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Final Cut Pro vs. Premiere
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[Jeremy Garchow] “. “No one” is going to anymore with ProRes.”
We’re not a ProRes shop as we are not overly impressed with it. We edit in all the native codecs barring HDV. That we transcode to DVCPro HD. Haven’t seen anything that makes me want to jump into another Apple codec right now.
As you say, great marketing though.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR
The new Color Training DVD now available from the Creative Cow! -
[Ben Holmes] “If you need to pick a system, look at what your best talent prefers, and use that. With prices of edit stations on all platforms closing on each other, it’s easier to make a choice on the basis of talent, not cost.
“Well said, Ben. I agree with you.
Also, about the NLE of choice in tv and film, we have to remember that premiere hasn’t been available on the mac in quite sometime so it’s easy to say that FCP has become the defacto standard because besides Avid and Media100, there’s not much else in the affordable realm. If premiere had been available on a mac all this time, it might be a different story. Should be interesting to see this all play out.
[walter biscardi] “We edit in all the native codecs barring HDV. “
My ProRes comment was more pointing out the fact that all the latest new workflow additions to FCP have the user transcoding to ProRes (if you want to of course). You can extract 24p from certain HDV cameras and go straight to ProRes. You can capture HDV via firewire and go to ProRes. DVCPro HD will see it’s way out (with anyone posting material shot with newer tapeless Panasonic cameras) with AVC-Intra stepping in and AVC-Intra gets transferred to ProRes in log and transfer. AVCHD also gets transferred to ProRes. I know you and your shop are DVCPro HD. It’s proven for you and that’s cool. I prefer 10bit workflows and ProResHQ has allowed a 10bit full raster workflow with lots of rt and manageable file sizes. On our last two shoots we have skipped camera codecs all together and have captured straight to ProResHQ. The footage looks fantastic and for the one green screen shoot, the keys have been outstanding. I have been extremely impressed with ProRes, but thats because it suits me and my needs. In my opinion, FCP has needed something like it for a long time. They still need to implement an alpha channel, but baby steps I guess. For me, the ProRes marketing is true. This codec works and performs well for our pipeline.
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[walter biscardi] “We’re not a ProRes shop as we are not overly impressed with it.”
Well…it’s just not very different from DNxHD. I’m a little spoiled on the codec front from spending lots of time with the CineForm Codec, but I would have to say that when I really examined some shots in DNxHD closely, I was shocked that it wasn’t significantly better.
Now CineForm is a special case…their 4:4:4 RGB codec outperforms HDcamSR in very credible testing…but still…
As far as TC handling for Jeremy’s question…I think that over the years I’ve found FCP to be a bit more predictable in offline/online recapture/conform situations, and that’s probably the reason for my feelings there. In PPro I’ve traditionally just brought in the stuff at online and cut it. It all works…I actually prefere working straight online. Keep in mind that this sort of follows the two NLEs bloodlines…
FCP was conceived as an Avid-killer, television, film workflows being key, etc. Premiere, when it came out (very close to the same time as the first Avid offline systems BTW), Premiere was created to edit QT files…data. To this day I think PPro has some of those “lots of different media mixing on the timeline at miscellaneous framesizes” prowess and FCP maintains advantages in television and film workflows. For instance, if I want to edit that project I have at 1024×768, as far as I can tell, I have to call up some television settings and override all the settings and save it…PPro custom settings mode seems to expect this sort of thing and can be set up a bit more quickly IMO. Also, when I drop the DVclip into the timeline, Ppro doesn’t try to change the sequence settings…or instantly blow up the clip to fill the canvas…I’m sure there must be a way to shut this off in FCP, but that is one of the minor annoyances.
6 of one…half-dozen of the other…
TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,Creative Cow Host,
Author/Trainer
http://www.focalpress.com
http://www.classondemand.net -
I’m using an Io HD and capturing directly to ProRes here too… I absolutely love it in fact. 10 bit matters. Graphics look better to my old eyes.
That said, this is a great thread, and I’m proud of all of you guys not turning this into a pissing contest. Maturity turns me on.
Adobe sent me a full top of the line production suite, and I’m playing around with it as I write this. I got excited when I realized I could burn a Blu-Ray disk with it. Wally pointed this out to me a while ago and I got pretty turned on about that.
I seriously doubt it will be long before DVD SP can do this too. I think Apple stayed on the sidelines until the war was over. Well it’s over now…
One of the things we’ve not discussed though is Red. I really think when Scarlett is shipping, the whole freaking industry will be moving in that direction, and it will be imperitive that a decent workflow ensues from all of the NLE’s out there. Cripes there’s already +-1000 Red One’s shipped as I write this and they are STILL in a back order situation. Scarlett will just bonk the whole 10,000 buck camera industry on it’s ears I’ll wager.
I did the web stream that is featured today in the QT HD Gallery on Apple’s site, and have to say 2k Redcode beats HD in a heartbeat. (though I’ve not touched dual link HD at all)
Did this from 4k to 2k via Red Cine, then just edited 2K with a Kona 3. Fab… the color correction workflow simply astounded me… It competes with working in a davinci suite with film to tape… yes, there’s that much range…the RANGE of what you could do with the 4k files blew my mind. It’s like working with RAW photos from a DSLR in Arpeture or Photoshop… way cool… There was some over exposure that I could actually FIX… and Color loves the 2k too. I’m going to update this stream as Mammoth HD gets more stock footage in. Seems they have ALL the stock Red Camera guys signing with them. No wonder, Clark there is very generous with them when the stock is licensed. Best deal for camera guys in the industry.
But I digress – I think I’m saying that it will be very important who supports this format the best becuase it looks as if it’s becoming ubiquitous out there. And I for one am ALL for it. 444 4k files… I want to edit in that format sooooo bad and no one save one company out there we’ve never heard of supports this directly… it’s a PC app and isn’t outta beta nor is it going to be inexpensive. Sorry can’t remember the name of it though.
Jerry
Apple Certified Trainer
Author: “Jerry Hofmann on Final Cut Pro 4” Click here
Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D
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Jerry,
I think it is wise to test the waters. You may or may not like CS3 better than FCS but I know there are many FCS users who have switched to CS3. Could Adobe steal 20-30% of the FCS and Avid market in a year or two? The FCP users that have made the switch to PP CS3 have said it was very easy. PP CS3 and FCP have very simular GUIs. Perhaps you will post a new thread in a week or two to let us know what you think of the CS3 package. A lot will depend on your needs but the info would still be welcomed.
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[arc nevada] “? The FCP users that have made the switch to PP CS3 have said it was very easy. PP CS3 and FCP have very simular GUIs.”
What I was surprised by was the ability to load up FCP keyboard shortcuts. Makes navigating pretty easy.
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[Caleb Armstrong] “So I’m looking for solid research to convince them to not take our macs away.”
LOL
well i guess you are not looking for a balanced opinion, so I will not give you one… as a person who has spent 3 years on premier and less than one on FCP, the pros of fcp for me are:1/ no memory issues, Premier and AE are a glorious idea, but in practice it is a complete pain and causes frequent crashing and very sluggish interaction
2/ because you can put permier on a mac, the transition from one system to another would be less painful if everyone was on macs. On top of that, you can run windows on the Mac to make this transitio even easier.
3/ mac is definitely superior for sharing projects, fcp server promises to be very good indeed.
4/ mar iesier to find freelancers – great if a lot of your people go on holiday at the same time.
5/ fcp has a far deeper toolset, many more niceties, and many more original featurew which pp does not have
6/ depending on the work you do, if you create motion templates to generate certain “looks” these can be shared and used more quickly and easily than AE comps in PP as they offer drag and drop from within fcp… something AE in PP cannot do.
7/ ask the PP users to mark In on the timeline somewhere, then go a minute down the timeline, and mark OUT. Then ask them to cut that section and paste it elsewhere. Erm, cut and paste? Nope, nada cannot do! There are work arounds, but then who wants to work around something so basic?
oi,
nearly 1am, gotta sleep.
Mark. -
[Paolo Ciccone] “ntegration between Premiere and After Effects is becoming more and more inviting”
i think trying it would probably be enough to change your mind. it is terribly slow and VERY often causes memory issues and PP crashing… so its nice on paper, but didnt work for me in practice.
Mark.
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Was this on a Mac or PC?
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Mark, I just installed the PP tryout and put together a sequence in HDV 720p, it imported in After Effects very nicely. I use a rather modest machine, a MacBookPro 17″ with 2GB Ram and so far so good. I’m going to add some more complexity to it but what I saw so far surpasses anything that I tried before to integrate FCP with AE. If Apple is listening, integration with AE is not an option, it’s a deal breaker. See what Maxon has done with Cinema 4D, that’s the way to go, IMHO.
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