[Ben Mullins]

I have also recently moved to Premiere from FCP (a move I now wish I’d made a year ago). I don’t know how much broadcast or film work will ever be done on PP, but the corporate & commercials sector is where I make most of my money and I can see Premiere taking a large share of Final Cut’s business in this market.

[Ben Mullins]

Hi Lillian,

Wondershare Video Converter Pro is an excellent piece of software that will convert flv files into pretty much anything you want (although the codec choices are a little limited). I use it on a Mac but it is available for the PC too. Download a demo and see what you think. It’s very easy to use and only cost’s about $50 or so. The link is below.

https://www.wondershare.com/pro/dvd-converter.html

Hope this helps.

[Ben Mullins]

Thanks Jon, I’ve just switched to Premiere so getting the basics together at the moment. Very happy with it so far though, might even prefer it to FCP.

[Ben Mullins]

Hi Herb,

I think you’re right, it is important to see where and how X is being used and to what avail, but as a freelancer really my main consideration is ‘are post houses using it?’ If so, then so will I, if not what’s the point?

Has anyone walked in to a post facility and seen X in use, or been asked if they can use it on a job? (in any field – broadcast, film, corporate).

Ben.

[Ben Mullins]

Mark Dobson
For me to move to another editing system such as Premier Pro would involve a large investment in time and being a bear with a small brain I would get pretty confused if I was to start using different packages to do different jobs.

I agree with not wanting to use different packages for different jobs (although having a broad knowledge of software is always advantageous) but as FCPX is a new NLE anyway, isn’t learning Premiere Pro or Media Composer just exactly the same amount of effort as learning X? Given this, why choose X over MC or Premiere and why do you think Apple would put us in a position where we have to make this choice?

[Ben Mullins]

Steve Cohen
What about Remote Desktop?
Remotely logging into the MAC at the University and controlling that from your home computer.

Thanks for the suggestion Steve, I had not thought of that. I will give it a go and see what happens!

[Ben Mullins]

John Fishback
There is file transfer software that greatly speeds up internet transfers. We regularly download 6GB files from clients on the west coast who use Aspera. With an Aspera client, we can download that file in as quickly as 30 minutes using a 30mbps cable modem at our end.

Thanks for that John, I will definitely check that out, that’s exactly the sort of thing I was hoping for.

[Ben Mullins]

I’ve worked from home a couple of times now and I don’t find it too bad. Once I’m sat in front of the computer I could be anywhere and I get lost in the editing just as easily as in an office. I don’t have any kids or pets though so once my girlfriend has gone to work I have only the internet to distract me!

[Ben Mullins]

Yes that’s what I thought, I had not planned on transferring footage over the internet, but thought I’d ask and see if anyone had any similar experiences. Thank you for the input.

Ben.

[Ben Mullins]

Some very good points. I think the volume graph adjusting in real time is a nice addition, and I think compounding the audio into single clips will help to solve the messiness of the timeline once many audio clips are added.

Mostly I agree with you on the ‘less gear’ point. As a freelancer I’ve never owned, for example, a digibeta deck and have never had the need. I was either brought in to a facility that did, or would simply take a Quicktime to one that did when a broadcast format was required. Equipment like that costs far too much for me to justify the expense. But the ability for my software to be compatible with high end hardware is important, even something as simple as broadcast monitoring. I know promises have been made by Apple, and I would be amazed if the monitoring situation isn’t sorted out by early next year, but what I’m thinking is – why put trust in Apple and hope that issues will be addressed when Adobe & Avid can already do these things right now?

Up until this whole X debate began I hadn’t used Premiere Pro in about 5 years. I read that big things had been done with it and thought I’d have a look. I dropped some 720p footage onto the timeline, added some colour correction and was able to play it back in real time without needing to render. I was very impressed by that. Obviously it needs to be rendered before or during export but that feature in itself is almost enough to switch (providing the basics are right as well). It kind of annoyed me that Apple touted X as having background rendering when it really doesn’t. It renders automatically, but requires user inactivity which essentially is the same as just hitting alt+R in FCP7.

Ben.