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CS6 is released – so what now?
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[Jeremy Garchow] “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.
“Actually, I appreciate both this and what you wrote above. I get where you are coming from because these kinds of differences would be reflected in my workflow, and this lets me start thinking about them.
Hey, have you gotten a crash where the video stops functioning in a frozen frame but nothing else seems to be altered or frozen? And then, if you push it, you end up with what seem to be blown-up bit-maped tools, sliders or buttons from the program in place of the video in the record and/or source monitor?
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[Oliver Peters] “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.
“Not sure I understand the analogy Oliver.
While iMovie files can feed X, I can’t imagine the business case for a producer, editor, or even executive to work with iMovie as a “pre-comp” utility when X’s price is so negligible and it’s much easier for someone to just use the primary tool rather than the consumer targeted one.
What’s the point?
Isn’t Prelude mostly a reflection of Adobe’s current orientation where product “suites” are packaged together in relatively complex groupings of distinct products and the owner is expected to own and operate a “bundle” of separate software tools that interact nicely, but are NOT marketed to be the single solution as a standalone?
It’s as if Adobe always expects that the producer needs their one tool, the assistant needs their one tool, the artist needs their one tool, etc, etc, etc.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this approach, btw. There were lots and lots of people delighted to maintain FCP chops, Photoshop chops, ProTools Pro, Filemaker Pro chops and After Effects chops (or similar) Adobe appears to have simply modernized this model of specialty separate “sub-packages for everyone.”
Apple clearly feels that a single, unified program that allows editing, titling, audio sweetening, metadata management and basic motion graphics in a single unified construct to be a smarter approach.
There will surely be plenty of users who will value each vision over the other.
As to the Prelude metadata thing, I’m pretty much totally ignorant of how PPro works so I’ll totally accept your opinion of it’s strong metadata capabilities.
But as fascinated as I am with metadata in X being more useful and prominent in X than in Legacy, that’s actually not the thing that most interests me about X as an editing platform.
It’s more the “gestalt” of the whole approach. It’s “right sizing” (my opinion) the editing engine into something that does enough to make it easy to create compelling content inside stripped down code that can be easier to use in the field.
It’s also what I see as X’s “balanced” approach between editing and metadata management. And it’s rethinking the real-world input and export functions that are most needed by most editors today – even if that meant removing some robust capabilities that a large group of users historically depended upon. (DVD Authoring as a clear example)
Apple kinda did with it’s video editing software precisely what it’s built all of its other successes on – stripped away a lot of the less needed complexity and concentrated on making core functions that wrap a lot of power and capability in a simple, elegant user interface.
With the core re-built and operating well – we’re starting to see the FCP-X team re-building higher level functions – but in new and interesting ways. And they’re managing to do that without much software bloat. For instance, the new multi-cam construct did not seem to swell the program size very much at all, and in my experience, it hasn’t slowed anything else down. In fact the core editing engine is working faster than ever for me even tho there’s all that new multi-cam code inside.
Just Saturday, I produced a 12-camera four song music video shoot with a 5 piece jazz combo. I was already skimming the content, applying keywords, viewing scenes, and organizing assets within 10 minutes of wrap with nothing but a pair of MacBook Pros on set. Thanks to X, 48 hours later, the whole show is already in my event browser and I’m tagging my little heart out.
All I can really compare it to is my decade of editing in Legacy – and sorry, but I absolutely know I’d still be in red-line render hell if I was trying to accomplish this project the Classic FCP way.
Perhaps Premier would be as quick and stable as X is for me right now. And if so, that’s nothing but great for Premier editors. But I’m not one of those. I’m a FCP-X editor and happy to be one. It’s still both exciting and fun for me to sit here and operate it. Something I’d lost in Legacy after so many years. But I’m weird that way I guess.
I haven’t got a clue as to whether in the long run this “12 camera” edit will turn out to be a smooth process or clog up and grind to a halt with so much content to work with. Stay Tuned.
But so far, so good. New tool, new parameters to test. New approaches to take.
I continue to feel that the work the Premier Pro team has done to refresh their products and the promise of Smoke et al are good signs for editing overall. And I’ve expressed as much here before.
But I’m still fascinated with THIS tool. It’s changed much of my thinking about what editing might become for me in the future.
I understand that this approach will totally FAIL for other editors with different needs. But for me it’s been an extremely positive revelation.
There is certainly a lot of new thinking as a result of the changes announced at NAB. I’m delighted that others are exploring the alternatives. I’m good to go here with X.
Fun time to be a video creator!
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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Great post, Jeremy. Really clear description of the I/O workflow differences.
[Jeremy Garchow] “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 Garchow] “Pr and FCP7 feel more similar, but really they aren’t. “
Where I’m coming from (and what I hear when Oliver talks about not having to relearn how to edit) is more about the user experience design of the Premiere Pro 6 timeline.
It’s true all track-based NLEs share certain common features, but the details of how they operate are actually a pretty big deal in terms of how they feel in use.
Avid MC feels really different than FCP7. Premiere Pro 5.5 felt different then both, though it was sorta like FCP7. But in PP6 the new timeline UI changes really make it feel like Final Cut Pro with some added new features.
I’m talking strictly about the timeline interactions themselves – the way you work the mouse or the keyboard, the kinds of editorial strategies and methods you might approach an edit from. Most of the editorial tools and the flexibility you expect is there and works in exactly the same way. Or sometimes better. Most of the UI differences are minor and trivial to adjust to.
For anyone thinking about changing platforms, this basic editorial interaction design is a very big deal. I think this why you hear folks compare PP6 to the mythical Final Cut Pro 8.
I agree the workflow as a whole has to be factored in and in that regard it’s very different. But actual cutting feels very much the same.
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David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
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[Oliver Peters] “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.”
Of course. We are in total agreement. Pr works quite differently than 7.
[Oliver Peters] “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.”
Precisely. LongGOP in 7 is terrible. A ProRes timeline avoids most of that business, a really easy solution.
[Oliver Peters] “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.”
You could have a really expensive system and do this with Premiere (real time). I would wager that most on this forum wouldn’t spring for it. So most of us will probably fall somewhere on the spectrum of very little real time to some very decent real time.
DavidL, I appreciate your enthusiasm for Red @ 1/16 resolution on an older laptop,mand you know what, I never thanked you for your article either. Thank you.
I have to say though, try 1/16 for a whole project, it gets pretty tiresome. Even 1/2 is tough. It’s awesome for quickly checking shots, but it’s not sustainable through a project, at least for me. I personally need more detail (I also use external monitors most of the time).
Again, this a great read for people opening Pr for the first time: https://blogs.adobe.com/premiereprotraining/2011/02/red-yellow-and-green-render-bars.html
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[David Lawrence] “For anyone thinking about changing platforms, this basic editorial interaction design is a very big deal. I think this why you hear folks compare PP6 to the mythical Final Cut Pro 8.
I agree the workflow as a whole has to be factored in and in that regard it’s very different. But actual cutting feels very much the same.”
David,
If your focus needs to be on something that “cuts similarly” to Legacy, then I truly hope you’ve made a good choice.
Having just been through what turned out to be a more complex than I ever imagined transition to X from Legacy – with so much fundamental stuff to unlearn and re-learn – looking back, the point doesn’t appear to me to be the difficulty of the transition, but whether or not I was going to be happy with where I ended up.
Many here know I am very happy with X, and that many others saw difficulties and things they didn’t like or obstacles that they felt were insurmountable – and decided to take a different route. That’s life. But being forced to leave the place you’re in usually means you’ll end up in a place that’s either better, or worse.
I hope your path leads to something really good for you.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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[Chris Harlan] “Actually, I appreciate both this and what you wrote above. I get where you are coming from because these kinds of differences would be reflected in my workflow, and this lets me start thinking about them. “
We all learn from each other. I am super curious as to what people are going to think of cs6. The best part of all of this is that you know Adobe gives a shit about what happens to Pr. They’ve worked really hard on it.
[Chris Harlan] “Hey, have you gotten a crash where the video stops functioning in a frozen frame but nothing else seems to be altered or frozen? And then, if you push it, you end up with what seem to be blown-up bit-maped tools, sliders or buttons from the program in place of the video in the record and/or source monitor?”
I’ve had a few dings, but nothing like that.
I would suggest searching on how to trash your media cache files. You’ll find some good reads.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “I’ve had a few dings, but nothing like that.
I would suggest searching on how to trash your media cache files. You’ll find some good reads.
“I’m going to that as soon as work slows a bit, and I get my copy of CS6.
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[David Lawrence] “I’m talking strictly about the timeline interactions themselves – the way you work the mouse or the keyboard, the kinds of editorial strategies and methods you might approach an edit from. Most of the editorial tools and the flexibility you expect is there and works in exactly the same way. Or sometimes better. Most of the UI differences are minor and trivial to adjust to.”
That’s certainly what I got with my brief few hours last night. I felt very much at home. Its going to be a fun summer.
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[Oliver Peters] “It certainly should never be an “either-or” scenario. However, there seem to be three models shaping up for many…..
2. The everything-in-one-app. That’s largely the Avid approach, especially with Symphony. Consider that with Symphony, you get BCC8, AvidFX and quite a few audio plug-ins – all of which run inside the NLE interface.
Boris Continnum Complete doesn’t get mentioned often enough in the Symphony crossgrade. By itself, BCC runs $1595, and for all that it offers, a very good deal…but it’s like, “We’ll take $600 off Boris Continuum Complete and throw in Avid Symphony for free.” A really truly astounding deal
Admittedly a bit prejudiced having worked at Boris FX (but not on BCC)…but also at Avid, having also helped put together the suite of tools named Studio the year before Apple STOLE THE NAME…LOL, I don’t agree at all that it’s an everything in one app. In one box, yes, and quite a compelling combination of tools…but not all in one.
To me, that title goes to Smoke. It’s especially interesting to me that, among its many other features, Smoke can import FCPX as well as FCP 7 projects, which offers a way to redeem both a possibly deep heritage in Legacy, as well as much as a year of experimentation. 🙂 And I think that Premiere/After Effects also comes a lot closer. Anybody who uses After Effects really owes it to themselves to dig deep into a Premiere trial, ESPECIALLY if you’ve tried Premiere before and been unimpressed. You’ll be impressed this time.
But here’s the thing. I understand why FCP blowing up in some people’s faces might create a “never put all your eggs in one basket again” outlook, but the fact is that there are huge advantages to an all-in approach. Most clients really don’t care, and spending weeks or months learning something that adds a nice flavor to your work now and again seems less important to me than actually getting the work done.
Avid folks pioneered the “stick with the old version until you really REALLY have to move.” By the time I left Avid in 2006, I still knew people working with NuBus machines on OS 9. I hear that some of those folks are still around. In nearly every case I encountered, it wasn’t a matter of being an old dog not wanting to learn new tricks. Many of those people admired, sometimes outright envied FCP…but there was not an extra penny to be made by switching, so why put themselves through that? It’s about being a dog who doesn’t create unnecessary hassles when something works.
FCP 7 will be usable until a new camera format requires a change…but otherwise, the same people who have been all-in with FCP can follow in their Avid brethren’s footsteps and continue to be all-in with FCP for many years, doing what they’ve been doing up until this point and NOT learning other NLEs for the sake of learning them.
Not that there aren’t good reasons to switch. I think there are, and there are compelling alternatives. I also think that when people look at those alternatives, they will in many cases realize that FCP was NEVER the best choice for them. They’ve been waiting for years for features that have been elsewhere for years. They would have been better off somewhere else all along.
On that level, it’s insane not to take the Symphony deal, and most people should be at least subscribing to (if not buying) CS6 anyway. Dipping a toe into these, and Smoke, to explore is fine, and fun…and potentially revelatory, even career-changing if you find a new home….
…but whether the choice is to stay or go, I think that the “learn everything” approach, to “put everything you can into the toolbox,” actually forces a lot more untenable compromises than the “commit to one and dig deep” approach does.
Me, I AM an old dog, but I felt this way even when I was YOUR age. LOL
See? I’ve learned new tricks….like smilies and LOL….
Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou -
[David Lawrence] “Where I’m coming from (and what I hear when Oliver talks about not having to relearn how to edit) is more about the user experience design of the Premiere Pro 6 timeline.
It’s true all track-based NLEs share certain common features, but the details of how they operate are actually a pretty big deal in terms of how they feel in use.
Avid MC feels really different than FCP7. Premiere Pro 5.5 felt different then both, though it was sorta like FCP7. But in PP6 the new timeline UI changes really make it feel like Final Cut Pro with some added new features.”
I agree. Adobe took the user feedback to heart about the interface. They improved it, simplified it if you will, and also left a ton of control.
While the timeline feels familiar, and it’s not a total re-think, it’s operates a bit differently.
[David Lawrence] “I’m talking strictly about the timeline interactions themselves – the way you work the mouse or the keyboard, the kinds of editorial strategies and methods you might approach an edit from. Most of the editorial tools and the flexibility you expect is there and works in exactly the same way. Or sometimes better. Most of the UI differences are minor and trivial to adjust to.”
Sure. There’s some similarities, there’s also some differences. Minor and trivial is subjective.
For instance, I make lots and lots of versions per day. Export is a big deal to me, it might not be for some.
Remember, you are talking to one of those dork bags that actually doesn’t mind the direction of fcpx. PPro is absolutely more powerful in it’s usability (and familiarity), but in terms of UI, I really don’t mind learning new ones. I don’t mind new approaches to things, and I don’t mind if I have to adjust. It’s part of the process and helps makes decisions, even in my editing.
[David Lawrence] “For anyone thinking about changing platforms, this basic editorial interaction design is a very big deal. I think this why you hear folks compare PP6 to the mythical Final Cut Pro 8.
I agree the workflow as a whole has to be factored in and in that regard it’s very different. But actual cutting feels very much the same.”
Cutting does feel very similar, yes. You’re right. Switch to fcp7 hotkeys, and you’re up and running pretty quickly, i/o f10, blade, etc, but to me that’s just the surface.
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