Downsides to switching from FCP?

[Derek Andonian]

Hi Cal,

I haven’t used FCP enough to personally give a good description of this, but there was a thread here not too long ago that should be helpful to you:

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/3/915835

______________________________________________
“THAT’S our fail-safe point. Up until here, we still have enough track to stop the locomotive before it plunges into the ravine… But after this windmill it’s the future or bust.”

[Cal Thorley]

Thanks for that, that’s very useful.
Cal

[Daniel Frome]

I love Premiere Pro, but when confronted with the same issue as yourself I switched to Avid. Why? Because knowing Avid is what’s going to keep me employed. That being said, I use Premiere quite a lot at home and hope that I’ll use it on a TV show one day. Here is a shortlist of small gripes:

– lack of exporting multi-channel audio. Ppro will always mixdown everything to stereo, even though a quicktime movie can easily hold multiple mono or stereo tracks. There is no workaround. You can’t export a quicktime movie with multiple audio tracks embedded, period. FCP7 and Avid can both do this.

– lack of a native HD codec. I don’t like relying on Avid (DNxHD) or Apple (ProRes) codecs for rendering and mastering my material if I’m not using their editing software. So much of todays programming is ‘rendered’ from a computer (logos, lower-thirds, misc graphics, etc). I also do a lot of TV cartoons, and having a codec like ProRes or DNxHD is essential for that.

– Media Manager (ie. ‘project manager’) cannot transcode your project into another codec like FCP7 and Avid can do.

– The “Project Manager” in general tends to be flaky, not as stable as FCP7

– Ripple edits can’t be done via keyboards as well as in Avid (or FCP7, although it’s definitely not as good as Avid in this area either).

– In general, it lacks fine keyboard control of ripple edit, trim, fit-to-fill, functions.

– The title program, while pretty good in general, requires mouse input. I want to able to create automated titles via keyboard with quickkeys like FCP7 or Avid, but Ppro’s title program makes this impossible in its current state

– Cannot show 29.97DF timecode on a 23.98 non-drop timeline. In fact, it does not do proper timecode versions at all. Avid does this and it’s very useful.

[Walter Biscardi]

Here’s a series of video reports I did on my transitioning from FCP to Adobe Premiere Pro. Long story short, PPro in my opinion is essentially the FCP 8 we all wanted. There are definitely differences in the operation, but overall, it’s an easy transition from one to the other especially if you enable the FCP 7 keyboard shortcuts.

The first four videos in the list are all about transitioning from FCP to Adobe.

https://vimeo.com/channels/biscarditipsandtricks

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media

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[Vince Becquiot]

I think the only real downside when compared to FCP or AVID will be stability.

Although, it is actually very good, the simple fact that it relies on multiple native formats instead of just one like FCP means that you will have more potential for crashes and corruption. The upside of course, is great compatibility and huge time savings. Again, no real issues that we have seen lately and I expect that, as more broadcast pros get warmed up to Premiere, things will only improve. One important aspect of stability will also depends on which 3rd party hardware you decide to go with.

Adobe has always listened to input from its users (albeit sometimes with long delays) and improvements over the last few years have been phenomenal.

Vince Becquiot

Kaptis Studios
San Francisco – Bay Area

[Gates Bradley]

I’m currently in the process of making the switch to premiere, but am not really sold, and here’s why:

They get the big issues down. It’s amazing. I rarely need to render my timeline, it processes things so fast. The metadata options are amazing for organizing footage. Being able to edit most things natively (I cut a lot of 5D & P2 footage) saves a lot of time.

But the devil is in the details, and here’s where Adobe gets it wrong quite frequently. I’ve spent half my time on this project I’m working on trying to figure out what Final Cut makes intuitive. Now part of this you can chalk up to breaking in a new program, but part of this is just that the act of editing in a timeline was not as thoroughly thought out as in FCP (minus X, of course). I feel like I’m stuck between AVID circa 2002 and FCP.

My list of feature requests currently stands at 14, and it’s all basic, little stuff that makes workflows run more smoothly, but that added together is really slowing me down (and making me grumpy). My biggest gripes are…

1) No equivalent of shift+option drag to duplicate a clip (one has to copy, manipulate track activations, and then paste- see below)
2) There is no GUI for mapping keyboard shortcuts (taking me FOREVER to get it how I like)
3) only support for 4 camera multiclips (kind of odd given all that extra processing power)
4) the way it manages insert/overwrite edits vis-a-vis track activations requires too many unnecessary step
5) no quick fit-to-fill edit command (one has to go through a menu)

The list goes on, but you get the idea. The bright side of things is apparently Adobe really cares about customer feedback.

[Tom Daigon]

Learning curves are a way of life when switching software. That is a given. If you want thing to change file a request…

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

as you said, they are listening.

Tom Daigon
Avid DS / PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
Mac Pro 3,1
8 core
10.6.8
Nvidia Quadro 4000
24 gigs ram
Maxx Digita / Areca 8tb. raid

[Mark Tucker]

I agree and some… I’m in the same boat and £5K worse off to boot. I’m going back to my old Mac FCP. It simply worked and was far more intuative.

Adobe really care about customer feedback because if they are going to survive they need it big time!

I’m almost out of patience!

M.

Bla Bla Bla

[Amir Valinia]

Great tips in the video! I’ve ran across a few of those and drove me crazy.

[Tom Daigon]

Bye Mark. Good luck with FCP.

Tom Daigon
Avid DS / PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
Mac Pro 3,1
8 core
10.6.8
Nvidia Quadro 4000
24 gigs ram
Maxx Digital / Areca 8tb. raid
Kona 3