Lake Films
Veteran
Hey guys, I was curious, being I now have both programs Premiere pro (Cs5) and final cut pro. Which do you prefer to edit your gh1/13 footage with, and in general?
premiere vs fcp
- Thread starter Lake Films
- Start date
Jordan Cadby
Active member
FINALCUT!!!
Premier is a massive fail in my opinion
Premier is a massive fail in my opinion
Rick Burnett
Section Moderator
I am not liking the H.264 compressor that ships with Premiere. In the summer, Panasonic is releasing a codec for FCP that will allow you to edit natively in FCP and from what I hear, view MTS files in QuickTime finally. Since I use After Effects so much, I wanted to give Premiere a chance, but after this last test, I am going back to Final Cut Pro. I don't use Edius/Avid/Vegas so I cannot comment on those. However, all the people I work with use FCP so it just makes it easier for me to use if we have to pass stuff back and forth.
Postmaster
Dark Side of the Camera
If you got enough time on your hands and a lot of money for a overpriced computer, than FCP may be fine for you.
If you need to cut 4k Red material in realtime or anything else than ProRes without transcoding, want seamless
integration with Aftereffects, Soundbooth, Encore and Photoshop without extra rendering, you are in the market for Premiere.
Frank
Jordan Cadby
Active member
DITTO... I use AE all the time, never got that frickin Dynamic link cr*p working, i gave it a chance, and in fairness its the only editing software that sits on my PC, but i definately prefer final cut.
Premier does have a pretty good feature that lets you import your cut into AE with all the edits in place for grading etc. However at last look it didnt seem to copy over transitions so you end up adding them back in.
Postmaster
Dark Side of the Camera
Jordan Cadby
Active member
Never got the integration with the rest of the adobe programmes working in a useful way. FC will allow you to do anything any of the other pieces of software will. They are all basically the same, if generally comes down to making your job faster (/easier) and for me final cut just seems easier to work with.
Lake Films
Veteran
Thanks for the speedy replies! I am on a MAC and have both programs, efficient in FCP, learning CS5. Just curious if CS5 was worth the time. I would think so, this way I know more then 1 system..
Jordan Cadby
Active member
the dynamic link? really. or the other thing?
Blackout
Veteran
Rick makes a very valid point as well. If you 'want to play well with others' and need to hand projects back and forth in the mac world - most everyone on the mac is on final cut. I don't think this necessarily means it's the best though. It may used to have been, and it may be again, but it doesn't feel like it is the best now. at least not to me. Of course you have take my opinions with a grain of salt because I walked into the Apple store with a dinosaur puppet on my arm but wearing an Apple shirt.. and I just shredded into them for lack of avchd and blu-ray support, and don't get me started with itunes or iphone - a a phone that does everything but make calls well and a music player that does everything but play music well.... but it sure can SELL you music.
Postmaster
Dark Side of the Camera
Yes, dynamic link works amazingly well here, do you have the latest updates on Premiere and AfterEffects?
@Blackout: Premiere reads and writes FCP compatible project files if you absolutely have to.
Actually we don´t swap project files around as we work uncompressed most of the time.
But we may have a different workflow here.
Frank
I never gave Final Cut a look because of Apple's propitiatory nature. I must have a platform that conforms to today's business needs. Because that eliminates Apple, I looked at the rest and ended up with Premiere. Premiere by itself is an NLE, but in conjunction with the rest of the suite, it becomes a powerhouse.
Let's bring it back to the original inquiry please.
The OP is on a Mac, and is interested in a comparison of Premiere and FCP on a Mac.
FWIW, Panasonic will offer native support of AVCHD footage later this year for FCP.
A new version of FCP has been confirmed. Until then, with proper hardware, Premiere can edit native footage, and FCP requires a transcode to pro res.
But let's get back to discussing the OP's question.
The OP is on a Mac, and is interested in a comparison of Premiere and FCP on a Mac.
FWIW, Panasonic will offer native support of AVCHD footage later this year for FCP.
A new version of FCP has been confirmed. Until then, with proper hardware, Premiere can edit native footage, and FCP requires a transcode to pro res.
But let's get back to discussing the OP's question.
Lake Films
Veteran
I'll tell ya this, Premiere is different. I am used to FCP. But, I do want to learn AE, especially for filmmaking. I guess each has it's strong points and it's better in the editing world to know as many programs as possible, I would think.
The interfaces are different, but they both do the same thing. There is no better. I recommend learning both if possible, just in case it comes up later. I personally prefer Premiere by a large margin, and I also have never had a problem with dynamic link, which I use pretty regularly. I've actually had none of the problems people complain about on a technical level. Unfortunately, FCP is the 'industry standard', and if you want to get hired you have to be good with that, making it superior if you already have a mac.
As has already been said, they do the same things, they just go about it slightly different ways.
As has already been said, they do the same things, they just go about it slightly different ways.
Premiere Pro CS5 has ushered in a major post-production paradigm shift: instead of transcoding upfront (e.g. to ProRes or CineForm), you can edit and render directly from original source video files. To do so efficiently, you need a workstation rather than a laptop: 3Ghz Quad-core i7, 10+ GB RAM, dual 10K rpm Terabyte hard disks, nVidia video card with 128+ cores. HW and SW combined make this a $2500+ investment.
Final Cut Pro is a well-integrated fit for a 32-bit laptop environment organized around a ProRes/Quicktime workflow. If you're comfortable with Apple's post-production model and familiar with FCP's GUI, you may find Adobe CS5 opaque and intimidating. I'd suggest trying After Effects CS5's Rotobrush to see if it's worth your investment.
Final Cut Pro is a well-integrated fit for a 32-bit laptop environment organized around a ProRes/Quicktime workflow. If you're comfortable with Apple's post-production model and familiar with FCP's GUI, you may find Adobe CS5 opaque and intimidating. I'd suggest trying After Effects CS5's Rotobrush to see if it's worth your investment.
Rick Burnett
Section Moderator
I edit in Premiere Pro on my laptop and it's a 2.93 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo with 8 Gb on a 7200RPM internal drive. I find the performance great, and I edit MTS natively. I think it is very efficient.
j1clark@ucsd.edu
Veteran
I have an older laptop... by AVCHD playability standards... but I still use Premiere, and would not have thought about upgrading to FCP from FC-Express. I think Apple has sort of fallen off of the 'edge' with FCP, and except for 1) installed base in an environment, or 2) a couple of 'grounds' that for me a 'single user' type work flow, don't seem to be apropos. I think Premiere does everything I need, especially since I do use After Effects, Encore (to create Bluray media...), etc.
Perhaps FC Studio will catch up some day...