit better job than Premiere, less jitterly. In terms of just cuts and dissolves, they look the same.
Let me know if I'm mistaken, because it might be just my eyes that have bias towards Premiere.
 
Here's the questions to answer: are you going to be trying to hire yourself out as a freelance editor to get jobs? If so, no question: go FCP or Avid. Every post house seems to have at least one FCP suite and they all have Avid suites. Vegas is my favorite editing app but I've never found a post house yet that has a Vegas suite; but they all have FCP and Avid.

Second question: are you planning on cutting HVX200 DVCPRO-HD footage? If so, go Mac and don't look back. The Mac slays for DVCPRO-HD editing, and also stomps my PC systems as far as HDV editing goes.

If you're just editing DV, and editing for your own purposes, you can put together a very capable DV system on the PC platform for much less than any Mac. A $500 Dell system could give you a plenty powerful DV editing experience with Vegas or Premiere Pro.

The advantages for FCP are in realtime HDV and DVCPRO-HD editing, and in acceptance in post houses (for getting freelance jobs). If those are your concerns, look at the Mac. If those are irrelevant to you, there's not much reason to spend the premium to get a Mac.
 
"The Mac slays for DVCPRO-HD editing, and also stomps my PC systems as far as HDV editing goes."

I'de argue that point,differing price point and all
 
I will say flat out that there isn't anything FCP can do that Premiere *Pro* can't handle. If you're worried about color correction then feel relieved! Adobe really bumped up the color correction tools in 2.0 putting PPro at the top of the list for color correction. It has many features that until now have only been available in things like Color Finess. I'm not saying this because I'm a fan of Adobe. Personally, they piss me off at times. I'm just stating what I see as the facts.
 
Barry_Green said:
Here's the questions to answer: are you going to be trying to hire yourself out as a freelance editor to get jobs? If so, no question: go FCP or Avid. Every post house seems to have at least one FCP suite and they all have Avid suites. Vegas is my favorite editing app but I've never found a post house yet that has a Vegas suite; but they all have FCP and Avid.

Second question: are you planning on cutting HVX200 DVCPRO-HD footage? If so, go Mac and don't look back. The Mac slays for DVCPRO-HD editing, and also stomps my PC systems as far as HDV editing goes.

If you're just editing DV, and editing for your own purposes, you can put together a very capable DV system on the PC platform for much less than any Mac. A $500 Dell system could give you a plenty powerful DV editing experience with Vegas or Premiere Pro.

The advantages for FCP are in realtime HDV and DVCPRO-HD editing, and in acceptance in post houses (for getting freelance jobs). If those are your concerns, look at the Mac. If those are irrelevant to you, there's not much reason to spend the premium to get a Mac.
Click to expand...

What you are saying totally makes sense, and there are many good editing softwares these days so I don't see a reason to spend a fortune on a Mac.
However, yes, I do want to have an option of getting a job as a professional editor in post production sutdio or commercial editing house, so I guess I should go FCP or Avid. I'm thinking of it as an investment instead of just spending money, and hopefully buying a Mac now and building up FCP skills will pay off later when I try to get a job.
Thanks for your advices!:cool:
 
Hey Barry,

So you have experience in Vegas, Premiere, FCP, and Avid?

In the "overall" which do you think is easier to learn? And which app is most powerful to use?
 
I've used Premiere from 4.2 up to 6.0, never went past that.

Extensive experience in Vegas.

Very limited in Avid, a little more in FCP.

Vegas is by far the best editor of the bunch, IMHO. Leaps and bounds better than anything else I've used.

BUT:
If you're trying to get a job in a post house, Vegas and Premiere won't do you much good; you've got to know Avid or FCP, preferably both.

And if you're wanting to edit HVX footage, nothing can touch FCP right now as far as I'm concerned.

So it depends on what you intend to do and what your workflow is. If you're a heavy After Effects user, you'd probably want to go Premiere Pro. If you're looking to hire yourself out, I'd say FCP, or maybe Avid. If you're editing your own DV projects, run (do not walk) to get Vegas.
 
For someone going Avid, which system specs would you recommend? I'll be working on two weekly tv shows and lots of short films shot on 24p with the DVX100ap.
Also, is there a real-time capture board that you guys recommend? I used to own a very powerful PC with a Matrox Rtx10 board, but Matrox boards fail all the freaking time. I need something more reliable that won't crash as much.

Thanks everybody!
 
If you havn't tried Premiere Pro recently, you should really go back. I can produce better results with The Premiere Pro/After Effects combo than the FCP and motion. I've never used shake and I understand that shake is much better (because it's node based) but it is not newbee friendly!

Adobe offers alot more for their suite then Apple does. They're the same price. and you realy dont need any other software. Unless you are trying to do your own music production (I always leave that up to music professionals), but for everything eles in the production, editing, video, audio, Adobe's tools are near impossible to beat for the price.
 
I'm working with PPro 2.0 at my current job. I learned all versions of Avid in school and FCP as well. I liked being able to go from FCP to ProTools and back (I'm not too fond of Adobe Encore). Either way, if you want a job like you're talking, I suggest knowing a little about each since you'll find everybody you work with likes working with whatever program they've learned on haha. Avid to me is less user interaction friendly, where as FCP and PPro 2.0 are very similiar. It's an opinion though.

triple
 
I have tried to force myself to sit down and edit using Avid and it just isnt happening. I can comfortably edit in FCP and PP2... Avid, very soon, will not be the industry standard in editing houses because of the compatability issues being solved very rapidly among other competitors. Of course, this wont be overnight, but I believe we will be seing FCP suites more and more often in conjunction with Avid suites. I know that at CircleR Media in Fort Worth, TX has just added FCP suites because more people have experience and their work force can grow without limitation (or, rather, nearly as much limitation as Avid gave them).

I'm more of a Premiere man, though i dont think it's premiere's fault that it is struggling to catch up to FCP. The issue is that Adobe is too afraid to start recoding Premiere to work on mac like it once did because of the ever-growing popularity of FCP. If Premiere were available on mac, I would be a maccie in a heartbeat.

And on that note, the new apple/intel relationship may find a solution for my woes soon enough. Premiere could be so much more on a Mac if Adobe had the balls to move in that direction.

What would premiere be doing on a mac?... "More than it ever did on a PC"
 
ChrisLyon said:
I'm more of a Premiere man, though i dont think it's premiere's fault that it is struggling to catch up to FCP. The issue is that Adobe is too afraid to start recoding Premiere to work on mac like it once did because of the ever-growing popularity of FCP. If Premiere were available on mac, I would be a maccie in a heartbeat.

And on that note, the new apple/intel relationship may find a solution for my woes soon enough. Premiere could be so much more on a Mac if Adobe had the balls to move in that direction.
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It seems to me that Adobe explicitly moved away from Mac when they did the re-write for Pro. It's hard to blame them. From a business standpoint, it would be very difficult for them to compete with Apple on their own platform given that FCP is a very capable NLE.

-Dan
 
sure, but adobe had such a grab on the editing market before FCP, im not sure why they didnt keep going. Either way, there are always hardcore Premiere users on macs and people like me who would move to mac if it were made for mac. I think premiere has a market, they just didnt try. It's like subway closing down before the new McDonald's opens next door. It's rediculous because you are bowing out before even taking a stab at it.

I guess from a business standpoint it is reasonable, but it shows no courage or aptitude on the part of adobe.
 
Barry_Green said:
I've used Premiere from 4.2 up to 6.0, never went past that.

Extensive experience in Vegas.

Very limited in Avid, a little more in FCP.

Vegas is by far the best editor of the bunch, IMHO. Leaps and bounds better than anything else I've used.

BUT:
If you're trying to get a job in a post house, Vegas and Premiere won't do you much good; you've got to know Avid or FCP, preferably both.

And if you're wanting to edit HVX footage, nothing can touch FCP right now as far as I'm concerned.

So it depends on what you intend to do and what your workflow is. If you're a heavy After Effects user, you'd probably want to go Premiere Pro. If you're looking to hire yourself out, I'd say FCP, or maybe Avid. If you're editing your own DV projects, run (do not walk) to get Vegas.
Click to expand...

Barry, I used to edit a little bit on premiere 6.0 as well and then switched to premiere pro 1.5. I must say that the difference between the two are like night and day. I hated premiere 6.0 with a passion but now I can't live without my premiere pro.

I also used to edit on FCP as well mainly @ my school's g5 systems and I still like my PP better. of course thats all personal opinion. But if you get the chance I suggest you give premiere pro 1.5 or 2 a chance :) .
 
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