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Does anyone use PPro as a professional?
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Q: What’s the best NLE?
A: The one you know. -
I have been an “professional” editor for 15 years now. I’ve used FCP, Vegas, Etc. Even though I have been using Premiere (currently CS3) for the last 5 years though my various jobs, I too would say that Premiere in not a “professional” application. It is a very quick editor and it integrates VERY well with other programs, but as for the overall look of the final output, I would say FCP wins hands down. I wish Adobe would place Premiere in the same “professional” category as After Effect and Photoshop, which I feel are amazing “professional” programs. Premiere reminds me of riding a trike, while After Effects and Photoshop are Ferraris. I battle daily with Premiere, but it produces good enough video to put on the web, which is what I do. I would never use Premiere if “professional” quality was demanded.
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PPro also works with a wide variety of formats on the timeline directly (MXF, MPEG, as well as QT), whereas FCP only edits QT, menaing incoming tapelesss media must be converted.
In terms of MXF this behavior in FCP can be improved.
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Product Manager
MXF4mac
https://mxf4mac.com -
[Tim Kolb] “Try to slide sound in finer increments than a frame in FCP…can’t happen…in PPro, you can convert the sound tracks to operate in audio samples instead of video frames, and literally edit out a click or pop with a razor cut and delete in a smaller increment than the ear can even detect.”
Hey Tim – sorry to have to enlighten you and please don’t confuse me for a Mac defender but I need to correct you on the point of ‘sub frame editing. Please see…
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/8/997154
So yes you can do it in FCP – just not like the convenient way Adobe do it. But then ummmm….. FCP have a far superior multiclip editing tool than CS3 but at least both apps support it as do both apps support editing audio right down to the sample rate.
Also regarding long durations in Premiere timelines – that is not the problem; its more to do with the complexity of the timeline and the ‘longer’ a complex timeline gets the more ‘resources’ are sucked out of Bill Gates magic OS – I think you were alluding to that when you said…
[Tim Kolb] “PPro seems to actually run better on a Mac in my experience”
… and in my experience too!
Baz
What would I do without the ‘UNDO’ button!!!!
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[Baz Leffler] ”
Hey Tim – sorry to have to enlighten you and please don’t confuse me for a Mac defender but I need to correct you on the point of ‘sub frame editing. Please see…”Hmmm… I stand corrected to a point…I was not aware of this feature.
I agree it really isn’t the same feature…as it’s a reinterpretation of the audio file, but it accomplishes the goal, ’tis true.
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions, -
I use Premiere to make money from paying customers. Does that make me a professional? I think so.
Is XYZ software professional? Who cares. It’s software.
Can it get your job done?Yes = Great.
No = Use Something Else.“professional” is one of those words that gets thrown around a lot, but what does it mean.
Back in the early 90’s there was a lot of debate about the phrase “broadcast quality.” BetaSP is, but SVHS isn’t…?
But then America’s Funniest Home Videos became the top rated show on the planet. Suddenly black and white video shot with the Fisher Price video camera(look it up) became “broadcast quality” as long as it included someone getting hit in the coconuts with a whiffle ball(invented in CT by the way, along with PEZ).
The fact that Adobe and Apple use the word “Pro” in the names of their products seems to be an unnecessary use of the word. Avid and Discreet did not have to use the word Pro and plenty of people bought their products. My much blogged about ACE 25 ran on DOS 2.0 and was very unstable depending upon prevailing conditions of relative humidity and moon phase, but I dare say it too was a Pro product.
While I spent many hours with my upper body well inside a 1″ machine replacing parts back in the day, I never called Ampex and asked them if it was a professional product.
Ok, got that off my chest. Anything you want to add Bob Zelin?
Mike
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Yes – if by that you mean earn a living using Premier Pro.
I work on both platforms regularly, but I own CS4 and run it on two machines. I can afford the hardware upgrades.
In my experience, FCP crashes too – sometimes as often in a day as CS3 did. CS4 is better, though I have plenty of issues with it I hope they fix.
One extreme advantage of PPro is that you can do some pretty sophisticated audio mixing IN THE TIMELINE. FCP audio mixing capability is really, well, amateurish.
I also like that PPro CS4 works natively with a lot of files. I have a regular need for AVCHD, HDV, DVCProHD (.mxf) and have used XDCAM (.mp4). And I do this without a special video card or raid drives. (SATA-II drives have sufficed even for the XDCAM-ES HQ footage.) I don’t know about the latest version of FCP, but the last I heard, P2 files had top be converted — AND — in order to do that you had buy a third party app. (I’m sure if I got that wrong someone will let me know.)
The title tool in PPro is much better than in FCP (I’ve never understood why the title tool in FCP was so bad.)
Also, Running Vista on a Dell might be your crash problem, not PPro. I’d also be suspect of anything using SCSI.
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[David Dobson] “One extreme advantage of PPro is that you can do some pretty sophisticated audio mixing IN THE TIMELINE. FCP audio mixing capability is really, well, amateurish.”
I have use both programs extensively and although they do audio completely differently the same results can be achieved. But does CS4 allow connection of an audio control surface like FCP does? That is a BIG PLUS for me.
If I was going to stab FCP about anything it would be its incessant need to ripple portions of the timeline without asking first! eg. if you want to change the speed of a particular clip in the time line it will do so and then automatically RIPPLE just that track all the way to the end and put everything out of sync… and if you were not forever vigilant you would not notice until it was too late.
The problem with comparing FCP to CS3/CS4 is that they DO operate in such different ways but aim for the same goal. The saddest thing for Adobe is that the whole Premiere product range has got such a bad reputation amoungst professionals that most colleges (and students) end up FCP trained and subsequently it is much easier finding good FCP freelancers that what it is Premiere freelancers.
I continually get resumes sent to me by people seeking work and it would normally list Avid, FCP, After Effects, Photoshop but never Premiere – why? Its not that hard once you learn the other Adobe interfaces; maybe they feel it is a lesser professional product and don’t want to admit knowing it – just a guess. When I was a purely Adobe post house I would take Avid and FCP editors and train them myself – they complained and complained like a bunch of old women but I would say “shut up and just do it!”. But back in those days you really needed to have some technical background to use the product whereas products like Avid, it it stopped working, call Avid and they would come out and fix it. Isn’t that a little counter-productive let alone expensive?[Mike Cohen] “My much blogged about ACE 25 ran on DOS 2.0 and was very unstable depending upon prevailing conditions of relative humidity and moon phase, but I dare say it too was a Pro product.”
Back in the ’80’s I owned a company that made linear editing system and sold over 150 world wide. It was based on the PC platform but we rewrote everypart of the interface including Microsofts DOS (except for disk read/write) – we even used Borland C rather than Microsoft C and it never crashed, started up within 5 seconds would control 7 machines, a vision desk and an audio desk, had 16 gpi’s and extensive EDL management – did I mention that it never crashed? Maybe that was because it took control of ALL the system resources and was ONLY used for this one function. Thats really what these NLE software engineers should be doing. Rather that making their application a ‘plug in’ for the OS, make it as a ‘dedicated’ NLE ONLY from bootup – it really aint that hard!
[Mike Cohen] “While I spent many hours with my upper body well inside a 1” machine replacing parts back in the day, I never called Ampex and asked them if it was a professional product. “
Well the key word there was ‘Ampex’ – if it was a Sony 1″ you would never have to get inside it unless you wore it out. I still remember the days when the Ampex VPR3’s MDA’s would go outta control and send the scanner into redline and self destruct having to pull head components out of the ceiling tiles – and then I remember the weekly explosion of our old Ampex AVR 1 2″ quad machines where we had to replace the requlator power transistors; it always happened about 2AM so it very inconvenient for my sleep pattern.
Oh look, I have pealed off and hijacked the thread
[Tim Colb] “I agree it really isn’t the same feature…as it’s a reinterpretation of the audio file, but it accomplishes the goal, ’tis true. “
As I said above; The problem with comparing FCP to CS3/CS4 is that they DO operate in such different ways but aim for the same goal; so we agree on that at least.
Baz
What would I do without the ‘UNDO’ button!!!!
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I do think the way you DO things is the WHOLE point – that the final result can be achieved either easily or by jumping though hoops does matter.
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I used to train folks on various NLE’s.
Coming from tape myself, I always spent hours demoing and training on the 3 point and 4 point editing techniques.
Once FCP and PPro came along, more and more often, people would politely ask me, “but can’t I just drag it on to the timeline?”
I would sigh and grimace…and say “yup you can do that.”
Starting to use PPro @ V2, the most frustrating thing for me was the inability to handle split track audio and no source/destination track patching. How on earth could this be called “Pro” when you had to deal with audio in such an arcane way. (Fill Left/right…WTH?)
CS3 has been better in this regard with the ability to define how you handle stereo source.
CS4 looks like it’s about where I’d want this feature to be with true S/D track patching for the more traditional editor, but not giving up on it’s “drag and drop”ness for the new media guys.
On the other hand, The audio mixer and routing system in Premiere is awesome! So I found it ironic that they could get one part so right, and the other part so wrong.
My second knock is the trim window. It feels pretty light weight compared to other apps. And it’s audio performance seems pretty inconsistent. For much of my work, I don’t have to use it, so I don’t.
Finally RAM RAM RAM….I am chomping at the bit to go 64 bit and add more RAM…yes I know about PPro being a set of 32bit CPU tasks, but as long as I have some room to move, that will be great!
The other thing I am looking forward to is creating nests more easily. A question about this for CS4 users….can you direct the nesting to a single destination timeline, or does it have to create a new timeline for each individual nest? That could get a little clunky in the project window.
Alex Udell
Editing, Motion Graphics, and Visual FX
Younversity TV
http://www.youniversity.tv
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