There’s been so much talk about a “new paradigm” and “a new beginning” lately courtesy of Apple. Defenders of the “new paradigm” are quick to point out that this is an entirely new application, nothing like it has ever been done, therefore, Apple had to break with all convention to create Final Cut Pro X. It’s stripped down now, like Final Cut Pro 1, but give it time and the things we “need” will be added back over time. It has so much “potential for the future.”
The more I work with Adobe Premiere Pro the more I just don’t understand that mentality. Why wait? Premiere Pro already includes the “missing elements” of FCP X and so much more it can’t do.
Here’s what I was doing today.
What does that equal? Very nice realtime editing on a system that I would never expect to have so much. Since I don’t have to convert to ProRes, I’m working with much smaller and efficient files directly off the Canon DSLR cameras. I’m also working with Photoshop layers using opacity changes and such. Here’s a look at a portion of the timeline.
So you’re looking at a scene from our recent Atlanta Cutters Meeting. First, there’s two layers of 720p/59.94 HD video from a Canon DSLR. It’s just one layer playing above the other, no picture in picture, I just lined up the two cameras.
Directly above that is the first layer of the ATL Cutters bug which is set to 15% opacity and stays up there for the entire 22 minute presentation.
Directly above is another Photoshop layer of the solid orange lower third with the solid ATL Cutters logo.
Directly above that are two layers of Premiere Pro generated text. Ken’s name and the atlantacutters.com website. Ken’s name has a drop shadow on it while the website layer again runs the entire 22 minutes of the presentation.
You see there’s a solid red line above the timeline so all of us who are conditioned in the Final Cut Pro mentality would expect that means the system has to render. Not in this case. Premiere Pro plays the timeline in full realtime, all layers playing so I can keep editing, no stopping, no blue “Unrendered” screen. Nothing. Just drop the files into the timeline, pretty much any digital format, and go.
Off a single LaCie Rugged Drive connected solely by FW800 on an iMac. Very impressive. It’s very nice to not have to choose “Play Base Layer Only” so I can at least play the timeline for a client. Now I can leave the entire timeline in its full format and we can just keep editing.
What’s the biggest project I’ve moved over to Premiere? Our 2nd feature documentary, Dark Forest Black Fly, which has over 4000 clips with around 200 hours of material. We’re in the rough cut stage and the documentary transferred over seamlessly. The only thing that didn’t come over were the rough texts which my editor created using the “Outline Text” tool in FCP. If she had used the regular Text Tool, then they would have transferred over as well.
I’ve read in multiple forums that “Premiere Pro has trouble with large projects.” Based on this project transfer, I don’t see that. Not sure how much larger of a project I can test than that. I am definitely getting much more realtime playback in that project as well vs. what I would get in FCP, even using the ProRes codec.
Now something else Premiere Pro has is a feature called Dynamic Link which essentially allows all the apps to work together seamlessly. Here’s a neat example of that I literally stumbled onto today. Adobe Media Encoder is the equivalent of what you would find in Compressor. But here’s something you would never be able to do with Compressor.
From within Adobe Media Encoder I can access Sequences from Adobe Premiere Pro projects. “Big deal?” you say? “I can do that from FCP by simply doing “Send To > Compressor.” No, you can’t do this…..
I launch Adobe Media Encoder by itself. Nothing else on the system is running. From within Adobe Media Encoder, I select “Add Premiere Pro Sequence.”
This brings up the Adobe Premiere Projects on the right, and you can see I’ve selected the ATL Cutters July 27th mtg project which in turn brings up all the Sequences to choose from.
I can pick and choose any of these Sequences to Queue into the Media Encoder. In fact I can select Sequences from as many projects as I need, without ever opening any of them. This is pretty darn cool. No need to open a project, no need to “Export” or “Send To” or even make reference movies. The encoder works directly off the Sequence information. A very small thing but shows just how tightly the entire suite of apps are tied together.
Add to that the fact that the current “missing features” of FCP X (including XML, OMF, audio track assignments, proper video output, capture / edit to tape controls) are already there along with the suite of products Adobe already offers, in my opinion Premiere Pro today far outperforms what FCP X can do, today. Now if we wait 2 to 5 years (depending on which expert opinion you read) FCP X might be a really great editing tool. But Premiere Pro and Avid will be 2 to 5 years improved as well.
So in my opinion switching to Premiere Pro today is the same as someone waiting 2 years or so for FCP X to add all the missing features. So when FCP X does finally catch up to Premiere Pro / Avid today, they will already be two years further down the road with a wealth of input from former FCP users. Looking forward, Premiere Pro (and Avid) has nowhere to go but further up from where it is today.
My editors are so excited about this switch that they’ve already begun training on the tool and we are going to accelerate our move to the platform. I think we will end up with Premiere Pro being our primary editing tool with at least one, maybe two Avid Media Composers if they ever get the AJA Kona board working with that system. And yes, I still have Smoke for Mac to play with and you never know, that might end up as a finishing system for us.
So there you go, the latest update in our new paradigm of editing for Biscardi Creative Media. I will do a video blog this coming week on color grading in Premiere Pro.
I’m primarily a FCP editor but, I’ve been cutting with Premiere since CS3 (along with MC). CS5 was a huge upgrade. I’m surprised so many editors are just figuring this out now that Apple has dropped the ball. I think Adobe will emerge as the editing platform for the next few years – especially with their new subscription option. I’ve also been delving into Smoke. There’s a steep learning curve there. I’m not so sure it’s worth the cost either. I sat with a Smoke artist from Fox Sports for half a day and (although it’s an impressive tool) I have a hard time justifying the price vs. the added value to my clients. The Adobe suite on a MacPro with my arsenal of plugins is a pretty good match up.
Quite honestly most of us were snobbish towards Premiere Pro. It was “that application” that was installed along with Photoshop, AE and Illustrator, but we never touched it. Now Apple gave us a very good reason to take a much closer look at “that application” and the light bulbs started clicking all over the place. We realized this was the Final Cut Pro we should have had all along. So we’re a bit late to the party, but quite excited moving forward.
The price point is going to be Autodesk’s biggest hurdle to get more penetration into the NLE market. The tool is flat out amazing, but if you are well qualified in After Effects, you can probably do a lot of what Smoke can do, only it will take you a bit longer to build and render. I’m going to start playing around in it shortly.
Autodesk’s website has a slew of tutorials and lessons on their website, particularly for folks coming from other NLEs.
Hi Walter,
I requested a real time performance blog entry from you around a month ago and this is really comprehensive so thanks a lot for taking the time to post this.
I’ll keep following the blog because your transition will be a great inspiration but in all honestly my mind is made up, Premiere is the way forward……and whatsmore, Apple has handed to them on a plate, Avid too.
Glad it was a helpful entry for you!
>>> “Quite honestly most of us were snobbish towards Premiere Pro. […] We realized this was the Final Cut Pro we should have had all along.”
Premiere wasn’t competitive until the late 2000’s, long after FCP had already transformed the NLE market. PP became a great app, but there’s no need to re-write history here.
>>> “Now if we wait 2 to 5 years (depending on which expert opinion you read) FCP X might be a really great editing tool. But Premiere Pro and Avid will be 2 to 5 years improved as well.”
This is partly true, but partly backwards. Apple is 2 to 5 years ahead of PP and Avid in terms of creating new NLE architecture/UI/metaphors for the next decade. Too bad Apple had to jettison so much critical functionality along the way for 1.0, but I bet that Adobe & Avid, while happy about the short-term boost, are nervous about how this plays out, once FCPX starts filling in the blanks. My guess is they have new interface initiatives going forward, but in this respect, they’re behind Apple — not ahead.
What I see with both Adobe and Avid is they are responding to the industry needs. They both added native editing with digital codecs a year ago. Apple just caught up.
The new interface is certainly not “2 to 5 years ahead” of the others. It’s just another way to do things that requires the operator to work in the way Apple designed. But there’s not a lot earthshaking in there that hasn’t already been done before. A few nice features for sure, and if something is really interesting, that Adobe / Avid editors want, I’m sure both of those companies would be able to respond.
Apple’s big thing is “you can work faster.” Well that’s completely true of Avid and Adobe one year ago.
But if FCP X works for you, that’s great, but there’s nothing about that interface that puts it “ahead” of the others. Just a different, more unified workflow.
>>> “The new interface is certainly not “2 to 5 years ahead” of the others. It’s just another way to do things that requires the operator to work in the way Apple designed.”
From the standpoint of a high-end editor like yourself, this is certainly reasonable. But going downmarket from where you are, FCPX’s interface is much more approachable. Now, Apple can go back and start filling in the gaps- things like multi-cam and XML, which they’re already committed to. Next, they can sand off rough edges – e.g. magnetic timeline issues, options for structured audio track output, etc.
It will be easier for Apple to add back pro features in increments, than it will be for Adobe or Avid to architect a next-gen interface. Apple pushed the reset button — and took a big hit in doing so. But now they have that behind them. I believe Adobe and Avid have that ahead of them.
Truth is, I think Apple massively botched the transition. Dropping support for FCP7 the way they did was inexcusable. And we don’t yet know whether they’ll make it back all the way to a tool for high-end post, in all its glory. But I think you have to look beyond Apple’s transition mistakes to judge the issue of NLE evolution. The one-note bashing of FCPX is short-sighted.
I believe my articles and podcasts go well beyond “one note bashing.” FCP X has some good points, but the bad outweighs the good by a long measure for my needs and those of many of my colleagues. Add to that the lack of trust in Apple as a company, we choose to leave the platform.
Avid has already introduced a new interface for MC6. Adobe has already laid out the road map through to CS9.
If you’re fine with the message of a new paradigm from Apple and the promise of features to be returned for your workflow I wish you the best.
>>> “Avid has already introduced a new interface for MC6.”
It’s interesting how Avid came out with a darker interface, a couple months after Apple’s lead. Much of MC6’s “new” interface looks like a new color scheme to me. Clearly Avid feels a need to demonstrate some kind of UI overhaul. Hmmm…
It’s great that Avid and Adobe can provide continuity- a safe option for pros who need to preserve existing workflows after Apple bailed. But I’d still bet that Avid and Adobe are scrambling internally. If Apple follows through on more pro functionality for FCPX, older NLE designs will be in a pincer- from both high-end and low-end.
If the darker interface is an example of moving forward for Apple, then you would have to look back several years at Adobe. Premiere Pro has had the dark interface for years. So using your statement, then Apple is following Adobe’s lead. Avid has had the UI overhaul in the works for quite some time now. You don’t simply roll out a new interface in a matter of weeks just to say “Hey Look, we can have a dark interface too!” There’s a lot more going on there that’s more than just a pretty interface.
In the world of metadata, which Apple touts as being revolutionary, again they are following the lead of Adobe and Avid which utilized much richer metadata information for the past year at least. Premiere Pro especially, since that’s what we’re quickly switching over to, has a metadata feature set reminiscent of CatDV which we also use in house.
Also, keep in mind Apple is not going to follow through with “more pro functionality.” They’ve already said as much in their press releases. They will rely on third party vendors to add many of the features that are missing through plug-ins and such. This will drive up the cost of each seat so you will be paying as much as, and possibly more, than the Final Cut Studio 3 Suite but for just one app.
The exception to this is audio track assignments which they will have to do on their own. Apparently they’ve gotten the message that trackless editing doesn’t work in the real, collaborative world. Will be interesting to see how / when they fix this.
Apple has essentially created a low cost island for those who don’t need to interface with or collaborate with those outside their own application. For those who can work within this structure, it’s a fantastic editing tool. For those of us who like to collaborate with as many artists as possible on projects, it’s just not something that’s feasible.
Thankfully we have so many choices out there today. Best of luck to you Kim moving forward.
>>> “The one-note bashing of FCPX is short-sighted.”
I hope by now you have healed and moved on. Otherwise, you should get some help from Final Cutters Anonymous and Apple Certified Apologists Anonymous.
>>> “It’s interesting how Avid came out with a darker interface, a couple months after Apple’s lead. Much of MC6′s “new” interface looks like a new color scheme to me. Clearly Avid feels a need to demonstrate some kind of UI overhaul. Hmmm…”
All of Adobe applications have had darker/lighter interface switcher since the beginning of time. Autodesk has had dark interface in its products for the longest time as well. Many of the features in FCS (a.k.a legacy) were already in Sony Vegas.
Apple is the new Microsoft ;-P
Walter, I have been following your transition with interest. I have decided to do the same. I am delighted with Premiere CS 5.5. Its wicked good. I do a lot of Keyframing and it is way easier than FCP ever hoped. Shame on Adobe for keeping Premiere 5.5 the best kept secret until now. It is what we hoped for with FCP8. And its here now.
I’ve run FCPX less than 6 times since downloading. It’s a beautiful and fast app, just not for me. So much for hard fought FCP Certifications.. I am not buying the FCPX spin. What a waste Apple.
David
@Techwizard
P.S. I do a web series called Dave Travels. Here is my second project edited completely with Premiere CS 5.5. Works like a charm. http://vimeo.com/27376477
P.P.S I do agree with the snob comment. Guilty as charged.
Yeah it’s funny how much more efficient I could have been over a year ago if we had switched to Premiere Pro CS 5. But we live and learn, it just took Apple to give us the nudge to really look at it.
Then you see that BBC, Discovery Networks and more are switching their FCP seats to Adobe Premiere Pro and you realize, a lot of folks are seeing the same thing.
Walter,
Enjoy your blog and these articles.
I especially liked the videos from Atlanta Cutters Meeting, posted on fcp.co — I found them very informative.
I have been using FCP7/FCPS for a couple of years — mainly for my own amusement (I have 3 grandkids who play soccer, etc) and to help a singer, composer, pianist to make music videos.
I have been playing with FCP X, and likely, it will be adequate for my needs — but I wish FCP X could import my existing FCP 7 projects. Adobe Premiere appears to do this quite well,
The Cutters videos and this blog have piqued my interest in Premiere.
I do have a question to ask, though and thought that you may be able to help me (as organizer of the Cutters event).
In the Cutter videos there is an adapter [plugged into the back of the Promise Pegasus Thunderbolt RAID. I got my Pegasus Monday — great box, but I can’t figure out what that 9-pin port connects to. The only other ports are 2 Thunderbolt ports.
I have scoured the Promise site, and searched the web to no avail.
Any Ideas?
TIA
Dick Applebaum
To be honest, I never even got up close to the Promise RAID to take a close look at it. Being that it was our first meeting it was kind of a blur getting everything set up to do the demos and open the meeting, so all I really noticed was “Cool, connect RAID To Laptop and connect Monitor to RAID and it all works!”
Sorry I can’t help you more on that mysterious port question.
Walter – Can you give us some details on the iMac you are editing with. Processor speed etc. Very interesting piece! I am an Avid editor but may return to PPro as a freelancer.
Kevin
27″ 3.33ghz Intel Core Duo 2 machine. It’s an older model, the last of the Core Duo’s. 8GB RAM.
I bought this one because it was the when Apple was transitioning all of their machines to NOT support Jumbo Frames over Ethernet which is required for our Ethernet SAN to work. Last year they finally brought back the ethernet controllers so this can work properly with our SAN again. But at the moment, it lives in my home office as my “play” machine.
Thank You!
Now that Adobe bought part of Iridas and plans to bundle a new app with their Creative Suite, it should be even clearer to people that Adobe is heading in the right direction AND is committed to the video industry.
With this news and the news about Resolve coming to Windows, I am overly excited. I already have the hardware (12-core Z800, Eizo CG243W, 17″ panny, BM Decklink, etc). If Adobe releases a grading app that integrates with Premiere, I will go that route unless its not nearly as powerful as Resolve.
What are your thoughts about Adobe buying part of Iridas?
PS Is your Smoke on Mac paying for itself yet? Are you training from ground up or did you bring in an experienced Smoke user? My main hurdle is no Batch which is such a faster way of compositing.
Well, actually Adobe hasn’t announced plans of what exactly they are going to do. They are actively seeking input from the production community as to what we would like to see happen moving forward with the product. Here’s a link where you can offer your thoughts.
So will it be bundled in or just left as a stand alone app? Not sure because at the moment SpeedGrade is quite pricey. One potential way to go is the Plug-in / Full App direction like FilmLight has introduced with Baselight. They have an absolutely incredible plug-in that can be used in Final Cut Pro (and hopefully soon Premiere Pro) that also talks to the full featured application. So an FCP editor can do a basic grade, then send the XML over to the Baselight artist where their system will read everything the FCP editor did. When the Baselight artist is done, they can either render out the entire project OR send the project back to the FCP artist to render. The plug-in will read everything the Baselight artist did, even feature that are not in the plug-in.
So something like that might be kind of neat. A lower cost plug-in for someone who doesn’t want to take the time to learn a complete color grading application, but can do nice work on their own. But then have the ability to pass their project along to someone else who has the full application for further work.
As for Smoke, that’s an evaluation copy for us to test, we have not purchased it yet. In fact, I still have to get it installed, we’ve been so busy testing Adobe and Avid at the moment, I just didn’t want to get anything else added to the mix just yet, but soon. The Smoke demo at our Atlanta Cutters meeting was awesome!