Premiere Vs. Final Cut

[dewman77]

Hi Everyone.
I am relaunching my studio with the goal of offering indi film makers a smooth, easy 4k workflow to do everything they need for their production.

I'm getting 2 mac pro's but don't know if i should go with Adobe Creative Suite CS4, with Premiere Pro and After Effects - Or to go with Final Cut Studio 2, with Final Cut Pro 6 and Apple Motion. I need a complete suite for the user.

Would love to hear what you, the film makers would rather use if you were coming in looking for a complete workflow for your film.
Thanks.
-Dewey

 

[David Taylor]

Dewey, if you would consider CineForm as a supplemental option for both PPro and FCP you could have a pretty smooth cross-platform workflow, running Prospect 4K on Windows and Neo 4K on Mac. Files will easily interchange between platforms and you'll have a real-time editing workflow with renderless Active Metadata processing. Your workflow would be online all the time, and you can use Express files for those times when you're in the field running a laptop.

 

[Dave Blackham]

FCS 2 every time but with catDV to look after workflow management. It may be you add After Affects to the set up. You need various effects plugins though (Sapphire, Joes filters, Tiffen and more)

Id consider this as a powerful system software wise, you need to ensure that the Macs have very fast GPUs in them.

Dave
UK

 

[amrrahmy]

final cut is much more reliable than premiere, also fcs2 comes with color which is worth the price alone, and can be a time saver in some sitiuations.
but you probably need photoshop and after effects, so production premium would be the choice, it comes with after effects, photoshop extended and illustrator among other things like premiere, u can get that and if u notice tons of crashes with no reason, or just importing small simple files being a headache, u can always get fcs2 later since u probably will need after effects and photoshop anyway.

 

[Dave Blackham]

FCS 2 every time but with catDV to look after workflow management. It may be you add After Affects to the set up. You need various effects plugins though (Sapphire, Joes filters, Tiffen and more)

Id consider this as a powerful system software wise, you need to ensure that the Macs have very fast GPUs in them.

Dave
UK

With this set up I've posted many very high value series for Television. amrrahmy is completely correct Color is a real asset here worth every penny.

The only aspect which needs consideration is that some effects bundles need an FCP licence and AE licence but you may be able to negociate your way round this if both packages are on the same machine.

Dave
UK

 

[Julio Quintana]

If this were for your personal use, I would say it's up to you. But since you need to attract customers, I recommend Final Cut Studio with After Effects. If all you offer is Premiere Pro, you will be PERCEIVED as being amateurish, whether it's true or not. For most professionals, there is still an imagined hierarchy of professional systems, and this is the order: AVID, Final Cut Pro, Premier Pro.

 

[Sam Roberts]

Hi Everyone.

I'm getting 2 mac pro's but don't know if i should go with Adobe Creative Suite CS4, with Premiere Pro and After Effects - Or to go with Final Cut Studio 2, with Final Cut Pro 6 and Apple Motion. I need a complete suite for the user Dewey

why not install both and take advantage of the best each has to offer?

 

[Mike Harrington]

If this were for your personal use, I would say it's up to you. But since you need to attract customers, I recommend Final Cut Studio with After Effects. If all you offer is Premiere Pro, you will be PERCEIVED as being amateurish, whether it's true or not. For most professionals, there is still an imagined hierarchy of professional systems, and this is the order: AVID, Final Cut Pro, Premier Pro.

i agree there is that perception.....but
out of these 3 programs only 1 can do 4k raw in high bit depth RGB.....
In november Adobe will also have native .R3D import being the first program outside of scratch (i beleive)to do so.

So you have to ask yourself if you want to look professional to others.....or do you want to do an online RAW 4k edit....

With cineform and premiere you have 2 options (as of November) to do online 4k raw...

Final Cut can do cineform as well....but not as fast,with a cropped 4k(no big deal) and Color cannot import cineform....and no native R3D....

so if you have the money, I would get both.....one to wow the clients, and show them the on set proxies....and the other to do the edit

cause once you deal with how easy cineform is....you won't want to bother with online/offline/EDL......

 

[Julio Quintana]

i agree there is that perception.....but
out of these 3 programs only 1 can do 4k raw in high bit depth RGB.....
In november Adobe will also have native .R3D import being the first program outside of scratch (i beleive)to do so.

So you have to ask yourself if you want to look professional to others.....or do you want to do an online RAW 4k edit....

With cineform and premiere you have 2 options (as of November) to do online 4k raw...

Final Cut can do cineform as well....but not as fast, and Color cannot import cineform....and no native R3D....

Excellent points. The question is whether or not he can convince his customers of this...

 

[Mike Harrington]

i agree....

depends on the situation I guess.....and you are right, Final Cut has a little more prestige

 

[dewman]

I just had to post since dewman77 and I have the same unique name ....not to many Dewey's around.... I agree with Sam and would get both and allow your client's to choose what they are more comfortable with...

Thanks,
the OG - dewman - dewey

 

[Dave Blackham]

Im not sure if selling a suite on the merits of the software element is a good move these days. Its a mix of software hardware but above all expertees.

The image processing needs to be perfect every time which implies good understanding of the workflow. Also I know most commercials suites couldnt handle a 90 minute TV feature let alone a Cinema feature so the suite hardware spec and infrastructure is also important for the work in hand. FCP or After effects is only the stating point here, many Plugins are needed for either approach and a good understanding of how they interact. Id regard either the Apple or Adobe's approach as a QuickTime work flow suite utilising the most appropriate application for the job in hand which could be FCP, Color, Motion, AE, Photoshop, Shake or whatever, all have their place. Appropriate monitoring is also important and where finishing is concerned it needs to be as good as can be and proplery calibrated for the envoroment its in with suitable lighting.

Interestingly although Avid has been mentioned I don't think its really in the running for this type of work and mostly play's second fiddle to FCP, may be even third fiddle to Adobe in many situations. Im not against Avid in anyway as I still run three of their suites its just they are not well placed in this field right now.

Coming back to the main point surely the client is engaging with the facility primarily for the expterees rather than the software ?

Dave
UK

 

[Mat@imageWork]

Coming from discreet world, to me, the only concern is seamless workflow. The less who are loosing time on non-creative task, the most your project would have "real time"...Working with FCP to ship into AE don't make sens since Adobe improve their general worklow between appz.

 

[amrrahmy]

fcp cuts at least 3x faster than any other nle,
going to ae u can use a reference file, or just send the portion that u want as a mov file or a tiff or png sequence for photoshop and ae, and bring back that portion in a couple of clicks, it's still much faster than the adobe workflow.
and that's fcp and ae, not even going to say how much faster fcp to motion is, or even color.

 

[Dave Blackham]

Coming from discreet world, to me, the only concern is seamless workflow. The less who are loosing time on non-creative task, the most your project would have "real time"...Working with FCP to ship into AE don't make sens since Adobe improve their general worklow between appz.

Its really not an issue. Think of it as QT workflow rather than different vendors software. There are a couple of small issues but that are relatively easy to work with.

Dave
UK

 

[Mike Harrington]

fcp cuts at least 3x faster than any other nle,
going to ae u can use a reference file, or just send the portion that u want as a mov file or a tiff or png sequence for photoshop and ae, and bring back that portion in a couple of clicks, it's still much faster than the adobe workflow.
and that's fcp and ae, not even going to say how much faster fcp to motion is, or even color.

final cut to AE is not faster then premiere pro to AE, with the adobe suite you do not have to render out of AE to have the effect in your timeline...dynamic link....no need for rendering or referance files

and if you want to go to motion that's cool...just most final cut user would rather use AE anyway

if you don't know how how to use a package....the one you are coming from always seems the fastest...

I was a die hard avid user, until red came along and I wanted online 4k
so i had to bite the bullet and go the adobe route,which was at first clunkier

and there are a lot of nle's faster then final cut...
speededit for one
and it can send an entire timeline as an AVI referance file....the same way you send a single clip as a quicktime referance....but the program is only 8 bit and cannot do 4k
but neither can final cut right?natively I mean....

http://02bb6aa.netsolhost.com/downloads/Red_Workflow.mp4
cineform adoble workflow including online 4k and active metada...so it's like you never left Redcine(as far as look choices)

 

[amrrahmy]

u dont have to render in ae?how would u check what u have done inside ae, even then, if u dont save and render u will have to keep the ae open the entire time to the finished product, if u use ae in the first frame of the edit u will keep the files open to the end and not render in ae or premiere and u wont check to see what u have done at all, even then when ur exporting it will still render, dynamic link doesn't mean u wont render at some point.u'll have to check ur work at some point and need to render be it in ae or premiere it's the same.
fcp is the fastest nle, this has nothing to do with exporting time of files, we are talking about the nle application itself, the cutting the effects the linking to other media, adjusting this and that and bring everthing together, the time u spend on the export is nothing compared to the time u spend actually editing the files, and exporting uncompressed or reference files is the same on any application that is for your information.

 

[Mike Harrington]

Have you used dynamic link before?
You check your work in the premiere timeline, you only need to render once.
if you do everything right the first time and you don't need any sort of versioning...then you don't need dynamic link....if your dealing with directors and producers who want changes in the comp...then there instantaneous, and need only be rendered at export of the timeline.

For final cut and AE, you would have to render every change out of AE, and reimport into Final Cut....and if it need's changes, render again and reimport... while maybe not that big of a deal...you specifically said that Final Cut to AE was faster then the Adobe workflow.

dynamic link can be thought of as a referance to the AE comp

and as for Final cut being the fastest....you would have to try Speededit or Avid Liquid before you could compare.

In speededit there is no render time, not for color corrections or anything else.(You can import an HDR or EXR sequence right into the timeline)
And avid liquid killed in pure timeline speed and interface...
Neither if these have high bit depth rendering though....and speededit is limited to 2.8k....
and they both can handle quicktime's or avi's

 

[tfg]

fcp cuts at least 3x faster than any other nle

I work as a television editor and use FCP about 10 hours a day... I love FCP, but I can easily tell you that FCP does not cut faster than Premiere Pro.

Reasons:
- FCP's "open sequence" feature doesn't allow nearly as many different formats as Premiere Pro without rendering
- Some formats require a quicktime wrapper, wasting time during import
- FCP does not handle any real-time alpha channels. So... you imported a picture or video containing an alpha... prepare to render.
- FCP's media manager is only 2-core aware, totally wasting the other cores of a mac pro machine (unless you use compressor to do your rendering, even which requires you to make a series of virtual clusters in qmaster).

For the record, I am not proposing that Premiere Pro replace FCP as the NLE of choice ... but speed is definitely not an issue. Premiere is a clear winner in that area.

PS: I just thought I would express my excitement for the scarlet announcement

 

[amrrahmy]

biased pc guys, okay:

dynamic link is the sad attempt to try to link premiere with ae or any sad attempt to link different adobe products that where not even adobe products from the start and not really build or integrated for that purpose, it doesn't happen, ae stuff needs rendering either in ae or premiere or whatever other application, passing the rendering job to another application doesn't mean there is no rendering.
...just to put that in prespective.... if u do something in motion u can preview it in motion in realtime, so there is no rendering, that means u can actually see what you are doing and there is no rendering, that's not the case in ae, u need to render inside ae just to be able to preview your work.

as for speededit and (liquid?), even if you dont have to render in speededit, still the fcp interface will make you edit faster, alot faster.

dont know how you can argue something so obvious, but tell me what mixed formats can premiere do realtime that fcp cant, and when do u use video with alpha channel, cuz i think would have to make the video, and remove a portion to/or add the alpha information in the video in the first place that would put the video in the middle of the project not at the start and makes rendering a normal state of affairs, and i won't even say how fast an image takes to render.

also working in fcp is totally different than premiere, where fcp is stable, premiere is more like a russian roulette.

and i used premiere alot in the past i used premire 2 and cs3 allot and i have tried premiere cs4, and i used an older version of avid, i only liked avid cuz it was controlled with a smooth controller surface that i liked, i like tablets more thou.

but premiere, or speededit are not even runners in nle apps., if am cutting something on pc i would use virtual dub and not premiere if i can.
i miss some stuff about directx but speed in nle is not one of them.