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CS6 is released – so what now?
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Not anti-Premiere comment here but so far I can’t see any huge advantage over FCPX. I mean if an Editor absolutely has to cut using a source/record NLE I’d have no prob letting an Editor choose the NLE they like best.
Fortunately I don’t have a feature to cut right now so I’ll continue to play with CS6 and FCPX and keep an open mind to everything that’s out there especially Smoke ….
Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Irvine, California -
[Lance Bachelder] “but so far I can’t see any huge advantage over FCPX.”
I don’t think it’s a question of advantage, but rather of how the NLE makes you work – especially in the timeline. PPro and X represent two completely different ways of working and some people like one way and others the opposite. The huge “advantage” is not having to relearn everything you know about how to manipulate a specific way of working software to achieve the necessary results.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Bill Davis] “I remain convinced Apple’s approach is designed to better meet the needs those who will pursue editing as a personal craft at every level including creating professional business content”
Bill, Thanks. I would agree with this as well. Apple clearly decided there was no point in simply doing another application with the exact same features and processes as their competitors. We can at least be thankful that it was Apple who did this, as they are the only ones who could afford to take the risk. If anything, it’s certainly livened up the crowd 😉
And frankly they aren’t the only ones rethinking things. For example, the metadata features built into FCP X are basically the same as what Adobe did in Prelude, except that Adobe decided to do it as a separate application. There is an argument to be made that Prelude is to Premiere Pro as iMovie is to FCP X. I don’t mean that as a slam at all. Rather, that iMovie in fact *could* function as an simple producer-reporter-client-assistant tool as the front end to FCP X. Not sure it actually works that way, but a business case could be made for this.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “The huge “advantage” is not having to relearn everything you know about how to manipulate a specific way of working software to achieve the necessary results.”
That’s kind of impossible, no?
They are all different.
Yes, some applications share certain sensibilities, but the day to day operations can vary quite differently.
Adobe’s and fcp7s media paths couldn’t be more different and it greatly effects how you work.
Sure, there are ways to optimize everything, but it still represents totally different philosophies on editing, media management, and what we users need to do to achieve input, edit, and output.
X, of course is the least traditional.
Smoke will also come with lots of relearning of you’ve never touched a node.
Those going from Motion to AE will have some learning to do.
DVDSP and Encore are different, way different.
Everything will require a bit of a reboot.
J
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[Jeremy Garchow] “They are all different.
Yes, some applications share certain sensibilities, but the day to day operations can vary quite differently.
Adobe’s and fcp7s media paths couldn’t be more different and it greatly effects how you work”Hmmm…. Not sure I agree. If you know FCP “legacy” or MC or PPro, it’s pretty seamless (as a user) to go back-and-forth among them. Explain the “Adobe/FCP7 media paths” comment, though. I don’t see that myself, so what do you mean? The FCP 7 scratch folder media structure is basically identical to how Premiere works.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “I don’t think it’s a question of advantage, but rather of how the NLE makes you work – especially in the timeline. “
Agreed. There’s also the question of safety and stability. Seeing the little autosave dialog every few minutes or being able to hit Save or Save As at any time is more than reassuring; I consider it absolute must for any client work.
Also, something about the program just feels more stable to me than FCPX. I can make FCPX grind to a halt just by looking at the wrong way. But the same laptop and same media flys in PP6. I have no idea what’s going on under the hood but it’s very different and feels much more solid.
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David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl -
[Oliver Peters] “Hmmm…. Not sure I agree. If you know FCP “legacy” or MC or PPro, it’s pretty seamless (as a user) to go back-and-forth among them. Explain the “Adobe/FCP7 media paths” comment, though. I don’t see that myself, so what do you mean? The FCP 7 scratch folder media structure is basically identical to how Premiere works.”
I should have been more clear.
I meant media paths in how the media is imported, what happens when it’s imported, what happens during editing , and finally what happens when you export.
With FCP, if you didn’t have certain flavors of .mov, the media is either rewrapped to .mov or transcoded to mov. This can sometimes take time, and in many cases doubles up media (your original, and the working transcode copy).
Once in fcp7, your media usually matches (or closely matches) a timeline codec.
PPro does not have a timeline codec.
During editing in 7, your processed effects are rendered, usually throughout the editing process in pieces.
Premiere essentially encourages you to render only what you need to, and with a beefy CUDA system and depending on what types of footage you have, you really don’t have to render at all.
When your project is complete and fully rendered in 7, 7 allows a very quick export (either by reference or self contained) to the timeline codec. With very sparse exceptions, this simply can’t happen in Pr CS6, today. With Premiere, you have to transcode on export. There’s a way to setup preview files and use those for faster access for premiere, and it’s viable, but if you read the instructions, Adobe recommends NOT using preview files. It doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Those preview files are then reencoded.
So, 7 has transcode time up front, some render time in the middle and quick outputs.
Premiere has near zero import time, NOT a lot of rendering in the middle, and depending on your timeline, you can have significantly long outputs. The nice thing about Premiere is that the beefier machine you have, the faster all of it goes.
Here’s some over generalizations, and a lot of this depends on your footage formats for both apps.
I will say, i-frame MXF editing in Premiere is wicked awesome. Anyway:
Visually, FCP’s time looks like this for the most part: > from beginning to end. More time up front.
Visually, Pr’s time looks like this for the most part: < from beginning to end. More time towards the end.
When you add dynamic link and other factors, Pr can get longer toward the end of the workflow. You can setup uncompressed Preview files (or ProRes if on a Mac, Cineform et al on all machines) and that will decrease export times, but using uncompressed will significantly hamper hard drive space and throughput.
I’m not saying one is better than the other, they are simply different and learning the Pr way to do things represents a difference in how FCP/Pr work, and they do represent differing philosophies.
Then there’s media management. Reconnecting in Pr CAN be much harder depending on your footage, and you can mess it up pretty good if you’re not careful. I realize our particular multi-user onsite/offsite workflow does not match others, so it is our particular problem and ymmv on that issue.
Again, I’m not saying one is better than the other, but they are different and should be recognized as such.
It’s not hard or impossible, I just feel that Pr CS6 shouldn’t be called “FCP8” as it takes away from the Pr philosophy of the media path.
QuickTime handles a lot of things that are open to the user on Premiere. There’s pros and cons to both.
Jeremy
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[Jeremy Garchow] “I should have been more clear. I meant media paths in how the media is imported, what happens when it’s imported, what happens during editing , and finally what happens when you export. “
OK, I see. I’m not sure I see these as huge differences from how a user interacts with the application, but I see your point. I see it as the “same” in that both FCP7 and PPro let you directly access a lot of media from anywhere on your drives without transcoding. That’s quite a bit different than Media Composer for example. There’s a lot less “relearning” involved in going from FCP7 to PProCS6 than from FCP7 to MC.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “OK, I see. I’m not sure I see these as huge differences from how a user interacts with the application, but I see your point. I see it as the “same” in that both FCP7 and PPro let you directly access a lot of media from anywhere on your drives without transcoding. That’s quite a bit different than Media Composer for example. There’s a lot less “relearning” involved in going from FCP7 to PProCS6 than from FCP7 to MC.”
I apologize and accidentally hit the “thumbs down” button instead of reply. I didn’t mean to. I have tried to rethumbs up. If you see a -1, it’s my mistake.
MC has it’s own method, true.
Pr and FCP7 feel more similar, but really they aren’t.
Think if an export takes 30 minutes in Premiere. After export, a client changes their mind. You make the change, it could be another 30 min export.
Or you have to make another version, that’s another 30 minute export.
Again, this is an over generalization, but this process takes seconds/minutes in 7.
In my experience, there is a difference. It’s not better or worse, you just have to adjust to how you probably worked in Premiere.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Again, this is an over generalization, but this process takes seconds/minutes in 7.”
There are no free lunches 😉 You always have to pay the render tax at some point. Up front, in the middle, at the end. Pick your poison.
Remember that some of these PPro issues are because people are buying into the “edit native” hype. So they’ll cut long-GOP H264 or RED files directly, because it’s so easy to start out that way. Then in the end, the time savings catch up to you. The same situation (“conforming”) occurs when cutting native HDV or even Canon XF footage in FCP7.
Some of this has become worse as we are embracing a file-based world. When everything was output to tape and you had real-time hardware, like Avid Nitris DX or Matrox Axio for Premiere Pro, you didn’t have a lengthy export, because the hardware took care of this and it was real-time out to tape. Now you no longer have that advantage, because there’s no such thing as on-the-fly, real-time effects when you are writing a a multi-codec timeline out to a single-codec “flat” file.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com
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