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“Why I like Premiere Pro” – looking for serious discussion
What? In this forum? Heavens to Betsy!
Seriously, though…I’ve recently had to start working with PPro for some network promo stuff. CC2014, because the client says CC2015 is too buggy, and so won’t upgrade yet.
As mentioned in another thread, my experience so far with PPro has been decidedly “meh.” Which seems at odds with a number of users here who really seem to like it. So I’m trying to understand the disconnect. What makes PPro so great, for you? Specifically, what features does it have that you find both useful and unique? Especially compared to FCPX or Avid?
Context/perspective/biases:
– Not my first editing bar-b-que.
– Mostly broadcast promo and short form work, although some feature and long-form tossed in.
– Years of experience with Avid and FCP Legacy, and familiar with their respective strengths and weaknesses.
– All in on FCPX since day one. Really like it, while very aware of its shortcomings.
– NOT a fanboi, just an enthusiastic convert, who still works on Avid on a regular basis.
– Not an AE user, as i don’t do much graphics work (that’s done by others and dropped in).
– Not a colorist (also would be done out of house if needed), except for basic broadcast correction.
– A fair amount of audio mixing, although serious sweetening also done out of house.In the interest of maintaining a high signal-to-noise ratio, and minimizing the “vitriol” and “hysteria” that have so irritated Alex 4D and the esteemed Mr. Soyka in a previous thread, I’m really not looking for “because it ISN’T FCPX!” or “it’s what FCP 8 should have been” tropes. I think we all know better than that.
So? Do your best. I look forward to some interesting responses.
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59 Replies
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I would love to start one if only I can get past Premieres inability to select more than one clip in the Link Media window.
Ive posted this question in every possible forum e.g. REDUSER, Adobe, CreativeCow, etc…
Still no answer.
Btw posting this here is…you know…open for “discussion” 😉 -
[Eric Santiago] “if only I can get past Premieres inability to select more than one clip in the Link Media window.”
Normally when you select the first clip to re-link, and then specify it’s location, Ppro will link every other clip in your Que that can be found in that folder or any of it’s sub-folders. I have had projects where for some unknown reason this ability breaks down and you have to manually go clip by clip. I haven’t discovered any way to “refresh” a project that acts this way. This is not a feature, it is a bug. Fortunately for me this is a rare occurence.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Jeff Markgraf] ” What makes PPro so great, for you? Specifically, what features does it have that you find both useful and unique?”
The audio track mixer is lovely. I have different preset Level/EQ/Compression for each type of track – sync, VO, EFX, music under, music only. All I have to do is edit to the appropriate track and my mix is 90% done. My effects generally come from my live sync; to turn a steak sizzle into a background EFX all I do is drop it down two tracks. To restore it to dialogue status, move it up again. I created a master template for this layout and with one click can open it in any project and edit in a “final audio mix” environment.
Send to Audition for Spectral Analysis repair – huge time saver to have this built in for fixing audio pops, background bangs.
Round trip to AE. I’m not a mograph guy, but there are times when AE is just the best tool for the job. For my skill level I prefer Motion actually, but currently there are no NLE’s being sold that have a Send to Motion feature.
The scaling on Ppro is incredibly good compared to what I was used to with FCP7. Adding a judicious amount of the Sharpening Filter allows me to routinely blow up HD images to 125%, whereas with Legacy I would try never to go above 110%.
The built in masking with tracking in the motion tab of each clip is very useful.
The multicam feature seems to be on a par with what I know about the multicam for FCPX. There is a nice Ppro feature, once you learn how to set it up, where you can select all of the clips for a series of multiclips at one time and it will create all of the separate multiclips in one batch operation. Helpful if, like me, you are often creating dozens of multiclips for a single show.
Not a unique feature, but I do appreciate how customizable the UI is. Similar to FCP7 in that way. I would have a hard time being boxed in to someone else’s idea of how I should use my screen real estate – in my case that is 2 x 23″ monitors and an external video monitor.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Jeff Markgraf] “What makes PPro so great, for you? Specifically, what features does it have that you find both useful and unique?”
To hit some high level features I’d say that since CS5 Premiere has taken just about any codec you throw at it with realtime playback (provided you have the hardware). Premiere was working with h.264 files pretty early on into the “DSLR revolution” and that endeared it to many of us shooter/editors. That’s not a defining feature today as nearly all NLE’s can handle h.264 with east today (though I’m not sure how well Media Composer does with those files….?).
The integration between apps is a great benefit as Herb notes – Audition, AE, Photoshop, etc – all can come into Premiere natively (just import the project file and Premiere will parse that and display the content). Building template lower thirds and handing them to my editors as an AE file speeds up the workflow. And because it’s a template the editable text fields appear in Premiere while keeping the animation. So the editor can just swap out the name without ever leaving Premiere or having to fiddle with animation.
As much as one can enjoy kayframing, I think Premiere’s keyframe editor is better than the other apps (though this may be personal preference because I’m used to AE). It can still use some work, for sure, but I don’t mind having to push keyframes around in Premiere (it’s a lot better than FCP Legacy, IMHO).
The customizability (is that a word?) of the interface is nice in our shop. Since not everyone has the same monitor real estate it’s really easy to customize the interface to fit with what that editor wants to see as they work across 1 screen or 2 screens – every panel is movable and resizable.
Specific to CC2015, I’d say that the Lumetri color panel is absolutely spectacular. If you’ve ever used Lightroom then Lumetri is basically that ripped out and slid into Premiere. The masking, tracking, and vignetting all available within Premiere are really nice too.
But users mileage varies, and if you strictly edit (no sound, no color, no mograph) then it would seem like personal preference regarding which NLE you enjoy as they all can “get the job done.” In our shop we have to do a bit of everything so the Adobe suite of apps suits us very well to accomplish that task. And the more tightly they integrate them the better it is for us.
[Jeff Markgraf] ” because the client says CC2015 is too buggy, and so won’t upgrade yet. “
I’m not sure what the fuss is about CC2015. I’ve been running it since June on 5 workstations and turning work out every week. There’s always hiccups within any software, but buggy to the point it’s unusable I haven’t experienced. Or maybe the bugs that are there just don’t cross my workflow….?
Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost -
There are two places I currently use Premiere Pro on a regular basis. One is a small production company and the other is the retail services department of a local affiliate. Both are on CC2015 and things aren’t any buggier than they ever were with FCP “classic”.
The most taxing is the TV affiliate, as this is a multi-room shared storage situation. I am frequently moving projects between rooms and between Macs and PCs. There’s a hodge-podge of mixed camera media in every project, so nothing is optimized. Some of these are multicam and many have a healthy use of AE in the project, for effects, color treatments and graphics. The biggest issues I encounter is the general playback quality of dropped frames and “sticky” performance. But, it’s MUCH better than FCP used to be in this same situation. So I chalk it up to the media and to the network.
There are four things in this workflow that save a significant amount of time over how FCPX would be in this same situation.
1. AE integration. These guys use a lot of AE and if you can’t at least deconstruct someone else’s AE project or dynamic linked comp in order to make versions or updates, you wouldn’t successfully work there. So AE is critical to their workflow in ways that Motion simply wouldn’t be.
2. PPro’s replace function. Several of these accounts use a lot of different 800 phone numbers over the same set of basic spots. 6 spots – 50+ variations. That sort of thing. Being able to replace from bin or viewer as a single contextual click literally saves hours over how you’d have to work in FCPX.
3. Audio mixing. Clip and track-based keyframing with automation. The ability to add track-based effects. The ability to add audio dissolves easily. All of this is significantly faster and more versatile than in FCPX.
4. Adobe Media Encoder. While you can do some of the similar batch encoding functions in Compressor, in the situation of variations, you also have to bang out different delivery formats based on the outside stations these spots are going to. You get a wider range of target formats and it’s easier to create batches with different formats and different target folders within the SAN.
Just a few.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Herb Sevush] “This is not a feature, it is a bug. Fortunately for me this is a rare occurence.”
Currently its been haunting me due to this feature project with RED files.
Now Im finding new bugs where clips are missing audio in the timeline but they exist in the original clip.
I love inheriting projects 😛 -
[Eric Santiago] “I love inheriting projects :P”
I have found over time, and this has happened with many different NLE’s, that some project files get corrupted in ways that can’t be fixed and you’re better off creating a new project file from scratch. When this happens it seems counter intuitive to throw all the previous work away, but in the end you will loose more time trying to patch the ship rather than letting it sink and starting anew.
In any event, we’ve all been there, good luck.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Herb Sevush] “The scaling on Ppro is incredibly good compared to what I was used to with FCP7. Adding a judicious amount of the Sharpening Filter allows me to routinely blow up HD images to 125%, whereas with Legacy I would try never to go above 110%.”
The scaling in FCPX is equally as good, if not slightly better than PPro
[Herb Sevush] “The built in masking with tracking in the motion tab of each clip is very useful.
“Agreed I use this a lot
[Herb Sevush] “Not a unique feature, but I do appreciate how customizable the UI is”
It’s another thing I wish FCPX was better at, I love the fact you can expand the timeline to full screen with a single keystroke
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[Ryan Holmes] “Specific to CC2015, I’d say that the Lumetri color panel is absolutely spectacular. “
I’d agree 100% it’s the thing that’s tempting me away from FCPX more and more
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[Steve Connor] “I’d agree 100% it’s the thing that’s tempting me away from FCPX more and more”
Agreed on Lumetri panel. Now if they could only make the SpeedGrade connection perform better.
Three more speed plusses with PPro for me:
1. Direct send to Audition for improved audio post. Wish that existed between FCPX and LPX.
2. Easy track and timeline resizing, especially with a wheeled mouse.
3. Workspaces. I have numerous task-oriented layouts saved for dual screens. At home and at one facility, I work with a large primary monitor in the center and a smaller secondary display offset to the left. This lets me quickly shift the workspaces around, based on the task at hand.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com
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