FCP & PPro forum observation

[David Owen]

I can’t attest to one being better than the other… my only first hand experience is in the WinTel/Adobe world. I can say that you should also keep in mind the installation base of WinTel boxes is far greater than Mac boxes, though I’m sure the percentage of Mac boxes used for media production is higher.

Apple Corporation does many things very well. In my opinion, the most advantageous thing it has done is establish a brand that surpasses product… they sell lifestyle. Marketing analysts are quick to point out that despite factual pros and cons about a particular product, buyers are highly likely to be influenced by their desire to belong (among other things). The “Mac club” is deeply entrenched in the production world. Phrases like “Well, you know so-n-so edited his documentary on FCP” and “Macs are what the big boys use” are echoed by many to establish the social boundary. Forum interaction is a perfect fit.

Frankly, I don’t care about that… just give me a box that cuts fast, is stable and lets me be creative. My attention turns to the Cow when I need technical help or when I want to be mentored by some of the incredibly talented individuals here. I guess you could say that I, too, am influenced by a desire to belong. Not to be able to claim owning the same hardware or software as “the big boys”, but to say we all (hopefully) have moved past that and are aspiring to reach for loftier creative goals.

Then again, it could just be that I’m bored at the moment. 8^)

[Paul Dickin]

Hi
I’ve today seen Adobe’s London Videoforum premiere demonstration of Premiere Pro for Intel Mac.
It looks very good, though I wasn’t allowed to see it demonstrated beyond beyong the rather superficial look at Dynamic Link/Bridge with AE and Illustrator 🙁

As a Mac video editor since 1993 I used Premiere from version 3.1.3 to 6.5, and when Adobe failed to debug that for OS X, I migrated to Final Cut Pro.

A whole LOT of AE and Photoshop Mac graphics people are going to use PPro for Mac when it ships with Intel versions of their key applications – and Apple won’t be selling Final Cut to that sort of user any more…

Competition with undoubtedly be really good and stimulating for both sides 🙂

Part of the popularity of web forums for Mac users is that since all Macs are more or less the same hardware-wise, it is much easier to help other people resolve their user problems at a distance.

But in the distant pre-FCP days Premiere forums were very lively and full of postings – it was sort of a pioneering era and we all wanted to help each other… LOL

I would guess that Premiere Pro lost a lot of higher-end users when it was announced as v7/v1, as it was palpably not capable of fulfilling a lot of ‘professional’ editing requirements at that stage of development.

Also a LOT of serious consumer or pro-sumer users in the UK have stuck with Premiere v6/6.5, especially those using Canopus Storm hardware. So they are much less likely to come to a PPro forum for assistance.
Cheers

[Vince Becquiot]

I will summarize it for you. There are indeed more FCP users than there are PP Pro users, at least for a while.

Nobody seems to agree on either ones market share…but, anybody who tells you flat out that one is better than the other usually doesn’t detail his/her answer, and most likely hasn’t pushed the software enough to even understand the limitations of either one, and they BOTH have limitations. I think that they both have some issues, and you are bound to run into them at some point, you just learn how to live with them.

Overall, FCP users probably run into as many issues as PP2 users.

Vince

[Steven L. gotz]

It might be because there are more Pros using FCP than Premiere Pro, but it might be that Adobe provides a decent forum for the beginners and basic users. On the whole, it seems like I see a lot of the folks in both places, but there are also a lot of folks I only see here.

Is there a decent FCP forum run by Apple, or on an Apple supported site?

Steven
https://www.stevengotz.com

[Dave Friend]

[BazinoZ] “Is it because it has 5 times more users?”
Actually, it’s my understanding that Premiere is the one with most users. Don’t think that’s true? Read this COW Post.

[BazinoZ] “Is it because it has 5 times more bugs/problems/features.”
Perhaps because Mac users don’t think they should have to rtfm. To quote my (mac biggot) brother-in-law, “If it’s not intuitive, it’s not mac.” But asking for explanations on a forum is OK cause it’s cool.

[BazinoZ] “Is it because it takes 5 times more to render so they have more idle time on their hands?”
LOL. Probably. Or maybe it’s because their business isn’t all that busy.

[BazinoZ] “Is it because it has far more friendlier folk?”
See previous.

[BazinoZ] “Is it because the don’t rely on Microsoft as an OS and have more idle time on their hands?”
I cannot answer that without turning this into a slagging thread.

Seriously. I have used both extensively and, all things considered, find them about equal. Each has strong and weak points, each has it’s joys and aggravations. As far as Win vs OSX, they seem to me more and more alike as time goes on. Again each with good and bad aspects. I don’t really care what the tool is as long as the work gets done.

[Paul Dickin]

[Steven L. Gotz] “Is there a decent FCP forum run by Apple, or on an Apple supported site?”
Hi
Yes indeed, and a lot of the FCP experts here at the Cow have huge post counts there. 🙂
https://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=123

[Steven L. gotz]

OK. Cool. Then I will have to stick to my theory that because there are more Pros using FCP than Premiere Pro, and Pros like the Cow because of it’s great support and format, more FCP posts than Premiere Pro posts makes sense.

Steven
https://www.stevengotz.com

[Baz Leffler]

[Steven L. Gotz] “there are more Pros using FCP than Premiere Pro”

Seems to be the case and the sad thing is that it doesn’t necessarity have to be that way. I think this has happened because…

1/ Adobe Premiere had a ‘toy’ reputation when it first came out and it was exaserbated by the Avid people worried about losing their client base…

2/ Apple’s marketing machine. I still remember back in the mid 90’s people use to say “you can only do multimedia on a Mac”. Funny thing is many people still do believe that!

What I find fascinating is that I have full uncompressed SD and HD PPro edit suites doing MAJOR television for the international marketplace so the ‘PRO’s can quite easily use both the PC platform AND Premiere Pro; but evolution has created the current scenario.

I have been overwhelmed in recent weeks by many people wanting to use my recently installed uncompressed FCP system to master their projects. I could quite easily do it on any of my PPro systems but these are FCP people who don’t know anything BUT FCP!

If Fiats became the car that Pro editors drive would that mean I would have to go buy one as well as I consider myself a pro? Very interesting indeed….

Baz
(PS. If pro’s use FCP then does that mean con’s use PPRo?)

[Tim Kolb]

[Vincent Becquiot] “I will summarize it for you. There are indeed more FCP users than there are PP Pro users, at least for a while.”

I think it depends on how you slice the market…several years ago as PPro was being developed, there was some information that led to the impression that there were more copies of Premiere sold than any other NLE. This was put forward by one or more of the companies manufacturing video boards at the time as their motivation for serving that market.

This could be technically possible as the number of units of Premiere that were “owned” was probably considerably higher than the number of units “in use.” Of course, this might also count all versions accumulating a number that would actually have many single users accounting for several sales…as Vincent says, most of this information was a bit vague.

As far as how many users there are of each now…I think the market probably changes balance from PPro to FCP as you move from the professional event and corporate market up to the episodic television and film market. Of course you can find as many exceptions and anecdotal anomalies as you like…I use PPro and I find that most of my peers in the HD/Indie Film/regional spot sort of work are using FCP.

I think that Adobe continues to work on their weaknesses and Apple continues to work on theirs. As far as the interface and function of use are concerned, I think they are pretty similar…so much so that even though I’ve only worked on FCP a handful of times, I’m the main source of guidance for the FCP users in the facility where i am…

TimK,
Director,
Kolb Productions,

Creative Cow Host,
Author/Trainer
http://www.focalpress.com
http://www.classondemand.net

[Tim Kolb]

I’d have to echo Dave’s comments (other than the Mac-Biggot brother-in-law).

Mac people do seem to interact more with each other and perhaps that IS a culture thing…the Mac “club” if you will. I had 10 of them until about 2000…and OSX.

The Macs we have around here seem to be fine…no issues. I was using Premiere on a PC when PPro went only PC, so it seemed to be as logical a choice as any. Avid’s tools still are incredibly efficient for cutting…the problem is that graphics and compositing are becoming more a part of mainstream editing and PPro and FCP simply have more power in those areas.

It’s an interesting observation… I’m not sure what to draw from it, but it’s interesting.

TimK,
Director,
Kolb Productions,

Creative Cow Host,
Author/Trainer
http://www.focalpress.com
http://www.classondemand.net