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Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 vs. Apple Final Cut Pro X
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    Results are targeted primarily for streaming producers, and apply to a much lesser degree to longform producers, if at all. Within the streaming media production community, however, these tests reveal that the Adobe CS6 encodes faster than FCP X, and can shave hours of rendering time off longer, more complex projects.

    http://www.streamingmedia.com/Producer/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=83582&PageNum=1

  • 41 Replies sorted by
  • @jfilmmaker I like the mercury playback, the easy interface. I like the amount of detail when it comes to the software functionality. Their integration and common user interface for me makes it worthwhile. Also I can drop a .wmv, .mov, and .avi into a timeline in Premiere, all with different resolutions, hit the render key, and be on my way. I don't want to buy extra hardware (mac products) I'm not the richest person either. I'm a windows guy so until FCP11 arrives and its better I will be playing on the team Premiere Pro

  • @chriscalifano What reasons make you like Premiere Pro and make it a better choice given the cost of FCX?

  • I Love Premiere Pro , just could not hop on the FCX bandwangon

  • Hey guys, what about audio fades between clips, cutting part of the sound out, replacing it with the desired sound etc., does this work in FCX? Also, what about multi-video tracks playing simultaneously in the a single frame? Finally, is there a quality difference in file exports between final 6, FCP X, and PP6? I guess the only reason I see upgrading is so I can upgrade the OS to 10.6 and get 32 bit color correction....

    Thanks!

    Justin

  • @DrDave thanks a lot! About renaming: Assume while evaluating dailies I rename a clip to "Vitaly hacking-Take1 of 12_CU_handheld_MOS", I want the corresponding file "0089.mts" to have the same name:"Vitaly hacking-Take1 of 12, CU, handheld,MOS.mts". That´s all.

  • Assuming that we are talking about large numbers of files, you can try this http://forums.adobe.com/message/4621639 I guess I'm unclear about what is the problem with renaming, I usually right click and type in the new name. Is the batch renaming feature not helpful? You could rename a whole bunch of files at once. Now if there is a metadata issue, I recommend dealing with that at the camera level. I name all my cameras, name all my cards, and set the default prefix for the clips. That way, when I'm trying to figure it out later with a big pile of cards, it is all labelled, and any metdata carries the same label. Since you are transcoding to a codec, I don't see that that is an issue, however.

    You can also look at this article by Richard Keating where he talks about the pluses and minuses of log and transfer, renaming, etc. http://www.videoguys.com/blog/PL/0xce01536f42cad9b555ae6f8cb355819c.aspx He describes working with native files as "miraculous" but also talks about some of the things that FCP does better.

    Transitions: if you are applying transitions, you need to specify where you want the transition, I mean, you can't tell the program, apply some sort of transition somewhere. So there are different ways to narrow this down, but you can certainly just drop one on a clip, you don't need to highlight the track.

    As far as multiple transitions, there are multiple ways to do that, for example, select the clips and in the Sequence drop down menu you'll see Apply Default Transition to Selection. There are other ways as well.

    It seems like you are concerned with reducing the number of clicks, and I can totally understand that. I find it is faster for me to use the mouse+keyboard shortcuts at the same time, so things happen more or less simultaneously. Others use keyboard shortcuts and macros. For me the number of clicks is important, but not as important as the quality of the finished product, the disc space, real time effects and so on, but everyone has their own workflow, and everyone finds different things annoying. For me, I want to apply an effect, like the three way color corrector, and watch it play in real time at full resolution, not watered down resolution. I also can't stand waiting around for the video to render.

    Others are annoyed that simple tasks take three or four clicks, and that is, of course, annoying, But macros reduce any sequence of clicks to one stream, so for 99 percent of things, there is a simple work around.

  • @DrDave How do you rename the source file(s)? In my experience, for adding a transition the track needs to be highlighted. Also, I never found a way to add multiple transitions on multiple tracks by one click. Lightroom or Bridge what is the use? I assume Bridge and Lightroom are used in the beginning of the workflow. But I watch daylies and name them afterwards. In the NLE.

  • I just click anywhere on a clip, I never highlight a track. I rename the source file with one click. In fact, I can see why you would find these things annoying, but for some reason they don't seem to happen to me.

    If you are running a laptop, just put a cuda card in the mini pci slot. But It's tough to put big fast drives in a laptop. I like to have swappable drive bays.

    But it also seems to me that if you are running 2-4 terabytes a month, converting that to a codec is a huge waste of disk space. You have to keep changing disks, whereas working with the original files is very fast and compact. So for high volume, multitrack vid you will save money just on the hard drives. Let's say I store 2 terabytes a month, if I triple or quadruple that with a codec, it won't even fit on one hard drive. And a three-to-four TB harddrive, well, it isn't terribly expensive but it is money and after a while, when you have piles and piles of hard drives, space is really an issue.

    Plus, aren't you resampling the video? Why resample?

    These are apples and oranges. If you don't want to resample, like the superscaling, like the RT playback, RT effects, multicam, and so on, all running on cheap hardware, I think CS6 (or 5) is good. If you like the Mac workflow, of course, absolutely. Obviously two great platforms.

    What would be really interesting is to take a short clip and edit it on both systems, and see which one looks the best.

    Anyway, if it works for you, I say, may the GeForce be with you!

  • simple answer: I use both. PP for native mts editing, FCP X for quite the rest. Audio sync in FCP X is in my experience much better than in plural eyes.

    @Frame for renaming you can use easily Bridge or Lightroom. I had a 3 days shoot >200GB >450 files and renamed all automated to JOB-YY-MM-DD-hr-min-sec which worked perfect.

  • @DrDave. According graphic cards, why should I be stuck to a desktop, whe a laptop can be enhanced for professional audio /video previewing.

    PPpro might be fine for short gigs. It is great that you can throw anything in. Had also a concert during the test phase with material from DSLR, P2, XDCAM, all in a timline without transcoding. When playback was stuttering, i thought it was the many different codecs, until I found out, that even an All-I DSLR Sequence stutterd or a ProRes sequence.

    File management is ok for short gigs.Straight off the card if one likes. It is also ok as long as you are stuck to one drive.

    But it is very bad for work over months, with DSLR, where you need to make backups and have to organize a hundred hours of footage.

    When you have lot of material accumulating over weeks, (like in a documentary) there are too many files sharing the same names. Again no problem when everything goes fine. Very bad, when you want to move ALL your files to another disk or you have a hard disk crash and are forced to continue working with your backup. This is one basic responsebility of an editor. Do backups. Reassure, you can continue working after technical failures. Do not trus time machine or the cloud. Do backups. Give files unique names. Avid did this it automatically from the very beginnings, even thought they could only be opended from the NLE

    You can rename clips in any NLE, but renaming the corresponding files from the NLE with one mous click can only be done with FCP7, as far as I know. BTW workin in a timeline i still faster ith FCP7. Click on the spot and do whatever you want. In PP6, the track has to be highlighted. In FCP 7, Click on a segment and render itt . In PP6, set a workspace, when you want to render a file. In FCP you can store effects in any bin you want. In PP6, there is only one place to store presets.

    Yoo´ll lose time becuse FCP requires transcoding prior to editing. In PP6 you will loss time becaise there is too many actions to achieve a goal in the timeline.

  • I don't know about renaming the files, I just click on it and rename it, but I import the whole card anyway so PP does the clip spanning and puts it in a folder.

    My understanding is that even on a mac you can pop in a $50 card and get CUDA; if it is a laptop that takes a bit more finesse. The macs I worked on will not play multicam, multilayered mts files in real time without converting them to a codec, but if the latest version does that, then that is some serious optimizing and Kudos.

    I just pop the card into a USB3 reader and start editing--that is a big time saver for me.

  • @DRDave Old fashioned, outdated 32-bit FCP7 flies on my Mac and that´s the point. I wanted to buy a new NLE, not a new Mac after only 1,5 years of use.

    Another issue: Loading a project of let´s say 20hrs of footage just becomes slow after some weeks of editing and having maybe 20 different sequences. And after the project is opened, you´ll have to wait again one minute until all media is loaded. What for? When one link was broken and gets reestablished, some supporting database gets written again by PP6, even when the original database is still there,,,

    One last thing: VERY, VERY annoying problem with PP6, especially working with DSLR producing identical filenames and timecodes: You cannot rename the original files. Only clip names of course. I moved one project during editing from one drive to another. In PP&, I can move / copy only media files of chosen sequences, never all media files. (In FCP 7 I can) I moved evrything to another drive and PP6 asks for "0005.mts" to start relinking to the new drive. No info about the clipname, to which "0005.mts" is linked. Great. After 4 days of shooting with 2 cards, there are at least 8 files with the name "0005.mts". In FCP7, I would have them probably renamed after the clip names. So no problem with relinking to a backup disk. O.K, FCP7, so this is a little bit off topic.

  • @DrDave

    CS6 is the fastest

    AFAIK this is true when comparing PP and FCPX both running on systems with nvidia cards, otherwise it needs to be proven.

  • Yup--just the one box. There is also a Red Giant plugin that does something similar but the CS6 is almost and good and so easy to use.

  • @DrDave +1 on zooming quality in CS6. I've had good results myself. When you mention having render box checked are you referring to the "Render at max quality" in sequence settings? Thanks

  • CS6 is the fastest, so if you don't like waiting around, it is cheap and super fast. You can edit without transcoding, etc.

    @Frame if your playback is choppy with an i7 you have a setup issue--check that Mercury playback is enabled in hardware. You only need 12 gb ram, so ram is not an issue, the i7 is not an issue, so it is either your graphics card or the text file that contains the setup info for your hardware. The bottleneck could be that the GPU is not being used, or you aren't running all cores.

    When buying a system, make sure you get an i7 with HT enabled (8-12 cores) and a solid GPU like a GTX 650 or better--then your video will fly.

    The new color correction in CS6, especially the new three way color wheel, rocks and if you need it, you have Speedgrade as well.

    Resizing, panning, cropping: CS6 uses a sophisticated system to resize video, for example for panning, cropping, zooming in post IF you have the render box checked and are using hardware mercury rendering. This is really fast and will give you a noticeable boost in rendering quality. IMHO, one of the most important features. Without this, when you zoom in, you will see your resolution fade more. Combine this a touch of keyed sharpening and it is pretty cool effect.

  • PP6 eats too much resources. On my 2011 MBP , 2.2 Intel Core i7 and 16 gigs of RAM, playback even with rendered files & previews, played from internal harddrive, is choppy. No difference with h.264, All-intra, ProRes. Very much CPU load without any reason. Because of CPU-Load, the battries get emptied. Rendering times as stated by Vitaly are not the full story. IN FCP/FCPX one will save time by using renders. But Premiere will always rerender. (Checkin "use previews" when exporting did not speed things up)

  • @rikyxxx Thanks - will check it out

  • @matt_gh2 I'm glad you found those experiences interesting enough to give FCPX a try.

    Let me suggest you a good, and free, starting point: http://www.izzyvideo.com/final-cut-pro-x-tutorial/

  • i made the switch to FCPX and i love it. It is powerful and makes for quicker editing!

  • @rikyxxx Sounds interesting. Ill have to do the free 30 day trial sometime and see how it works. Thanks

  • Ok :-)

    Sorry in advance if I seems to be lazy, but I'm going to quote a couple of guy who explained it extremely well:

    The Timeline is a whole new concept. There are no blatant "tracks," but we do have a track-like structure. [...] This Story Line has unique characteristics, such as there can be no empty spaces; this is handled by Gap Clips. A Gap Clip is a slug that we can ripple and roll with neighboring clips. It also makes replace edits for filling them in very easy. All of these elements act and look like tracks, but are much more dynamic, intelligent and easier to deal with.

    Editing has been simplified with Append, Insert, Connect, Overwrite, and Replace commands, and very simple keyboard shortcuts. If you can remember Q, W, E, you're pretty much there. (These are traditional three point edits. Using the Shift key along with the edit keys will back-time clips. Otherwise they are timed by In points.) Connect edits are another new concept. FCPX assumes that your core story telling media is in the Story Line. Everything else will be cutaways, text, composites, sound effects, music, etc. These Connect to specific clips inside the Story Line. If a Connected clip is deleted or moved, other Connected clips above automatically come down to fill in the gap. This makes for a more compact and easy to work with Timeline. It's a new way to work, and some editors are finding it very comfortable. With this Story Line and Connected Clips paradigm, nothing can possibly go out of sync, ever, at all. Unless you purposefully move it out of sync.

    An amazing new feature is called Auditions. We can place several assets in one place in our Timeline, then open the Auditions window to scroll between each asset. As we chose a specific asset it takes that place in the Timeline. This way we can Audition several different versions of an edit quickly, easily and save a lot of time. Clients will enjoy not having to wait for you to do multiple replace edits, or undo/redo over and over, or turn clips on and off repeatedly.

    http://www.videomaker.com/article/15239

    [the magnetic timeline] Some hate it. I love it. I think the magnetic timeline is the editing equivalent of a bicycle. Pretty much everyone has to learn bike riding through a bit of practice. For most of us, the moment you “get it” it just becomes a normal part of your life. When your goal is quick assembly or rapid scene re-ordering – or if you’ve built complex connected-clip relationships and want to move them as a single unit – magnetism rocks. However, if you decide to spread your work out and “scratch pad” elements in time without magnetism, a keystroke puts you in “position” mode and you can do that. Having the choice, I now find myself working “magnetically” nearly always. But basically I think that if you can ride a bike, you can learn to edit magnetically. It’s really no harder than that.

    http://www.dvinfo.net/article/post/five-ways-i-think-fcp-x-is-changing-editing-for-the-better.html

  • @rikyxxx You misread my post. I stated that I myself hadn't heard anything on this. That's why I asked you to describe your thoughts and experiences. I'm always interested in learning new workflows. So that cleared up, what do you feel is the benefit of FCPX? In other words tell me how it feels and flows to edit with FCPX. Thanks

  • @matt

    I remember hearing that FCPX was supposed to "transform the way we edit...making it quicker...and more in line with creative decisions/flow". But then I didn't really hear anything like that from the users.

    You're wrong, there are many user reports about the new FCPX "concepts" (magnetic timeline, main story line and "auditions" above all) that can make you edit faster.

    You can disagree and say that it all depends upon your editing "style", but if you didn't hear anything about it, it just means that you didn't listen to or read about more than a couple of FCPX user experiences.

  • @rikyxxx I remember hearing that FCPX was supposed to "transform the way we edit...making it quicker...and more in line with creative decisions/flow". But then I didn't really hear anything like that from the users. Is this the case for you? Is it quicker? Somehow a better flow for creative editing? Would be interested in your thoughts and experiences about this.

    @rockroadpix is right. Adobe's Creative Cloud is an insanely good deal. You get 15-20 different Adobe programs...all for $50/month..$30 if you're a student or teacher. Anyone interested in Adobe should definitely check out creative cloud. I've been on it for a few months now - everything runs smooth, no problems. You get Premiere Pro, Audition, After Effects, SpeedGrade, Photoshop, just to name a few.

    Not sure if FCPX supports exporting out audio for editing. Thought I heard it didn't, but they seemed to be doing a lot of updates, so maybe that's been added.

    Back to original post, which was about speed and rendering. I haven't used FCPX. But I can say that my rendering in Adobe Premiere Pro is pretty quick (I'm on a Windows i7 quad core 2.2 ghz with 16gb ram).