Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro?

[Heiko Saele]

2) I like Windows, coz this is the only operating system I have used for 14 years, besides SGI Unix in early time. I can do all networking, system repair, and maintenance by myself.

3) There are so many third party utility programs that are only compatible with PC, I have more than a dozen of them, for example, batch file renaming, ReaConverter (for batch image conversion), Cinema Craft Encoder Premiere plug-in, DVD Maestro, etc....

It's absolutely the same for me, I wouldn't like to switch to Mac privately (although on the new Intel Core2Duo Macs you can easily run Windows as well).
I am really a Windows guy, I know all my tools and programs here, and so on and so on.

However, when it's about editing I can only say: Final Cut Pro Studio is definitely the one program that I would buy a Mac for. I'm using FCP at work, Premiere Pro at home and I've also tried Avid a dozen times or so. FCP is the clear winner in my opinion.

However I'm not much of an editor, I like to leave the editing to others as often as I can, that's why I don't have a Mac at home. But I can surely say if I was more into editing, I'd be writing this on a Mac instead of a PC for sure :)

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Juni Zhao

The reason I asked this question in the first place is: People I come across always boast that they have Macs, and use FCP, their pride in Mac makes me wonder if there is a lot more steam in Mac than PC, I feel like an amateur stuck with inferior PC when I see the way they talk about Mac :-)

I can give you an example which is more or less the same:

When I bought my dvx100b when allready owning a vx2100 everybody (dvx owners) were also telling me how much superior the dvx was compared to the Sony. Now I have it, and since I film weddings, I prefer my sony because it's much better in low light and has a much better build in mic. Both cameras have their pro's and cons but for my needs a sony is just better.

Panasonic dvx owners have created a same sort of closed community like mac users and they all rave about their camera in the same way, on the dvxuser.com forum some time ago there was a discussion about the newest David Lynch: Inland Empire because it was filmed with a Sony pd150. They couldn't understand why David choose a "video" like Sony over the Panasonic dvx? Actually it's very simple, you can make a crap movie with a 20000dollar cam and you can make a masterpiece with a 2000dollar cam. The only thing that counts is what you want to achieve and who is behind the camera, based on that you buy the tool to achieve your goal.

If your nle does what it needs to do, you will only waist time and money switching to another platform or nle.

[Giovanni Speranza]

With all respect for Premiere, and assumed that it's not the gear but the artist that makes the difference, FCP has a way more linear WORKFLOW.
FCP is transparent, you don't feel it, you concentrate on your work, because of the design of this wonderful app.

I recommend strongly to go for FCP, because it's the standard (sorry Avid) and because to get more power than a FCP has you have to spend $$$$$$.

I use daily FCP in my work and i ingest, edit, put graphics, post produce and finalize 12' of appealing (that's subjective) tv shows every day.

[Tommy Nguyen]

Look like avid is really dead meat right now. I got all A1 canon camcorder. Now even with avid media composer not support the camcorder and not even 24f editing at all. I give avid another 6 month if they don't update with something support 24f soon in media composer I will get a mac or stick with Sony Vegas. In the mean time I have to stay with Sony Vegas. I only love Avid because so easy to use for me. The way avid manage the big project so stable and good. But if they don't come up soon with some 24f support and canon camcorder I will throw them out the door.

[Ash Greyson]

AVID will never be dead, many post houses are heavily invested and it allows them to charge more money for their rooms and their work. At the end of the day, AVID is not really better for most projects but I can tell you that a skilled FCP editor will not be able to edit a project as fast as a skilled AVID editor. The gap is closing however.

I use Premiere and FCP every single day. I highly recommend an Intel Mac with a dual boot set-up. I have a Macbook Pro that runs Premiere great in Windows and FCP great in OSX. Premiere is great for DV and image manipulation and is WAY less buggy with timecode, glitches, etc. FCP is great for uncompressed, DVCproHD and multiple codecs as well as third party cards for outputting to Beta, etc.

My general feeling is that if you are editing native HDV, Premiere handles it better.



ash =o)

[Giovanni Speranza]

Avid is perfect if you want to rent your studio and make money with it.
FCP is perfect if you want to make money with your film.

[Greg Rothschild]

First, thanks to all who took the time to share their knowledge in this thread. It's been extremely helpful to me, a newb, learning about the pros and cons of the different systems.
Ash- why do you say Premier handles native HDV better? I've got a Macbook Pro (latest) and am frustrated with render times. Installing Parallels and buying Premier would be a whole lot cheaper than buying a desktop.

[Kevin Shaw]

Native HDV editing is inherently demanding in any current video editing program, but some are better than others. Sony Vegas is worth considering for this, and I happen to like Edius myself. If you run BootCamp or Parallels you can test all the Windows-based editing software and compare it to Final Cut for HDV editing, then decide for yourself what suits you best.

[Greg Rothschild]

I'll look into Edius. Sony... I've been treated so poorly by that company that I only buy from them when there are no other options. Been looking into Premiere this morning- Adobe is suporting hd and my camera (XH-A1) so they got that going for them. Price of CS3 is half of Avid Express Pro too.

[Dom Stevenson]

I'm very surprised at some of the coments above, especially the guy who claims FCP is a poor color corrector. Even before the high end grading programme Color turned up it was light years ahead of the Adobe version. I used Prem Pro for several years before switching to final cut and it was the best move i ever made. The only thing i miss about PP is the wonderful Trim Edit Window which is far more user friendly than the Final Cut version, but otherwise its a no brainer.
Of course if you're in windowsland and will have to buy a new mac it may not be worth your while to make the change. All i can say is that IMHO going mac was the smartest thing i've done in years.

[Alfred Diaz]

Sounds like you have it figured out. But I am writing this to you so you might learn from my mistake.

I run a small production company, and I do pretty well with local stuff. I use Premiere Pro on a PC system. Excellent program, interfaces great with other adobe programs. But I want to grow my business. I want to edit full length movies, and have a national cliental. And I am tired of seeing all the freelance jobs on Craigslist that I know I could do if I just had gone with Macs and FCP.

I don't know if people are ever going to give up their insistence on FCP. I believe they are, but I think it is at least 5 years away. In the meantime, I want to make some bucks and do what I love to do. So my plan is to switch over to an HD camera and Mac editing system in 2008.

Here's the hindsight: I should have paid the extra cash (and time) and went FCP and Mac in the first place. I would be making more money now.

So is FCP editing what your clients want? If not, don't sweat it. But if they want you to use FCP, then switch over to be marketable. And keep in mind that most of those Adobe Programs you like so much are also available for Macs.
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[Dom Stevenson]

Excellent points Alfred. 80% of the freelance gig's i see advertised (in the UK) are for FCP. Clients also like the fact that asuming you both have the source footage you can just send them a project file by email. Of course if you're not into freelancing its neither here nor there, however there is a perception (probably unfair) that Premiere is a prosumer product whereas pros user final cut. Depends what kind of work Juni is doing/wants to do in the future i guess.

[Greg Rothschild]

The truth of the matter is I've already got FCP-- on a Macbook Pro, which I was led to believe (by the salespeople in the Mac store, as well as others) that it would be great for hd editing. Well, after using it for a few months I'm very disappointed. If I shoot sd it works pretty well, at least for an hour or so, then I have to shut it down, delete the plist, cache, etc., reboot and work for another half hour to an hour and then reboot. Add any effects and render times go thru the roof.
So, time for a desktop and after my experience with this Mac I'm looking for a PC solution. In my case clients aren't an issue because I don't have any... I make a living doing production soundwork and photography- hopefully I'll earn some money in the future with editing but for the next couple years I just want to be able to create watchable projects with video I shoot myself.

[Kevin Shaw]

Greg: I'm running Edius on a Dell Latitude D820 laptop and just finished editing a wedding video involving several hours of source footage shot with three HDV cameras. Performance is marginal but consistent using the native HDV format, and performance can be improved using the Canopus 'HQ' intermediate editing codec. I'm rendering finished sequences back to HDV using the Speed Encoder option in the output settings, and that only takes about two minutes or so per minute of timeline. The rendered HDV files can then be played directly on a Sony Playstation 3 from an external USB2 hard drive and look great on a 1080p LCD display - no disc authoring or other further effort required to watch your finished work at HD resolution.

For what it's worth, I know several Edius users who are running it via BootCamp on MacBook Pros. You might try giving that a whirl before giving up on the MBP, which is a fine piece of hardware.

[Dom Stevenson]

Greg, Not sure what's going on with your setup but i am having none of the issues you mention working with HDV from my Canon XHA1. The only time i've had to trash preferences in recent memory was when i upgraded to FCS2 and had temporary problems with Color which happily have now been sorted.
The only bad editing experience i've had lately was last month when i found myself having to use Prem Pro for the first time in ages (3 crashes in an hour)for a client. It brought back unhappy memories and reminded me how lucky i was to jump ship to FCS. Of course other people will have different experiences, so whatever gets the job done i guess.