Red and Adobe

[jonathan homer vargas]

I use adobe premier and i like more than fcp because is more flexible and i can export to AFTER EFFECT, is wonderfull

[Tim Morten]

Premiere is not above criticism, but its CUDA support is stellar, its Red support is native, its AE interoperability is tight, and there are no doubts about its future as a pro tool. None of which can be said about Final Cut. I know changing tools is hard to swallow, but Premiere is the best option available at the moment, IMO.

[Paul Hudson]

I was an original beta tester of FCP 1.2 and have used it and other platforms since. I recently started using Premiere extensively and I am very pleased with the advancements by Adobe. I believe Apple has lost interest in video professionals.

[Kacey Baker]

Apple has lost interest in video professionals.

Apple has lost interest in all professionals. They have abandoned their loyal creative industry MAC market and chased the money with LIFESTYLE products, as any business should.

Premiere is in it's infancy even at cs5.5 - its awesome and I think it's UI and work flow will improve quick smart given the window of opportunity Apple has given it.

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Alexander, just so we are all clear this statement about Premiere not rendering as "good of quality" as Color or Resolve I assume your referring to the Color Grading Tools themselves and what you can achieve with those and not the actual quality of the picture you are capable of "RENDERING" in Premiere? ... I've used Premiere many times for doing final layback and mastering from Resolve, Scratch, Color, SpeedGrade, and Lustre systems ingesting final output DPX files adding titles etc and mastering back out to DPX with NO quality loss whatsoever. I think you should rephrase what you referring to here because its quite misleading and not very detailed or accurate.

Wow ... that's a tirade born of picking my original apart too finely, but without understanding it at all.

I mean, you seem to have skated right by the part where I said you can finish in Premiere.

Then you had a little freak out.

What I wrote was, "The quality of the rendered results is a step up from FCP, but not quite as nice as you'd get with Color or Resolve." That's what I meant ... and you are wrong to try and correct me.

The point I was trying to make is that Premiere is a step up from FCP 6 or FCP 7 in its image processing, but its not up to par with the established leaders.

Before I go on, I should clarify. Image processing is separate from "rendering."

Mostly I expect the problems are just bugs. Remember that Adobe only recently implemented a new image processing system. (I think it was CS4 ... ) It takes time to get all the bugs worked out and to put some polish on a whole new image handling system. The Adobe guys know their business, and I'm sure they'll work it all out ... in time.

To repeat: the image processing in the CS5.5 applications is far better than what you get in FCP 6 or 7, but it can be improved upon.

(I haven't tested FCP X image quality ... but Apple just made the same 32 bit transition that Adobe already made ... it should bring near parity - on paper.)

Let me give you an example:

If your camera masters are HDDSLR h.264 encoded material and you wish to transcode it to ProRes 4444 on OS X:

Resolve uses Apple's h.264 decoder, while Premiere uses another ... I think MainConcept's. So, the end result is that for that specific workflow Premiere Pro delivers better results than Resolve.

That's an odd case though, and very simple. It rests on using an improved h.264 decoder ... not on Premiere's image processing.

Add in a basic primary color correction step, say shifting midtones 5% towards blue and expanding the contrast range, and now Resolve will deliver better quality results. That's because of the quality of the internal image processing. This isn't to do with being able to accomplish a specific task - that's an easy grade to achieve in Premiere and Resolve.

So there is a difference ... but its not likely to be one where audience members are going to be saying to themselves, "what the hell, was this rendered in Premiere?" No ... most people won't ever note the issue. Then again, the bigger the change, the bigger the difference.

You are more likely to run into issues when you are transcoding or doing a color space transformation. As an example, if your sources are Log YUV files, and you have to output linear RGB, that's the sort of thing Premiere and AE can trip up on. The more uncommon the transformation, the more likely you'll see a problem.

Where there is no transcoding or transformation, there is no problem. That's because there is no image processing occurring.

If I go from 10 bit 422 uncompressed to a new 10 bit 422 uncompressed render, it will be perfect. If I go from 10 bit 422 uncompressed to ProRes HQ, it will be as good as ProRes HQ can be. That's the actual rendering at work without any need for image processing, and as I said, there is no problem with rendering.

This comports with your experience finishing in Premiere.

If all you do is lay in titles on a DPX sequence and then render DPX, I don't think there is any way AE can screw that up. Mathematically its just an addition. Drunken monkeys flailing abacuses can get that right. Strictly speaking there is image processing ... but its very simple.

Look ... this is a great system from a technology standpoint ... and all this technobabble is distracting from my more serious concerns about how the system interacts with me, the user. I trust Adobe will continue to improve their image processing ... because well ... Photoshop!

[Kacey Baker]

Wait a sec guys, just grabbing some pop corn.

Wow ... that's a tirade born of picking my original apart too finely, but without understanding it at all.

I mean, you seem to have skated right by the part where I said you can finish in Premiere.

Then you had a little freak out.

What I wrote was, "The quality of the rendered results is a step up from FCP, but not quite as nice as you'd get with Color or Resolve." That's what I meant ... and you are wrong to try and correct me.

The point I was trying to make is that Premiere is a step up from FCP 6 or FCP 7 in its image processing, but its not up to par with the established leaders.

Before I go on, I should clarify. Image processing is separate from "rendering."

Mostly I expect the problems are just bugs. Remember that Adobe only recently implemented a new image processing system. (I think it was CS4 ... ) It takes time to get all the bugs worked out and to put some polish on a whole new image handling system. The Adobe guys know their business, and I'm sure they'll work it all out ... in time.

To repeat: the image processing in the CS5.5 applications is far better than what you get in FCP 6 or 7, but it can be improved upon.

(I haven't tested FCP X image quality ... but Apple just made the same 32 bit transition that Adobe already made ... it should bring near parity - on paper.)

Let me give you an example:

If your camera masters are HDDSLR h.264 encoded material and you wish to transcode it to ProRes 4444 on OS X:

Resolve uses Apple's h.264 decoder, while Premiere uses another ... I think MainConcept's. So, the end result is that for that specific workflow Premiere Pro delivers better results than Resolve.

That's an odd case though, and very simple. It rests on using an improved h.264 decoder ... not on Premiere's image processing.

Add in a basic primary color correction step, say shifting midtones 5% towards blue and expanding the contrast range, and now Resolve will deliver better quality results. That's because of the quality of the internal image processing. This isn't to do with being able to accomplish a specific task - that's an easy grade to achieve in Premiere and Resolve.

So there is a difference ... but its not likely to be one where audience members are going to be saying to themselves, "what the hell, was this rendered in Premiere?" No ... most people won't ever note the issue. Then again, the bigger the change, the bigger the difference.

You are more likely to run into issues when you are transcoding or doing a color space transformation. As an example, if your sources are Log YUV files, and you have to output linear RGB, that's the sort of thing Premiere and AE can trip up on. The more uncommon the transformation, the more likely you'll see a problem.

Where there is no transcoding or transformation, there is no problem. That's because there is no image processing occurring.

If I go from 10 bit 422 uncompressed to a new 10 bit 422 uncompressed render, it will be perfect. If I go from 10 bit 422 uncompressed to ProRes HQ, it will be as good as ProRes HQ can be. That's the actual rendering at work without any need for image processing, and as I said, there is no problem with rendering.

This comports with your experience finishing in Premiere.

If all you do is lay in titles on a DPX sequence and then render DPX, I don't think there is any way AE can screw that up. Mathematically its just an addition. Drunken monkeys flailing abacuses can get that right. Strictly speaking there is image processing ... but its very simple.

Look ... this is a great system from a technology standpoint ... and all this technobabble is distracting from my more serious concerns about how the system interacts with me, the user. I trust Adobe will continue to improve their image processing ... because well ... Photoshop!

[Alexander Ibrahim]

I believe Apple has lost interest in video professionals.

I don't.

I think they are trying to engage in transformational thinking.

Where they screwed up is in not treating users like adults and telling them they were making big changes. Not explaining it would take time.

You can pull the rug out from iMovie users, they'll complain, but ultimately people using iMovie aren't depending on it for their living. FCP X would have been better received if the message was, "Here is the future of FCP in version 1. Think of this as a very mature beta though. Features are missing, we know. They'll be coming back. For now ... keep working in FCP 7, and help us by beating on the new thing when you can. Oh and we are doing free updates for people who bought"

I think the same thing might be happening in Mac Pro land ... but I also still think we'll get one more Mac Pro with Thunderbolt before they try and change the world.

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Wait a sec guys, just grabbing some pop corn.

Haha!

We totally deserve that.

[Gunleik Groven]

Wait a sec guys, just grabbing some pop corn.

LOL

Have to go to work...

[mikeburton]

Wow ... that's a tirade born of picking my original apart too finely, but without understanding it at all.

I mean, you seem to have skated right by the part where I said you can finish in Premiere.

Then you had a little freak out.

What I wrote was, "The quality of the rendered results is a step up from FCP, but not quite as nice as you'd get with Color or Resolve." That's what I meant ... and you are wrong to try and correct me.

The point I was trying to make is that Premiere is a step up from FCP 6 or FCP 7 in its image processing, but its not up to par with the established leaders.

Before I go on, I should clarify. Image processing is separate from "rendering."

Mostly I expect the problems are just bugs. Remember that Adobe only recently implemented a new image processing system. (I think it was CS4 ... ) It takes time to get all the bugs worked out and to put some polish on a whole new image handling system. The Adobe guys know their business, and I'm sure they'll work it all out ... in time.

To repeat: the image processing in the CS5.5 applications is far better than what you get in FCP 6 or 7, but it can be improved upon.

(I haven't tested FCP X image quality ... but Apple just made the same 32 bit transition that Adobe already made ... it should bring near parity - on paper.)

Let me give you an example:

If your camera masters are HDDSLR h.264 encoded material and you wish to transcode it to ProRes 4444 on OS X:

Resolve uses Apple's h.264 decoder, while Premiere uses another ... I think MainConcept's. So, the end result is that for that specific workflow Premiere Pro delivers better results than Resolve.

That's an odd case though, and very simple. It rests on using an improved h.264 decoder ... not on Premiere's image processing.

Add in a basic primary color correction step, say shifting midtones 5% towards blue and expanding the contrast range, and now Resolve will deliver better quality results. That's because of the quality of the internal image processing. This isn't to do with being able to accomplish a specific task - that's an easy grade to achieve in Premiere and Resolve.

No ones freaking out just trying to get clarification as to what you are specifically referring to because when you make a blanket statement that Premiere renders aren't as good as Resolve or Color you can mislead people without a proper explanation. That said, you are comparing apples to oranges here anyway.
Look, I'm not disagreeing with you in the points you make. I won't be coloring a film in Premiere anytime soon but finishing and rendering are a different story.