Switching from FCP 7 to Adobe Premier for 10 edit stations

[Morten]

We are only a 3 suite facility, but switched directly from FCP7 to PP CC last fall. It has been an easy transition.

First of all, setup your keyboard shortcuts in Premiere to match FCP7 layout, and you will feel at home very quick. Premiere lets you work with bins and sequences in the same way as FCP, and you can work with shared storage in the same way. Premiere will give you performance benefits if your hardware is fast.
Other benefits are great integration with Audition and After Effects – and soon also great integration with Speedgrade.

There are a few non-benefits: You cannot open multiple projects in separate tabs, but can import bins and sequences from within other projects. Also even though the Media Manager gives you an option to save a trimmed project, it does not work with all codecs, and cannot transcode to another codec in this process.

– No Parking Production –

Adobe CC, 3 x MacPro, 3 x MbP, Ethernet File Server w. Areca ThunderRaid 8…. and FCPX on trial

[Barry Cohen]

Morten,
Thanks for the response. That prompts an additional question.

You wrote:
“Also even though the Media Manager gives you an option to save a trimmed project, it does not work with all codecs, and cannot transcode to another codec in this process.”

We work in XDCam 422 and ProRes 422 8bit originated materials and intend to mix the media in our timeline to save time in transcoding before hand (like we do in FCP 7). Our hope is to 1. save storage space by not occupying two zones for an original file and one for the transcoded file before starting the project, and 2. work directly in mixed formats in the timeline to play out and view as well as send the project to Adobe’s transcode program (we use Compressor with Final Cut) to create an H.264 for client review.

Will I have trouble with this and then again when I want to Archive the project by Media Managing the clips used in the timeline?

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

[Kevin Monahan]

Hi Barry,
Sorry, but consolidation of Long GOP media is currently not done. That would be a feature request: https://adobe.ly/feature_request.

Thanks,
Kevin

Kevin Monahan
Online/Social Customer Success Lead DVA
Adobe After Effects
Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe Systems, Inc.
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[Barry Cohen]

I guess that pretty much rules out moving a project once edited from one media station to another that is off the SAN and located in another building?

We presently media mange a project and put it on hard drive to move to another building for finishing. The show is color corrected and sweetened on another workstation, any suggestions to accomplish this?

[Shane Ross]

[Barry Cohen] “The show is color corrected and sweetened on another workstation, any suggestions to accomplish this?”

Utilizing what software?

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

[Ericbowen]

Cant you just select copy files to new location without trimming to move projects with that media. I know it works with AVC media.

Eric-ADK
Tech Manager
support@adkvideoediting.com

[Michael Hendrix]

Barry,

We moved about a year ago from FCP7 to PP CS6. We are still waiting to upgrade to CC (which should be soon) but our CS6 experience has been okay, not great. We have 7 edit stations and 3 main suites with Omneon (now Harmonic) shared storage.

I edit on CC at home which is miles ahead of CS6. I think CC will fix any problems we have with CS6. With that said, your workflow should work fine, just keep your media, graphics, audio and projects in the same folder. When you are ready, copy the project from your shared storage to an external drive. Plug and play. I do this all the time with CC on a iMac at home and a Macbook Pro that does have CC at work.

The only thing you may have to wait on is CC to generate the peak files.

[Barry Cohen]

Pro Tools is used for Audio Mixing, we export OMF and Reference video w/ TC Burn Window from FCP 7 and marry the stems back when completed.

Final Cut Timeline effects used for color correction and plug in’s. We do not go out to Color, or Resolve at present and have enough capability in FCP 7 with its own features. Using Adobe for more enhanced color in the Adobe Creative Suite will be looked at.

We need to be able to export a Sequence and it’s associated media and move it over to a remote location at the conclusion of locking the cut on systems connected to the SAN in only one location.

We have no issues at present using FCP 7 and are investigating if we can accomplish this work flow and share projects in this way by necessity.

[Barry Cohen]

It makes sense that if everything is copied to a folder and moved to another editing station, that the sequence would relink based on clip names and timecode like other systems. I would have to test this before committing to a system change.

I believe that does force the offline editor on the SAN to copy the media to an additional project folder on some system attached drive so that whatever he uses is transported to the other system of course. One of the things we were trying to do is eliminate having two sets of media ( one original-non edit codec and the other transcoded to ProRes 422) sitting on the SAN taking up space. I suppose we could design a workflow that copies the necessary media to a local G-Raid drive and either copy it from there or transport the G-Raid with each episode. We presently media manage the necessary material to a portable 2TB Western Digital Passbook type drive and copy it to a local G-Raid on the online station before returning the portable Passbook for erasure and reloading new shows on it again for transport.

What do you think?

[Shane Ross]

The reason I ask about what you will be finishing with, because that determines how you export/manage the video. So let’s not talk about what you did with FCP…because you did all your coloring within FCP using built in tools or third party plugins. If you move to PPro, what will you plan on finishing those projects with? Not Resolve…so out to After Effects? Magic Bullet Looks? Speedgrade?

Can’t determine a workflow unless you figure out what you want to use.

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