Tips for FCP switchers

[Bill Kelly]

I just opened Premiere Pro about an hour ago for the first time. I’m a long time Final Cut user who (luckily it seems now) didn’t dive right in and buy X. Being the faithful FCP user, I regarded PPro like a redheaded stepchild.

First thing I did after I opened PPro was to arrange my layout identical to my usual FCP layout. That was pretty simple to do. I started to feel a little more comfortable.

Next I imported a few clips and put them in the source monitor, set some ins and outs, and went to overlay them in the timeline. One issue popped up here. In the file I imported that I was going to use in the timeline, the audio had been recorded as two separate mono tracks. One was a lavalier and the other a boom mic. Try as I might, I couldn’t unlink them in the timeline and delete the boom channel and just leave the lav channel. If you run into this issue, there is a setting in the Preferences>Audio section. Change “Source Channel Mapping” to “Mono” and then when you import any new clips they will all come in with mono audio tracks. Problem solved.

Another thing with audio in the timeline. I wanted to make my audio tracks larger so I could see the waveforms better. Took a while to figure out this one. Click the triangle to the left of the audio track designation (Audio 1, Audio 2, etc.) of the track that you want to expand. Now you’ll be able to see the waveform, but it’s itsy bitsy teeny weeny. Go to the line that separates that track from the one below it and you’ll see your cursor change to a line with arrows above and below it. Click and drag and make that track as big as you want it. This works for video tracks as well. Ingenious! Where has this been in FCP?

Oh…oooooh guess what! You can actually NAME YOUR AUDIO TRACKS! Right click on the audio designation in the timeline and go ahead and name ’em like you’ve been wanting to for years! This is something I always wished FCP had! Channels 1 & 2 now read “VO”, 3 thru 6 read “SOT”, 7 to 12 read “SFX”, 13 to 18 read “Music”, and so on and so on!

Now let me get to the show stopper for anyone switching over. In the keyboard customization area (Edit>Keyboard Customization), click the “Set” dropdown menu and see what’s there! FCP 7.0 shortcuts! With the click of the mouse all the keyboard settings are the same as the default FCP 7 shortcuts. If you need to change any (I did a few that I had custom mapped in FCP), just click on the field to the right of the shortcut so it highlights, hit the key you want to customize it to, and that’s it.

Boom! It’s like you’re working in “classic” Final Cut again, BUT IN A 64 BIT APP!! Premiere Pro is how Final Cut X should have been. My main reason for wanting to buy X was to have it operate on a 64 bit OS as a 64 bit app and take advantage of being able to use more than 4GB of RAM.

Though I don’t have an HD capture card here on my Mac at home, I see there is support for it, and you can output to tape! How ’bout that! And Premiere Pro actually reads timecode! Imagine that!

Don’t be afraid to choose your HD timeline as DVCPRO HD either. I was a little skeptical because I brought in HDV footage into the project and put it in the timeline and was wondering how long I would have to wait for it to render. Answer: none. Next I brought in ProRes footage and dropped it in the timeline. Render time: none. They both play back realtime in the timeline. Sure they’ll have to be rendered eventually at the end, but realtime playback with 2 formats with different pixel aspect ratios in a timeline set to another format is pretty darn good. Oh and when that rendering time does come around, I’ve got 9 of my 12 gigs of RAM assigned to PPro.

Also, if you’re an After Effects user, the interface and workflow seem pretty familiar.

I’m really happy I finally got to know the redheaded stepchild, he’s actually a pretty nice, smart kid.

[Alex Udell]

Bill,

I use both routinely and have never felt mechanically they are that far apart. Really appreciated your positive review and help here! Seems there are a lot of benefits to the switch in that you won’t necessarily have to learn a whole new way of working, but do get the benefits of 64 bit and Mercury under the hood.

Alex

[Bill Kelly]

Thanks Alex. What you are saying is exactly what I discovered. I’m going to be starting on a new editing project next week that is being shot over the weekend and I’m going to do it in Premiere Pro and kick the tires a little bit. Thanks for your feedback!

[Bill Kelly]

Oh another thing I’m looking forward to is integration with After Effects. I never got around to buying Automatic Duck to work between FCP and After Effects (though I used it a few times on some freelance jobs). I’ll have to do some experimenting with it, but I think it can only be a good thing.

[Peter Blumenstock]

Hi guys, I had my first look today, too, and this looks indeed like a very likely alternative.
However, is there a way for me to create a prores timeline. I always ended up with a red bar and a single three-way-color corrector on the clips it didn’t give me realtime anymore (no Mercury card in this machine).

Thanks for the help.

[Todd Kopriva]

Here are some resources that might help.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
Technical Support for professional video software
After Effects Help & Support
Premiere Pro Help & Support
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[Peter Blumenstock]

Tnx!

[Steve Connor]

Thanks Todd, I think you’re going to busy over the next few months 🙂

Steve Connor
Adrenalin Television

Have you tried “Search Posts”? Enlightenment may be there.

[David Cherniack]

Just about any preset at your pixel res, aspect ratio, and frame rate will do. But if you add CUDA enabled effects you need a CUDA card to get real time….unless you have a Matrox MXO2 attached that gives real time with its effects using free CPU cores.

[Peter Blumenstock] “is there a way for me to create a prores timeline. I always ended up with a red bar and a single three-way-color corrector on the clips it didn’t give me realtime anymore (no Mercury card in this machine).”

David
AllinOneFilms.com

[Peter Blumenstock]

Ok, but let’s say all I want to do it bring in 60 minutes of video, do one or two cuts and then output the whole thing to tape.
It looks as if I have to render the whole thing before I can edit to tape or unless I am in a prores timeline and I cannot find any way to make one with a Kona or Blackmagic card to be used for output. It seems I also cannot capture via Premiere using Prores which baffles me because I can using the tools from AJA or BMD.