FCPX vs Premiere 5.5 - Anyone use both?

There are a lot of discussions about this online and it can get quite confusing at times. If you want to hear two people - one veteran FCP user and a long time Adobe video expert - discuss the differances, here's a great series of videos:

http://adobe.ly/fcp2ppro

Hi,

I use PPro 5.5 and it is amazing. I also use FCP and FCPx.

Since bouncing over to PPRO last year, FCP is being used very rarely as PPRO in every regard is a much more

viable application. Its intuitiveness is vastly superior to FCP and it sports all the professional features that I need.

Its interaction with AfterEffects and Photoshop is second to none. The CS package is what really makes the difference.

PPRO I use with a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 and I never have to render. I play 19020x1080 at FULL REZ @ 100% view (Tiff Sequences) and I have ZERO stutter and ZERO render.... I do zoom, pan transitions, sharpen, CC - you name it... And I dont need to render. The CUDA enabled NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 takes care of all that. I NEVER had any problems with it and paid a stupid $379 for it as it is no longer produced. Still a very capable Graphics Card.

PPRO is 64 bit and you can customize it until you get ill of it.

I like FCP much more than FCPx which is useless for me in a total workflow but PPRO has been superior to FCP since CS5 and CUDA.

The learning curve is ridiculously shallow.

Hope this helps !

Performance is fine but the BG rendering system of FCPx is killing me.

Mac Pro Nehalem 16 Cores. 32 GB RAM 2.23 GHZ - 4-Drive RAID0

I found that for me (SSD i7 Macbook, 4GB, mid 2010) the video and rendering performance is about the same, while the responsiveness of the UI is much faster on Premiere.

Interesting about your experience. I see the Quadro 4000 for Mac Display Card is available from B&H for $752 (not sure the GeForce GTX 285 is still sold). And there are a swag of Adobe upgrade deals -- if you have any version of PSD or pretty much any other Adobe app you can get Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Production Premium for $799. Offer ends 30 June.

Bearfeats has an interesting review with Premier Pro and DaVinci Resolve over at http://www.barefeats.com/wst10g11.html , but the key thing is that Adobe's 'Mercury Playback and Render Engine' is faster than real time with one of these cards. Plus PPro is 64-bit. That alone is worth the transition.

BTW, has anyone got any info on whether Lion or some other developments will bring the Mercury Playback and Render Engine to ATI cards, such as the Radeon HD 4870?

I'm waiting to see whether Apple make an announcement about the future of FCP early next week. If nothing is forthcoming by Thursday, I'm jumping ship to PPro/AE etc. To those who say 'wait and see how FCP X develops' I say, 'I've waited four years for a decent upgrade and we get iMovie X. Clearly, Apple's intent to support existing FCP 7 workflows is zip or they would have included it in the get-go or at least said something themselves directly to the professional community. Why prolong the agony and live in a delusional world? Face the facts and move on.'

Yes, I have to learn a new app, but then I'd have to do that with FCP X anyway, even if it worked for me. I've played with the free trial of PPro and it seems not too different to FCP 7.

russellfromauckland wrote:

I'm waiting to see whether Apple make an announcement about the future of FCP early next week.

They already did: http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/

If nothing is forthcoming by Thursday, I'm jumping ship to PPro/AE etc. To those who say 'wait and see how FCP X develops' I say, 'I've waited four years for a decent upgrade and we get iMovie X.

So, you haven't been happy with Final Cut Pro for four years. Yet you've continued to use it. Then Apple makes big changes in a product that you haven't liked in four years and now you are jumpting to the competition?

Here is a suggestion: if you don't like something, don't buy it and don't upgrade it. Had you dumped Final Cut Pro four years ago you wouldn't have this problem now, correct?

This is a technical support forum for users of Apple's products. If you want to dump Final Cut Pro, then do so. But there is not point in complaining about it here. Apple doesn't read these forums. Parroting what you read on internet blogs isn't going to change anyone's mind. Let people who make up their own minds about their software get help from other people who do the same.

Oh dear. Clearly you did not read what I wrote. I've stuck with FCP over the past few years, despite what's been happening at Adobe and Avid, in the not unreasonable expecation that my years of experince with FCP would actually be useful when the long overdue update with 64-bit and background rendering arrived. I did not expect none of my existing projects not to open and that my workflow, carefully developed over years, would no longer have any role.

Parroting what you read on internet blogs isn't going to change anyone's mind.

Actually, I downloaded the three new apps the morning they were released, realised in just a few minutes something was seriously amiss and then went online to see if I was alone in my conclusion. Your accusation that I'm parroting others is an insult to someone who has been editing for 25 years.

russellfromauckland wrote:

Oh dear. Clearly you did not read what I wrote.

I've read enough. You joined Apple Support Communities for the sole purpose of trashing Final Cut Pro X. That isn't what this site is for. This site is for people to help other Mac users with problems. If you want to complain, do it on Slashdot or some internet blog.

Your accusation that I'm parroting others is an insult to someone who has been editing for 25 years.

I have no way to verify that. All I know is that you joined Apple Support Communities on June 21st and have done nothing but complain about Final Cut Pro X. Had you joined 4 years ago and posted lots of helpful suggestions for other people using Final Cut Pro, then I might be more inclined to believe you. Maybe you have been editing for 25 years. I don't know. I do know that you are not helping anyone now.

etresoft wrote:

Here is a suggestion: if you don't like something, don't buy it and don't upgrade it.

That seems disingenuous. Apple themselves have said that Final Cut Pro X is a "brand new product, not an update of the previous FCP." As such, in actuality Apple did not make big changes to the product that was called Final Cut Pro. Rather, what they did do is create something totally new, place the established brand name on it, and did an EOL to what was known as FCP the past dozen years.

Whether or not someone likes this brand new product is a different issue, but at least get the nomenclature straight. Final Cut Pro X has nothing to do with prior incarnations of Final Cut except in name. They are completely different animals.

I am using both right now (PPro for production w/clients that require), FCPx for learning, FCP for bread and butter) and as far as speed goes, not sure what u want to compare? Background render times? Exporting? Editing? Not sure what ur Nvidia card would have to do with this...

Bill in Santa Cruz wrote:

etresoft wrote:

Here is a suggestion: if you don't like something, don't buy it and don't upgrade it.

That seems disingenuous.

You are taking it out of context. I was responding to someone who had been unhappy with Final Cut Pro for four years. I think it is silly to buy, use, and continue to upgrade software that costs $1000 a copy, all the while not being happy with it, and then scream bloody murder when a new, redesigned version.

If you don't like some company's products, giving them $1000 a copy for said products seems to send the wrong message.

I was responding to someone who had been unhappy with Final Cut Pro for four years.

Sorry, but where exactly did I say I'd been unhappy with FCP for the past four years? Talk about taking things out of context, what you wrote about my opinion of FCP 6/7 is a complete fabrication.

At the risk of stating the obvious, competing software products are sometimes ahead of the competition, sometimes behind. It's called swings and roundabouts. When PPro 5.0 came out, it appears some people thought it had features ahead of FCP 7. Given my knowledge of and investment in FCP, I was happy to wait, confident in the reasonable assumption (particularly given Apple's criticism of Adobe for being slow in updating Photoshop to 64-bit) that FCP 8 would at long last itself be 64-bit and that the app would find some way to off-load rending to the GPU or some other accelerated approach. Anything else would have been a welcome bonus.

But as I stated in my post, there clearly is now not going to be an FCP 8 and Apple has said nothing to date about fixing the essential features that are missing from FCP X. So I am not going to hope for the best and a wing and a prayer and that Apple will deliver the functionality I need. I look at Adobe and Avid and I can see their products have that now. And judging by the comments on this board (and specifically the title of this thread), there are several other people in a similar position to myself.

However, because FCP X does not suit our needs I see no reason to slag off a user who is looking around at the competition and shares his thoughts on this thread with others who might be of the same frame of mind.

However, perhaps you "know" when FCP X will be able to open my existing .fcp files. Perhaps you also "know" when I can bulk import files from my database using XML. And perhaps you "know" when I can expect to see Chapter Markers restored so that I can still burn DVDs for my customers that pay the bills. If you do, I am sure there are many people here who'd love to hear.

etresoft wrote:

Bill in Santa Cruz wrote:

etresoft wrote:

Here is a suggestion: if you don't like something, don't buy it and don't upgrade it.

That seems disingenuous.

You are taking it out of context. I was responding to someone who had been unhappy with Final Cut Pro for four years. I think it is silly to buy, use, and continue to upgrade software that costs $1000 a copy, all the while not being happy with it, and then scream bloody murder when a new, redesigned version.

If you don't like some company's products, giving them $1000 a copy for said products seems to send the wrong message.

The person said he "waited four years for a decent upgrade," which is never going to arrive because FCP X is not an upgrade to Final Cut Pro. It is totally incompatible with everything named Final Cut that came before it. And you can't see why folks are upset?

Which begs the question I have not seen answered yet, "What the heck happened to DVDStudioPro?!? Not much need for chapter markers in FCPx without that... unless we just continue with DVSP without updates and fixes, which I am fine with as there have been nada updates in so long, and it does still work. Anyway, you can put chapter markers inside of DVSP, so I don't think there is a need to have in the source movie file, right? As for the rest, it will come...have faith brother.