Daniel Frome
1
COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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I love Premiere Pro, but when confronted with the same issue as yourself I switched to Avid. Why? Because knowing Avid is what’s going to keep me employed. That being said, I use Premiere quite a lot at home and hope that I’ll use it on a TV show one day. Here is a shortlist of small gripes:
– lack of exporting multi-channel audio. Ppro will always mixdown everything to stereo, even though a quicktime movie can easily hold multiple mono or stereo tracks. There is no workaround. You can’t export a quicktime movie with multiple audio tracks embedded, period. FCP7 and Avid can both do this.
– lack of a native HD codec. I don’t like relying on Avid (DNxHD) or Apple (ProRes) codecs for rendering and mastering my material if I’m not using their editing software. So much of todays programming is ‘rendered’ from a computer (logos, lower-thirds, misc graphics, etc). I also do a lot of TV cartoons, and having a codec like ProRes or DNxHD is essential for that.
– Media Manager (ie. ‘project manager’) cannot transcode your project into another codec like FCP7 and Avid can do.
– The “Project Manager” in general tends to be flaky, not as stable as FCP7
– Ripple edits can’t be done via keyboards as well as in Avid (or FCP7, although it’s definitely not as good as Avid in this area either).
– In general, it lacks fine keyboard control of ripple edit, trim, fit-to-fill, functions.
– The title program, while pretty good in general, requires mouse input. I want to able to create automated titles via keyboard with quickkeys like FCP7 or Avid, but Ppro’s title program makes this impossible in its current state
– Cannot show 29.97DF timecode on a 23.98 non-drop timeline. In fact, it does not do proper timecode versions at all. Avid does this and it’s very useful.
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I wonder if the crossgrade $ increase is there to set the stage for Media Composer 6, which will probably be more attractive to FCP users due to the fact that it will be 64bit.
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The quadro card will give you a bit more performance, but probably nothing strikingly better than the GTX285. The GTX285 is nearly impossible to find nowadays though.
I don’t know if it still exists, but there was a pretty big volume of ‘mac modded’ GTX285 videocards being sold on ebay. They were essentially Windows versions of the GTX275 or similar modded with the mac 285 firmware to allow the mac/Premiere Pro to utilize it. For what it’s worth I’ve got one of those modded videocards in one of my machines and it hasn’t given any trouble – and lets me use CUDA stuff with Premiere and it cost about $220. That’s strictly speaking of my own experience though.
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The hardware argument seems to come up every few years. While it’s true that a comparable system can be self-built for much cheaper, the fact remains that a custom system rarely represents the same build-quality, performance, and engineering of a real workstation.
Build a real Xeon workstation with top-of-the-line motherboard and chasis, ECC RAM, etc, and you will start racking up $$ that is comparable to any ‘workstation’ class machine of multiple brands (apple included). I think the real point of saying “I built a system myself for cheaper” is the fact that Intel puts high margins on their Xeon processor line, and the same goes for ECC RAM vs non-ECC RAM. It’s not simply related to Apple or HP or any other company that builds workstations.
Want to compare to do a proper comparison? Try a real HP workstation against a mac pro. The Canadian HP store sells a 6-core 2.53ghz, 6GB RAM Z800 workstation for $3773. An 8-core 2.4ghz mac pro with 6GB RAM sells for $3599. If you look at further specs I’d say the raw hardware on the HP station is a little more bang for your buck due to the Quadro videocard, but the mac pro is easily a better engineered, quieter, and more stable machine.
Anyways — the point is not to start a price war on mac pro machines, just to generally point out that the mac pro hardware line isn’t all that overpriced for what you get.
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I think FCPX would still be an “alright” tool for newbies trying to learn video editing. If they wanted a little more control they could go the Premiere route, and ultimately if they want to work in the high-end broadcast sector there will always be Avid.
We just hired a new editor at my studio, almost fresh out of school and he tells us that Premiere is the new cool kid on the block. They seem to think that CS6 is gunning to be an “avid killer” and Final Cut, while currently still important, is not really a part of the future.
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Frequent lurker here. I don’t wish to get entangled in a long forum battle and that’s why I mostly remain quiet, but since you are speaking apparently on behalf of regular users (which includes me) I’ll share my opinion on the matter.
– Yep, a lot of people bash FCPX in this forum. However, no, I don’t think they should be told to head for the nearest exit. Even through some personal attacks the resulting information is valuable. I value it, at least.
– The ‘controversy’ definitely doesn’t drop the forum visits. On the contrary — it keeps people like me coming back to check in.
– In general I see you’re tired of people ‘venting’ their negative thoughts on FCPX. Down the at the office (ie. the studio I work at) all the FCPX hate died off about a month ago. We basically moved on with our lives and so I somewhat see your point. Funny side note: Only one of our editors (who hadn’t participated in the water cooler talk) came into my office last week and, I paraphrase, “Holy crap… so apple is actually killing off their pro lineup.. I mean, this isn’t even a pro software anymore, no wonder you guys are doing those avid tutorials at lunch.” 😉
Anyway — I think we’re gong to have to tolerate each other for a while to come. I may not use FCPX, but that doesn’t mean I stop visiting and maybe commenting here or there. I still consider “Final Cut” a part of my job and have a certain attachment to the brand – as do all the other ‘FCPX haters’ I am sure. That’s the reason they keep chiming in. Love-Hate relationship, etc. As for the people who just want to get on with FCPX and learn it… unfortunately you’re like the kid in a bad divorce, and it’ll stay that way for at least a few months to come.
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Yes, Avid uses the GPU for lots of effects and filters. Your current videocard will be a weakpoint.
I use a GTX285 896MB and most of my effects are real-time.
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5.5.2 is not certified to run on the latest SL (10.6.8). I believe that version is only 10.6.6 certified.
5.5.2.1 was recently certified to run 10.6.7.
10.6.8 changed many things in the openGL code which caused compatibility issues for aja, adobe, and avid (among others).
I’m not promising anything, but 10.6.8 is likely your issue. I’ve read in the Avid forums that a 5.5.3 update needs to happen in order to officially support 10.6.8 and Lion.
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haha, zing.
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Yikes…comparing a struggle for political freedom with a bad software release. I’ll have the historical record show that I’ll abstain from further comment.