POLL: What editing software do you use?

[/p/]

I'm really just curious which is more popular between premiere Pro CC and FCPX..

What made you choose one over the other? Have you tried them both? If you aren't using one of these two.. Why aren't you? What are you using and why?

I used to use FCP7, when I wanted to upgrade to something newer I tried out both FCPX and Premiere Pro and if I'm completely honest I didn't mind FCPX but negative reviews of X (and positive reviews of Premiere CS6) pushed me towards Premiere.

For some unknown reason, this last week I'v decided to give FCPX another go, not particularly sure why though (I did currently have some issues with Premiere.. Probably my own user error) or maybe I'm just tired of the subscription service.. Either way I'll now be giving FCPX another go for a while.

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

Also Sony Vegas Pro for 10 years. Easy. Fast. Stable.

[Paolo Artuffo]

Sony Vegas Pro 12

[Axel]

FCP X, but know Premiere as well. Reason: Best NLE for existing OSX, affordable. Of the Adobe suite (I have access through a friend), I sometimes miss After Effects, particularly for it's puppet tool, but also for the very inspriring Videocopilot tuts. The very good warp stabilizer can be substituted by the Coremelt plugin Log&Load. Color correction - wise Adobe has no advantage. On the contrary, in FCP X you can jump from clip to clip in the timeline, like in a grading suite, without loading an effect window. 

 

The Adobe CC is a very advanced package, and they are better than ever, but frankly, they didn't have the balls to get rid of the track concept (the clip-based magnetic timeline at once became the reason for many conservative editors to change to Adobe or Avid, when FCP X was launched, and both immediately saw their chance. They made special offers for the turncoats). Once you successfully weaned yourself from all those useless video tracks, you only find it annoying to go back to them. And though Adobe has a hundred times more tools on the shelves, I only rarely miss anything in FCP X. 

[Wit]

Final Cut Pro X

[Sean Cunningham]

Premiere Pro.  It was the first NLE I learned ('97-'98), having previous editing experience with 3/4" and BetaCam linear editing.  It just works as I'd expect an editor to.  When Adobe software was pretty crap on the Mac Platform during the first few years of OSX, and they ultimately dumped PPro for Mac, I switched to FCP up through about v4.5 or so but when Premiere came back to Mac I dumped FCP with no remorse.

 

Generally, I only edit in it.  It's titling is shit and an editor is a terrible tool for doing the kinds of things I use After Effects for.  

[Quirky]

if I'm completely honest I didn't mind FCPX but negative reviews of X (and positive reviews of Premiere CS6) pushed me towards Premiere.

 

So, rather than trying things out yourself and making your own decisions, you let the online mob vote which the gear and apps to use?

Fascinating.

 

 

 

 

For some unknown reason, this last week I'v decided to give FCPX another go, not particularly sure why though 

 

It might be your own long suppressed voice of reason.  :P

 

Anyway, since I'm a long time OS X and Quicktime user but not an Adobebot, FCPX is a natural choice. No regrets so far.

I'm sure Premiere, Vegas and even Avid are great tools, too, if one happens to use a Windows machine.

[Bioskop.Inc]

FCPX

I learnt on FCP5-7 & also did some stuff on AVID.

PP wasn't ever an option back then, it was FCP for mac or AVID for PC.

The thing i always felt was that both these NLEs were counter-intuitive - well FCP more than AVID.

FCPX changed all that & it got better over time (& a few updates), especially once i realised that most of the missing stuff was in Motion & could be exported as user-made FCP effect plugins.

 

It doesn't take long to learn - 30mins to be exact!

[jcs]

If FCPX works for you- it's a great value (+ Motion). I use FCPX for access to some of the effects but use PPro as it runs faster and has superior audio handling & better color grading built in (no color curves in FCPX?).

Resolve is also evolving into an NLE- very fast and even better color grading tools (somewhat archaic GUI and flow, but nothing a little googling can't solve).

[tupp]

Anything open source.  Right now I am using Cinelerra-CV.

[/p/]

So, rather than trying things out yourself and making your own decisions, you let the online mob vote which the gear and apps to use?
Fascinating.

I tried out both FCPX and Premiere Pro

Your reading comprehension may need practice :) I look to both the online community and community around me when making such decisions.. The issue was others dropping FCP and switching to Premiere, only one of the companies out of several that I worked for upgraded to FCPX all the others switched to Premiere..

[Axel]

If FCPX works for you- it's a great value (+ Motion). I use FCPX for access to some of the effects but use PPro as it runs faster and has superior audio handling & better color grading built in (no color curves in FCPX?).

 

No color curves in FCP X. Also no color swatches. They sacrified a lot of features people were used to for the sake of - what? Simplicity? Indeed: The new HSL-colorboards FCP X introduced look unprecise (which they are, but not because of the way the ranges are represented) only for one who comes from, say, Premiere or FCP legacy. However, what they say is, the logic behind changing the appearance of your image is shoving shadows, mids and highlights over these three boards. That's the extend of it. Newbies have no problem to understand that. I knew Color for years, it has everything you can dream of, and the levers, curves and pucks in the swatches are highest precision. Will this give you better results at the end of the day? I tested this over and over again, and I often found my off-the-cuff intuitive grades from FCP X more pleasing. It's crucial for every good CC to follow the order of operations: Primary (scopes needed for this step!), secondary, look, consistency. You try to do everything in one step, you fail.
I'd guess if a professional colorist would be asked to grade a cinema trailer or a high-end TV ad in FCP X, he would laugh at you. If you can't afford a professional colorist, if you are basically a one-man-band, if you are not a minor contributor in a big industrial pipeline, you will have better chances with FCP X. That's valid for many other aspects, like sound and effects too. For audio, there are three stages: 1. automatic enhancement (terrible, useless like automatic color balance), next level: 2. equilizing, leveling and repairing with adjustable presets (what you hear is what you get, looks amateurish, but is actually of high quality), and then: 3. filters and effects from Logic. I'm no audio expert, but let's assume they resemble those available in Premiere. Now isn't it so, that anyone who knows about the intricacies of those wouldn't bother to treat audio in the NLE in the first place?

 

Grading in Premiere (not Speedgrade or Color Finesse) is completely unintuitive and way too complicated to perform. A lot of options, but no workflow-integration possible. The Adobe way. If you asked a professional colorist to grade within Premiere, he'd probably say, no problem, I charge $1000 a day, brace yourself for the bill.

That said, if someone is really determined to start grading in earnest, but on a narrow budget, there is no alternative but DaVinci.

[Servo]

Sony Vegas Pro 11, and I've been with Vegas since 8. I've used Avid, Premiere, and Final Cut, and Vegas is superior to them all, in my opinion. Powerful, much easier to use and more intuitive than the other programs, good plugins, can work with many codecs (including ingesting ProRes), and is so simplified over the use of something like FCP or Premiere, but not more primitive, necessarily. And more inexpensive.

 

The main drawback on it is that companies don't make as many plugins for it as they do for Premiere or FCP because those are more widely used.

 

Why companies insist on using software with higher learning curves and that are more expensive, I don't know (well, I can guess it's because of a saturation of editors using them, as well as inertia/lack of desire to try out alternatives).

[jcs]

It's true we don't need curves and other tools we are used to, however we work faster with tools we know. It's odd Apple didn't include curves- there's so much that can be done quickly with them (plus it's really simple to code and runs fast). Resolve is kind of the opposite of FCX- old school controls and way more powerful: very easy to make things look unpleasant quickly (which FCPX helps protect against) and also able to make things look far better than what is possible with FCPX.

For audio- many times we don't want to round trip to Pro Tools, Audition, etc. (I use Logic for music and fx vs audio editing). PPro does enough to help skip round tripping in most cases.

[leafcutter]

Premiere Pro CC - I use Photoshop a lot (for graphics rather than photos) and so I got into Premiere and After Effects.  Now with Creative Cloud having access to 'everything' is pretty useful and I've started using Audition plus looking at things like speed grade, story etc.  Being able to dip into the different packages and use 10-20% of the functionality of each works well for me and means I always have options when it comes to trying out something new.

[Servo]

And if you stop paying one month or don't have clients to support CC subscription, you will not be able to continue work on any of those projects. Adobe has no reason to try and improve CC software as much as with previous generations of After Effects, because what's the point? People will keep paying for the smallest improvements and additions needed for $20/month.

[HurtinMinorKey]

Sony Vegas Pro 12

 

I use this too. I grew up with SoundForge and ACID for audio, so Vegas was the first editor i used. 

[Axel]

Adobe has no reason to try and improve CC software as much as with previous generations of After Effects, because what's the point? People will keep paying for the smallest improvements and additions needed for $20/month.

 

This contradicts the evidence. Adobe made serious improvements since CC. It's an evolutionary process. That has always been the Adobe politics. And it's ridiculous that one can't afford it anymore. Everone has his reasons to stick to his NLE. In the end what counts is if you reach your goals. Comparing software, interesting though it is, is only significant if you really know the NLEs.  I know a guy who had to learn Avid at media school, but who never gave up Vegas. My best friend works professionally with Premiere, since 12 years, he also teaches it. The complexity of his projects would never have overcharged FCP X (indeed, from my point of view, his life would be easier with it), but he simply doesn't like it. I respect that. 

[Quirky]

Your reading comprehension may need practice :) I look to both the online community and community around me when making such decisions.. 

 

So instead of just one mob, you actually let two different mobs rule what you should buy and use? 

Fascinating.

 

Disclaimer: not intended to be taken way too seriously.  B)

 

I remember not so long ago, up until 2005 or so and the iPhone halo effect, using a Mac instead of a Windows machine would give you a deucebag snob label among the mainstream "mob," who would always recommend against buying an expensive and obscure Mac. Same if you chose some less usual brand vehicle or whatever. I have never let that bother me, if the product suited me and served me well enough. But I do sort of understand the social pressure, if one just wants to conform and fit in the crowd.

 

In the case of FCPX, I believe the biggest issue with it was the notion that the seasoned legacy FCP users just couldn't wrap their heads around the new interface and the concept of magnetic timeline, and were reluctant to learn a new way of doing things. Which created this negative meme within the "mob" for a while. 

But it's not really that bad, and it's not like the app is profoundly inferior. It's a matter of taste and habits. Along with Vegas, FCPX is one of the nicest alternatives to the subscription model on the Dark Side. Not that Premiere ever was or is too shabby, either. 

 

Here, too, it's good that we still have nice alternatives to choose from.  We can joke about each other and our different choices, but other than that it's all fine.

[Servo]

This contradicts the evidence. Adobe made serious improvements since CC. It's an evolutionary process. That has always been the Adobe politics. And it's ridiculous that one can't afford it anymore. Everone has his reasons to stick to his NLE. In the end what counts is if you reach your goals. Comparing software, interesting though it is, is only significant if you really know the NLEs.  I know a guy who had to learn Avid at media school, but who never gave up Vegas. My best friend works professionally with Premiere, since 12 years, he also teaches it. The complexity of his projects would never have overcharged FCP X (indeed, from my point of view, his life would be easier with it), but he simply doesn't like it. I respect that. 

 

I never trust a company enough to have that much control to where they can keep charging me, even if I don't use their product, and expect me to keep paying for whatever upgrades they do or don't deliver. There's too much in it for them to become inert to customer needs. If I don't have clients that need me to use After Effects for anything for a month, I'm stuck paying regardless, and every month until I get them. That's ridiculous, and Adobe is happy to coast on that as long as people let them.

 

Here's a discussion I participated in that gets into more detail why the CC Adobe offers isn't worth it.

 

http://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/24/975035