[Will Eccleston]

Shawn,

I work on a wide variety of project types – long-form TV shows, network promos, agency spots, and some very slick corporate B to B video, and for some of the television stuff, AVID is more or less fine, especially with facility support behind it. But for the heavily graphics-intensive corporate work that I do, using the AVID feels like having one hand. I find using effects in the AVID to be a very backward and tedious process, and keyframing is an amazing exercise in frustration. (And AVID was the first editor I learned, and ran for YEARS before starting to get into FCP in version 2) Adobe is just, in my opinion, a more modern interface, with much better graphics capability, and MUCH more attention to moving the product forward in a way that makes sense. Every time AVID releases a new feature it sounds great on paper but, to me at least, feels like it was conceived by engineers (NFG). Also being able to copy and paste right from Premiere timeline to an AE comp is pretty huge for me. And then a billion little things about how the timeline operates in Premiere, many of which just made it into the software in the last few weeks. And oh, (and I know the bar has never been high) Premiere has the best titler I’ve EVER seen in an editor, by a HUGE margin. I just used multicam the other day for the first time, and it’s fantastic (granted – I only had a 2-camera shoot, and they were the same codec, but the functionality was great).

I can’t stress enough though that a huge part of it is Adobe’s amazing responsiveness lately, which is in stark contrast to AVID over the years, but, as stated previously, there’s a lot on the line for Adobe right now. We’ll have to see if they continue responding this way going forward.

I’m probably forgetting some stuff here, but hopefully that helps.

EDIT!! Oh yeah!!!! AND THIS ONE IS HUUUUUGE FOR ME!

AVID still crushes every piece of media into whatever format project you’re working in, which is simply paleozoic. Every other editor is resolution-independent. It’s really a killer for me. Add to that the incredible multiformat capability of Premiere. Yes, I know, there are performance advantages to transcoding everything, but it’s truly getting good enough that it’s really not worth it anymore. Just plug in your camera drive and start editing. I have heard that AVID AMA may be getting better, but it was still miserable when I used it a few months ago.

Will Eccleston
Kinetiscape Films

[Will Eccleston]

I have never used X, but so far, no one has said the kinds of things I want to hear to make me think it’s worth investing my very limited time in. That may change. I HAVE spent thousands of hours sitting in front of Media Composer and Final Cut legacy, and honing my workflow to razor-sharp perfection in both. And if you had told me a few years ago that I would be loving Premiere, I would’ve said “You’re an idiot”.

All that to say that Adobe is absolutely killing it with what they are doing with Premiere right now. It is fast becoming the editor I always dreamed of. A fantastic amalgamation of everything I always missed about AVID, everything I loved about Final Cut, and everything that was already cool about Premiere. All of that combined with excellent hardware acceleration and totally mindless multiformat support. I know there’s a lot on the line for them right now, but they are blowing me away with their attention to the editing community. That is something that I’ve never been impressed with from Apple, and as for AVID, well, I won’t even comment. I still have to use AVID and even sometimes FCP 7, depending upon where I’m working and the nature of the program, but as far as I’m concerned, Premiere Pro is the wave of the present and near-future.

Will Eccleston
Kinetiscape Films

[Will Eccleston]

You guys are probably experiencing a bug with Creative Cloud ITSELF which lots of us have had trouble with. Just quit the Creative Cloud app and restart it. The updates will be there.

Will Eccleston
Kinetiscape Films

[Will Eccleston]

And I got a bit snarky there…and I would be remiss not to say that you are, in fact, enormously helpful here, and not just in this forum. It is very much appreciated! But doing dissolves with keyframes is not a solution for me. I hate stepping backwards.

Will Eccleston
Kinetiscape Films

[Will Eccleston]

And making dissolves manually with opacity curves, even if you can copy and paste them…seriously? Do you have things to do other than edit?

Will Eccleston
Kinetiscape Films

[Will Eccleston]

Agree wholeheartedly with Paul. There might very well be uses for linear color, but this shouldn’t be something anyone has to know or think about when it comes to applying dissolves or transparency in a non-linear editor. Paul stated: “please note that some people find cross-dissolves in linear to be objectionably abrupt”. I would contend that it’s really not a matter of preference at all. They’re just wrong. And it’s one of the most fundamental things done in a video editor. All may not experience it, and different video cards will of course produce different results. But as of now, using CUDA on 2 different machines with different (both qualified) cards produces very poor results, making CUDA acceleration unusable for me. A fix would be very nice.

Will Eccleston
Kinetiscape Films

[Will Eccleston]

Yes! And a TON of other interface improvements and shortcuts that may seem small, but to me are huge! I just hope the linking between PP and Speedgrade works better than Dynamic Linking with AE. In my opinion, Dynamic Link isn’t worth it (yet), for all the slowdown and frustration it causes, and this is on a REALLY fast machine.

As someone commented on the Adobe website, if PP can demonstrate bomb-proof stability and media management for large projects, there would be little reason to continue using AVID.

Will Eccleston
Kinetiscape Films

[Will Eccleston]

Also, many folks experience a nasty bug when using Warp Stabilizer in Premiere Pro CS6, on both Macs and PCs:

https://support.muse.adobe.com/thread/956692?start=0&tstart=0

And I get it even when I’m NOT using multicam, as discussed in the above thread.

PLEASE tell me this is fixed. I just started using CC, and I REALLY, REALLY LOVE IT! I keep finding interface enhancements that I didn’t even know were going to be included, even after reading tons about new features. But this bug is really annoying, and as yet, I’m doing all stabilization in AE because of it.

Will Eccleston
Kinetiscape Films

[Will Eccleston]

I am an Atlanta freelancer that works at various post houses and design firms, as well as a good bit at home, and I’m going full-in with CC for now. I learned on AVID in 1997 and spent billions of hours at it. Then was forced into Final Cut v2, hating it for a few months and then growing to love it. In the last year, between my different clients and different types of jobs, I’ve spent lots of time at Symphony 6.x, Premiere Pro CS6, and FCP 7, and I can say that I absolutely prefer Premiere Pro (and that’s not even with CC’s improvements, which I can’t wait to have in my hands).

I will be cutting some television at a post facility coming up, and no doubt they will be on AVID, which, for that type of work, and with the support of a team of assistant editors, is perfectly fine for me. But attempting to do the high-end, effects-and-graphics-heavy corporate work that I do on the AVID would be an exercise in misery.

I’ve owned the Master Collection for years, and I always upgrade as soon as I can convince a few key clients to do it as well, so the commitments surrounding CC are no issue for me, and the more I use Premiere, the more little things I find that I love about it. There will always be things that I wish it did like FCP or AVID, and yes, AVID’s trim mode blows everything away, and has worked that way since before I started editing, but it’s nowhere near enough to push me in that direction. In general, the AVID feels 15 years behind in many aspects of its operation.

I have never, even for a second, sat in front of FCPX, but I’ve read a ton about it, and so far, no one’s comments have made me want to invest the time to learn it. It’s also difficult to trust Apple anymore. But who knows. I might take a look at it one day if everyone starts singing its praises.

Will Eccleston
Kinetiscape Films

[Will Eccleston]

So what does “composite in linear color” mean? Does it fix this issue? I have the same issue on multiple macs with CS6 and Quadro 4000 cards.

Will Eccleston
Kinetiscape Films