Definitive AP vs. FCP Thread

[Zach Nelson]

I'd like to get this thread started to discuss the specific differences between Premiere and FPC from a 10' perspective. I don't want to ignite a flame war, I'm looking for real-world opinions based on facts.

I come from a Premiere background, but simple things, nothing fancy with EDL's and offline/online stuff. Just a video here or there with titles and wipes, etc. I have a project in development right now with a January '09 shoot date. I love technology so I'm going to put together an edit suite myself next year. I'll be hiring an editor.

I think we can assume that REDCode will be supported in Premiere via Quicktime and obviously the new FCP has support baked-in. What I'm looking for is a contrast between the 2 applications that's as objective as possible.

They're both great NLE's and they'll both get the job done. You'll never be able to tell which app was used when watching the final product. But what about the user experience itself? Can we suggest a couple of workflow tasks and compare/contrast performing them in both apps?

Like I said I have a background in Premiere, and PC's are somewhat less expensive, but if the consensus after this exercise is that FCP is just "more polished" or "more intuitive", I'll take the plunge and finally bite the apple bullet... an $8000 bullet at that.

I'd enjoy comments like "titling is better in FCP (or Premiere) because [...]" or "the coloring tools are better because [...]". You know, things that are going to matter when it's 3:30am and I just spent 2 hours trying to get a relatively simple thing to work (we've all been there). I don't think it's useful to simply say "x is better than y" unless you have hands-on experience with both environments and you can say "doing x in Premiere requires 10 steps, while doing x in FCP takes 5, and the results look better too".

I'll end with this: There doesn't seem to be many AP professionals on the boards, or out there in the industry. As someone who doesn't use FCP or participate in that circle of users, FCP is somewhat of a mysterious black box. And by looking at just the number of FCP editors out there, and all of you professionals who swear by it, then the naivety in me says "FCP must just be better". But now I'd like to know why.

Thanks so much in advance, and I'll be joining your ranks as a RED owner next summer!

Regards,

Zach

[RivaiC]

There are many many things nelson. Media Manager, Color Correction tools, support Native Quicktime, handling a lot of format natively start from DV, DVCPRO, DVCPro HD, HDV, P2, XDCAM and now Prores 422 and a lot lot more features which initiate by FCP and not to mention nattress great plugins support. And some other great supporting application like Gluetools that allow you to export DPX straight from FCP. It helps a lot if you're doing film, robert has done a GREAT job and support !

The moment i look at AVI, i don't like it already. It's not MY prefered editing format. Quicktime is so much more better

Do you use Mac ?

[M Most]

I love technology so I'm going to put together an edit suite myself next year. I'll be hiring an editor.

Why not wait and ask the editor you hire what he/she wants?

[RivaiC]

That's likely to ask employee to decide employer. Employer should know what they want at the first place.

My 2 cents

[Ben Feuer]

Employer should know what he wants as a final output - telling the editor how to get there is doing his job/micromanaging, which is a trait of annoying, bad employers.

[Zach Nelson]

I surveyed the Philadelphia Film Office's database of professionals and the FCP to AP folks were like 20:1. Overwhelming support for FCP in the industry I know that. But I'm looking for reasons why. You can say this car is better than that car, but when you dig deeper it's because of things like "better fit and finish, more intuitive controls, bigger engine" stuff like that.

There's no way I can ask the Editor because my suite has to be up and running months before post. In fact I'll be using most of the equipment out in the field as well.

[Steve Freebairn]

The Project Manager in Pr is great! Offlining then onlining also works well. I'd use Colorista on Pr for coloring since it doesn't shift your blacks with heavy correction. Another great thing is the photoshop compatibility between Ps, Ae, Ai, and Pr. Macs do have a lot to offer though. You'd be best to buy a mac pro then buy both collections so you have everything :)

[Desert Rune]

Have used Final Cut Pro since 1999 so I can't really say I've had a lot of experience with other apps. I've used Premiere in the past when 9GB hard drives sold for $4000 but I do remember the lead programmer of Premiere started fresh with a new codebase, which eventually became FCP.

You really need to have someone show you the work flow on FCP and spend some time yourself using the software to really gauge if it's the app for you. FCP has some quirks and there are aspects of it that I despise (media manager, exporting HDV/ProRes timelines) but overall, it's a complete toolset.

FCP's interface hasn't changed much since version 1 so it's a bit of a dinosaur. Hopefully Apple will integrate some of Motion/iMovie 08's interface polish (such as filter and motion HUD) into FCP.

Filter management is non-existant on FCP, as is filter layers ala Photoshop or After Effects. FCP 5 or 6 introduced the fxplug architecture, which utilizes CoreVideo/CoreImage, dramatically speeding up realtime filtering. This is some cutting edge stuff... Other aspects... motion tabs and setting keyframes is still cumbersome. This has been unchanged since v.1. Slow motion rendering is decent, but their speed ramping tool needs an overhaul; it's useless. Unfortunately, no optical flow in FCP... you have to export to Motion. The one redeeming feature they've added in the latest version is SmoothCam, which is worth the price of the upgrade by itself. Their implementation is easy and produces fantastic results with suitable footage. I hope to see improvements in SmoothCam v2 with more control over smoothing and a confidence graph editor. (smoothcam can be overly aggressive with certain types of footage, eg camera flashes, rapid panning).

Overall, it's a fast editor. I'm able to edit long-GOP HDV files on my modest system, a PowerMac G5 dual 1.8 exceptionally well and it's fairly responsive for a 3 year old system. I haven't upgraded because my system still serves me well. The eight-core Mac Pros will positively rock with 4K footage.

[Ziggy Uszkurat]

Hmm.

FCP is just better on many counts - Premiere does the job, but not for me - if you are gonna work professionally, then its fcp or avid - premiere doesn't cut the mustard. If it's a paying job, use the best tools. My 2c worth...

Ziggx

[RivaiC]

BTW, i like one thing in Premiere is having to type things you want to find from Effects or Filter Tab, and it will list it for you. I hope to have that in FCP :)