-
Premiere to start, FCP to finish…
Hi all,
I have a client who is halfway through an edit in Premiere Pro – she’s run out of edit time and wishes to jump horses mid-race so she can complete much of the edit on her Macbook Pro. She’s looking at getting FCPStudio (not 2, she doesn’t need it and at the mo cross-compatibility with 5.x is more useful to her…also she’s getting a good deal that means an upgrade from 5 to Studio2 works out roughly the same as buying Studio2.)
I’ve never had to import from Premiere Pro – I’m thinking that an EDL should work (at the moment it is a basic doc with no layers, FX or complex audio) for the sequence, but what about bins/master clips etc. Is there any easy way to do this? Automatic Duck is too expensive, BTW.
Also is there any degree of cross compatibility between media? It’s no great hassle to re-digitise, but would be nice if there were…
Thanks in advance for the wisdom of the Herd,
Jason
-
8 Replies
-
It’s going to be a bit of a pain, but you need to lay all the clips of each bin into their own timeline, then export that as an EDL. It is crucial to clear all the ins and outs from all the clips in the browser, otherwise you might not get all of the clips. FCP will import the timeline and then it’ll create a bin with all those clips. Do this for every bin. If you need the timeline that she’s cutting on, then export an EDL and then reconnect to the clips you have already captured. Make sense? IT is best to recapture to FCP as Premiere is AVI based and FCP is Quicktime based. Also, you are jumping from PC to Mac, and it’s always best to work in a format that is native to the OS. Recapturing will save you a ton of time down the line.
Jeremy
-
If I were her, I would install Windows and Premiere Pro on her MacBook Pro…dual boot using Boot Camp…and finish in Premiere Pro on her MacBook Pro.
It’s never a good idea to switch editing platforms, IMHO.
-
[John Pale] “It’s never a good idea to switch editing platforms, IMHO.”
Say what? Now IS the time to do it. She’s not long into her project, she hasn’t done any final mixes, tweaks, anything, she’s better off moving to FCP NOW if she wants to do it. Boot Camp is a Beta program that isn’t exactly ironed out. You are saying that’s better than going to FCP and recapturing the media?
Jeremy
-
I would normally agree that jumping ship is less than ideal, but I don’t think Boot Camp is the way to go. For starters she doesn;t have Premiere – and unless she gets a hooky copy she’s going to waste a tom of cash getting it for one project. Running under Boot Camp is never going to be optimal either. No, now is the time, she’s only got a rough cut done. I just want to save her having to start afresh.
Jeremy, thanks for your input, I hadn’t thought of that way to get the master clips in. Gave me a ‘DOH!’ moment as it’s so simple!!
Any gotchas with EDLs, other that the track limit? I’ll get her to strip out the audio tracks into pairs anyway.
Cheers,
Jason
-
Yeah. She’s comfortable with Premiere Pro and already owns it.
[Jaymags] “She’s looking at getting FCPStudio (not 2, she doesn’t need it and at the mo cross-compatibility with 5.x is more useful to her…”
If she were enthusiastic about switching to FCP, I would say go for it…but it seems she’s pretty content with Premiere…so why switch, if she doesnt have to.
-
[Jaymags] ” For starters she doesn;t have Premiere – and unless she gets a hooky copy she’s going to waste a tom of cash getting it for one project.”
Ah I see. Nevermind.
-
I would tend to agree with John. If she actually has to buy a copy of FCP to continue work and THEN try to move the project over, it just might be a more of a pain.
That being said, she still has to install Boot Camp, Windows, and then Premiere on her MacBook Pro. Might be easier than moving from Premiere to FCP but it would all depend on how comfortable she is with that process. It’s not an easy decision.
To those saying Boot Camp is beta… Yep, it sure is but I have been using it on my MBP since day one and I run Premiere and Vegas. Due to the nature of my work I need to be able to have a PC and a Mac, it is VERY convenient to have both on one machine. I personally think it does just as good a job as the Lenovo t60s (we have 12 of them set up for mobile production work)When you boot to XP with BootCamp your are not using any kind of virtualization, it IS a PC at that point. On top of that, the latest version of Parallels will allow you to run OSX and then open your Boot Camp partition in Parallels. Not good for work in Premiere because of speed in the virtualized environment but a handy tool none-the-less.
-
Personally, I’m tending more toward FCP and the MAC, but with an extensive Premiere background I see one option that no-one has yet mentioned.
Why not invest the $1,200 in a Windows laptop for now (XP if you can, I don’t trust Vista), finish the project on Premiere, then decide whether to stay with Premiere or move to FCP in June when it comes out on the Mac?
Scares me to think of migrating a project mid-edit. Of course, I’ve never done it, but tranitioning from Premiere to FCP has had it’s own share of headaches. For instance, I can’t export any video longer than ten minutes in QT to AVI. Apple says it’s a known issue in QuickTime.
Anyway, my two cents.
ron
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up