Adobe Premiere 6.5 vs. Final Cut Pro 4.0

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Dirck Halstead : One Thread

This is a 4-part question:

1. I have just purchased Adobe Premiere 6.5 and was thinking of getting FinalCut Pro 4.0 as well. Can anyone break it down to me before I make this purchase? WHICH ONE IS BETTER? WHAT ARE THE PROS & CONS?

2. Is FCP available for PC platforms?

3. What kind of hardware do I need to get (ie. hard drive TYPE... space... etc.) in order to run these programs?

4. Is it possible to edit BETWEEN FCP & Premiere... meaning that if I start editing on FCP can I use the same files somehow on Premiere? I have Premiere at home & FCP at work... and would like to be able to work between the two places. Is this possible?

Thanks so much. Ali

-- Ali Quiñonez (cypha21@verizon.net), September 20, 2003

Answers

Final Cut Pro all the way! MACS RULE!

-- Chris Christensen (XCkid87@excite.com), December 12, 2003.

Thanks for the response, but what is the answer for questions #2 thru 4 ???

-- Ali Quiñonez (cypha21@verizon.net), December 16, 2003.

1. FCP is faster overall, of course macs cost more. Learning curve is about equal on each. 2. No 3. Dual Processor 2GHz PowerMac G5 - you won't be sorry. 4. yes, you can...but you may find it easiest just to stick with one. Work on work- related stuff at work (go figure) and save the editing for home - on your new PowerMac G5.

If this is a one-time thing, use premiere, and sit through the pain of waiting for it to render, etc. If you are planning on making home movies several times - go buy a mac and FCP.

-- Jason

-- Jason W (no@no.com), December 19, 2003.


Adobe Premiere is the way to go. #1 It's is way less explensive. #2 With the right Hardware (Matrox RT .X10 or X100), you no longer need to render when editing. Unless you are ready to create your mpeg or whatever file. #3 best of all, the ammount of plug-ins that is out there for Premiere is unbelievable.

-- Jean deDuc (jdbassfunk@yahoo.com), January 29, 2004.

Final Cut Pro would be the better choice. One it is becoming the industry standard. The only other package close to Final Cut is AVID. I would not recommend Premiere. Final Cut is being used throughout the world of film including hollywood. Final Cut is a mac only package and you will not be sorry for switching. If you want to stay with windows, I would get AVID Xpress Pro with the MoJo accelerator. The one nice thing about Xpress, you get both the Mac and PC versions in the same box. I would stay away from Premiere.

-- Scott (servnhim@ureach.com), March 13, 2004.


well, ive been a long-time premiere user and what i can say about it is that while it is very popular and versatile, its not really 'industrial-strength': its sorta semi-professional to corporate level software. plus, i find it to be quite sluggish. especially when working (and trying to scrub over) mpegs. rendering seems pretty slow and the RAM previews arent all that great.

if you're gonna learn something, learn FinalCutPro or AVIDXpress. they're definately worth learning and are supposed to work much faster than Premiere. plus, they're the 'industry-standard' for film editing.

oh, and get a Mac. a dual-g5 is nice, but a G4 is still just as good, if not better, than any PC. plus, Mac OS X 10.3 is... beyond words :)

-- ya3thepower (ya3_thepower@hotmail.com), March 18, 2004.


if you want to be able to express your ideas quickly and don't have 3000 to spend, then go for the PC. macs are slow and shit. i know, i am forced to use one at work.

-- jackgreen (jackgx7676@mailinator.com), March 18, 2004.

Apple software does things without you knowing or even wanting. If you hate computers or are afraid of them, get a mac. If you are technically minded and want control over what you are doing, get a PC and use Premiere or Avid.

-- Luke Fortude (nospam@yahoo.com), April 15, 2004.

I've been doing some reading: Top end PCs are cheaper and about twice as fast as Dual CPU G5's (read: That is a single CPU Athlon FX-51 we are talking about) in Premier. I don't know how fast FCP is, but I doubt it would be much different performance wise than that.

Furthermore there is a LOT more software support for the PC and, contrairy to popular belief, if you get a quality rig from a company like www.alienware.com you'll find that the PC isn't as crash-prone as you once thought.

-- Randy D. (randage01@hotmail.com), May 14, 2004.


Not anymore, a full loaded G5 is cheaper than a Duel Xeon. Apple has price there pro-systems very well.

I use both Final cut Pro and Premier Pro. Final Cut Pro is so much better than Premiere and FCP is a lot more intuitive than Adobe Products.

Go with a Mac, because the software is already included for movie(iMovie) making and dvd authoring(iDVD). Final Cut Pro is cheap considering you get other programs with it for building cool font base animations for your movies and a good sound editing program that's a sinch to run and very fun too.

With a dell or whatever running windows, you have to buy the 3rd party software from Adobe or whoever.

-- space boy (allex_us@yahoo.com), May 20, 2004.



Well for me..its FCP for its working speed..and of course mac os is some thing grt to work on with ur most comfortable needs. But comparing the interface of both FCP and Premiere Pro , both of them remebles each other. Well but for me..rather going for FCP, u may have gone for Avid Xpress DV. Coz i think its the best available professional editing software for common man.U can have both pc and mac versions for Avid and it is very userfriendly.

-- mahesh narayanan (mahesh_narayanan@mail.com), May 26, 2004.

for me..its FCP for its working speed..and of course mac os is some thing grt to work on with ur most comfortable needs. But comparing the interface of both FCP and Premiere Pro , both of them remebles each other. Well but for me..rather going for FCP, u may have gone for Avid Xpress DV. Coz i think its the best available professional editing software for common man.U can have both pc and mac versions for Avid and it is very userfriendly.

-- mahesh narayanan (mahesh_narayanan@mail.com), May 26, 2004.

I'm a film student whose used all these progs, PC /Mac. I honestly don't know where some of these answers are coming from...heres my low down of Macs and Pcs...in which I try to be fair:

Editing programmes ??

Avid Xpress is still king of the hill...Final Cut Pro is now a major challenger. FCP was once in competition with Premiere for 2nd place but surpassed it, I don't know of any studeo in London...using prem. I know of plenty who now demand FCP.

Final Cut Pro is closing the gap fast...alas I can't afford Avid on my mac so I use a PC version at college.

Personally I use a mac for the following reasons, they feel better when working in editing or any creative field, I go to Europes largest Arts specialist University and macs dominate principly for that one reason more so in Graphic/product design or arctect. the feel is more intuitive.

You can get either Final cut pro or Avid Xpress on a Mac.

But Don't rule out the PC

PC's have allot more software options beyond editing...even downloading music, or gaming on a mac is a pain frankly, and everything you buy is from mac....that means less of a chance of compatablity trouble, but it also means you pay for it.

Macs are harder to upgrade, long term PC's are made for tinkering...

You could get away paying less with a Pc then a Mac although that gap has narrowed.

High end PC's Vs. Mac, pcs tend to win in terms of speed, Macs have now closed the gap with the G5, but eventually Pc's will pull ahead again. Mac users though do have the power of Unix.

In the end either is great I love the feel of Macs, you may prefer Pc's or not...it really doesn't matter which you opt for, if you Go PC build your own or go to Alienware which was suggested earlier...they are awesome but overclocking I hear brings their self life down.

good luck

-- Sarafaraz (rubaiyat@btopenworld.com), June 01, 2004.


for gaming, pc rules, they are so cheap now you can get one every year just to keep up with gaming needs all creative work, macs rule and their updates are very frequent. Who says you need to have just one type of computer. Have one depending on your type of use.

-- elzie dee (elzed@sprint.ca), June 05, 2004.

Adobe Premiere is utter shite compared to FCP. With FCP Pro you can tweak, and key frame every parameter of every effect visually or numerically in an easy to use interface. FCP allows you so much more freedom and power. Yeah ok, so there are more plugins for premiere, some you can use on FCP though.

Dont get a PC. If you get a PC and want to download these programs for free (warez), then chances are you will get a virus. PCs are a joke and the clumsy operating system makes editing video a little more awkward than on Macs. Macs have unix. It works beautifully. OS 9 is shite tho. Buy a Mac, and download all your software from limewire. ok, it will take longer to find cracked versions, but it will almost always be virus free, and unlike the PC, most mac software is FULLY uninstallable.

I have used mac and PC for like a decade, and Mac is way better. But Mac is shit when it comes to variety of software, esp games. But if you are doing anything related to video / graphic / prob audio too, then it is definately a Mac you want. if u wokr much in the industry then u know that a mac is what u want. FCP. Or well, ok, maybe buy Avid Symphony :-)

-- anon (fake@email.address.com), June 08, 2004.



to whet ur apetite...

http://www.avid.com/products/xpresspro/featuredetails/autoColorCorrect .asp

-- anon (fake@email.address.com), June 08, 2004.


Final Cut Pro 3, or the buggy 4 or Premiere Pro. Mac Or Pc, It's as simply has that! There IS NO VERSION of Final Cut for the PC, it was made by apple and will stay on apple. I used to like Final Cut until Premiere Pro came out. Its the bomb, say goodbye to stupid sequences, now Photoshop files can be wacked straight onto the timeline. It makes life easier when you need to place titles straight on video. There is a thing called EDL or edit decision lists, a standard used by all editing programs. Final Cut, Avid, Liquid, Premiere Pro, thats lets imports this file show where cuts are on timecoded footage only. I highly recommend Premiere Pro, gone are the days of rendering before viewing, this program has had a massive of haul, and with the extra money saved from not buying a mac, you could get a real-time video-editing card, extra ram (Gig or more!), high-end processor, and godd graphics card. Trust me i've worked on a low end system (G5 2gig with a gig of ram), they still take the same amount of time as the PC to render the output file.

-- Matt (wu_gladdy@hotmail.com), July 15, 2004.

I have used both, they are both good, Premiere Pro has completely changed the interface to look and feel like final cut. Latetely I have used Premiere a lot more often because my pc is far faster than my mac, and have larger monitor. Final Cut requires at least a 1ghz g4. Premeire will run on almost anything. The new version does everything real time, you only need to render when you're done.

I have done parts of movies with premire and other parts with final cut. I export the scenes into dv tape then capture it again with the program.

For video, you need a fast processor, lot's of ram, and a lot of hard drive space. I just built myself an athlon 2400xp with 1g of ram and an 80 gig drive internal, 200 gig external for $600. It works great for editing, and games.

The only reason macs might be considered better is because they are way more stylish and they don't get virus or spyware.

-- Antonio Monteiro (masterantonio@yahoo.com), July 20, 2004.


1. Not much difference between FCP and Premiere pro except that Premiere costs less and integrates well with other adobe products.

2. FCP is not available for the pc platform!

3. When editing and rendering video, you need the fastest processor, the largest hard drive, and the most memory you can afford. (I use a 2.17 GHz amd processor, 1 GB pc 2700 ram, and (2)80 GB hard drives and, I built my pc for less than $700.) You will get more for your money with a pc.

4. Untill you export your projects, you will have to work on them in the application in which they were created.

BOTTOM LINE: It's all a matter of preference. I like premiere on a pc because I get professional results at a fraction of the cost of FCP on a Mac. If money is no object, toss a coin and pick one!

-- Jon (jcjlf@yahoo.com), July 25, 2004.


I have been working in the production industry for five years now and Final Cut Pro is definetly the better of the two. So what if Macs cost a little ore. For the price you get an amazing machine for editing. We use the new G5 with an Aja board at our office and it will put any PC running premeire to shame. At home I have just a simple 800mhz Ibook G4 and I can still do real time editng. So in my mind if you want to be a serious editor it's FCP and a Mac that you need.

-- David Christenson (omoq@hotmail.com), August 05, 2004.

I've taken classes and used FCP4, its not a bad system.. buts its a lamins version of adobe. it works for crap when you improt photoshop pictures, its fast yeah, until adobe greated quicktime rendor. i've always believed in adobe, i don't doubt that fcp is making its mark.. but for how long? mac is always known for being behind, and it always will. AVID is still god though. damn avid, but i use it for profes terms... not gonna waist that prog on home movies.

-- james 'rockin' dokken (fury66skater@msn.com), August 12, 2004.

I work as a proffesional camera operator and I'm one of a few editors here at this company we produce TV commercials, music videos, tv doco's, and tv programs. We have a G5 Mac running FCP 4 HD and a PC running Premiere Pro using Bluefish444, I use both and dont really have a favorite, there are things I like in FCP that are lacking in Prem pro and like wise Prem Pro has its pluses. But what what are you wanting to do ? You got Guys telling you here get a Mac you edit Films in FCP and that you should get an Avid. All we know is that you just might want to edit your home dv movies. So all I can say to you is any editing software is only as good as the editor.

-- Jett (motionstudios@gnetec.com), August 18, 2004.

Jeff, that was the most sane and true comment I read on this board...

-- Jere (jerewmail-realtytrac@yahoo.com), August 19, 2004.

i've never been a fan of macs, the interface is awful, and i've always used a pc. i've been using premiere 6.5 but i have tried 7 once before, and its not that different, i just haven't upgraded to xp yet.

i know everyone says that FCP is awesome, and if it ever came out on pc i'd use it in an instant over premiere. but i hate macs. i hate everything about them. what kind of stupid computer only uses one mouse button

-- Tom (fishbug117@yahoo.co.uk), August 26, 2004.


The little round one button mouse comes complimentary with a new mac and everyone uses it for a day and then plugs in a real one. macs will take standard mouses and monitors, etc.

-- daniel mueller (bordercolliecultproductions@yahoo.com), August 26, 2004.

after experience with both, the primary reason I use FCP instead of Prem. is the fact that, to compensate for the relatively low dynamic range inherent to video (as apposed to film) (i.e. the whites are not as white and blacks not as black), FCP employs a scheme called "superwhite" where highlights appear to be much brighter and more vibrant than they really are (i.e. like an optical projection). HD is another conversation, but in prosumer standard def video, you capture with the native dv codec and the modern apple quicktime .mov is simply superior in programming to the windows .avi dv. It doesn't matter how many fun "plugins" you can juggle with premeire; capture/export quality is the bottom line. if you can afford the gear to capture true uncompressed 601 video with AVID (or brothers), then wonderful, but most people think all three are more or less synonymous and they are not.

-- daniel mueller (bordercolliecultproductions@yahoo.com), August 26, 2004.

Thought i would add my two bits.

Adobe Premiere is AWFUL. Has a bad interface and lacks customisability (?). It shits me up the wall when i want to edit something im working on and I always get frustrated by the backtracking i have to do.

Final Cut on the other hand is a lot easier to use, more options than you can pronounce, and you just simply get a better product in the end.

The only real reason you would want to buy premiere is if you are on a budget.

-- Rob X (cyanidecordial@klonopinz.com), August 31, 2004.


Everyone seems to have a thought on what is the better system. But it really comes down to the edit and what you want to edit. I've worked in the TV biz for 10 years and have edited on many systems: Accom Stratisphere, Final Cut 4.5, HD Adobe Premire 6.5, Pinnacle Liquid Blue, Quantel Q-Edit Pro, Avid XPress. All can do the same thing which is EDIT and produce video. The more your spend, generally the better the product, the less render time (if any) and the more options you have. I currently have a decked out G5 Dual 2.0 with every program Apple makes in the media suite except Shake. On the flip side, I also use a $110,000 Quantel Q-Edit Pro system which is of the same generation of products that color corrected Lord of the Rings and the recent movie Collateral. Oddly enough, the 1000 dollars we spent on final cut hd has returned more revenue in a shorter time than our high dollar quantel system. Ive used the premire interface and feel that its interoperability with other programs is not up to par yet with Final Cut. I can go from Ingest to Edit to DVD faster on the Final Cut system and in the my business...time is money. I train with a guy who works freelance for many movie houses, and the two systems he sees used the most are the quantel syetem and the shake/final cut pro system on the mac. Granted you will initially spend more on a mac, but once you price out a PC with the equivalent specs, not including the second processor, you end up cheaper with a Mac. I actually run both mac and pc at home, and I generally am on the Mac a lot more just because the interface is more intuitive for my line of work. If you have any more questions about the systems, send me an email and I'll give you what I've experienced. Take care all! --Ben

-- Ben Ranzinger (KC5DHL@hotmail.com), September 01, 2004.

I've got some more specific questions on this subject. I do circus- style fire spinning. I'm also a well-known teacher. I’ll be making fire-spinning videos, with some specific effects, and adding real- time effects to projected video in a studio environment.

Here's the video that made me a world-recognized fire spinner: http://www.playpoi.com/global/videos/dervishly_yers.wmv Here is an example of a photo I want to integrate into the video: http://thevenue.org/firespinning_photos2.htm

Some of my needs:

1) I want video sequences with a much better "trail" behind the fire. Basically, I want to create the illusion of the video "painting" the photo in the air. I plan on doing this by taking simultaneous video and slow-shutter-speed still photography. I'll use photoshop to filter out just the flame pattern from the still photo. I'll then create a series of files, with a little bit of fire being revealed in each frame, to match the frames from the video. Then I'll move the still images onto a layer behind (?) the video in the video-editing program. Does that make sense? Once the fire pattern is "painted," it fades away while the fire-dancer keeps going. A moment later, the next "painting" begins.

Is there a better way to get this effect?

2) In the studio I want to set up a video camera and projector to create a "magic mirror" which will allow practitioners to see themselves from different angles, and to add real-time effects, such as trails (much like the trails in the video above), and delayed playback, so that the video on the screen is a second or two behind. In the studio we will be using light-emitting practice tools. I would want the computer to add a trailer to everything over a certain brightness thresh-hold, but not below, so that the light-emitting practice tool has a trailer, but the dancer’s body doesn’t. Is that possible?

Based on that, could you recommend one software or platform over the other?

Peacefully,

Nick Woolsey http://www.thevenue.org

-- nick woolsey (nick@thevenue.org), September 05, 2004.


I have worked with FCP, Avid, Media 100, and Premier to a very professional level. I am currently using Avid to edit feature films, however i would have to stay that i still prefer FCP. I personally do not like Premier one bit (its not an editors software). Either way if there is one thing i will say, it is that if your going to do the job properly then USE A MAC!

-- James Rydings (james_rydings@hotmail.com), October 01, 2004.

I just finished reading contributions for various users of PCs and Macs. I personally give kudos to PC. I have been using my VPr Matrix 3.5ghz 1Gb of DDR400 memory with Matrox .x100 and adobe premiere 6.5 for almost a year now and have never had a single problem with it. I am a wedding videographer and I have authored several DVD using DVDit PE. I really don't know what all these Mac extremists are talking about. There is no question that FCP is good, but premiere is not a gabbage either. It depends on your need. The fact that certain group of people use something does not mean one has to use that same thing without justification for it. Ali, my advice to you is this. If you are in business to make profit, think about your overheads including the cost of either buying a PC or Mac along with the one that will work for your project. Think about availability of software that you may need in the future or upgrades. And finally the easy with which you can use your equipment. Don't fall into the trap of everybody is using it and I must use it.

Thanks, Kareem.

-- Hakeem Kareem (kawtharkareem@yahoo.com), October 10, 2004.


I am the father of a young actress/director just back to Europe from a one year study at a movie school in the USA. She is the artistic type and I am a boring electronic engineer working on communication systems in the Middle East. What she carried back is a Dell 2.6 GHz tower and Speedzter-3 hard drive rack holding her first and only production of a 40 minutes feature film she acted, directed and wrote the music for.

And now she is looking with her dark eyes through the pc camera of MSN Massenger and asks: Dad can you help me to get my movie onto DVD. So what I understand is that at the school they used FCP to edit and then saved it on an 80 GHz hard disk.

My question is, can she use her PC, purchase e.g. Premiere and then import or translate her movie from FCP format to PC format? (After paying for her one-year studies I do not have the funds to buy her a MAC computer and FCP. What whould you Gents advise? K.D. Bartges (bartges@link.net)

-- K. D. Bartges (bartges@link.net), October 14, 2004.


I am currently working with FCP and so far it seems pretty versatile. Its very quick and you can import many clips into the film at a time. With a quick note about Mac. I use to think that Mac's were garbage until using FCP. What I mean is that after you editing a movie for a while, FCP on MAC seems to run as fast as when you first started the movie. On PC, when you use Premiere after a while, reguardless how fast your PC is, it will start running a tad slower when you are editing, importing and exploring constantly. MAC, if you have a decent one, will run smooth the whole time.

-- Trenton (trenton_xp@hotmail.com), October 23, 2004.

Ive tried Premier an i must say it sucks, its probably the worst Video Editing prgrami ive ever tried. If i had to make a suggestion i would hafta say you should get Vegas Video 5. It;s a really easy and sophisticated program. Ive never tried FCP cause i dont got a Mac but im hoping to try it soon.

-- Dan Ulrey (xxpublicenemyxx@yahoo.com), October 25, 2004.

It’s nice to see that the future of video production is in the hands of so many who don’t know what punctuation is or care to take the time to spell words out that are three letters long (such as you / ’u’) . Not to mention those who do not know what a shift button is. You know who you are. English is not my first language. I do not live in a country where it is spoken, but I at least take the time to try.

Because you asked your question was a year ago and others on this list are still answering the question, I assume you already know what to do or what you should have done. But let me leave you all with this… “Film” is something you develop, VIDEO is something you edit on a computer.

For the next person that asks this question and finds this site.

If you are looking to land a job in video production or just brag about it, leave the Premiere skills off the résumé.

If you can afford a G5 and Final Cut Pro HD, get it and use the PC to play games on. If you own a fast PC and can’t afford the former, download Premiere Pro off the internet because it's not worth paying for but good.. 3rd place? Goodnight!

-- Marcell Rousell (kruxdeux@yahoo.fr), November 16, 2004.


This is the stupidest conversation I have yet to see on the internet as well in print or spoken word.

-- Marcell Rousell (kruxdeux@yahoo.fr), November 16, 2004.

I agree, concur and second that!

-- macool (r_makoul@yahoo.com), November 17, 2004.

As a new entrant into the filmmaking world, this board has been of significant value to me in seperating out the question of editing software and platforms. In contribution I thought I'd summarise all that has been said so far as I do not have much personal experience in editing.

The argument has two threads: Apple vs PC and FCP vs Premiere

Apple vs PC - PC is cost effective, faster for the price, has more applications and games. Downside is it is vulnerable to viruses and prone to crash if you install too many applications. - Mac is more expensive, but runs on Unix (therefore better use of system resources and true modularity of code), more advanced user interface, interface better suited to graphics, more stylish than PC. No Viruses or "load" after prolonged use. BUT, no games, little variety in applications.

Editing Software - FCP is used for high-level editing and appears to be faster, easier to use and offer more options. Joel and Ethan Coen used it to edit "Intolerable Cruelty". FCP sounds smoother and more intuitve. Interoperability is also better between applications due to Apple producing most of the apps. The cost of getting in on this level is expensive though. - Premiere is good and running on a high-end PC should be equally as good as FCP. It is also much cheaper. Adobe make a good interface, but many people complain that it is not as intuitive as FCP. It also appears that there is significant degradation of performance on lower spec PCs. Premiere also seems to suffer from it's reputation as previous incarnations were little more than good video clip editors or clearly aimed at the consumer. Premiere now is significantly better and in terms of pure functionality can achieve 98% of what FCP can.

Conclusion - If you are starting out, cut your teeth on a PC and Adobe Premiere Pro to learn the skills. Once you get good at editing and have made some money off it upgraded to FCP and Mac. On pure comparison alone FCP sounds better, but at the end of the day you're only as good as the footage you have and the skills you use.

-- Nathan Stevenson (nathan.stevenson@bnpparibas.com), November 26, 2004.


STAY AWAY FROM PREMIERE 6.5...it's pure JUNK. Causes my computer to freeze up about every hour...gotta reboot. SOmetimes renders with a one-field glitch on cuts. Really really dumb "motion" feature...what's with the stupid box crossing the screen as a default. You'd think them folks at Adobe would borrow some of the ways of doing things from the EXCELLENT After Effects, but no!!! The "frame hold" is stupid in its operation. This program came with my computer, which is good because I'd NEVER pay for it!! I have never used Final Cut Pro but when a few bucks come in... I'll keep Premiere ONLY because in the future I may need to access the projects I did on this piece of crap.

Go with FCP!! :)

-- William Witte (whitfieldwm@hotmail.com), December 02, 2004.


hello, I am desperatly looking for the Mac version of Avidxpress. can anyone tell me where i can find it or download it?

-- natasha casteleyn (ncasteleyn@hotmail.com), December 03, 2004.

This response is only for Marcell Rousell and macool, so if you don't want to read a lecture online, move on. Guys, you are the ones who give the human race a bad name, moreso than those who respond only to get their completely bias, uneducated, and ego-driven words known. Understandably, some of these responses are horrible and give no solid, unbiased advise to any educated man, but take a look at your own responses. Come on, Marcell: "Because you asked your question was a year ago..." You're simply a hypocrit caught in you own rotten mouth. Many of the people reading this site are inexperienced and are trying to get started with the most sound advice they can find, and I am one of those humble people. Actually, Marcell Rousell, it seems like the only reason you wrote anything on this site was to brag about your penis size and to say how much better of a person you are because of it. Go dunk your head. And Macool, you just want your voice heard. If you really thought these responses were worthless, why would you keep reading 100 different responses? If you want to be looked at as superior, go read Heart of Darkness. When you finally understand it (unlikely), then we'll talk. After that, go kill yourself, you horrible slime of a man. I think everyone that reads these sites understands that many of the responses will be juvenile and inexperienced, and the original poster always waits for the voice of experience to finally come, but for you to outright claim that you are a better person because you can speak one language and try to type two, well shit - i must be an idiot for not worshipping the king and duke. I am utterly astonished at your opinion of who is in the right in this ridiculous world, so much so that I am nearly at a loss of words. Nearly. I have no problems with reading statements that obviously and without reasonable justification support one brand over another, because it's funny as hell, but you people are so frigging inept that a cows ass on your head couldn't make your head hurt more. Hopeless. God I hope you people pray for forgiveness to anything you can. And do it all the time, you robotic Robespierre's. Good day!

(If you didn't pick it up, the king and duke refer to the writings of Mark Twain; the comment "funny as hell" is from the works of Kurt Vonnegut, and the "robotic robespierre" is from my own video (yes video, dick), that you think undoubtedly lacks humor and sophistication. If you didn't pick up on the first two references, then perhaps you're not as god-like as you think you are, since they are found in some of the finest works of some of the finest authors.)

Now that I have said this, I'm going to go do my calc and fill out college applications. (calc is short for calculus AB, and is a widely accepted, understood way of saying it. Because the way we say something is so much more important than the message, right Marcell? Even moreso right, macool?)

Disgraceful

-- Paul Stephens (yoda@moscowmail.com), December 12, 2004.


I have a massivley large cock.

-- Won Long Schlong (hugehorsecock@aol.com), December 28, 2004.

well, i'm a professional video editor of 15 years - started off on linear suites then onto avid on mac platform. avid media composer is still seen as the industry standard due to its huge user base and history.... however, almost everyone in the industry now sees final cut as a serious competitor to the avid - and that is a FACT. deciding factor for many editing houses is cost and cos high-end avid's are mega bucks with an expensive upgrade pathway, many more will gravitate towards fcp for bread and butter jobs. avid dv xpress is just a cut-down version which is ok for offlining with a view to finishing on media composer or symphony. bottom line: dv express is NOT media composer - has the edge on fcp with some functions but really, believe me, is not as flexible or as good. premiere? unless you are doing mom and pop stuff, have no cash or are committed to the pc platform then i would avoid it cos it's slow, clunky on the pc platform, has terrible media management tools, poor color correction tools, no ramping capabilities, poor compositing etc etc etc.....

-- mr umatic (umatique@hotmail.com), January 06, 2005.

12 years ago I shot and edited television news video (3/4" tape- linear).

Now I want to learn a current system with an eye towards producing broadcast quality television. I am an experienced pc computer tech.

Since at this time I could go either Mac or PC (I own a decent pc which plays well the HD movie clips that microsoft has on their site). I am considering buying a Sony HD camera and want to edit that video.

Do I buy Avid or Final Cut? Will the new mini mac work for this until I need something better?

-- Larry Vaughn (larryvaughn@hotmail.com), January 18, 2005.


to the people on this board to say that premiere is shitty... have you used adobe premiere pro? i could see where you would say 6.5 is shitty, but pro is the same program as fcp with a few extras. 1)burn straight to dvd 2)cg program built in that works amazing. 3)works hand and hand with photoshop, ect.

for everyone in the dark about all of this shit, let me fill you in. avid is and has alwasy been on top. 5 years ago, adobe premiere was the best choice out there outside of hollywood. adobe slacked and put more effort into after effects (which apple motion cannot touch) and apple moved ahead of premeire in the video editing. premiere kept comming up with updates but only little things were updated. well, people who always used premiere got pissed that they were slacking and everyone pretty much at once made the jump to mac. adobe was like "oh shit" now what? so they started from scratch. premiere 6.5 was thrown in the trash and the built premiere pro from the ground up. now they are saying, hey, look at us, we have something better but are looked at as 'the boy who cryed wolf' people spent all of this money going to mac that they dont want to come back. well they come back...who knows. moral of the story, premiere and final cut are pretty much the same computer. if you like mac, that go with final cut, if you like pc, than go with premiere. vegas on the other hand, is far from professional and is set up for 4th graders.

-- andrew cleary (cleary@norkafilms.com), January 25, 2005.


This is a follow up to the previous two questions.. Saying that Vegas is for 4th graders is incorrect. It just uses a different layout than what most people are used to. Since Sony bought up Vegas Video, they have poured many millions into R&D on this product and will probably unveil a new Vegas Video at NAB in April. Vegas is currectly used as the primary editing system for many television shows in the Dallas market. LaVida, a spanish culture show, produced by WFAA-TV in Dallas uses Vegas exclusively for production on the show and are currently working it into their newsroom system. This is also what is happening with Final Cut Pro. ENPS (part of the AP wire service) and a few other vendors are setting up their news gathering systems to be an end to end editing platform using Vegas Video and Final Cut Pro as well as avid and quantel. Premiere Pro has come along way and is a viable program, but it has not yet earned the respect of industry leaders in video editing mainly because the instability the program had in the past. A lot of freelance people use it, but a majority still use Avid, Final Cut, Pinnacle Liquid Edition, and Quantel Q-Edit for video editing. Adobe's After effects is the industry leader for compositing and is a requirement if you are to ever break into the editing realm as a contracted freelance editor (specifically the Hollywood market). Motion is coming along, but because of the enourmous system requirements to make the program fully functional, it is not yet on the same level as AfterEffects. In the past year, I have had all the above editing systems in house and have seen what they are able to do and thus the above conclusions are based on what I have experienced.

As for the other question on what camera to get and for what editing system, read my comments further up this post for which editing platform. As for the camera, I own and use a Sony HDV-FX1, Cannon XL1 and XL2, Song PD150, and Sony Betacam DSR-300. All work for their intended job. The betacam is outside most people's budget at 45k. But the other 3 are very comparable. I like the FX1 because of it's HD capabilities, although using the recorded HD picture requires a plugin in any program whether it be avid or final cut. It's not a low light camera, like the PD-150, but when properly lit, it produces a picture that is on the same level as our 250k studio cameras, all for under 4k. The Cannon XL1 and XL2 are great cameras. They have more add on options than you can imagine. The picture quality is very good with cannon lense. I prefer the picture of the Cannon cameras over the PD-150 (since they are the same caliber cameras) because it seems a bit more saturated, but thats just a personal preference. Functionality wise, all the cameras work great. The PD-150 (which is now the 170) is the workhorse camera for the networks. They use them for war front reports, special investigations, etc. They have the industry standard oonnections built in. The cannon cameras are designed for the Indie producer in mind. The entire camera is designed to be modified. The FX1 is the first jump in affordable HD for the average joe while still maintaining a work flow that can be used for the professional. All the cameras use FireWire to transfer the video and audio except the FX1 also outputs component video which allows for a higher picture quality for the HD signal. I use a BlackMagic HD Plus card to ingest the HD signal and thats what we use for editing on our Final Cut system. Granted, it's 200mb per sec capture requirement, but the end picture is airable on our HD transmitter. So I hope that gives you some material to walk away with and I helped explain some workings on the cameras. If anyone any questions about the equipment I work with, just shoot me an email.

Take care all, Ben

-- Ben Ranzinger (kc5dhl@hotmail.com), February 03, 2005.


"I'm going to go do my calc and fill out college applications" Wow! I'll bet your popular Paul.

1. Avid 2. Final Cut Pro HD 3. Premiere Pro 1.x/7/x 14. Premiere 6.5

/I have to agree with Marcell Rousell and macool, this thread is full of dipshits and Paul is the king.

-- Doug Redding (homer_jay_simpson@hotmail.com), February 09, 2005.


So I´m going to buy a second hand G4 tomorrow and I will run Final Cut pro, so save me god that this is the best thing to do. And I hope it doesn´t crash in a 70 mhz, I have no money for a G5 and I need to edit material for the art academy in Amsterdam in 15 days.

-- Antonio Guzman (vivashango@hotmail.com), February 10, 2005.

Question...

How many of you FCP users that are contributing here have actually used Premiere PRO? Most comments like "Premiere sucks" etc, first of all don't give any information as to why you feel that way (did you just hear it from someone else?), but if you haven't used the Premiere _*PRO*_ product extensively, you really don't have any idea what the new Adobe product is all about. Premiere PRO is an entirely different product than the older Premiere, re-written and re-designed from the ground up. Adobe probably would have done themselves a favor by giving it a new name rather than just sticking the "Pro" moniker on it, as many of us have had some horrific experiences with the older Premiere series. Premiere PRO is an entirely new product! It isn't perfect, but it is a world different than the older product. Nothing at all like the non-Pro product. Please don't compare the two, or make comments about the Pro version without using it.

Premere Pro "Pros":

* Slow motion video in Premiere Pro is better than FCP. FCP slo-mo looks jumpy and blurry by comparison. * Titles in Premiere Pro are awesome!!!! Much more flexible and higher quality output than FCP. * Real-time rendering. As a test on my system I dropped three DV clips on top of each other on the timeline, tracks 1-3. The two upper clips had dynamic movement, resizing, recoloring, and rotatation added. The top-most clip had a drop shadow applied to it. Premiere Pro played this back in REALTIME at 30 fps (not rendered!) both on screen and via FireWire output without any hardware assistance! This was definitely much more rigorous than you will find in any typical project, and a good test as to whether PP can handle the type of thing you would normally do with it. It passed the test with flying colors. * Extremely flexible color correction, definitely at least as good as FCP. * All effects parameters are key frameable, with optional bezier curves

Cons:

* Doesn't handle MPEG video clips well at all (slow, audio and video lose sync) * 5.1 audio, though supported, requires a $300 plugin for Dolby Digital output * Supports DVD output, but no Dolby Digital or menus without another app

I also hear FCP users talking about how much more intuitive it is over PP. My only comment about that is that it took me over an hour to decypher the Help and figure out how to get a clip to fade to white in FCP 3 (creating a white matte was what took forever). That part of the software wasn't anywhere close to intuitive. To figure out how to do the same thing in PP took me less than a minute, without using Help. I know there are other examples that will go in favor of FCP, but just how long should it take to figure out such a simple thing, even when instructions for doing so in the Help have been located and are being followed?

-- Doug (greenspun@djmail.org), February 10, 2005.


Premiere Pro 1.5 is the shit, I'm a professional video editor. I make bills on that program. Lastly, it takes me about 2 seconds to freeze any macintosh (especially the Unix based OSs).

-- Nathan (natendo1@hotmail.com), February 10, 2005.

I got Premiere Pro recently, and I can say that I was expecting more.

Weaknesses: -keyframing capabilities are limited. All filter variables should be keyframable but some are not. -timescaling is not keyframable. (grr!) slowmotion is global to the clip. -crashes a lot and lots of bugs. -unintuitive in many ways. -sometimes clip motion causes the image to be corrupted in the final product -sometimes audio is not syncronised with the video in the final product -numerous ctrl-shift-command-option combinations -limited audio-editing control -only for windows, and xp at that

Strengths: -very nice, simplified interface -very customizable -audio pitch shifting -almost no rendering -cheap (relatively compared to FCP and AvidXPress) -a lot of output formats -color correction -compatible with other adobe products

There is more, but that sums it up for AdobePremierePro. (Unfortunately I haven't had the chance to test out FCP or AvidXPress.)

-- John Smith (notreal@fairyland.com), February 22, 2005.


Premiere is a very unstable program. Even with 1 gb RAM and on XP windows with 3 gb fast copmputer - you will wait and wait in each step. SSSLLLLOOWWWWWW. buggy.

-- Dag De Gani (dagdegani@Hotmail.com), March 13, 2005.

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