[Dennis Radeke]

Squeeze will always offer more control and probably that extra 5% of quality. Then again, it’ll cost you some extra $$$ to get it and more knowledge to really be able to harness it’s power.

AME has improved version over version and they use solid codecs like Main Concept. Because it is a separate application now and integrated with CS4, it will render your jobs in the background, allowing you to keep working. It offers the most important features like bit rates, frame rates, progressive, cropping and of course CBR/VBR and 2 pass VBR.

My recommendation would be to do some homework on encoding (I like Aharon’s DVD from CreativeCow) and give AME a try. If it doesn’t present the quality you’re looking for, Squeeze is a good product.

[Dennis Radeke]

Hey David,

We’ve had this discussion before and I figured I’d look into it to see what’s what. The link you provided does seem to indicate that the Windows users would have to install this in order to play back prores material. However, if you search “Windows prores decoder” Apple.com, you will get two links – one in Apple’s download section and one in Apples support section. You linked to the support one. The other one is here:

https://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/application_updates/appleproresquicktimedecoder10forwindows.html

You’ll notice on this link, that the following is added at the bottom: “Apple ProRes QuickTime Decoder is also included in QuickTime 7.5.5 and later”

So, I fired up FCP, took an MXF file, logged it in the log and transfer window, popped it on my USB thumb drive and moved it over to my Vista 64 machine. When I first opened the clip via QT on the PC, it said I needed another component, but when I tried to install via the link you provided, it said a newer version was already installed.

When I imported it into Premiere Pro (PC), it played just fine. Of course the file will playback on Premiere Pro Mac just as well.

So, I’m not sure where that exactly leaves us, but at least for the point of this thread, it is easy to share media between FCP and Premiere Pro. I’ll look into why the file didn’t playback in Quicktime on PC and try to figure out what I did wrong.

[Dennis Radeke]

Anthony,

Premiere Pro CS4 supports Final Cut Pro import – something many FCP editors do not know. You can export from FCP as XML. From there, Premiere Pro can import it and you can relink the media. Adobe has also showed Final Cut Pro export from Premiere Pro but this is not publicly available yet.

As for sharing the media, my understanding is that ProRes is built into Quicktime (on Mac or PC). There are articles and tutorials that you can find on how to set up Premiere Pro to edit ProRes. I think Apple’s HDV is propietary on the Mac and not a part of Quicktime, so you might want to check that out. If you can capture the media as something else, then you should have little difficulty… Good luck.

[Dennis Radeke]

You can try the following:

1 – render the portion of the timeline prior to outputting via the Adobe Media Encoder. Make sure your stretched audio is playing correctly. Alternately, take it to soundbooth (via right click) and then render it back into Premiere Pro.
2 – Check the movie inspector in Quicktime. Sometimes all you have to do is change a flag and it will fix the problem.

[Dennis Radeke]

You have a lot of choices. You can test small portions of the timeline for multiple presets which is always a good thing to do. If nothing seems to be working, you can export as uncompressed AVI/MOV and then convert that to your final output. Finally, make sure your version of Adobe is the most current. My version of Adobe Media Encoder is 4.1.0.107

[Dennis Radeke]

This is a loaded question to be sure and you’ll get biases of both on their respective forums.

A more appropriate comparison would be Premiere Pro vs Final Cut Pro or Production Premium vs Final Cut Studio

That being said, here would be my net conclusions. 1 – You can try 30 day trials of both probably and you should give them both a fair evaluation. 2 – You should use what works best for you. 3 – If you’re doing any pro work, chances are you’ll be using Adobe products anyway, so you could end up with Premiere Pro if you use Final Cut Pro/Express anyway. If budgets are tight, the advantage is for Premiere because you’ll probably use Photoshop and After Effects anyway.

In short, do some homework on both and good luck!

[Dennis Radeke]

Thanks for making this point clear – Premiere Pro cannot record or ingest ProRes. However, it can edit it without difficulty.

As for Windows needing the free decoder, I’m not as sure about that one. I put CS4 on a new Vista 64 machine and MacDrive 7 and then proceeded to open up Mac Premiere Pro projects and import ProRes without the need of adding the decoder. I would say that users should double check, but the point is that you CAN edit ProRes on a PC if you so choose.

[Dennis Radeke]

Premiere Pro can edit ProRes on the PC or Mac platform because ProRes Codecs are a part of the Quicktime player. Premiere Pro can edit Quicktime on either Mac or PC.

[Dennis Radeke]

I’ve used MacDrive for some time now and it works like a charm. Furthermore, I don’t usually worry about converting .mov to .avi because Premiere Pro on the PC doesn’t present any problems with editing in Quicktime.

At NAB this year, Adobe showed not only the Final Cut importer into Premiere Pro, but a Final Cut Pro exporter. So, connecting FCP and Premiere Pro workflows should become easier as time goes on.

[Dennis Radeke]

Walter is an excellent person on this forum and incredibly knowledgeable. His experience with Encore is documented. That being said, if you already have Production Premium CS4, I would give Encore a try before completely dismissing it.