Walter Biscardi
Forum Replies Created
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We have been evaluating Adobe Premiere Pro and Avid for about 2 months now and have already put PPro into production on both our national PBS series and for CNN news stories. It’s a VERY easy switch to PPro and it works with all current FCP hardware.
I have three videos right now on my Vimeo Tips and Tricks page that show you how easy it is to move a project from FCP to Adobe Premiere Pro along with showing the basic workflow similarities between FCP and PPro.
https://vimeo.com/channels/biscarditipsandtricks
For Avid, we’re in the waiting game to see when they get the AJA Kona boards working with Media Composer and how good that integration is with the product. I expect it to be very good since Avid and AJA have been working together for years, but there could be some rough edges at first.
Just like with Premiere Pro at this very moment, use of the AJA Kona board causes sluggish performance of the software. AJA is actively working to correct that situation and we should hopefully see a fix soon. But I’ll take that sluggishness for the moment knowing that AJA is working on it and that the rest of the Adobe suite is working very well.
The Native editing is just so freakin’ sweet that I can kick myself for not going to the program sooner. But the caveat to that is you can’t just take those native files into very many other programs, like say Resolve. So you do have to plan for your output when you start a native project. But what I have found is that the immediacy of working with the native files right off the bat far outweighs the time spent on the backend to convert the final files. With FCP I have to convert everything just to start editing. With PPro I just have to convert the actual elements from the final timeline.
I’ve used this example in the past but I had 24 hours of MP4’s from GoPro Cameras for a documentary we’re working on. Took the 12 Core Mac Pro 3 days to convert that footage. Today we had 30 minutes of GoPro footage for a project and we started editing with it immediately, no conversion. Been doing that these past two weeks with P2, XDCAM, DSLR and the GoPro cameras and just loving it.
The way the Sequences work in PPro is the part that takes the longest. I bought Richard Harrington’s book for the entire staff, “An Editor’s Guide to Adobe Premiere Pro” and cannot recommend it enough.
Keep in mind both Avid and Adobe offer 30 day free trial downloads of their products so you can try them and see which on you like the best.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media -
[Rainer Wirth] “I don’t get any Aja presets in the preferences of Premiere Pro. i just get the premiere settings. I’ve installed aja software and firmware. Where are the aja sequence setings?”
You have to download the AJA Premiere Pro plug-in package. It’s on the same support page where you download the AJA Drivers.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media -
[Jim Curtis] “I have taken to working in a native Sequence to do all my off-lining and mixing. And then just copy and paste my sequence into an AJA Sequence when it comes time for color-correction or screening on the big calibrated monitor. Fortunately, this is usually pretty fast, unless I’ve set up Submix audio tracks with effects (and I do this often – it’s one of the things I love about Pr.). Those don’t get copied over to the pasted-in sequence.
I can’t imagine doing this in an ad agency or big edit room environment, where the clients want to see a big screen picture all the time.
There’s a reason that Avid charges so much for their hardware. You get full-time big screen performance with fluid timeline scanning on their systems using their codecs. So, I have just learned to lower my expectations with Pr, FCP and AJA, and work around the shortcomings.”
We’re using the following work-around in our shop while we wait for AJA to update the drivers / plug-ins….
Set the Player to Adobe. This means the output to the AJA card is disabled when viewing materials in the Source Monitor. We listen to the audio via the Mac output and view the material in the Source monitor.
Set the Audio Hardware to anything BUT the AJA Kona board. This eliminates the audio drop outs when editing in an AJA sequence.
Set the Mac System Prefs > Sound to anything BUT the AJA Kona board.
Yep, these are pretty lame workarounds for the moment but I’m now editing with clients in the room who are definitely enjoying the native workflow. From what I understand the bulk of the issues are actually in AJA’s court right now as they work through new drivers / new plug-ins for us.
As for Avid, you are aware that Avid hardware is AJA, correct? In fact most all NLE’s use AJA hardware in some fashion or another.
Avid is gearing up to support the AJA Kona boards natively with Media Composer 6 so pretty soon you won’t have to pay a premium to get “Avid native hardware.”
So whether you go PPro or Avid, you’ll be able to use your Kona boards. Right now, for us the solution is PPro since it operates with all of our hardware. Avid will get another look as soon as they support the Kona boards.
But we’re already delivering broadcast HD projects out of PPro. Yep, the AJA Sequences are a bit wonky right now, but it’s not causing any client issues or editor issues to slow us down.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media -
You must us an AJA Sequence Preset to get video output.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media -
Better purchase it today if you want it. Most likely only left over stock from when the product was EOL’d.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media -
Screen itself is the same for both. It’s the electronics behind it that are a bit different for both. Also the Pro model has a modular input design so you can add / change your inputs as you need. Sometimes the Pro model is cheaper because it does not have a tuner. In fact it used to much cheaper but then the consumer models dropped pretty drastically in price.
Keep in mind the floating white point issue with all plasmas make them a great secondary monitor for the client, but not an absolutely perfect monitor for color grading unless you’re able to calibrate it on pretty much a daily basis. Even then, the white will drift during the day.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media -
Nobody I know is running Lion in production. We are not in any hurry to install Lion here. We’re running Snow Leopard on all our Kona systems and even every single computer I own. Even my personal computers still running SL.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media -
[James Whittington] “I have a bunch of footage on Betacam SP tapes. Apparently the footage was originally shot 720P. I want to capture it that way. However, using my Kona and Sony Betacam SP deck (UVW-1800) I can only import it into FCP as SD letterboxed footage.
Is this because the footage is on Betacam SD tapes (does it have to be digi-beta)? Do I need a different deck?”
If it’s on BetaSP, it’s Standard Definition now. You can capture it to 720p via the Kona board, but it’s just going to be an upconversion of the standard def originals. It won’t be 720p HD native footage.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media -
[Michael Harrington] “I’m sure FCP X has it’s place, like most tools I’ll use the best tool for the job.”
That’s the only thing you can do.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media -
Oliver Peters has a very nice blog post on the many features missing from FCP X that sums it all up very nicely, you can easily search for that with the search engine of your choice.
I’m not buying into the history lesson that so many others seem to be falling in line with. If you follow that logic, FCP will be ready for true professional use in 5 years so you’ll be holding on to FCP 7 for quite some time.
In the meantime, many of us are moving forward with other platforms that essentially drop right into our workflow. Out of the 220 attendees at our recent Atlanta Cutters group, 2 to 5 people raised their hands as having purchased FCP X.
As for the TC requirement, that’s still required for digital delivery, you still need to set your timecode properly for the file that’s being delivered to the network. So tape or file, you still need to be able to assign timecode, that’s quite the basic need.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media