Migrating from Final Cut to Premiere: any advice?

[Ronan Fournier]

I'm very disapointed by the new FCP X (and I'm not alone). So I'm thinking about migrating on Production Premium CS 5.5 this fall, but always on a Mac.
Does anyone has already left FCP for Premiere? What do you think, have you regrets? Is CS 5.5 reliable on a Mac or would it be better on a PC? Is there already an annoucement date for the 6th version?
Any advices would be appreciated.
Thanks!

[Justin Benn]

You're not alone. Just downloaded the Production Premium trial overnight. I'm also looking for decent training materials - particularly regularly used keys.

Also, I wonder how to add LUT plugins to convert the 5D Technicolor footage I have for a particular project. I know how to do this in FCP but if I could do this quickly in PP then I'd be set for the edit in July. Anyone?

[Bart Walczak]

We've been running Mac and PC Premiere for past three years or so, and my impression is that Windows version is still much more robust, than it's Apple counterpart. Also, there used to be a bug in Encore and Snow Leopard that made it impossible to create sensible DVDs which had 16:9 menus. I don't know if it was fixed in CS5.5 (still running on CS5), but it's something to be aware of. Apart from that, CS5 is very stable, and very versatile both for SD and HD, especially in comparison to CS3.

We have FCP installed alongside Premiere, but we used it only perhaps for 2 or 3 projects. While it is more robust than Premiere in DV, we found its audio features seriously lacking, requiring us to move sound to Soundtrack Pro, and hindering our project workflow considerably.

[Justin Benn]

Hi Bart,

I'm fairly familiar with the FCP>STP workflow. Have you found most of the features you use in PP?

Right now, I'm trying to work out where to locate the Magic Bullet LUT buddy I just installed. Anyone know where it would pop up? I'd like to apply it to a clip.

[Ronan Fournier]

Thank you Bart for this very interesting feedback!

[Bart Walczak]

Generally Premiere has 90% of the sound tools you'll need: clip effects, transitions etc. is a standard. Additionally you have a pretty extensive multitrack support: track pan/volume (keyframeable), sliders, track effects (up to 5) and sends (up to 5 as well), automation, subtracks. You get all important effects like eq, high- and lowpass filters, compressor, limiter, expander, reverb, pitch and a few others in the package.

Add to this mono/stereo/5.1 mixing, and I think really there is more than enough for most of the projects that one will ever encounter with the exception of very sophisticated ones which are better handed to the sound editor anyway, and you can do it either as an export to Audition or OMF.

The effects are VST plugins, and you can use the default ones, which are good enough for most cases, but you can also use other VST plugins to extend Premiere, which is really excellent way to expand the software.

There are some features that could make it better, like phase monitoring or RMS metering for example (so far there's only simple audio meter), overdrive detection, live keyframing during playback. Perhaps some better noise removal tools as well. But apart from that, you essentially get all the multitrack option in you video editor, which means that you don't have to lock the picture before working on audio. It helped us tremendously.

The only thing that I was missing was a good migration to Color, but since it seems that Apple did kill this product anyway, I guess it's a moot point.

[Barry Gribble]

I made the jump recently and I'm very happy with Premiere. There are some things it does better than FCP, some couple of things it leaves out - but largely they are similar. I switched the hot keys to the FCP set and I can barely tell I'm in another software.

The things I like about it better:

MUCH better audio handling. You can do track effects and submixes. Big boon.

MUCH better in-program color correction, including curves.

MUCH better handling of native DSLR video.

MUCH better integration with the Adobe suite, obviously.. AE and PS.

[Josh Bass]

What do you NOT like about Premiere, then? Thinking about this myself, though no plans to move to anything anytime soon as FCP6 is still doing fine for me at the moment.

What do you guys mean by "more robust on PC than Mac"? More features? Runs better?

Coming from FCP, how intuitive do you find it? Do you need a guidebook/the manual often or can you figure out how to do things on your own?

[Barry Gribble]

For me what I don't like about Premiere is all small stuff... I liked in FCP that I could right click on a cut to add the default transition... I liked the ability of the timeline to autoconform to the clip (but I like Premiere's ability to handle multiple formats on one timeline beter)... It's small stuff. I haven't spent enough time in Premiere to find anything that makes me think I'd rather be working in FCP.

[Josh Bass]

Sometimes it's the small things that make one NLE preferable to another for someone. . .zooming the timeline with the mousewheel, dragging the corner of a clip to fade it, etc.

Didn't I just read that Premiere is now a monthly paid thing? As in, instead of buying it for $800 and then not paying anything until an upgrade, you now pay a monthly fee?

[Barry Gribble]

Interesting... hadn't head of that. You can still buy it the old way, but you can also subscribe:

Buying guide | Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Production Premium

[Justin Benn]

Thanks Bart, Barry. Bart, I'm also interested in hearing what you mean about Pr being more stable on a PC. What do you mean by this?

I ask because folk around me think me crazy but I'm wondering about the viability of my Mac Pro. I love it, but it can't make much money for Apple. And now that they've, apparently, killed off their major Pro application, they have little reason to make them anymore. Add to this the lack of compatibility with 3rd party hardware that 'X-FCP' presents and I foresee certain hardware manufacturers passing on the Apple platform for the time being - hastening the demise of the Mac Pro. I give it 2 years, tops. I'm sure Apple would prefer me to use X-FCP on an iPad anyway but I'd rather have a decent PC again - if necessary. Curious about what you think.

[Josh Bass]

Ah, thanks. I downloade the trial to the latest version. I wlll play.

[Barry Gribble]

Justin - I'm running it on my Macbook Pro and my Mac Pro workstation... both are great.

[Justin Benn]

Barry, great to hear. A question. When one adds in third party video filter plugins, into which folder do they go? I've added Red Giant's free Colorista and LUT buddy. Or do these only work with the full program?

Cheers.