Is it time to change….I don’t wanna!

[Els Ledar]

I have the same issues. I felt better when I stepped back and realized that Premiere Pro CS3 is not a “professional” product. Professional meaning editing together High Def footage from a $150,000 camera to be aired on PBS or somewhere. One must accept it for what it is. A basic editor that cuts up footage and displays it in a quality that looks nice on the web. If I were in broadcast, I wouldn’t even consider it, as it lacks the quality and reliability compared to other editors. Not to bash Adobe too much, since Photoshop and After Effects rule. Premiere on the other hand, needs a lot of work.

[Elie Zakaria]

Well you could upgrade to a 64bit OS like Vista 64bit and install 8GB’s or more in your system, this way Premiere get’s to reserve 4GB or ram vs only what’s left on a 4GB system running in a 32 bit environment.

I heard the CS4 Production suite runs great with Vista 64bit, these days staying with a 32bit OS is not enough from a memory perspective.

[Mark Palmos]

Els,

I dont think there is very much difference between the “professionality” of PP vs FCP, they are both capable editors. PP3 was just not stable enough for me, and I was tired of waiting, so I moved… but I dont think you could say PP is not professional since a lot of pros use it for HD broadcast work.

Till later
Mark.

[Uncle Picson]

I’m using CS3 on Win XP (32) and thought a couple of experiences might be useful here:

I had a recurring problem with crashing, especially with Encore. It turned out to be the /3GB switch I had added.

Twice in about a year a problem came up with a PP-exported frame: every time I wanted to save/import/export or even look into the folder containing the file, I had a crash. Using a DOS window to delete the offending file solved it.

Apart from that, it’s been reliable. We have FC Studio also, but I end up using CS3 more because of AE. Looking to go to CS4 on Vista.

[Jason Agar]

I’ve been using premiere for 8 years. I learned to edit on it and have seen it develop over the years since 6.5. Other then being extremely user friendly, between about 6.5 and CS2, Premiere lacked in many ways. Since about CS3 and CS4 the improvements are uncanny. There are many things which Final Cut still makes complicated, leaving the user with far more “switches to flick” then are necessary. Premiere gives you the ease of use and the option of control when needed.

In the digital age, PP is on par professionally with FCP. It’s able to edit virtually all file types (Red and XDCAM included) directly. It runs perfectly stable for me (Dual-Quad Core Mac) often for a week or two straight without shutting down. I have FCP as well and it will sometimes crash with disagreeable or changing files types. I find that FCP also uses more resources for menial task as well.

I will admit that the stability of Encore is less then desirable. This is unfortunate for PS, AE, PP and Flash users because the software is otherwise excellent and well connected. It’s difficult to customize DVD Studio Pro when PS is the standard for design and DVD layout creations.

That’s my two sence. Other then that, in my opinion, Avid and Media 100 are falling behind. “Onlining” is dieing and they’re going to be left in some very expensive dust. User friendly, processor friendly and file type friendly software will be the ultimate winner in the next few years.

Jason

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