Thinking of going that route myself. Thanks for the info.

User friendly?

not as user friendly as vegas, but i was able to jump right in and get great results within a day of dialing it in..

Chinga Tu Madre!

Niros

Premier for me too
after a week of trying both FCP and Premier Pr wins (for now)
Im in the last stages of tweaking my export settings

ef compressor too

I'm a BIG Premiere guy. I love it. I've been using it forever (I learned how to edit on it). The only thing I don't like about it is that doesn't support VOBs - in CS3 you could rename VOB to MPG and it would work but you'd get a random red frame every once in a while. But all you have to do it is just re-encode the VOB container to an MPG and you're all set.

dj lad, care to share your output settings?

Cool.

they don't cut feature movies and weekly tv shows on fcp for no reason. if it never occurs to you why more professionals overwhelmingly choose fcp and avid above all others, then honestly you probably won't miss them. premiere & vegas are fine for people that don't know why most pro's choose something else.

premiere & cs4 in general does have a very strong feature set as complete suite. which makes sense to me why people starting out will like it. makes more sense to me than vegas.

I'll get them when I get home from my gig.

Don't they mostly cut movies and tv on AVID systems?

I know exactly what FCP does. I spent four years in school editing in FCP, and it's a fine product, but it's mac-only and for those of us without a Mac, Premiere is a fine product.

yup. avid is king. that's why i put it in my post. fcp is gaining though.

Oh I missed that. I apologize!

I'm still working through the FCP book because i know it's industry standard. Basicly i'm chop'n up videos on premiere until i need FCP.

Nothing I do for the seeable future will ever be brodcast

if all you're doing is chopping up music videos, you'll never come across reasons to miss FCP. that's why cats are completely cool with sony vegas. they will never miss fcp or avid because the most complex things they will do are video edits.

i've actually read a lot of stuff where movie editors and professionals talk about why they use fcp or avid and why certain things are so important:

take for instance, scrubs the tv show. editing on FCP every week and delivered on time with a grueling schedule for getting footage from camera to your tv. amazing really.

www.apple.com

what you'll see is a LOT of talk about workflow. we're talking about teams of people collaborating at different stages of the process and a product that can keep up with them.

pretty funny though that one of the main advantages in the past of fcp (metadata) is actually bested by premier cs4. who knew. well, fcp used to have the best metadata system. they still have fcp server though. adobe doesn't have one of them.

also, alot of these houses will utilize the fcp XML file format to be able to write their own customizations and scripts to enforce their workflow but i digress. talking way beyond what any of you will ever care about.

Any one care to discuss exporting from Pr?

considering none of us here are doing major film or tv show... I am sure that the uses of Vegas, Premiere and others work just fine for people.

A-Swift .. sometimes it sounds like you get offended if people use other than FCP... too funny. Vegas is powerful! Premiere is powerful and fully integrates with all the adobe applications. FCP is great too.

It is basically choice.

I can whip out edits with ease in Vegas because I do like the workflow with it. No rendering to see effects or importing video files. You can pre-render to see what something would look like in it's final stage... but not necessary.

I used Avid (back in the day). I loved it. Then used Premiere mainly because it came with and editing package from Matrox I bought back in 2000. I loved it. Then switched to Vegas because it handles audio and video with much more control... and all I have is PC workstations at my studio. Not all of us can have a Mac Pro. .. and I am spoiled using my 42" HDTV as a computer monitor. My only Mac is the one I use for DJ-ing... can't chance shit happening to it or just relying it for edits.

I would love to get to the point where I have an 8core MacPro in my studio and being fully trained to work with FCP. then I can crank out TV/Film projects!!

but... not there yet.

damn economy

I want to be able to edit in all these programs. That's why i'm still reading the FCP books. I don't make movies or tvshows, I'm just trying to crank out clean looking edits quick so i can get back to killing it as a dj!

+1

That's why Im waiting for Al to give some more tips on Vegas so I can use it when stuck in the airport with only my Dell.

And Al, I don't get offended when people chose Vegas. It's just that I'm always right and they are not and I choose FCP. I don't see a problem with that logic.

hee hee...

u da man!

Hey Al. Gonna be in vegas Monday night. U spinning?

this monday! ... I am not spinning anywhere but we can hook up. you could swing my place for a Sony Vegas lesson!

hit me up!

swift i know u big on script. so im one of the geeks that want to continue where u left off. But i have a question. Do u know if any of that xml scripting is available for vegas? (or something like it) i know u can do it to automate effects etc. but im more interested in post stuff like rendering.

you can give me some lessons on vegas and i can give you some lessons on djing! zing! haha. just kidding. i think i'm getting sushi on monday night in green valley ranch. i'll let you know what's up when it gets closer;

yeah man i hear ya. since i'm not a huge vegas guy so i'm not sure. i learned a little about Motion's XML file format and FCP. I can write perl scripts to automate things in both with a little script but I don't know jack about Sony's file format or if it is even open or documented.

only documentation i've found is writing scripts for the effects or oterh automation things while in the process.

Hmmph. Well, Compressor has a full chapter in the manual which details the command line functions. So scripts are a go!

lol.

Swift> hey before FCP were you using the Video toaster? That is what the professionals used back in 80's and early 90s. I had it on my Amiga 2000. Films like RoboCop, Babolyn 5 and many more were created using the Video Toaster.
It is a matter of choice, and I would agree with you that right now alot of the Studios use FCP, Orange County Choppers tho actually use AVID.....Just saw them do a documentary the other day on tv).

yes i did use video toaster in the 80s. i used to marvel at how it could cut video sources without a time base corrector. it was pure genius back in the day. now pretty much anything can cut without time base correction.

today i'd guestimate that most feature films are cut on dedicated proprietary systems that are tied to certain hardware. a good number are cut on avid and a handful on fcp.

ask me again in 5 years though. EVERYONE is cutting costs. FCP allows them to do that and still have a usable workflow. the other systems dont.

Well what advantages might there be for us kids just doing edits to play in clubs and dont plan on doing shit else?

I started trying Premiere, ran into some problems and issues, went on to try FCP with the help of the Session and thought I would be using FCP. I chopped up my video and then ran into the Compressor issue. I spent an entire day on google trying all types of shit, reinstall, new user, going into terminal, and the last thing to try included reinstalling the OS -fuck that.

So the knowledge I gained from trying FCP solved most of the issues I had with Pr.

Originally before knowing anything I thought editing videos would be like audio and I would do both at the same time, tempo grids and such. Now I see its not really the way its done (unless Im missing something). But one important thing for me that Pr lets you do, is get down to the audio sample, not just the video frame.

Also, Ive been using Adobe for 15 years and Im excited about CS4.

But mostly my choice is based on which one I could get up and running the quickest.

like i said before, you wont miss the finer details if all you're doing is video edits.

I use both, FCP at work for cutting commercials, and Premiere at home for cutting videos.

FCP is based on Premier. Look it up and you'll find out. That's why both interfaces are very similar.

Anyhow, the big seller for me is the ability to seemlesly integrate all of the Adobe Apps. Since I already know Flash, Photoshop and Illustrator pretty good, this is a huge deal for me. For instance, right now I'm working on creating motion graphics for my lower 3rds. Since I already know Flash, I did them there. That way I don't have to learn new apps. I do all my graphics in flash and place them in Premiere.

Another thing I like about Premiere is that it's not as picky as FCP is. It just works. Most of the time you can simply rename a VOB to MPEG and be able to edit it without problems. :)

Here's a sample of the graphcis I'm talking about.

djwoody.com
djwoody.com

looks clean woody

tell your friend you heard it here first. swift is considering switching to premiere.

Shuuut up

wtf?!?

no way !!

hmm...

yeah its true

y d consideration a-swift do tell.

Don't do it Swift.

Niros

hahaaa. i'm not doing anything soon. i have a long list of edits i need to get done right now. no time to learn a new app. FCP is gonna get me through these stack of edits now!

Installing Adobe CS4 master Suite Collection..I will be trying it out and seeing how it works.

What method do you guys convert the VOB file for access to edit in CS4, I downloaded the 30 trail, and with some reading got this

Note: The free trial version of Adobe Premiere Pro does not include some features that depend upon software licensed from parties other than Adobe. For example, some codecs for encoding MPEG formats are available only with the full version of Adobe Premiere Pro software.

So how did you guys get around this?

try Streamclip www.squared5.com

I have streamclip, What export settings would you recommend to not lose quality in the video, but still make it editable in CS4?

Hey Akiem, I'm trying out Premier. How are you able to edit down to the audio sample? I must be missing something. Im having the hardest time lining up beats because they're falling in frames

that is one of the good features of Sony Vegas.

You can have it snap to frames, samples, etc.. at anytime you want.
Frames when cutting video, samples when lining up audio for the video track.

For Premiere, in the upper right corner of the Time Line window there is a small pull down menu. Check 'show audio time units'. You can now get down to the audio sample and splice.

I'd for sure be trying that if I had a PC. =]



Thanks! I'm experimenting with it. It still won't let you cut the video to the audio sample...it snaps that to frame.

you can also get down to samples in fcp. Zoom in, shift drag.

I think the waveform display is what's doing it for me in premiere. Not sure if FCP6 has that, but I only have FCP5.

what waveform display? FCP (all versions) show the waveforms. not sure what you are talking about?

you'll have to excuse my massive amounts of noobness on this topic...i wasn't able to actually see the waveform over layed on the audio track in FCP...on the timeline. Does that make sense? Maybe it's an option I didn't find.

select your sequence. go to the sequence menu. settings. timeline options. show audio waveforms.

i hope you don't base all of your anti-FCP posts on stuff you haven't learned how to do.

i must have missed the part where i was making anti-fcp posts.

take a deep breath, relax.

ok. i'm relaxed now.

not everybody loves fcp. i know that.

Its a love hate thing for me. Love to know how to work it. Hate that I don't know how. Not yet anyway.

I was playing around with CS3 version of Premiere Pro... and I can't get it to NOT snap to frames when adjusting video clips... anyone know how to do this?

Hit "S". That will un-snap/snap it.

nope... that didn't work.

Let me give you the example I am working with to experiment.

There is a music video with a part that cuts to a skit or whatever. I take that out and now I want to make it seamless to continue play. In order for me to do that I put the second part of the video that needs to match the first part on separate tracks (audio/video).

I then get them next to each other. Next step is to ensure it doesn't fall out of beat. Well I usually drag the clip across to compare if I need to adjust it to match the first part. It is pretty close but I need to move it like on the sample level. Well... you can't in premiere... I tried unsnapping.. enabling "show audio units" ,etc... it doesn't work. When adjusting or moving the clip left or right ... it snaps regardless to the next frame...

sounds like he wants sample level movements, not frame level.

yup... and you can't do it... unless someone knows how. I tried.

I was just curious anyways.

oh well.. back to vegas I go.

I seperate the audio from the video, match the two audio segments and match the video to the closest frame.

you can't precise editing that way... unfortunate for premiere users trying to do music video remixing where getting sample level precision for the audio is key.

I will stick to my Vegas/After Effects combo for editing for now.

I do like Premiere too... oh well.

.. I am sure A-Swift will correct me here.. but I believe it behaves the same in FCP as well.

So is Vegas the only application where you can move video content at sample level movements?

Phat-Al...does this mean that you are cutting mid-frame or are you just moving the video around after you edit it?

yes i will correct you. fcp allows sample level audio cutting.