Is ProRes codec better than what Premiere uses?

[Shane Ross]

[Danny Mulen] “Are Premiere codecs just as good?”

There is no such thing as a “Premiere codec.” Unlike Avid that has DNxHD…and Apple that has ProRes…Adobe does not have an internal codec. It relies on Avid’s DnxHD codec or Apple’s ProRes codec for high res output. Or the multitude of other codecs that exist.

Shane
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Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Frank Gothmann]

There are no “Premiere codecs”; Premiere is codec independent. You can output Prores from Premiere, same thing as you would get from FCPX. Or you could choose any other codec that is available on your system. For Youtube or Vimeo… it doesn’t really make that much of a difference since your final result will be heavily compressed anyway.

[Shane Ross]

[Frank Gothmann] “You can output Prores from Premiere, same thing as you would get from FCPX”

Unless you are on a PC. Then you need to use DNxHD or other codec. If going to YouTube…exporting to H.264 is best, and that is a standard codec.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Frank Gothmann]

True, I assumed he was on a Mac anyway since he was enquiring about FCPX.

[Danny Mulen]

Yes I am on a Mac and trying to pick between Premiere and FCPX and because Vimeo seems to offer much higher quality video than YouTube I want my files to be of the highest quality (sorry if I sound ridiculous, I just want to understand).

I am using a Canon EOS 60D DSLR to shoot all my video at 1920x1080x24p and they are saved as .MOVs in my memory card. I am just looking for the best workflow for me and trying to figure out how to get the best quality render.

If Premiere can use ProRes (can someone tell me how btw?), then I will learn Premiere because my entire setup is Adobe. I use Lightroom, Photoshop and want to get into After Effects later too.

[Frank Gothmann]

[Danny Mulen] “If Premiere can use ProRes (can someone tell me how btw?)”

You simply import it as you would with any other .mov and when you export you choose Prores (or .h264 or whatever codec you want) along with your other export settings. There is nothing special there with regards to Prores in Premiere.
I assume you have the Prores codec already on your system. If not and you don’t want to spend any money for an app that brings it along get the free Avid DnxHD codecs. Won’t cost you a thing, also 10bit, same quality as Prores and cross-platform.

[Danny Mulen]

If I have FCPX already installed in my system, and I’m just a basic user who’s going to make short films (4 to 15 minutes max), is there a reason i shouldn’t learn what I have? I keep reading that “FCPX isn’t professional” and it’s much “slower than Premiere” because of how often it needs to render. If I import all my MOVs as ProRes in FCPX wont the render times be cut drastically?

Also, if I stick with FCPX how hard would it be to transition into After Effects for further processing, and more importantly, how much quality would be lost? Quality is my most important concern here.

[Lance Bachelder]

Quality really depends on how your footage was shot – lighting, focus, camera placement etc and then how you handle it throughout post. Either program can give you an excellent end result.

If you already have FCPX I would spend some time learning it and see how you like it – it is a lot of fun to use and has much better tools than PPro for color timing and output.

If you find you don’t like FCPX you can always download a fully functional 30 day trial of PPro and check it out. I think if you learn FCPX properly you’ll end up liking it a lot in the end.

Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Irvine, California

[Paul Jay]

You do need to consider your type of Premiere Sequence settings right?

Editing ProRes in a Premiere HDV sequence will not give you ProRes quality on export.

[T. Payton]

You’re right FCP X rendering on the timeline is slower than FCP 7 (and others). Mainly because it is rendering in very high quality float (not 24 bit or 32 bit but “float”). Render time is also compounded because when rendering the timeline it doesn’t utilize the GPU. However, when exporting FCP X does use the GPU to render and it is about 10x as fast as rendering on the timeline (yes 10 times as fast). Here are some test: https://fcp.co/forum/4-final-cut-pro-x-fcpx/2175-looking-for-a-reason-to-actually-render-in-fcp-x

Most of my clients review proofs on YouTube, and I am frankly shocked at the speed of FCP X. I never render my timeline, no matter the codec, I just export and it is about 1.5x times real time including upload. So for a 5 minute video, from the moment I click “Share to YouTube” until I back to working, 7 minutes. And I’m on a 2006 MacPro.

I haven’t tested Premier Pro, but I hear it is quite fast.

Concerning the “not professional”. That is a big can of worms. However in my book a screwdriver can be a professional tool, not because it has a ton of features, but it is dependable reliable and becomes an effortless extension of the person using it. FCP X “can” do nearly anything (I worked on a students feature length film this fall. It worked but was painful.) But I would not consider FCP X a “professional tool” not because of the lack of features, but because of it not being dependable and has many omissions. The crazy thing is that I can recognize it’s brilliance, and I can see great potential, which is drawing me to it. I did a project a month ago, editing in FCP X on set, did several revisions with posting on YouTube for the client, and FCP X was glorious. Not a single hangup! Unbelievably good! But not all projects go that way. With my current projects I afford a bit of a learning curve and a bit of downtime, so I am quite content learning FCP X and seeing what pans out. However, if I had a very large production and lots of people depending on me, I would be a fool to use anything less than the most dependable NLE I could find.

With that said, I would encourage you to test both Premier Pro and FCP X on a project. Adobe does an excellent job on their products, and Premier Pro is much more of a swiss army knife than FCP X. Both can do the job, but you need to determine if the hope of FCP X is worth hanging around while Apple fixes it.

——
T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque