FCP 7 vs. Adobe Premiere CS5

[Charles Newcomb]

And then there's this...

AppleInsider | Apple scaling Final Cut Studio apps to fit prosumers

[Gabe Strong]

Charles,

That is 'news' from a rumor site, written by an author who does not have a great track record of predicting
Apple's next move......in other words, Area 51 material......which is why there is a thread dedicated to that very issue in 'Area 51'.

[Robert Lane]

There's a lot of myth, misinformation and downright lies about Avid, PP CS5 and Edius's true capabilities and costs. I've got reviews of all coming soon, Avid won't be until sometime next month. After the reviews are up those wanting/needing/considering options against FCP will have a lot more info to use for an educated choice.

A hint: Avid's new version 5 will blow away those old stereotypical notions of both cost (it's not as pricey as people always expect it to be) and ease of use.

[Charles Newcomb]

I for one am looking forward to seeing your review. I used Avid a long time ago and bought Vegas for home use because of cost-vs-effectiveness issues. Now I have an Intel Mac with Final Cut Studio on the Mac side, and Sony Vegas Pro on the Windows side. I find that FCP does what they say it will do... but, boy is it klunky compared to Vegas, Avid and Edius. I can't speak for PP, but I know folks who have it and FCP and they say FCP pretty much gathers rust. In any case, it would be really nice to see Avid back in the game.

[Jonathan Palfrey]

I'll be very interested in that review as well, Avid is the one system I've never been able to try. I agree with Charles about FCP feeling clunky compared to the other NLE's. I use Vegas, PP and FCP all quiet a bit and FCP really does feel outdated compared to the other two. It cant seem to compete with the speed of editing and comparability with files that Vegas and PP offer.

[Steve Kalle]

For anyone deciding between FCP and Adobe/Avid, you must realize that the Apple/FCP route ties you down to whatever Steve Jobs 'lets' you have in the future. It doesn't matter how great Media Composer and Premiere become because Jobs knows that FCP users are stuck; so, he can remove important features (expresscard) and slow down software (compressor).

[Robert Lane]

Originally Posted by Charles Newcomb

... it would be really nice to see Avid back in the game.

Avid never left the game but because Apple's uber-glossy marketing engine had everyone snowballed for years that FCP was the "be-all-end-all" of NLE's it left the newbies and misinformed to believe that Avid and other options were either inferior or too costly. Both obviously far from being truth, but Apple is king when it comes to creating over-hyped perception of it's products. (Can you imagine what would happen to American auto-makers if Apple ran their marketing? Ha!)

What's interesting is that the *only* reason I got involved with FCP at all is because years ago I was supposed to work collaboratively with another editor who was already Mac based on a "big" project I was funding and producing. So rather than worry about PC to Mac conversions I invested heavily in the Mac camp, taught myself and later became a self-made expert on everything FCP/Apple related. If I didn't have to contend with this supposed collaboration (which by a nasty twist never occurred due to lack of cooperation on the other end) I would have gone with Avid straight-away, no questions asked. That it was then...

I'm excited to finally shed light on the shadows of myth surrounding all the competitive NLE's; the only one I'm not reviewing is Sony Vegas but I'm sure later this year I will.

It's time for Mac editors to un-shackle themselves from the schizophrenic "Daddy knows best - until I change my mind again" nonsense of Steve Jobs and his reverse-direction momentum. I'm going to help that process any way I can.

[Steve Oakley]

may I say, back to the original question - PP CS5 now EXPORTS FCP XML ! so you can swap XML files with FCP edits pretty easily.

as for avid's MC5, short answer, they are finally catching up to everyone else with drag and drop TL operations. they are really copying what every other NLE can do... finally after 15 years!

having used keyboard editing and mouse editing, get a tablet ! much more controlled then a mouse. I find most pure keystroke driven editing modes to be slower then mouse + a few select keystrokes.

you guys are also forgetting about smoke which is now $15K on a mac. once you graduate beyond basic editing, smoke is pretty kick a$$ in what it can do. its a full 3D compositing environment, grading setup, decent audio mixing... but it does have a quirky interface and workflow.

[Jeremy Harlan]

"It's time for Mac editors to un-shackle themselves from the schizophrenic "Daddy knows best - until I change my mind again" nonsense of Steve Jobs and his reverse-direction momentum. I'm going to help that process any way I can."

Any timeline on when we can expect your reviews? Sorry...I'm kind of impatient:)

Actually, I'm seriously considering the purchase of CS5 Master Collection. My wife has been a photographer for 15 years, and is a Photoshop expert. We've had PS since CS2...but I've always used FCP for my video business.

Since CS5 dropped, and they added 64bit support for Mac across the spectrum, I've given the trial a run on our MacPro. Absolutely phenomenal! And I'm as green on PP as possible. (However, I've used FCP for almost 7 years now). I'm also very excited about learning After Effects.

I'm happy that I can run Windows on our Mac Pro...as this essentiallly gives me two machines in one, and I still rely on the old tried and true "Audition" from Adobe on Windows. However, moving forward in this economy, I'm not so sure my next workstation will be another $6k Mac Pro. Hence, the reason to start learning PP, and possibly AVID> Which brings me to my next question. I suppose I could search a bit...but is AVID still proprietary system dependent?

I switched to Mac 8 years ago...and absolutely LOVE OSX! However, I made the switch after a couple years battling XP Pro. I'm very impressed with Win7, and again...the reason for the intrigue of learning a different, and Cross-Platform NLE.

While I'm not anti-"Jobs"....I am a bit concerned about the future of Mac's professional environment. Just considering the success of the iPad (2 million in 60 days???)...iPhone, iPod, and the intrigue to the general public of the iMacs and MacBooks. That is obviously where they are making their money. Is it enough for the "Bean-Counters" to sway the future of the company? After all, the did change their name to just Apple!

Again, I'm a HUGE fan of OSX....and I don't want to switch if I don't have to. However, I don't have to with Adobe's software which is cool. One thing at a time:)

Definitely, and anxiously awaiting your reviews:)

Thanks

J

[Chris Korrow]

It would also be nice to just have to upgrade one suite (since I upgrade PS on a regular basis). I am a little miffed that the upgrade is the same form PS-ext or PS though.

Have never had ANY problems with PS, how's Adobes pro support for their other aps?

I'm good for now, but if the next FCS is a long time coming, or is nothing special, then I'll probably switch.

[Richard Alvarez]

I suppose I could search a bit...but is AVID still proprietary system dependent?

Can you clarify this question? Do you mean it will only run on a proprietary OS, like Final Cut Pro? Avid will run on PC or MAC, always has AND IT SHIPS with copies of BOTH VERSIONS. Buy it, you can always change platforms.. So I'm not sure if that qualifies for proprietary in your book.

Will it run on 'anything'? No. It's a very sophisticated system, and AVID sets out specs for running the various versions - you can check them on their websites. They will offer assistance in trouble shooting if you have followed their specs, if not, they can only shrug and say "Can't help you'. The AVID forum is full of people who have built their own 'non certified' systems, and are happily running AVID, and will offer advice.

AVID was never 'out of the game' - if you're talking about feature films and television. Still the industry leader and standard bearer - but certainly lost market share to small indy shops and boutique ad agencies.

[Jeremy Hughes]

I run both FCP and CS5. I wasn't a fan of Premiere CS4 as it dropped frames and stopped for me way too much but the new Mercury engine is the real deal. I'm pushing a project though it right now with RED footage in realtime without the need for an online/offline and FCP's uber-slow injest. It has been great. I will say though that at the end I'll be kicking out an XML to conform on FCP so I can do sound in Soundtrack Pro which I prefer over what Adobe offers and CC in Color.

[Corey Benoit]

i have a fully built computer, with fast hard drives, and i have windows 7 on one partition, and mac snow leopard 10.6.2 on the other...

i currently have CS4&CS5 suite, and final cut pro 7...

i have tried every single workflow i can between cs5 & fcp 7 and here is what i come up with...


Using premiere cs5:

- my 7d footage must be either DNxHD, or Cineform avi.....DNxHD is not that easy to edit with premiere as premiere is NOT native to any form of quicktime...

- cineform neoscene avi files are industry standard files, but have a big color shift in the whites...

- real time is pretty nice with .avi files from cineform

- compressed exported files from media encoder (especially h.264) lose too much noticable quality for my taste

Using FCP 7 w/compressor

- rendering sometimes can be a pain, everytime you add a audio or video file you have to render (rather quick tho on my built pc)

- prores 422 (hq) retains FAR LESS color shift than any codec with premiere pro cs4/cs5

- fcp is easier to navigate around with

- compressor is slower than media encoder but produces very VERY GREAT results with highly compressed formats of h.264



all in all i have compared the same footage, i had a sample from my 7d, converted to cineform avi, and sent out to h.264 with media encoder, and then converted the raw footage to proress 422 hq, and then used compressor to make a h.264 video...ALL settings were identical, the video stood up much better in the prores 422 hq codec...

all in all i LOVE final cut pro/soundtrack pro/compressor

but each to their own

[Robert Lane]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Harlan

Any timeline on when we can expect your reviews? Sorry...I'm kind of impatient:)

The new version of Avid isn't shipping until tomorrow so I'm going to do the reviews en-masse so I can competently compare them all against FCP rather than do them one-at-a-time. It's more efficient for me that way; expect the reviews to come later this month, no exact date yet as I'm also waiting on other hardware to arrive for the DSLR workflows section.

[William Hohauser]

In the meantime, try the CS5 demo. I have and I recommended it to several clients who already use the Adobe graphic suites. My opinion, Premier CS5 is a very powerful program that can work for the person who can leverage it's strengths over it's weaknesses. First of all, it's ability to play files with several levels of filters without rendering is great. Shows you what your computer can really do with 64bit processing and some good hardware savvy programming. The ability to play different codecs without conversion in a single timeline is great although the program put up an error box initially about some JVC HDV m2t files I brought in but it played them regardless. Adobe needs to come up with some sort of equivalent to ProRes in the setup of the projects, not an actually codec but some simple defaults that are codec independent.

The biggest problem I have with it (and the same complaint came from my clients) was the Premier GUI. It's very dense compared to FCP without any real benefit to a user with basic editing needs. I found it to be more dense than AE which itself can be tough with complex projects. None of the clients are really concerned with 64bit as they are not doing anything that computers haven't been able to do in HD easily for a few years now. Also Adobe needs to hire a technically proficient proofreader for the Premier web pages, the last I looked, several HD codecs were listed in the standard definition codec column.